I have a ReplayTV, which allows you to set manual record even if you don’t get the subscription service. That is, you can set it to record channel six from 7-8pm every Friday. I think they added this service because people were worried that their company would go under and their PVRs would no longer work. The model I have is the ReplayTV showstopper 30 hour. I imagine you could pick one up on eBay if that’s what you want.
Oh, I don’t know. One of my in-laws asked me to help him with some formatting on a book he was writing (a biography of his mother). He had been using a older Radio Shack pc clone, and didn’t understand even the rudimentary formatting capabilities that the word processor had.
Since he didn’t understand about headers, footers, and page numbers, the only way he could come up with to get the page number at the top of each page was to put each page in a separate file and type in the page header and page number by hand.
This got really bad when he would edit a page, and add enough text to overflow onto another page. Then he would spend a couple of hours cutting text from one page and adding to the next, or he’d insert a partial page and have to change all the page numbers from there to last page. Either option meant loading and saving up to 200 files, one at a time. (I couldn’t believe he’d gotten over 200 pages done that way.)
That’s when he came to me. We got him a half decent pc, and then I dumped all his existing files to diskette as text and imported them into Word on the new box, cleaned up the hard line and page breaks using auto-format and search and replace. Then I added a simple header with chapter names and page numbers, and gave it back to him. He was sufficiently wowed with the results (and especially with the ease of editing compared to what he had been doing) that I even got a mention in his forward. And believe me, the weight of the fame of being mentioned in a 150 copies of a privately published book is hard to bear! 
So I don’t think initech’s story is unbelievable at all. Seems pretty familiar, in fact.
Are you people descended from apes or something? Is stupidity genetic?
StinkPop, you are required to be civil in this forum. If you feel the need to insult your fellow posters, you will do so only in the BBQ Pit forum.
bibliophage
moderator GQ
Who’d want that though? This looks like one of those niche products that disappear from store shelves after a couple of months. Something like this combines the best of a PVR with the worst of a VCR.
Honestly, once you’ve started recording stuff the “TiVo Way” (by the show’s name, rather than a date and time) you’d be hard-pressed to go back. How many times have you or a friend taped your favorite show “Sunday at 10pm” only to forget that ABC moved it to Tuesdays at 8:00? Or how many times have you taped something only to have it be a re-run?
Why, yes. Yes, we are.
I don’t understand how difficult it is to look up TV listings by yourself, for free, instead of paying $13/mo. for some gizmo to do it. And how accurate are the listings, anyway? It’s not uncommon to find out that a show’s been pre-empted at the last minute. I’ll bet TiVo realized this and made their units subscription-only just to gouge their customers a little more.
This is at least the third time a moderator has threatened me with a good banning. I’m beginning to think you are all pansies.
I think this is what you’re looking for: RCA DRV7005N 40GB PVR
It’s discontinued, but you can find it on eBay. There’s also a user group on Yahoo, FWIW.
You’re still not getting it. It’s not “difficult” to use TV listings. But I just don’t have to do it anymore. If a show I like is on, I just press the “record” button on my remote and select either “Record this show” or “Record entire series”. If I select “Record entire series”, that’s it - I’m done. I never have to look at the newpaper or tvguide.com again. If the show changes nights or moves to a different network, it doesn’t matter - the DVR’s got it covered. If it’s for a show that’s on too frequently - like “Friends” or “Seinfeld” then I can tell my DVR to record only new (first-run) shows, broadcasts on this channel only, on this day only, or this time only or some combination of all of the above.
If you have a fancy DVR, like a TiVo, then you can do “advanced class” stuff - like choose “Clint Eastwood” and have your DVR tape every Client Eastwood movie and everytime he appears on Letterman or Leno. You can even rate shows and TiVo will record random stuff it thinks you’ll like.
I myself just have the Time Warner DVR - a TiVo and digital cable box all in one. It lacks the fancy features of the Tivo, but does everything else I want for $6.95 a month. Of course, I’ll be paying for it forever, but then again, I can just drive three miles to my cable company’s office and swap it out if it breaks. And because it’s from the cable company, the DVR doesn’t need an external source for the listings - it downloads them automatically for 2-3 days in advance. No phone line\ethernet\802.11 needed.
Of course, it comes with the ability to set up manual recordings, but I’ve never used this feature and doubt that I ever will. Why the heck would I want to “record channel 11 every Wednesday from 8:30” when I can just click two buttons on my remote and automatically record every “That 70’s Show”??
My point exactly.
Well, they’ve replaced it in their lineup with an HD version, although you supply your own tuner (with firewire).
Not exactly true. Certain products that run the TiVo software allow you to use 3 days of guide data, pause/rewind live TV, and set time- and channel-based recordings without a fee. Just FYI.
Dude. 
That statement belongs in the PIT! It’s fun there, you’d fit in well!
And I would also like to add that one of my former bosses wasn’t too good with computers either. Every time he received an email, he would print it, place it in a binder, and delete all of his mail. He didn’t understand the concept of a saved message. I’m not surprised at all.
Well that’s cool, if you think it’s worth $13/month. But I don’t watch much TV anyway, except for some pay-channel movies, which I have to look up on the internet anyway. And even if I did watch/record a lot of TV, I’d rather save $156 per year and do all the legwork myself.
I just think it’s ridiculous that most DVR’s require a monthly subscription to even work, that’s all.
The TV Wonder VE card has a free internet listing, but I have a video noise problem in recording.
For a TiVo to get its ‘updates’, do you need to have a phone line, or will a broadband connection work?
Broadband connection will work great, but you will need a USB->Ethernet-or-WiFi adaptor.
You do need a phone line during the initial Guided Setup. After that, you can use the broadband connection. If you don’t have a phone line, you can perform Guided Setup at someone else’s house.
There is an Undocumented Feature that allows you to use your broadband connection even during setup. You have to enter ‘,#401’ as your dialing prefix. (That’s comma-pound-4-0-1).
Well, in your case it’s likely worth it. But some of us don’t need that feature set nor have a strong incentive to want to pay for it. For example, the only recording I’ve done in the last year has been 3 hours, 2 events, and the VCR or a manual PVR would have been perfectly fine.
Besides, the idea that my appliances may be checking back with HQ behind my back does make me cast glances at the roll of aluminum foil… 