Any way to get right to live TV without FF?

I am a bit confused as to what you want to do.  Rewinding involves manipulating a recorded program.  Live viewing does not involve a recording.  There is no need to rewind a program to the beginning.  Highlight the program in the play list, hit select then select start from beginning.

If you want to watch live, stop the recording and enter a channel number.  Viola, live.

If I've misunderstood your question, post back a bit more info or possibly an example and we can give it another go.  A word to all new converts.  The Directv HD DVR is a very capable but somewhat complex device.  It can do most everything one could reasonably expect but may do it differently than another service.  Don't be afraid to experiment with the remote, many of the buttons are several layers deep.

You can rewind live TV up to 90 minutes, or until the last time you changed channels, whichever comes first.  In order to return to real time on a rewound program, simply channel up, then channel down.  You will be back on the same channel in real time.  Note that if you do that, you can't then rewind past that point.

I know exactly what you're talking about because I also used to have TWC.  What he's saying, in other words, is if you're on a channel and pause it and leave it paused for an hour or whatever, is there a single button you can press that will instantly take you to real time.  As far as I know there is no "live" button like what TWC has, but if you press and hold that "other" FF button (the one that only fast forwards in 30 second increments) then it'll bring you back to real time (or live) after a second or two.