I got a Roamio and it arrived Tuesday. It's *MUCH* faster than the Premiere and the interface is better. I think the quality of the picture is fine; not noticibly different than the Premiere. But I don't have a mongo LED television, either, so maybe that's why I don't notice. I decided that I'll buy a new tv (got mine off Craigslist for $200 3 years ago, and it's a 32" 2006 era, and I like it just fine) if the Niners make the playoffs again. :-)

One thing I didn't do this time around? Buy a lifetime subscription. I used the Premiere for less than 3 years, so I am annoyed that I paid big bucks for the lifetime subscription for something that grew outdated so quickly and whose lifetime subscription isn't transferable to a new machine. Never again.

The video quality off my Tivo S3 never bothered me until I sent it in for repairs and got the Cablevision DVR as a temporary replacement. I was AMAZED at what I'd been putting up with, and now I don't think I want to go back. So the S3 is sitting in my closet while I decide what to do. It has lifetime service and a brand new 1TB drive, so I could probably get a good price on Craigslist.

Well, I can't compare my TiVo to other cable, but I can compare it to DVDs and Blu Ray, and sure, there might be better, but I don't need it. I'd move for a better interface, but I've got no incentive for better image quality than I'm getting at 1080i right now.

something that grew outdated so quickly

What made it outdated? My S3 isn't outdated, I don't think--there's no reason to replace it while it's still working.

I don't know exactly how compressed Tivo's "best" quality is, but it's visibly much worse than what I'm getting out of my cable box.

If it's an S3 then it doesn't re-compress the video at all. It just saves the digital stream that comes in via the cable card to disk. I'm not sure why you're seeing worse video quality with one vs. the other.

What made it outdated? My S3 isn't outdated, I don't think--there's no reason to replace it while it's still working.

I think outdated might be the wrong word, but the Premiere always had issues interacting with the cable-cards (I went through 3 in less than 2 years, with the Tivo and Comcast people each denying they were the problem), and the interface was extremely slow and only 70% of it in HD. It's weird to see any SD menus when you're paying a premium for the latest and greatest, which the Premiere was supposed to be. The lag just going from live tv to the "my shows" part was sometimes up to 10 seconds. Oh, and I forgot to mention that in the last 3 months, it started to restart all by itself several times a week, often while I was trying to watch tv. So yeah, no good.

I don't know what percentage of menus they updated, but you're still going to get SD with Roamio. It sounds like the Premiere (or yours, anyway) is worse off than my S3--I've never had it fixed. I'm just waiting for the power supply to go. And I don't have delays like you mention. The menu situation is the same, but this is now twice in quick succession I've seen complaining about it--is it a prevalent complaint?

Maybe I shouldn't have started with teletext...

The only SD menu I've noticed is in the settings with the Roamio, which is fine.

What's funny is that I used a first generation Tivo (given to me by a friend) for years, no issues, happily. I only upgraded to the Premiere to get the HD picture. But once HD entered my world, nothing else was good enough. I bet it's how Jess feels like going from her cable DVR back to Tivo.

As long as my TV is in HD, I could be using a typewriter to view menus--I mean, I have *major* usability issues with the TiVo interface, as well as major usability loves--it's a weird mixed bag. But typing is way too hard, and they should have done something about that by the time they reached HD.

I was an early adopter of the TiVo Premiere and never had any trouble with the cable cards. I agree that the interface was extremely slow at first, but it's improved greatly over time with new software updates. What makes the Roamio better than the Premiere anyway?

I feel like the cable company DVR is probably good enough, generally.

meara, as someone who used the Time Warner DVR for a year, I laughed ruefully when I read your post,