hello all, first off, I'm a complete newbie and idjit when it comes to tivo, so please don't rub me too hard if I say something stupid.......

a couple days ago, a friend was cleaning out his junk closet and brought me a box of stuff he thought I might be interested in. In that box were two DirecTV TiVo units (HR10-250 & DSR704), having never messed with one I started browsing on the web to see what I could do with them.

I do subscribe to DirecTV, could I just hook one up in place of an existing receiver and move my card into the tivo unit? Do you have to pay a fee to use the tivo?

I found a couple sights like this one with much talk about modifying these things, but not quite sure what all these mods mean. Is it possible to make them act as a stand alone dvr, or "once a tivo, always a tivo"?

Thanks in advance for any input.......