How reliable is the Tivo Premier or Premier XL DVR's? I am looking at replacing Bright House DVR's that seem to either look up all the time, or are shutting off and there is no discrete power. Will replacing them with Tivo boxes and a cable cards be any better?

A few other questions.

How well/quickly does the Tivo update after a channel lineup change?

Had any issues with automatic software/firmware updates, and do they do this often?

Do the boxes power off or go into standby, and if so is there discrete power on commands?

I've had an S3 HD Tivo for about 3.5years now. Still going strong, now with a 1TB drive. Got a new Premier about 4 months ago and it now has a 2TB drive in it. I love them. I'm on Time Warner here.

Hard to say about the channel updates, there is a notice in the messages folder when it happens, but I have no way of knowing when the change actually took place.

There is a standby function but I never use it. It's accessed through the menu. If it's plugged in, it's on.

User interface is far superior to any cable DVR that I've seen, plus you get all the online extras, Netflix, Pandora, remote scheduling and season pass administration, etc. The TiVo updates it's software automatically, you do not have a choice not to. Updates to the Premier are happening every 2-4 months at the moment. IP control is awesome, no RS232, no problem at all with IR.

They are still not perfect. They use a multistream cable card and you need a tuning adapter if your cable company uses SDV. No On Demand capability. The tuning adapter and TiVo still need to be rebooted occasionally. Far less than the Scientific Atlanta boxes that we use here in my opinion. If you look here:

[Link: tivocommunity.com]?

You will see that some people have not had the same good experience that I've had.

Tivo's are the best. Like everything, big software updates sometimes have a few minor bugs but they are fixed quickly.

I've owned 3 since they first came out, only thing I've ever had fail is the drive after 2-3 years, which can easily be replaced by calling weakness.com, as a matter of fact my first is still running for my daughters shows (on it's second drive though). You'll know when a drives getting ready to go as the video starts to freeze and stutter in a recording.

Channel lineups, even for my small local cable co, are within a few days at worst.

Like was said, no power control needed, plug it in and enjoy.

You should go to tivocommunity.com and find out how well Bright House is supporting the Tivo. Troubles with Tivo and Tunning Adapters are different for different Cable Companies and Divisions.