Control Contour DVR with third-party remote?

Hi,

I recently started using Cox and just got a new TCL Series 6 Roku TV; I wrote about a remote pairing issue I'm having here, http://forums.cox.com/forum_home/tv_forum/f/tv-forum/21003/can-t-pair-contour-remote-with-new-tcl-series-6-roku-tv.

Semi-related to that, can someone tell me if it's possible to use a third-party remote to control the Contour DVR?  In light of the issue I wrote about in the other thread, this is sounding pretty appealing, plus I've really hated the Contour remote so far; I'm not sure if I just have a bad one, but the voice controls are incredibly finicky and usually cause an error, and the regular buttons are unresponsive almost half the time, so even mundane tasks like scrolling through the channel guide or menus is incredibly frustrating.

I already have a Phillips P144v2 4-device remote, as well as an older Sony RMVLZ620 universal remote.  Would either/both of these work with the Contour DVR?  I don't really care about not being able to use voice functionality, as long as the buttons are responsive and I can control both my TV and DVR with a single remote.

Thanks!

Luis