Another possibility: Let's say you have a U.S. friend willing to subscribe to cable TV and you pay the bill / split the bill with them. On the U.S. side, you put a TiVo box with multiple tuners and a suitable cable card. On the Mexican side, you put a TiVo Mini and set up a VPN so the TiVo Mini sees the U.S.-based TiVo as a local device.
At that point, it's the usual TiVo user interface, but you're dependent on having a stable home network connection on two sides.
I really wonder if this would work. Do you know anyone who's tried it?