I'm giving some thought into our upcoming move. We're actually trying to think of ways to minimize our monthly expenses without sacrificing anything and the first thought that comes to mind is cable. Of course we've grown to love DVR and we are amazingly addicted to it so I'm not sure we could give it and digital cable up just to save a few dollars but I came across another option which I've been secretly wanting for a couple years now... a PC based DVR system.Apparently I can purchase a PC TV tuner on eBay for about $70, a download for BTV or BeyondTV for about $60, and a VGA to S-Video-TV out converter off of eBay for $5 which will run directly to the TV. With this setup I can work a personal DVR from my computer for an upfront cost of $135 plus an extra optional $20 PC remote control. Doing this I can effectively drop from Cox Digital Cable to standard cable and save about $20 per month in Cox bills and break even on this investment in a mere eight months. In the mean time I can enjoy the benefits of the setup as well such as expanded DVR space, DVD backup of shows I'd like to keep, compression of shows to podcast to my Zune/iPod, compression of shows or movies to archive on my PC. Really the possibilities are limitless. I can even network the drive to other PCs and watch live or recorded TV on my laptop in bed, at my desk, in the laundy room, or out at the pool! Crazy!
Anyway, I'm really just lusting at this point and will have to look into my PC's abilities before I commit to this but I am pretty sure I can do this. So exciting! I'll have to update later when I look into this a bit more.
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