A List Of Things Thrown Five Minutes Ago

A TIME TO MOURN: It appears my old reliable standard def TiVo has finally collapsed in a blaze of glory. No big deal, since I've been substantially completely dependent on the cable company DVR (which, unlike my old TiVo, has dual tuners, records in HD, and allows me to hear surround sound) for the last several months. Given the circumstance, and that Amazon appears to be running an incredible special, I'm thinking of moving to the TiVo HD product. A few questions for the ALOTT5MAsphere's expertise in this area:

• Does anyone have experience with doing the setup of the system with dual CableCards and/or the difficulty or ease of getting CableCards from the cable company and getting them working (particularly with Time Warner NYC)? It seems that to record the HD/digital stuff, I'm really going to need them.
• I like the TiVo software and interface (not to mention side features like unbox, remote scheduling, and transfer to computer) enough that I'm willing to pay a couple of dollars more for it than the current setup. Anyone have experience with the pricing comparison? As I calculate it, I save $9 (DVR rate) plus $9 (set top box rate), but incur costs of $4 (two CableCards) and $12 (prepaying for two years, averaged out) as a result, which might make it cheaper. (Might also take advantage of the chance to reshuffle some other service and try and get a promo rate.)