Digital Home Thoughts: C|NET: Why My Cable DVR Stinks

“While I love how the DVR changed my life--letting me watch my favorite shows whenever I want and fast-forward through commercials--I was in love with it only when it worked. Because when it didn't work, I wanted to throw the whole thing out my window. In a rush to give consumers more features, cable operators, satellite providers and phone companies are asking device makers to pack more complex capabilities into each box. Today, set-top boxes resemble a home PC more than they do a simple channel-changing cable box designed to do only three things: turn on, turn off, tune channels. Inevitably, these increasingly complicated devices are less reliable and harder to use than their predecessors.”

I have the HD version of the box described in this article, and I have been mostly happy with it. A few times it has failed to record shows for me, for what appears to be no clear reason other than spite. I also have a media PC that I use fro watching DVDs and downloaded content. I appreciate the ease of use of my Time Warner box, but I prefer the freedom to manipulate the content with my media PC. I would love to take shows I’ve recorded and transfer them to my PSP and watch them on the subway. Does anyone know of an HDTV solution for recording shows on a PC off of cable or satellite? I’m about ready to ditch Time Warner for Dish anyway, because my cable reception is awful and they don’t seem to care.