[jyl]

Mine isn't near a phone jack either, so I had to string together numerous old phone cords to reach a jack for the initial setup. I gather you can enter a code at the dialing screen to make the TiVo to use LAN/WLAN for the initial setup, but it seemed easier to dig through the junk boxes.

I didn't really "get" the HMO either. I could certainly see it being handy if you have multiple TiVos in different rooms. Unfortunately, I have only one digital cable box.

We probably should have done the lifetime fee, but I was feeling cheap - and wasn't too sure how long the lifetime of this particular TiVo unit would be. I've since done some research on TiVo upgrades and I see that my TiVo can be upgraded to a ridiculous number of hours (>350), so that concern was probably misplaced.

Well, I'm off to watch some vintage Star Trek episodes - no more "paid programming" for me!