TiVo USED to be able to do that...and there was another company similar to them that closed shop, mostly because of a pile of potential lawsuits about skipping commercials.
I've become a fan of those Media Center Edition machines that have all the PVR stuff built into them & I'm in the process of working on a gizmo that will automaticly cut the commericals out of recorded shows. Once it's done I plan to release it as freeware - I'm sure I'll be the hero of all MCE users.

>I would suppose it's due to the entertainment lobby, but skipping commercials here seems to be a big no no.
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>>>Commercial skipping is done by DVR's these days. It's one of the entertainment industries pet peeves about the device. I don't know why your VCR didn't catch on. I never heard of a VCR skipping commercials. But they say that DVR's are going to cause TV advertising to be done differently in the future.
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>>I got one of those too (don't know the model & barnd off hand). its not very well know in the USA here. in germany we have (at least 15 years ago, before i moved to the USA) vcr's which don't even record the comercial, it stops recording and then starts when the movie continues. its a much more known feture there.
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>>>>I am high tech gadget man and I do not have a DVD recorder to replace my VCR.
>>>>At the time I was considered buying one they were way too expensive. But the main reason why I didn't get one is that they still don't have all of the features that my VCR has.
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>>>>My VCR is a Panasonic SVHS HiFi with Super Video jacks and the picture quality is awesome. And, the best feature is that it skips commercials. No kidding, it skips them at playback. It records everything, and when done it rewinds the tape and "processes it." It marks where it thinks the commercials are. I'd say it's 99% accurate. You can turn this feature on and off, but it's so accurate that I just leave it on. When you play the tape, it fast forwards through the commercials and starts playing about a half second before the show resumes. For me, it has never fast forwarded through part of a show and rarely does a comercial sneak past it.
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>>>>The bad news is that, I was trying to find my VCR, or the equivalent to it now on Panasonic's web site and it doesn't look like it is made anymore. If someone else makes a DVD recorder or VCR that does the commercial skip, I highly recommend getting one that does that.
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>>>>I know victor was kidding, but if you can connect your TV signal or video receiver to your computer, the XP media center is kind of nice. I have that as well. When something is coming on TV that I think I might want to put on a DVD for prosperity, the media center makes it very easy to record and burn. The whole DVD burning process is time consuming and at times frustrating, so you wouldn't want to do it daily. However, if the TV and PC are connected, using the PC as a VCR works great and the media center software makes finding the programming simple.
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>>>>>I'm looking to buy a DVD player/recorder to replace our VCR.
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>>>>>Anyone have a model to suggest? What should I look for when buying?
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>>>>>Any comment will be appreciated.