William Sommerwerck wrote:

The most annoying thing I've found is in the user interface for
programming them. Is it just me or are they always extremely
badly designed?

Both. The Sony SL-HF900 had a superbly simple system that I won't waste time
describing. I've seen other VCRs whose programming system is so difficult to
follow that even an instruction book isn't of much use.

The timer programming on the HS-U4xx, HS-U7xx, and HS-HD2000U is a snap. The
HS-HD2000U even lets the user enter all of the info (on time/off time/channel,
etc.) into the remote, then press "transmit", and all of the info is sent to
the VCR. Nifty.