The hands-down best DVR experience I had was a TiVo Slide remote (the top slid back to reveal a small but fully functional keyboard) paired to a PC running Windows 7 Media Center with a four-tuner InfiniTV Cablecard adapter. Obviously it's been a few years, but that was just smooth all around once I got it set up. Very high WAF.
But Windows 7 is gone, and so is the TiVo Slide remote.
Maybe they're not handing them out any more, but I've still got one and it still works in the TiVo (Edge?) that I have. It replaced that WMC DVR because WAF. Her genuine preference was for our old ReplayTV and its interface, but they didn't live long enough to make HD DVR's.
Turned out after I had already bought all that stuff due to flakiness that it was just some bad RAM that, really, was overkill - I could have just taken out the bad sticks and kept on rocking, in which case it probably would still be our DVR.
But Windows 7 is gone, and so is the TiVo Slide remote.