DVR's??

[TheGreatSatan]

I have questions about DVR's. I have an old 19 inch TV in my room right now and want to use my 24 inch HP w2408 instead. It's a computer monitor, but has an HDMI input. Can I just buy any DVR and use it with my Charter service? Are DVR's cable boxes too or do I need one of them too? Is a TIVO a cable box too?

I wish I could just get a box with a remote that has Coax in and HDMI out. That would be perfect

[slaveofconvention]

There are a massive range of functions in DVRs - some have tuners for regular air tv, some have cable or satellite tuners, and some have no tuners at all, and just record whatever is being sent to the composite input. I have no clue regarding the charter service but I just set up a DVR for a customer - an Archos 9" unit with a DVR base and that has an IR emitter so it can be set up to change the channel on his satellite box - the Archos doesn't have any tuner at all, just a standard composite or RGB video input and it records whatever is being sent up that cable.

Windows media centre might be a better option if you need more flexibility - a fairly basic pc with XP MCE, Vista HP or Ultimate, or almost any version of Windows 7 - then you can put whatever tuners you want in there, up to the limit allowed by the operating system. You can get analog tuners, digital, cable cards, satellite cards, and to a degree, you can mix n match between them too.

TIVO I'm not sure about either, but a friend of mine who had TIVO didn't have any other box, so I can only assume it was a cable box AND dvr, but don't quote me on that