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I've been curious about getting one to replace my "old school" VCR. I don't want a subscription base service like TIVO. Most of the DVR's I've seen are combo DVR & DVD player. I really only want the DVR.

It'd be nice if the DVR could connect to the internet and pull tvguide listings, but there may not be anything like that, or even a free tv guide listing. Obviously tvguide.com has listings setup, but don't know if there's anything like that for a DVR.

From what I've seen, and what little is out there, DVR's have a way to go to replace the VCR.

Any comments are appreciated.

I was searching for a non-subscription based DVR a while ago when I stopped paying for TiVO.

There is one company out there that offers something that has a online TV Guide. I cant remember if it was free or not, its been so long now... my dad turned me onto it. I can't remember the name, I ended up paying for DiSH network and getting their DVR service.

I'll look into it and see what I can find.

-Brian

I cant find the service i was thinking of... i think it was the TV Guide service, but im not sure.

While lookin around, i came across this:
http://www.snapstream.com/products/beyondtv/

Ever think of building your own DVR? I have a spare Athlon64 sitting in a box... i'm half tempted to get it running and build a DVR now.

Just buy a damn lifetime Tivo. I got my HD unit for 625 shipped and that was last year. If analog is your thing plenty of old lifetime Tivos can be had for cheap.

Besides where the fark are you going to plug cable cards into your homebrew solution?

I guarantee there is no other product to fill the need with even close to as much WAF.

I've been using a PC based DVR for 3 years now. Works perfect. It's based on one of those mini Shuttle type of PCs. Athlon 64 3000+, AGP 7800GS, 1 gig, 320+750 gig hard drive. Outputs component video and onboard sound to a 6 year old 1080i "HD ready" Panasonic rear projection big screen. Controls a dedicated Dish Network SD box through an IR blaster. The Dish box feeds a S-VHS signal to a Happauge MCE150 tuner card.

I run Windows XP Media Center Edition for the wife acceptance factor. The remote and the IR blaster are the standard Microsoft ones.

If you've got an old Pentium 4/Athlon XP class CPU or newer it's only about a $150 dollar investment to upgrade to DVR capability.

The downside....No easy HD capacity.

I have a DirecTV DVR with the Sat. TV.

Do you have cable or sat?

Another benefit of Tivo over homebrew is the amount of electricity used. The Tivo often draws less power than a PC with the specs needed for DVR use. Since the unit will be powered 24x7 for years to come it adds up.

At the moment I own three Tivos and I've owned at least one for 6-7 years and have never paid a subscription.

I used to use the Series 1 Sony to archive my favorite shows. I currently have every single episode of - Mythbusters, Iron Chef, Good Eats, and Modern Marvels.

The current HD unit currently has 1tb of space but I've built a bracket and purchased an array controller for a 3TB capacity The purpose is to replace the "archive" Sony and have HD copies of every episode of those shows. My cable company compresses HD too much but even then its about 7-10GB per hour!

Thanks for all the comments.

I currently have cable. I don't have digital, and really could care less.

I don't want to hassle with pc dvr setup, just not worth it. I already have 2 servers, 1 laptop, & 1 desktop running in my place. I don't need any more.

Ciper, can you explain a little bit about the lifetime tivo? Is it part of the hardware? How does tivo connect to the service, over the internet?

Thanks

Back in the day, when TiVO was brand new... they offered boxes with "lifetime" service. It cost like $160 more than a standard box, but those boxes never had to subscribe, and as long as the box remains in use it will always get tivo service for nothing.

They stopped offering lifetime service a few years ago, but you can still find some boxes on eBay that are lifetimers. However, they are the older boxes without any new hardware. But are still good TiVO's.

I was shopping for some back in the day, but I dont think any have dual tuners which was a must for me. Dual Tuner allows you to record one show while watching another... or record 2 shows at once.

-Brian

A Tivo can connect over a phone line or through the internet. The lifetime service account is attached to the "serial number" of the unit.

I just went to the Tivo website and lifetime service is still available for 299. You may have to get an existing customer to buy it for you.

The HD Tivo and Tivo Series 3 both have dual QAM/ATSC tuners. Meaning you can record 2 HD signals while watching a third.

Don't waste your time with anything that is not digital capable. You may say you don't care now but more and more channels are being moved to the digital tier and even worse SDV!!!! (switched digital video).

Even though the analog cut off date for OTA hasn't came yet there are already cable companies going pure digital or nearly pure digital. It just costs too much bandwidth to broadcast analog signals. Some have cut the analog tier from 90 channels to near 50 while others have removed analog cable all together. Check out the Tivo Community Forum for info.

Even if you plan to stick with analog cable the HD Tivo will allow you to connect an antenna and receive your local HD stations in higher quality than would be available from the cable company! It will seamlessly integrate these channels into your lineup.

For non satellite Tivos the Software/"firmware" updates and guide data are downloaded over the internet or phone line. The special videos are recorded off the Discovery channel at around 4am in most areas.

Currently the HD Tivo (and most likely the S3) are the only devices available to the end consumer that will be able to tune SDV without renting a cable company box. This will surely change in the future but Tivo helped developed the specification for the external USB tuning resolver.

All the Tivos included the latest can be hacked to run your own software or extract videos. Nearly all of those TV shows you see available online are actually from a Tivo box. Imagine with little effort you could have a bit perfect digital copy of your favorite show .

Yeah when I had TiVO i did alot of research on breaking the code to enable the CAT5 port (DirectTV TiVO Boxes had FTP disabled. CAT5 port was there, but inactive). I was going to enable it and get it to work on my network but that would void the DirectTV agreement and my roomate wasnt too savy.

I Have DiSH DVR and I miss the TiVO simplicity and features. But as long as I can pause and rewind live TV... and record all the episodes of LOST, im happy.

Thanks guys. I'll have to look into things a little more.

I had a ReplayTV - loved the concept but it gave me a world of hurt for years. So stay away - you can still get them on eBay.

Legacy777 Your best bet might be to read http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/index.php? for a normal user and http://www.dealdatabase.com/forum/ for hacking.