I have a TiVo HD and I love it. The monthly fee isn't a big deal because I paid for a year at once, making it cheaper than a DVR from Comcast ($13.95/month from Comcast). And since I didn't have any other boxes I don't have to pay a fee or anything on my Cable Card. If Comcast had provided a properly functioning DVR I wouldn't have bothered with TiVo. I came over from DirecTV when I moved and I loved their HD DVR. Honestly all of their DVRs worked great. The older ones (DirecTiVo and not) didn't have any fancy features but they worked without a hitch. The HD DVR (once updated last summer) worked without a hitch and they were adding features (On Demand, eSata port, etc.). But the Motorola that Comcast installed was junk. The menu looked horrible, it would lock up, sound would cut out, changing channels was incredibly slow, it got extremely hot, there wasn't enough storage (1 hour of "From the Earth to the Moon" filled it up). About the same time I got mine, a buddy finally made the jump to DVR. The Scientific Atlantic he got from Comcast was even worse. It had all the faults of mine (not sure about the storage issue, since he only has SD and it was a HD box). He couldn't search for shows by title, he had to search by tim and channel. Once he found it he could set up a season pass, but it was a pain. He dumped it for an HD TiVo as well and is very happy (once his cable card was installed that is). Plus you can upgrade the harddrive if you don't mind cracking the case open (technically it voids the warrenty). The 2 things I love about TiVo though are the ability to transfer shows to my computer (I then strip the DRM and convert to DiVx for archiving) and that it always works. Even the beta software was more stable than the shipped software on either the Moto or the SA.
I forgot to add that a lot of people have complained about the cost of the box itself. And while $300 isn't bad if you love TV you could get a refurb for $200 from TiVo or get lucky like I did. I got mine for $204 brand new. It was $215 at 6ave but they had a 5% off coupon with free shipping. Between that, the 500gb HDD ($85 at newegg) and 1 year of service I paid about $400. And when I move and get DirecTV again I can sell my box and recoup at least half of my cost. My buddy got a similar deal ($215 for the box and he got a 640gb HDD for the same $85). Of course last I saw its back at regular price at 6ave, but you could get lucky.
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I have a TiVo HD and I love it. The monthly fee isn't a big deal because I paid for a year at once, making it cheaper than a DVR from Comcast ($13.95/month from Comcast). And since I didn't have any other boxes I don't have to pay a fee or anything on my Cable Card. If Comcast had provided a properly functioning DVR I wouldn't have bothered with TiVo. I came over from DirecTV when I moved and I loved their HD DVR. Honestly all of their DVRs worked great. The older ones (DirecTiVo and not) didn't have any fancy features but they worked without a hitch. The HD DVR (once updated last summer) worked without a hitch and they were adding features (On Demand, eSata port, etc.). But the Motorola that Comcast installed was junk. The menu looked horrible, it would lock up, sound would cut out, changing channels was incredibly slow, it got extremely hot, there wasn't enough storage (1 hour of "From the Earth to the Moon" filled it up). About the same time I got mine, a buddy finally made the jump to DVR. The Scientific Atlantic he got from Comcast was even worse. It had all the faults of mine (not sure about the storage issue, since he only has SD and it was a HD box). He couldn't search for shows by title, he had to search by tim and channel. Once he found it he could set up a season pass, but it was a pain. He dumped it for an HD TiVo as well and is very happy (once his cable card was installed that is). Plus you can upgrade the harddrive if you don't mind cracking the case open (technically it voids the warrenty). The 2 things I love about TiVo though are the ability to transfer shows to my computer (I then strip the DRM and convert to DiVx for archiving) and that it always works. Even the beta software was more stable than the shipped software on either the Moto or the SA.
I forgot to add that a lot of people have complained about the cost of the box itself. And while $300 isn't bad if you love TV you could get a refurb for $200 from TiVo or get lucky like I did. I got mine for $204 brand new. It was $215 at 6ave but they had a 5% off coupon with free shipping. Between that, the 500gb HDD ($85 at newegg) and 1 year of service I paid about $400. And when I move and get DirecTV again I can sell my box and recoup at least half of my cost. My buddy got a similar deal ($215 for the box and he got a 640gb HDD for the same $85). Of course last I saw its back at regular price at 6ave, but you could get lucky.