Hi guys! I just bought a Logitech Harmony 688 universal remote and I've been very happy with it so far. It works really well with my SA8300HD. Just wondering - the box says there's a way to easily skip commercials. Anybody know how to do this with the SA8300HD? Or, are they just referring to that option if you have a TiVO or something?

That option is for other STBs and doesn't work on the SA8300HD. You need to FF.

What I find works best is to press FF 2x, and then as soon as the show starts again, press Instant Replay. This almost always puts me at the last 1 second of the commercial.

"press FF 2x, and then as soon as the show starts again, press Instant Replay." thanx. this is a great tip!

The only problem with this is that the next time you want to FF you are at FF3 and need to press multiple times to get back to FF2. (Rogers Firmware)

I believe it's necessary to hit "play" and then "instant replay" in order to prevent this.

(That is unless the SA8300HD responds differently to the Harmony remote than it does to its own, or unless this has very recently changed - I thought I read in the latest firmware thread that it hadn't changed.)

You can program your Harmony remote to send the "Play" + "Replay" commands using the sequence feature in the activity key mapping.

Ah, OK, because I just checked and simply hitting "replay" on the original remote runs you into the issue I discussed in my previous post.

I always use FF2 and rarely need to hit replay - I may miss a second or two of programming, but rarely makes a difference. A lot of programmes now have "returning to the programme - warning" screen, so that really makes it easy (South Park, Intelligence, etc)

Yes 57 those warnings are really handy. Almost everything I watch on Showcase has them. I do FF3. Regular shows need an occasional replay or 2.
I hate it when they pile on a bunch of regular & short local commercials & you jump the gun thinking there can't possibly be any more.