I dunno how anyone ever watched TV without DVR, but time-shifted TV seems to be commonplace these days. The ability to watch what you want--when you want--is nothing short of amazing. But having a DVR in your home requires either an expensive set-top box, or a monthly cable subscription. Now, I don’t watch enough TV to justify paying for cable, and network TV just doesn’t provide enough channels to warrant a set-top box (like TiVo) that may or may not require a subscription fee as well. There are only a handful of free network shows that I watch on a regular basis. Here’s how I’ve been able to (legally) record shows in the modern age by setting up a nice DVR system using some items on the cheap....

Unbeknownst to some, the Windows 7 operating system actually contains a nice DVR program built into Windows Media Center. This program can record shows if you have a TV tuner connected to your computer. I purchased a Hauppauge 1200 Tuner Stick from Amazon which connects to my computer via USB.

Windows Media Center automatically detects the TV Tuner stick, and also downloads TV listings for my area and TV service (which is free over-the-air HDTV). From the on screen guide, I can select the show(s) I want to record. Then each week when the show comes on, my computer will begin recording at the appropriate time.

Now, if you’re okay watching your shows on your computer, or you have your computer connected to your TV screen, you can stop here. For myself, I wanted to watch my TV shows on my TV.

At first I ran long VGA and audio cables from my computer to my TV, This was okay since Windows Media Center is designed to be used from a computer connected to your living room TV (you can buy a remote to control the action). However, I’ve grown tired of having these long cables crossing the living room, so I decided to use my other “media center” software that I’ve successfully used for several years. That is, I've used the free Xbox Media Center (XBMC) running on my 10 year old original XBOX. XBMC allows you to stream audio/video files from any computer over your home network directly to your TV. The only problem here is that Windows Media Center records shows in the *.dvr-ms format, Microsoft's own proprietary format which only Windows computers can open. Enter, MCEbuddy.

MCEbuddy is a free video converter program that runs in the background on the computer. Whenever it detects the presence of a new recorded show (dvr-ms file), it begins converting that file to whatever format you specify and drops the converted file into a pre-determined folder. HDTV is 1080 lines of resolution, which the original XBOX can't handle, so I convert into a slightly downsampled XviD video format (624 lines of resolution) that plays very nice with XBMC. MCEbuddy can even detect and delete the commercials in your video! I haven’t used the commercial skip feature since it’s been hit-or-miss for me (others report good experiences). The file conversion process usually takes about 30 minutes, depending on processor speed, and then I can easily watch the show on my TV at my leisure.

Setup wasn't too bad and afterwards everything is pretty much automatic. Shows are recorded and converted on a schedule. The only real cost is the Hauppauge tv tuner which goes for about $50. As for XBMC, you could also use a separate computer connected to your TV. Overall, it’s not as refined as a TiVo, AT&T Uverse or DirecTV which lets you control all recording features directly from the TV, but using Windows Media Center is a whole lot cheaper.