Yep, tell them you called a couple months back and one of the reps told you that you could get a free upgrade (and instillation) if you went with HD. You would like to do that. They will tell you that any offer is time contingent. Ask her to work with you. They will make you pay for the unit but should give you a year free HD service. That will pay you back. Understand though...you own your tivo all you pay is the mirror fee. Once you get the new unit you will pay mirror and a dvr fee (i think). Here is what i did....I went from two series 2 tivos and 1 series 1 tivo to two HD Dvrs. they gave me one for free as i stated above and i bought the second off the web for the best price possible. Because i paid full price and have free lifetime dvr service from way back (well before Murdock) i only pay a mirror fee on each unit and nothing else. So you need to do some leg work and see what is better to pay a lot for each unit (in effect buy them - although you don't really own them in reality - they will need to be shipped back when you leave) or pay the rental fee. Your tivos are yours to keep and insist they are "owned" units but the new ones will be "leased". If you have good HD tvs like 50 inch and larger you will see a night and day improvement. The D* dvrs are pretty good, not as good as tivo but i highly doubt there will be another HD D*TiVo some day... The up side your existing wiring should be RG6 coax dual runs to your tivos and that is just fine for the HD units (quad core is not necessary -extra shielding in the coax). They will install a 5 sat dish and make sure you ask for a multiswitch (8 output) to be installed when you set up the initial deal. Make sure you have the multiswitch installed someplace you can get to it so you can add more tvs in the future w/o having to pay instillation charges. Do not let them insist that a phone connection is necessary, it is not unless you want to buy ppv with the remote. An Ethernet internet connection is necessary if you want to do on demand. The remotes that come with the DVR are RF remotes but you need to set them from IR to RF. You don't really need this unless you are putting the DVRs in a closet but it is nice not having to point the remote at the tv to make it work. good luck, make sure you get free instillation. They will complain saying the only hook up one line and so on... just ignore it when they get there and see all of existing wiring they will do what you want since most of it is already there. good luck. If you still have stuff on your old tivos remember to unhook the coax lines from the tivo before you remove it from your account. This way the unit thinks it is still active and you can watch what is still on the unit before finally putting it in a closet. I have a ton of series 2 tivos all over the place. I was getting to the point i was changing hard drives, power supplies, modem chips, tuners and so on to keep mine working.... I don't regret the change up to HD and except for BBC America (Top Gear) everything else i watch is in HD. So they have a great HD service.
