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What made it outdated? My S3 isn't outdated, I don't think--there's no reason to replace it while it's still working.

I think outdated might be the wrong word, but the Premiere always had issues interacting with the cable-cards (I went through 3 in less than 2 years, with the Tivo and Comcast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,

Hah--well, I"m definitely hoping my TiVo (a Woot special--it's not the Premiere, it's whatever they had that was HD before that? I used to have the DVD-burning one, and before that the initial basic one) will last several more years! It's only...uh...crap. Three years old now?

Yeah, the TWC dvr is what led to my canceling cable altogether. The set-top box was too often unable to record my program. Super unhelpful for live sporting events. Or anything, really. Plus it had to be reset at least weekly and only seemed to reset itself when I was actively watching tv.

only seemed to reset itself when I was actively watching tv

this is so funny and really true to my experience. fucking annoying.