Philips HDR212 TiVo 20 Hour Digital Video Recorder
TiVo on the Cheap
Philips is going to hate me for writing this, but I have found TiVo to be useful even though I am not a subscriber to their service. I hesitated to buy this for a while becuase I thought either a small monthly charge or a large one-time payment went with the cost of the recorder. I read in the documentation that the recorder would have &quot;limited capability&quot; without the subscription to the service, but that amount of capability was really what I was looking for, so I don't plan to EVER subscribe to their service.<br />Without subscribing, I can pause live TV, do an &quot;instant replay&quot; of it, and record by time and channel. TiVo is more convenient for doing these operations than a VCR because I don't have to fool with tapes and cue them up to find the beginning of a show. Because TiVo is digital, the video quality is better than a tape. On the highest quality setting I have the same level of digital quality of my satellite dish.  The thing that I've found the most useful is that I can watch a recorded show while making a recording of another, which a VCR can't do.<br />I realize that some people like the features that come with the TiVo subscription. If people choose to pay for those things, that's their choice.  I can't use the TiVo guide to look through the listings and select by name a program to be recorded. TiVo doesn't make suggestions for me based on the shows I've previously selected, and it doesn't automatically record my favorite shows if the time changes. But I know which shows I want to record every day, and DirecTv has a good guide that I can search through to find other shows to record. When I come home in the evening, I still have good shows to spend my limited TV time on, and I still have the money that I would have spent on the service.