Ater a wonderful five-year relationship, I finally had to bid my TiVo
farewell. Honestly, no other DVR compares to the wonderful user interface that TiVo offers, but in order to keep up with my HD TV and my Wireless N network, I was forced to upgrade to a new TiVo Box or cancel. So I made the call.
Those TiVo 
folks are good. They talked me into trying a HD box, and gave me a pretty sweet deal. The problem was that I had to use a cable card in order to get HD. OMG, the nightmare begins...I went to Comcast (or Comcrap as my friend Reid calls it) and picked up a cable card. Easy enough, I am a technically savvy girl, piece of cake. Problem 1 - the slot on the TiVo for the card was MELTED (WTF?) No one said anything to me about this being a refurb! I made another call, I was told that the "inside" was all new, it was just a refurbished box...right. So they mailed me another box, and I had to mail them the defected box back.
A few days later I received my new box (well new by their standards, not mine) and the slot was intact. So I went through the setup again, and got to the place where I inserted the cable card. At this time, you have to call Comcast and they have to send a signal to your box. Nothing. Well, I was on the phone with Comcast for well over an hour - turn it off, unplug it, turn it back on, try it again... you know the drill. After about an hour-and-a-half, I had enough. I requested they send out a technician.
I took off work to meet the tech, nice enough guy. But after about THREE-HOURS he couldn't get the cable card to work. I was only getting the over-the-air stations, no of the premium channels. Oh yeah, he didn't have any cable cards. He told me he would come back the next day AFTER FIVE (because I did not want to take off work again) and bring another cable card to try. Well that didn't happen.
Comcast sent out a tech during the day, so I was not there. I had to call AGAIN and set up another appointment. Obviously the new techs either do not read the history, or there is nothing for them to read, because he did not bring a cable card with him. He had to leave and go get one. The new card worked a little better. I was able to get HD channels... but NOTHING ELSE. After another 3 hours, I said forget it.
I honestly think their cable cards are a bunch of crap! Even the tech told me he had NEVER seen one work. My friend Belinda had the exact same problem. Now she is stuck with a TiVo box (with a lifetime subscription) that she can only use to stream Netfilx, etc. Luckily for me, I had a grace period to send mine back.
Again, those TiVo folks are good. They turned on the charm and offered me the moon. But by this time, I was so pissed with Comcast, I just did not feel like the frustration again. So, I cancelled my subscription (sniff, sniff.)
What to do, What to do? I reviewed my recording habits. Most of the shows I record are either now on Hulu or on Comcast OnDemad (or Xfinity). The only show that I can't get is Oprah. So now I record Oprah on my Windows Media Center. Works Great. But... I did like the ability to stream Netflix on the Television, so I ordered a Roku HD-XR Player
from Amazon.com.
Problem solved. Now I can stream Netflix, Amazon on Demand, and Pandora to my home theater system. Boy oh boy, if they add Hulu, I will be in hog heaven! (Although I recently read that Hulu is about to start charging, bummer.)
I would be interested in hearing from you if anyone (in the Houston area) has been able to get their HD Tivo to play well with Comcast. TiVo is a fantastic product, and I am really going to miss it. But life goes on, and I am officially now in my post Tivo era.
