Buying a DVR?

I'm looking to buy a DVR of some sort so i can finally get all the good racing when I want it. Also directv gave me a year of free movie channels just because they felt like it, apparently, so I'd love to be able to record movies to watch whenever.

I'd love to not pay full price for a box and I see plenty of tivos, DVRs, etc. on craigslist for prices varying from BO to $150. What should I be looking for? Can I just get a box be good to go, or do I have to set something up with Directv and/or pay a monthly fee to have this work? Also, which models are good, and are there any I'd want to avoid?

I built mine out of spare parts. Just make sure that the tuner Card you get is compatible with the signal comming out of your Direct TV Box (analog VS. Digital)

Myth TV works good, and Knopix has a whole release with Myth TV all set up in it. short of that, Windows home premium comes with Media Cneter built in, it works OK, I guess.

Media Portal is a windows, open source alternative to MythtV. Built from the XboxMediaCenter project.

I'm running it on a central server and three clients attached via wireless. Works great since the clients only need enough hardware to connect and display the content. With some cheap HP media center remotes it works like a TV. With my three tuner cards and some IR blasters I can control the HD converter boxes and the cable box or the satellite box.

Btw, I use Hp small form factor desktops with 1gb of ram, an ati HD3450 card, a small hard drive, DVD rom, a media center remote and a wireless card.

I have maybe $120 into them. On the two not connected to a TV, I have some older 19" LCD monitors.

The server is merely my existing desktop with 2gb of ram, xp pro, the three hauppauge tuner cards (2 standard definition and 1 HD capable card) and a pair of large drives to store content.

Standard definition recordings take up a lot of space. A two hour race is about 2.5 gb. Double that for HD. You can convert the recordings to smaller formats, just need to find the appropriate software.

+1 for MythTV

infinitely customizable

One thing to keep in mind is that what channel your TV is on, and whether or not there is a picture on screen is controlled by your cable box (If you have one)

We had this problem when my dad got mom a Tivo as a gift. Salesman assured him all would be good...

BUT if you have some third party digital recorder AFTER the cable box its no more then a digital VCR. It won't likely be able to actually control the cable box, it will get no signal other then the one being sent to the TV. This means that if you switch off the cable box when a recording is scedualed all you will record is black. If you change the channel you'll start recording the wrong program, and you cannot record one program while watching another.

If you want features besides recording what is onscreen, and being able to rewind/pause/replay while still recording you need one that is integrated with your cable box. (i.e. you need one from your cable provider)

I used a TiVo with a couple different cable companies when I had my cable on, by federal mandate these days they have to provide you with a cable card (looks like a thick credit card) if you want one. I had one of the High Def Tivos that supported them. Yes you do have to pay a fee, but user friendliness and good quality recording go a very long way. I was very very satisfied as a customer, and even purchased one for my parents and am about to give one to my sister.

MythTV is a bit of a pain to setup, the ready-made distro's make it less so.

Media Portal seems simpler and almost as infinitely customizable. Mine is setup to control my M.A.M.E. roms and PS2 emulator as well as monitor Gmail, run folding@home, I have a TV guide, DVR, Tivo, etc. I can play music, show pictures, watch DVD's and control hulu and boxee on top of the shows I've downloaded from bittorent. All in one hand held control.

If you use a Hauppauge card or an USB remote control unit (like the HP Media Center remote) have the ability to remotely control an external box using an "IR Blaster" this gets around some of those issues, but you need a separate cable box for each input you want to monitor/control. Just like Picture in Picture.

Honestly though, the only real drawback to all of this is when you're dealing with cable or satelite and you want to watch HD signals as those are all encrypted and need their own boxes to decrypt them and a handshake via the HDMI connection to display them properly.