TiVo TCD648250B (250 GB) 300-Hours DVR

We saw the offer to transfer our lifetime Tivo Subscription to a Tivo Series 3 if we purchased one prior to Jan 31st and decided to do it. The Tivo arrived in a timely manner and we liked the 250 GB hard drive, the dual tuners, ability to receive High def via over the air antenna, THX, and overall appearance of the machine. Then the problems started. Part of the problem is our cable company (and apparently other cable companies as well.) We used COX and they really had no idea how to install a Cablecard into a Tivo or that you could install 2 cards into it. It took about 2 hours the first time and we got everything working smoothly then we noticed a ton of tiling on the local channels and high definition channels to the point that shows were completely unwatchable. Then they came and replaced the cable cards and a few hours later the second card stopped decoding channels period. After several more attempts we discovered that many of the cable cards have been sitting in the repair vans or in a warehouse for over a year because they don't use them. We finally got someone to come with more cards and got two of them to work consistently. We still periodically get tiling and have had all the lines checked and signal strengths checked. The last repairman said that our signal strength was on the upper ranges of normal so Tivo engineering was called to find out what the optimum/maximum signal strength was for the TIVO 3, and they said they didn't know. We're still debating whether this was all worth while. Fortunately the over the air programing has been working fine and OTA recorded programs are crystal clear. If we can get the tiling issues resolved, we would be much more enthusiastic about this product.