I promised I'd update on my TiVo after having it a few months.
Well, you're gonna hafta pry it outa my cold dead hand. My wife's too.

First, the downsides...It's locked up a 2-3 times. Its LINUX OS quickly re-boots when you power on-off via the remote. Nothing lost. Relative to a Microsoft product, TiVo's LINUX is much more robust. And I wish I had more disk space as my 30 hour Version 1 stores only 9 hours at HDTV friendly best quality.

The season pass feature is great for recording every episode of what you like without fail.
Sports with the 8 second replay button is great. Of course you can back up any length of time. TiVo also has a slow-mo feature that rocks.
TiVo football games and then play the keepers to your VCR tape for long term storage like I did with the Patriots playoff & Super Bowl run.
It is so cool to hit the PAUSE button when the phone rings or the spouse asks a question and return later having missed nothing.
TiVo folks do not watch live TV any more. Skipping over commercials saves way over 10 minutes per hour. The networks schedule is now irrelevant to the way you lead your life.
Use KEYWORDS to have it record shows featuring topics you like (science, space, Victoria's Secret fashion shows) or actors, directors, etc. Never miss anything again. Keyword Premiere or Finale gets you 1st and last episodes of everything.

Best Buy now offers new Version 2 units with 60 hour hard drive at $399. Buy it.

-p (has no financial interest in TiVo)