Thanks, Dapper Dan. Your experience with heat on the DTivo mirrors my experience with heat on my old C-band Highdef decoder. If it was inside the stereo cabinet, it got too hot and my highdef movies would start blacking out. So I set it on its side outside of the stereo cabinet and all was well. I'm hoping that the new Samsung HDTV receiver doesn't have similar problems, it's currently inside the cabinet...

I have not moved the DTivo into the stereo cabinet. I started to, but then discovered that I couldn't do the same tricky outside-mounting stunt for the Samsung HTDV receiver. So I left the Samsung in the cabinet and the DTivo outside. Anyway, I did a quick check of the DTivo inside the cabinet and it wasn't that much quieter, so there is no point in burying the DTivo without any real benefit.

So we're now down to figuring out how to make the DTivo quieter. Since it's essentially sitting in open air (it's on a tricky kind of rack mounting system right now in the same way that I mounted my Mk1 on my CD rack), all six sides are exposed to open air. So I'm thinking I can safely lower the fan speed with a resistor and then vibration-isolate it. Anyone got any thoughts on that?

Next comment about the DTivo:

I didn't realize until AFTER I'd activated its programming card, and ordered the Tivo service, that it doesn't tune local off-air TV stations. ARRRRGGGGGHHH! The thing has two freaking tuners in it, and you're telling me I can't pick up ordinary TV pictures with it?

Now, normally this wouldn't be a problem. I'd just get digital versions of the local channels from DirecTV.

But I already decided not to pay the four bucks per month for local stations because I get all of them perfectly with my newly-installed roof antenna. In fact, the Samsung picks up both the local stations AND their highdef/digital equivalents just great. So when I'm on the phone with the direcTV people, and they list which local stations I'd get for the $4/mo fee, I realize I don't need them.

I feel completely cheated now, because I'm in the position of feeling like I'm being strong-armed into paying an extra $4/mo that I shouldn't have to pay in the first place.

Why would they build a Tivo that doesn't tune in local stations?

Oh, I think I just answered my own question.

I hate DirecTV.