I have a TiVo Bolt on order (arrival Tuesday). It advertises that is can replace the cable box. It also records 4 programs at the same time. And, it includes 1 year of TiVo service. Cost $300. Renewal service is $150 per year.
Cable box-DVR rental is $8.50 for the box and $12 for the recorder service per month, and that box records on 2 programs at a time.
The TiVo will require a cable company cablecard/m-card.
The cable just recently went all digital and requires a set-top or [crappy] mini box for every cable outlet. The [crappy] mini box does not give access to upper tiers or premium channels. It also does not allow program scheduling. It is $2/month, after a 1-year free. The [crappy] mini box also will not allow work with existing 3rd-party DVRs.
I don’t know whether the cablecard for the TiVo will access those upper/premium tiers.
The TiVo Bolt also does the apps — Netflix, Amazon Prime, etc.
My 6 at a time DVR is also the box can record 6 at a time, gives full access to anything I paid for and can have a few hundred things programmed (with set to record a series counting as one thing), and can share between multiple boxes if you have them, and costs $8.50 a month, and I can expand the drive though at 1TB there’s no need to. And since I also get my internet and phone from them, I get $13.70 off the whole bill, so functionally the DVR is free. For netflix and Amazon and the like I’ve got a smart TV and a smart bluray, which can be handy because the UIs are different (the netflix UI on the TV is really nice, on the bluray it’s OK, but the Amazon UI on the TV blows and is pretty good on the bluray).
So I think what we’ve here is your cable company sucks.
The Bolt should handle anything thing that Comcast has to offer. Not sure about other cable companies. I have an older Tivo Series 3(2007) box with a lifetime subscription that I just reenabled. Comcast did an an mpeg4 upgrade last fall and my Tivo 3 started dropping HD channels. I traded in my cable card for a HD box back in December. Just got an email from Tivo that they found a software solution. Got the Tivo 3 working again and took the HD box back.
It took me a couple trips to the service center to get a cable card that works with the Tivo. If you can't get the paring screen, the card is bad or it is the wrong card.