I have a TiVo from the early days of Series 2 — about 5+ years old, I think. Like your Panasonic, I suspect obsolescence will be what eventually does it in. I'm very glad I got lifetime service with it, and if I get another TiVo box, I'd do that again.
One thing you might want to check is getting TiVo service from Comcast. That is, as long as you need a digital cable box from Comcast, they have some that include DVR capabilities with a TiVo branded UI and service. It costs more than the regular box on a montly basis, but less than if you bought TiVo service yourself, I think, as well as no hardware costs. I haven't looked closely at this, yet, because I really hate the thought of giving any additional money to Comcast.
I had to go to a digital cable box about four months ago. Comcast shoved some of the channels I watch to digital only. This was a bit of a pain, because instead of having Tivoli (my TiVo) tune the channels off the cable directly, it had to be configured to control the cable box to switch stations at need. This works okay, except when it doesn't. I've had a few times where I go to watch something I've recorded, only to find that it recorded something from a different channel, because the cable box has stopped listening to Tivoli's channel change requests. The problem seems to be on the cable box side, as the fix is to power cycle the cable box. It's annoying. So, I'd try to avoid having a separate DVR and cable box, if I could. That can be done either by getting a DVR cable box from the company, or one of the new TiVo's that take Cable Cards.
no subject
One thing you might want to check is getting TiVo service from Comcast. That is, as long as you need a digital cable box from Comcast, they have some that include DVR capabilities with a TiVo branded UI and service. It costs more than the regular box on a montly basis, but less than if you bought TiVo service yourself, I think, as well as no hardware costs. I haven't looked closely at this, yet, because I really hate the thought of giving any additional money to Comcast.
I had to go to a digital cable box about four months ago. Comcast shoved some of the channels I watch to digital only. This was a bit of a pain, because instead of having Tivoli (my TiVo) tune the channels off the cable directly, it had to be configured to control the cable box to switch stations at need. This works okay, except when it doesn't. I've had a few times where I go to watch something I've recorded, only to find that it recorded something from a different channel, because the cable box has stopped listening to Tivoli's channel change requests. The problem seems to be on the cable box side, as the fix is to power cycle the cable box. It's annoying. So, I'd try to avoid having a separate DVR and cable box, if I could. That can be done either by getting a DVR cable box from the company, or one of the new TiVo's that take Cable Cards.