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It's looking like, barring sudden medical/dental expense, I should be able to get ahead enough financially that I can buy a new TV in the next month or so (I'm researching that separately), and that also means lifting one of the last barriers to replacing my VCR with a DVR. Since I've never had a DVR before, I figured I'd ask here (among other places) for advice.
My cable company offers a DVR as part of their digital tier, but I've talked to some people locally who tried that, and they were dissatisfied, so I'm holding that in reserve as an "at least it won't involve hassle" option if I can't find a way to do things the way I'd prefer. (ETA: Also, while Dish's DVR option looks nice, my apartment doesn't really have the means to mount a south-facing dish.)
I'm not interested in building a DVR into my computer...I use a Mac in large part because I'm not a hardware OR software geek. However, a fairly "off the rack"-usable program to let my Mac control a DVR would be okay.
One of the big things that has kept me from switching to a DVR is I don't want to add yet another monthly expense. I want to buy a machine that will do things, and be done paying for it at the time of initial purchase. I don't want to have to subscribe to a separate service just to get the thing to work. I just want to be able to tell it, "record cable channel 49 at 8PM until 10PM this Friday" and have it DO that. (I have enough trouble keeping up with my existing programming, I don't need a system that can scour the entire listings and record other things I might be interested in, so I don't mind having a "dumb" DVR that has no idea what channel 49 is.)
The only thing I really want out of a DVR that a VCR can't do is simultaneous recording. Higher recording quality and going longer before needing to "change tapes" (delete things from memory) are nice add-ons, but I have low-def eyes and a 6-8 hour tape memory is something I've lived with for 17 years, I can put up with it for longer. Having it able to listen to instructions from my computer would also be nice (i.e. in case a station changes its schedule, something like Yahoo listings could automatically change the recording time), but again it's something I can live without. I really only need to upgrade for the simple fact that VCR tapes are phasing out, and I don't want to have to troll eBay for blank tapes in a couple of years. :)
So, in a nutshell, what I'd really like is something that works like a bank of VCRs. Records the channels I tell it to, when I tell it to, without needing to look online to some parent service for guidance (not even a free one, as those can vanish and leave me in the lurch...I want full manual control). Allow me to locate particular events (i.e. list by date, time, channel) and play them back on my television (I don't like watching shows on my computer for idiosyncratic reasons). Record at least two things at once from existing cable signal. If I can provide a local parent service on my desktop without having to program it from scratch or install a bunch of libraries, that'd be a nice plus.
If I can't find something at least comes close to meeting my preferences, I'll just buy a second VCR, they're cheap. Maybe by the time VCRs stop being available it'd be easier to get a manual DVR...or it'll be impossible to get cable without a company-supplied DVR (I can certainly see them going that route). Or the whole DVR transitional tech will have been replaced by a true on-demand system. Whatever.
I like the operating paradigm of the VCR, I'd just like to cherry-pick a few of the features of the DVR. I don't like the standard operating paradigm of consumer-level DVRs.
My cable company offers a DVR as part of their digital tier, but I've talked to some people locally who tried that, and they were dissatisfied, so I'm holding that in reserve as an "at least it won't involve hassle" option if I can't find a way to do things the way I'd prefer. (ETA: Also, while Dish's DVR option looks nice, my apartment doesn't really have the means to mount a south-facing dish.)
I'm not interested in building a DVR into my computer...I use a Mac in large part because I'm not a hardware OR software geek. However, a fairly "off the rack"-usable program to let my Mac control a DVR would be okay.
One of the big things that has kept me from switching to a DVR is I don't want to add yet another monthly expense. I want to buy a machine that will do things, and be done paying for it at the time of initial purchase. I don't want to have to subscribe to a separate service just to get the thing to work. I just want to be able to tell it, "record cable channel 49 at 8PM until 10PM this Friday" and have it DO that. (I have enough trouble keeping up with my existing programming, I don't need a system that can scour the entire listings and record other things I might be interested in, so I don't mind having a "dumb" DVR that has no idea what channel 49 is.)
The only thing I really want out of a DVR that a VCR can't do is simultaneous recording. Higher recording quality and going longer before needing to "change tapes" (delete things from memory) are nice add-ons, but I have low-def eyes and a 6-8 hour tape memory is something I've lived with for 17 years, I can put up with it for longer. Having it able to listen to instructions from my computer would also be nice (i.e. in case a station changes its schedule, something like Yahoo listings could automatically change the recording time), but again it's something I can live without. I really only need to upgrade for the simple fact that VCR tapes are phasing out, and I don't want to have to troll eBay for blank tapes in a couple of years. :)
So, in a nutshell, what I'd really like is something that works like a bank of VCRs. Records the channels I tell it to, when I tell it to, without needing to look online to some parent service for guidance (not even a free one, as those can vanish and leave me in the lurch...I want full manual control). Allow me to locate particular events (i.e. list by date, time, channel) and play them back on my television (I don't like watching shows on my computer for idiosyncratic reasons). Record at least two things at once from existing cable signal. If I can provide a local parent service on my desktop without having to program it from scratch or install a bunch of libraries, that'd be a nice plus.
If I can't find something at least comes close to meeting my preferences, I'll just buy a second VCR, they're cheap. Maybe by the time VCRs stop being available it'd be easier to get a manual DVR...or it'll be impossible to get cable without a company-supplied DVR (I can certainly see them going that route). Or the whole DVR transitional tech will have been replaced by a true on-demand system. Whatever.
I like the operating paradigm of the VCR, I'd just like to cherry-pick a few of the features of the DVR. I don't like the standard operating paradigm of consumer-level DVRs.
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I can tell it to only record *new* episodes of something on a particular channel, but it sometimes has issues. For example, I will get ALL episodes of Countdown on MSNBC, and I will get ALL episodes of Top Gear on BBC America, even though it's only supposed to record the "new" episodes.
Time delay is indeed a problem, but it's the same problem you have with VCRs. We run into that ALL the time with The Amazing Race-- football runs long on CBS, so they start 60 Minutes late and then start TAR after 60M airs. We set the DVR to end the recording 1 hour late. That solved that problem.
Being able to pause live TV? PRICELESS. Well worth the extra monthly cost when you have a little person at home. Pause to get ice cream and rewind to re-review the evidence on Ghost Hunters. Pause to do a diaper change and toothy-brushy. Much love!
The Comcast DVR we have can keep about 15 mins of HD live TV and 45 mins of standard live TV. I can switch between tuners with a "swap" button. That way, for example, I can flip between two channels and be able to rewind either one of them 15 or 45 minutes back unless I actually punch in another number or change one of those tuners to a different channel.
As someone else said, I can see that there's something coming up in the listings and just flip through and press the Record button, and it's set. I can then adjust it to make it a series recording.
You can set priority, too. That way, for example, I can put Countdown last and it'll record Heroes and House as the top priority and leave Top Gear and Countdown for the later airings (since it thinks they're new anyway).
For stuff you've kept, you can set it to automatically delete earlier episodes and only keep (N=1-7) episodes, or you can set it to only delete episodes if there's no room left on the DVR, or you can set it so that it'll keep the old ones unless you manually delete them.
I think the only times we've had a major issue is when the power or the cable goes out. Getting the HD lineup and DVR and OnDemand stuff back takes a lot of time, and the setup evening was pretty horrendus. When the power burps, sometimes the DVR just records the same episode and keeps going, so you have 547 minutes of Dirty Jobs and it's still recording and your DVR is at 83% full, OOPS. But when you wake up and see the little red light on at 6:02 in the morning, you know something weird is up and you just poke it.