Yes, it definitely uses DirectFB. There is a README in /opt/thsrv that says:

"This product may utilize third-party software, including the following:
DirectFB frame buffer library (www.directfb.org)
Thomson Licensing SA Mp3 encoder and decoder (www.mp3licensing.com)
Zlib general purpose compression library ([Link: gzip.org])
Viktoria Institute GapiDraw 2D graphical API (www.gapidraw.com)
Independent JPEG Group JPEG software (www.ijg.org)
Glen Randers-Pehrson libpng (www.libpng.org)
The Freetype project font rendering library ([Link: freetype.sourceforge.net])
Aladdin Enterprises encryption software"

Also the binary "/opt/thcli/thcli" is linked to libdirectfb-0.9.so.19. I'm pretty sure this is the user interface application.

On an unrelated note, does anyone here have the remote? Was a copy of the GPL or a copy of the Linux and Busybox source code distributed with the remote?