HD DVR without subscription?

Lagerhead

Lagerhead

Active Member
The Wife wants a HD DVR to record cable TV primarily for time shifting. To this requirement I add "no subscription" such as Tivo or cable-company DVR rental. The lack of coverage on Cocoontech and web search for a simple, reasonable DVR appliance (for use in U.S.) is puzzling. Am I missing something here?
 
Lagerhead said:
The Wife wants a HD DVR to record cable TV primarily for time shifting. To this requirement I add "no subscription" such as Tivo or cable-company DVR rental. The lack of coverage on Cocoontech and web search for a simple, reasonable DVR appliance (for use in U.S.) is puzzling. Am I missing something here?
Click to expand...


Look into SageTV or BeyondTV
 
I use SageTV with a the HDHomerun and record HD local channels for free off Comcast. They also have some of the nicest extenders. SageTV can play pretty much anything you throw at it like ripped DVD's. I had a copy of Beyond... not even close to being at the same level IMHO.

There are many here that use SageTV.

A second choice would to just use Win7 Mediacenter as I hear good things about it. Not sure about the extender or HDHomerun support. There is going to be cablecard support soon for Win7. When that happens I might look at changing my setup but for now my wife loves getting to record up to four HD shows at the same time (I added a second HDHomerun when the networks decided to cram a lot of good shows on Monday nights).
 
Great question IMO. After doing an online search I came across Moxi HD DVR . It appears that this unit has its own hard drive available in different storage sizes. What are the pros and cons between Moxi and Sage ? Doesn't Sage need to use your pc to store your shows ?
 
Yankeewired said:
Great question IMO. After doing an online search I came across Moxi HD DVR . It appears that this unit has its own hard drive available in different storage sizes. What are the pros and cons between Moxi and Sage ? Doesn't Sage need to use your pc to store your shows ?
Click to expand...

I was looking at the Moxi, as well. It does NOT have a tuner, however. It requires a cable card or tuner on a card of some sort. I suppose it could record from HDMI or other inputs, but I want to be able to record off my cable feed. And I think paying monthly fees for such capabilities is absurd.

I currently have a panasonic recorder that uses DVDs and DVD RAM disks, with a tuner, but it is very basic. Before the switchover to digital, I had a hard drive based recorder, with tuner, and with a TV Guide. I find it very frustrating that such devices are no longer available.
 
jwilson56 said:
I use SageTV with a the HDHomerun and record HD local channels for free off Comcast. They also have some of the nicest extenders. SageTV can play pretty much anything you throw at it like ripped DVD's. I had a copy of Beyond... not even close to being at the same level IMHO.

There are many here that use SageTV.

A second choice would to just use Win7 Mediacenter as I hear good things about it. Not sure about the extender or HDHomerun support. There is going to be cablecard support soon for Win7. When that happens I might look at changing my setup but for now my wife loves getting to record up to four HD shows at the same time (I added a second HDHomerun when the networks decided to cram a lot of good shows on Monday nights).
Click to expand...

Note that SiliconDust showed a HDHomerun at CES with CableCard support....

http://www.silicondust.com/press

So there is no reason to change your setup to WMC :)
 
drvnbysound said:
jwilson56 said:
I use SageTV with a the HDHomerun and record HD local channels for free off Comcast. They also have some of the nicest extenders. SageTV can play pretty much anything you throw at it like ripped DVD's. I had a copy of Beyond... not even close to being at the same level IMHO.

There are many here that use SageTV.

A second choice would to just use Win7 Mediacenter as I hear good things about it. Not sure about the extender or HDHomerun support. There is going to be cablecard support soon for Win7. When that happens I might look at changing my setup but for now my wife loves getting to record up to four HD shows at the same time (I added a second HDHomerun when the networks decided to cram a lot of good shows on Monday nights).
Click to expand...

Note that SiliconDust showed a HDHomerun at CES with CableCard support....

http://www.silicondust.com/press

So there is no reason to change your setup to WMC :)
Click to expand...


That is inaccurate. There is no indication that Sage will become a Cablelabs certified application. Without being a certified application Sage will not have access to any copy protected content available on from the SilconDust device. The only certified application right now is WMC.
 
drvnbysound said:
jwilson56 said:
I use SageTV with a the HDHomerun and record HD local channels for free off Comcast. They also have some of the nicest extenders. SageTV can play pretty much anything you throw at it like ripped DVD's. I had a copy of Beyond... not even close to being at the same level IMHO.

There are many here that use SageTV.

A second choice would to just use Win7 Mediacenter as I hear good things about it. Not sure about the extender or HDHomerun support. There is going to be cablecard support soon for Win7. When that happens I might look at changing my setup but for now my wife loves getting to record up to four HD shows at the same time (I added a second HDHomerun when the networks decided to cram a lot of good shows on Monday nights).
Click to expand...

Note that SiliconDust showed a HDHomerun at CES with CableCard support....

http://www.silicondust.com/press

So there is no reason to change your setup to WMC :)
Click to expand...

Oh I meant to change over to use the cablecard not to stop using SageTV (unless they failed at getting it to work). I really like Sage and would not stop using it and the extenders.
 
broconne said:
That is inaccurate. There is no indication that Sage will become a Cablelabs certified application. Without being a certified application Sage will not have access to any copy protected content available on from the SilconDust device. The only certified application right now is WMC.
Click to expand...

That's what I get for being ignorant and knowing nothing about CableCards. ;) I was under the impression that it was hardware based only, and assuming that if it worked with the HDHR tuner, and it would inevitably work with Sage... not so much ;)

In the meantime, if you have Sage and are NOT willing to switch and want CableCard functionality, there is a somewhat kludgy workaround:

http://hd.engadget.com/2009/10/20/cablecar...ia-sagemctuner/
 
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