OTA antennae work remarkably well in the city here in Houston, but then I'm only ~11 miles away from most of the transmission towers and they're all in the same compass direction. This worked exceptionally well for me back when I had the DirecTV HD TiVo (HD10-250) that used satellite for national channels and OTA for locals. Now I'm just using my local Comcast and paying scandalous monthly fees for the standard digital service. If and when I can get a decent DVR from an alternate content provider (and by "decent", I require content extraction, so I can move my TV shows onto my phone prior to going on business travel), I'll happily switch away from Comcast.

As to the various current TiVo models, there are several tricks:

- Pony up for the "lifetime" service, rather than paying the monthly fees. Assuming you keep your box over two years or so, it pays off, and it also increases the resale value. If they won't sell you lifetime service directly, find somebody who already has a TiVo, and they may be able to buy it for a new box when then goes in your name. (I've never understood TiVo's policies on this.)

- Consider getting the newer TiVo Premiere or Premiere XL. You get a physically smaller box that draws less power and has 100Mbit Ethernet (versus 10Mbit on the TiVo HD). In practice, I'm seeing 30-40 Mbit/sec when doing content extraction. I think they're selling the Premiere for much less than the XL, since most upgraders (like me) want the extra capacity without needing an external HD.