Remember when cable cost $18 a month and there were no commercials?

[elmo3]

The only way to automatically skip commercials is to buy a used 50xx or older model Replay.

Or get/build a MythTV box. MythTV is way cool.

The newer (though still used) Replay 55xxs have manual skip which is not as good,

The manual skip is 100% identical to the automatic skip, except for the automatic part. The viewer must push the button to invoke it.

But it uses the same mechanism that auto skip uses to mark the commercial breaks. In fact, a show recorded on the 5500 can be played back on a 5000 over the network, and the 5000's auto commercial skip will see the markers and auto skip.