A TiVo owner fought the system in his search for a workable HDTV setup and mostly won. Even so, it was a challenge, according to ExtremeTech.

In the SD world before HD, all one needed was a series 2 TiVo. Then Jason Cross tried a Media Center Edition to get more disk space. Then came HD, and all bets were off.

Getting an inexpensibe HDTV was the easy part. Then the travails of actually supply it with content started. An Over the Air (OTA) antenna was not possible due to local buildings. So off to Comcast for the standard HD DVR.

"Man does that thing stink," Mr. Cross wrote. The interface stinks. The IR beam is fussy where pointed. Commands queue up, and nothing happens for a long time. He went on: "The guide and menus are ugly, recording shows is harder than it should be, and telling "season pass" type recordings to start early or end late would cause the DVR to lock up every couple of days."

Then he waited for Comcast and TiVo to come to terms. And waited. And waited.

It was time to bite the bullet and go for a TiVo Series 3 and the dreaded Cable Cards. That was the final challenge, replete with all the standard Cable Card problems.

Finally, victory was achieved. Mr. Cross wrote: "And I’m thrilled�mostly. With the exception of the latest Media Center stuff, nobody has an interface as good at TiVo’s, and it’s still the best remote in the business by far. The internet apps are neat, too. I’ve got it scheduled to download internet video of the Onion News Network every week, and how cool is that?"

It wasn’t all sunshine and roses. The author had a few quibbles, but he’s mostly happy. Sadly, he’s not the only person who’s had to go this route to get first-class operational capability and HD television. If Apple gets their way, however, he might be one of the last.