I rarely watch broadcast TV, but my wife recently asked me to get a DVR from our cable company (Bright House). I looked up some info on their website, and it appears that they charge you $10.00/mo for a HD DVR. Since a DVR is probably something we'll want for the forseeable future, it made more sense to me to buy one vs rent one. I looked up some info on Tivo, but it appears their monthly fee of ~$12.00 is more than the cable company wants to rent a DVR.
I have an existing Core 2 Duo Windows PC with a wireless KB & Mouse hooked up to my TV that I use for web browsing, gaming, watching movies, and streaming music, so I'd like to do something that would utilize this same PC, which rules out MythTV or other Linux DVR software.
I read positive reviews of the HD Homerun network-enabled HDTV tuner, but saw that it doesn't have any analog tuning support, so does that mean I'd need an analog tuner in the PC as well if I wanted to be able to record non-HD shows? Most everything we'd want to watch is available in HD, so this isn't a huge issue. What sort of software should I be looking at in terms of scheduling and recording programs from the HD Homerun? Would Windows Media Center be the best way to go, or are there free or low cost alternatives that run on Windows and work better? Ideally, I'd like something that would record shows in a format that I could easily watch on other computers in the houe as well.
I have an existing Core 2 Duo Windows PC with a wireless KB & Mouse hooked up to my TV that I use for web browsing, gaming, watching movies, and streaming music, so I'd like to do something that would utilize this same PC, which rules out MythTV or other Linux DVR software.
I read positive reviews of the HD Homerun network-enabled HDTV tuner, but saw that it doesn't have any analog tuning support, so does that mean I'd need an analog tuner in the PC as well if I wanted to be able to record non-HD shows? Most everything we'd want to watch is available in HD, so this isn't a huge issue. What sort of software should I be looking at in terms of scheduling and recording programs from the HD Homerun? Would Windows Media Center be the best way to go, or are there free or low cost alternatives that run on Windows and work better? Ideally, I'd like something that would record shows in a format that I could easily watch on other computers in the houe as well.