It looks like digital cable withouth a cable box is almost here. ATI's OCUR was demonstrated at this years CES show working with MCE. I am a DirecTV guy myself (I refuse to have anything to do with Comcast) but for others this will be the end all be all of tuners. Now where is my DirecTV tuner....
http://www.anandtech.com/tradeshows/showdoc.aspx?i=2662&p=2