That's actually what we're doing, wrt the VCR tuner. The old TV had to go due to "interesting colour" issues, and the fact that its tuner has been on the fritz for a little over 4 years now, or abot half the life of the unit.

You can get TiVO working here - a Series 1 unit can be hacked to get its program listings from an XMLTV server. I've got a link somewhere, but I seem to have lost it...

Apex units seem to be OK to me - a friend who works in the AV department at Best Buy will buy nothing else. Given what percentage of his income this guy devotes to his stereo, that kind of endorsement is good enough for me.