We had one of the cable company's DVRs in the past. It was fine.
I bought a "series 2' Tivo for an older TV several years ago. I will retire it next year. The cable company if forcing everyone to digital cable. It works fine but will not work with digital cable.
I am also using Windows 7 Media Center on a new Big Screen LED TV. The setup is a laptop, a Media Center remote control, and a HDHomerun DualTuner from SiliconDust. That tuner can be shared over the network with multiple computers and devices (e.g., android). It works great. The setup serves as a Dual Tuner DVR for over the air broadcast TV, DVD player, media streamer, etc. There is no subscription cost like Tivo. I like it much better than Tivo.
I am considering dumping cable TV next year. I think Over The Air Broadcast and streaming services like Netflix + Netflix DVD along with Amazon Instant can meet our needs at a lower cost.
If I were to buy a new Tivo... there are two things I would probably do:
1) I would stick with the lowest cost version. Mainly because it looks like it can work with either Cable and Over The Air Transmission. If I decided to dump cable later, I could still use the device to record over the air broadcast TV. The more expensive versions look like they are cable TV only.
2) I would probably go ahead and pay the one time approx $500 fee for the lifetime of the device service. It looks like one breaks even in 2.8 yrs of use compared to paying yearly at $15/mo rate.
Things are changing a lot in terms of TV and video media. Whatever I purchased, I would try to select something that would keep my future options open.
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