HDTV Over-The-Air Recording
Dear Gary:
Why is it so difficult to find an option for recording HDTV over the air? I live in a rural area and don’t have cable and don’t particularly want a dish, but do have an OTA HD tuner and would like the option of recording certain programs in high-definition. The only obvious option is a TiVo®, which I’ve been reluctant to purchase due to the monthly fees on top of the box fee; I’m just not sure it’s worth it. Are there options out there that I’m not aware of? Am I a niche unto myself that the marketplace just doesn’t care about?
Stuart Feldstein, Bondurant, Iowa
mailto:s-feldstein-8@alumni.uchicago.edu
Managing Editor Danny Richelieu Comments:
You are in a niche, but there is still a market out there, and, thus, limited products available. LG and Samsung have a few devices that they have released over the years that have an internal hard drive and OTA tuner built in, as well as devices with a DVD writer built in as well. And, there is always the option of buying (or building your own) Home Theatre PC with a built-in OTA HD tuner. If you already have a PC, it is a fairly simple (and inexpensive, as long as you have the correct version of Windows) process for converting it into an OTA DVR. As for set-top boxes, you can go with the TiVo now, but there should be other TiVo-like devices coming out over the next six to eight months that may or may not have monthly subscription fees (Digeo’s Moxi box is the first that comes to mind).
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