DVR

One-day one-deal site Woot has refurbished TiVo HD units on sale for $179.99 plus an impossibly fair 5 bucks for shipping. What's more, you can get the first three months of service free by entering coupon code 3FREEHD when you activate the TiVo.

After that, it'll cost you $16.95 $12.95 per month, which is the one and only reason the Cheapskate has never taken the TiVo plunge. No, I'm more of a Windows Media Center man, what with the free program guide and all. But I've poked, prodded, and tested the TiVo HD, … Read more

If you've been shopping for an HDTV tuner for your PC, run, don't walk, to Woot.com. (Okay, you can't actually run there, but you can click speedily.) The one-deal-per-day site has the Pinnacle PCTV HD Pro Stick for $39.99 plus $5 shipping. It's a refurb, but so what? It's a USB device, not a fancy piece of electronics.

The HD Pro Stick lets you watch standard-def or over-the-air HD channels on your Windows PC (sorry, Mac users). It comes with an antenna, wireless remote, and DVR software. It's also compatible with Windows … Read more

I'm no fan of Windows Vista, but I absolutely love Windows Media Center (which comes baked into most versions of the operating system). It turns your PC into a full-fledged DVR, one that supports multiple TV tuners, requires no TiVo-like subscription fees, and pairs very nicely with HDTVs.

Hewlett-Packard has a pretty killer deal on the Pavilion Slimline s3300t, a compact but feature-packed media center with a surprise inside: a Blu-ray/HD DVD combo drive. That's right: for $749.99, less than the price of a hybrid high-def DVD player, you can get an entire media center PC.… Read more

Forget those all-in-one car media systems. The automotive convergence device of the future may be the rear-view mirror.

We've already seen versions equipped with built-in Webcams, back-up cameras, GPS tracking, and even heart monitors. And now there's one that comes with a DVR.

The "Camera Recorder Pro" isn't made for drivers who want to catch up on previous episodes of Lost while behind the wheel (we hope). Quite the contrary, it's meant as a safety device to document events at the scene of a fender-bender, according to Gizmodo.

There are plenty of other technologies … Read more

Anytime the format war between HD DVD and Blu-ray is discussed on the Internet, there's always a commenter that chimes in to say that digital downloads are going to beat them both. While we've seen some successful products using the digital distribution model, such as Vudu, we've always been skeptical about true high-def digital distribution taking off in the near future, mostly because high-bandwidth Internet access just isn't cheap enough.

Instead of waiting for cheap, super-fast internet connections, XStreamHD is looking to an older technology to provide the extra bandwidth--a satellite dish. The XStreamHD system consists … Read more

If you think everybody has cable or satellite, you couldn't be more wrong. In fact, if you live in an area that's well-served by digital broadcasters, now's a better time than ever to get your TV over the air (or "OTA," as the cool kids say): yeah, you get only a handful of channels, but they're in crystal-clear digital quality--DVD quality at "worst," uncompressed high-definition at best. The problem--as we're reminded by many an e-mailer--is that there just isn't a good DVR solution for the rabbit-ears crowd, especially if you prefer high-def. (You can opt for a TiVo HD, but you'd still have to pay a monthly fee for their programming guide.) But that may finally be changing, thanks to the EchoStar TR-50. For all intents and purposes, the TR-50 takes many of the features found on Dish Networks' excellent satellite DVRs (such as the ViP622 and 722) and brings them to antenna-based TV viewers. … Read more

Looks like Archos has finally let the cat out of the bag on their first set-top DVR, the Archos TV+. Offered in 80GB ($249) and 250GB ($349) versions, the Archos TV+ looks to do about everything the Apple TV failed to deliver, including: an onscreen recording guide; 640x480 video recording quality; a QWERTY remote control; an infrared emitter for controlling your cable box or TV; a built-in Wi-Fi and Ethernet that can be used for on-demand video downloads from CinemaNow; a fully-functional Opera web browser with Flash video support (YouTube, DailyMotion, CNET TV, etc.); optional Flash video game downloads; and it even includes cables (gasp!).… Read more