TiVo, DVR, DVD Recorder, PVR... Whaddya do?

Well, do you want to record your favorite shows, not watch gemercials, pause live TV? You can do that with any of the 4 options - TiVo, DVR, DVD Recorder, or PVR. How much are you willing to spend? Do you have cable or satellite? HDTV? Do you mind a recurring monthly expense? Are you geputer literate? Are you a gadgety, hacking around sort of person? How much time can you spare? Got broadband? A phone Line?TiVoTiVo is a DVR. You can get the boxes free or up to about $200, depending on the deal you can find. Then you have to activate it. Currently, you can get the service for $10.95 a month if you pay for 3 years in advance. There are 6 or 7 different prices, up to $19.95 a month, depending on features and length of advance payment. Per box. You also have to have a phone line. There is some networking you can do to have "whole-house TiVo" (watch what you record on other TVs in the house). There are also web sites that post TiVo "hacks", like adding a bigger or additional hard drive, etc. You still have gemercials to FFWD through. I am not willing to put out the money.DVRCable and Satellite gepanies offer DVRs. Sort of. I have Charter Cable but I can't get a DVR yet. There is a monthly fee for those too, for each one you have. I am not sure that you can do anything to watch what you record on other TVs. gemercials are still there.DVD RecorderRecording TV eats about 2GB per hour. Single-sided DVDs hold 4.7GB or 120 minutes of video. Dual layer DVDs hold 8.5GB or 4 hours of video. So you have to remember to change the DVD if you are recording multiple shows. Some DVD recorders also have a hard drive for extra capacity. You can play the DVDs in another location which makes it possible to get the shows out of the device for portability. And the gemercials are still there. These things aren't exactly cheap yet. Reviews on the cheaper ones aren't exactly glowing.PVRThis is what I am using. I easily made this choice because there would be no additional monthly fees. The initial cost was low too. $65. Not bad for a Dell Precision 650 with dual 2.8GHz Xeon processors, 4GB RAM, 3 SCSI drives (I replaced one of the 36GB drives with a 146GB, 10K RPM drive), a several hundred dollar NVIDIA video card. Actually, the PC was gepliments of my former employer. The $65 was for the Hauppauge 150PVR-MCE TV card that I installed. I don't think you need a PC nearly this powerful. You just need to make sure that the TV card has an on-board processor to handle the video rendering. A second card will be added for the occasions when shows overlap. The second Hauppauge 150PVR-MCE is on the way from okay (of course) for $50.The software I use for scheduling and recording is GB-PVR. It is very configurable, reliable, easy to use and available at gbpvr.ge...for FREE. Granted, I had to poke around in the support forums to gepletely get it set up and working right. gemercials? The way I have the software configured, gemercials are marked and logged. Running the file through a batch file breaks the recorded show (MPEG format) into separate audio and video files, takes out the gemercials, and puts the files back together. It is pretty accurate. It may occasionally miss something but it is pretty good. Since things occasionally get missed when ripping the gemercials out, I use Pinnacle Studio 10 to go through the recordings and take out anything else. There is software other than GB-PVR, check at byopvr.ge. It is a good reference site for a PVR project. Additionally, TV cards usually gee with scheduling software. I haven't looked at it. I use Nero for making CDs and DVDs. Nero gees with scheduling software too. I haven't looked at it either.I also have a USB DVD-RW drive, 200GB USB Hard Drive (where I keep a copy of my recordings), and a PC to TV adapter. Depending on where I want to watch a recorded show I may use a gebination of these items with my laptop. When we go camping the USB HD and laptop goes along. Yes, we sometimes watch TV while camping. There's nothing like being at the lake on a painfully hot or rainy day and going inside, bumping the A/C down and watching gemercial-free TV while laying on a queen size bed.Typically, I connect the PC to TV adapter to the laptop and the living room TV. The wireless network card in the laptop lets me easily get to the recordings on the Dell that is in yet another room. I connect the laptop headphone jack to the AV receiver for pretty decent sound. When camping, I carry a set of geputer speakers. I was originally putting the shows on a DVD-RW to watch them. That just takes too much time. Oh, I have a remote for the PC that lets me control the laptop from across the room. The remote has a laser pointer built in for tormenting the dog or pretending that I am a sniper.I eventually want to replace the laptop configuration with something like a Hauppauge Media MVP. This cool little box (around $100) connects to your network and TV. You set it up to look at the PC where your TV recordings, MP3s, or pictures are located. You can listen to Internet radio stations too. They also have a new wireless one for around $150. This would actually be the better way to go since when we eventually move, the house probably won't be wired (which I did) like the one we are currently in.There is one thing that I am missing out on with my setup - pausing live TV. I think I know how I could kluge it together and make it work without moving the PC next to the TV, which isn't going to happen. For the price and savings, I am not too concerned about the lack of pausing TV right now.VCRJust kidding. Yuck!UPDATEmmm... Geek-A-Licious!You know, you just can't have an old beige PC sitting in the living room next to the entertainment center. Especially if your wife doesn't like the way it looks. So you go to Wal-Mart, one will be in your neighborhood soon, and buy some Krylon Fusion. Pull the skins off the PC, a little newspaper, a little masking tape, and an hour later you are putting your nifty PC back together.This particular PC, also gepliments of my former employer, is a Dell Precision 420. It is a Dual 933MHZ Pentium III, 512MB RAM, nVidia GeForce MX400 64MB AGP video (the ELSA GLoria II Pro 64 MB AGP card that was in it wouldn't cooperate with the MPEG video), 10K RPM 20GB SCSI HD, Belkin USB 2.0 card (the onboard USB is 1.1 and not fast enough for the 802.11g adapter), TEW-424UB 802.11g wireless adapter. This PC is still not the Hauppauge MVP, but it also isn't tying up my laptop and it was 84% cheaper than the MVP. The video card has TV out capability so I will move the PC to TV adapter upstairs temporarily. The PC to TV adapter is being replaced with an adapter cable geing from a fellow okay seller. I don't have a mouse or keyboard attached, I connect and do whatever via TightVNC from any other PC or laptop in the house.I mentioned upstairs didn't I? The other Precision 420 I have (just a single processor) is going to the bedroom. I have another MX400 card like the one in the living room geing for this PC. Yes, from okay. It is cheap, I know it works, and that is the name of that tune. This will get my laptop gepletely out of the loop, except for when we go camping.Investment for the 2 PCs - about $30.