question about DVR
 

I've got Digital cable with one regular TV and one HD tv. I've got a VCR, but it's a pain in the ass. I'd like a DVR, but I don't want to have to buy a monthly service. I can get one through my cable company for $10 a month, but it wouldn't take that long to pay for a box I would imagine.

I see dvr's for sale at stuff like best buy, etc..., Tivo, Directtv, etc.. but again, I don't want to have to pay for a monthly service. I don't want my cable to end up costing me $100 a month, and it seems smarter to buy a box and own it if I can than to rent from someone else.

So, can you just buy a DVR and plug it in and use it like a VCR programming it based on time, etc...

If you can buy one what's recommended that's not $500-$1000. I don't need tons of hours of storage.

Would a dual layer DVD burner be a good bet? Seems like at $5 a pop for 4 hours it would add up, but then that is only $1.25 a hour, I guess that's not terrible, but then it's probably more expensive than just getting DVR from Time Warner.

I went ahead and popped the extra couple of bucks a month to get Speed TV the stuff that I'm most interested in for the month of Dec is on at 6am, Legends of Motorsport and 5th Gear. What the hell is that. I'm not sure I'll keep Speed just for the occasional race. I guess during the summer months there are probably interesting races on more often.

The beauty of the cable companies DVR is that if you record a show that is HDTV, it will be HDTV when you show it.

I had a DVD recorder for a while (before it died). It was good, but it could only do 1 hour in max mode.

The cable companies DVR will record 2 shows at the sametime or record 1 and watch another. And it holds 80 hours. It has a feature to allow you to offload recordings to a VCR. I only have 1 DVR in the house. And my cable bill is huge, but then they do my cable, internet, phone and security..

I may have to call about it. I guess 80 hours would be pretty smokin, and to get a DVR with that much space it would probably be $1000.

Still, it would be nice to have something small, simple and basic that was <$300.

Do a search for upgrades to TIVO and DVR machines. There are guys out there who will put a 300 hour hard drive in these machines for a lot less than $1000, and more like $400.

joeA

But do you have to have the Tivo monthly service to use a Tivo box?

Steve,

I have heard of people who do not have the service. What I do is to buy anything like this on my AmEx credit card and they double the warranty for free. That way I pay the $250 or whatever Tivo charges and if the Tivo recorder dies anytime during the first 2-3 years its replaced by AmEx for free, so its worth the $10 a month I pay for the service.

I am always getting very pissed off when I want to watch Formula One or something that is prempted by some basketball game and Tivo takes care of this, shuttling the recorder to start when the program I want to see actually starts and not just what the schedule says.

JoeA

The TiVo makes it so easy to find and record programs that it's worth the $10/month, IMO.

Alternatively you can buy the $300 so-called "lifetime" service from TiVo. It's for the lifetime of the TiVo box, which might be short or long depending on the hard drive (I think most failures are hard drive-related).

Personally, I'd do the monthly. This industry is changing rapidly and 30 months is a long time.

Buy a low-capacity TiVo, sign up for the monthly, see if you like it, then wait for a deal on hard drives and send drives and TiVo to www.weakness.com or similar to be upgraded. I started with an 80 GB, now have a 320 GB.

I don't have any experience with cable company DVRs or with HD TV.

Thanks guys this is more good info.