Recording cable channels

rk911 wrote:

wgriswold wrote:
I have a Motorola recorder that records to an internal hard disk. I believe that it is the only one on the market. All the rest come from a signal provider or Tivo. It is available only at Walmart for about $200. One must disable all automatic functions of the clock because when it expects to get a signal from PBS, that they no longer send, it crashes.

It works very well and has a QAM tuner and finds all my non encrypted cable channels; at this point that is all of them. I suspect that it will not work for me in fall because Charter is switching to all digital and also encrypting all the channels. They told me that the feds required them to encrypt the signals but I think the real reason is to make me rent a DVR from them.

- can you please provide make and model number?
- can you schedule recordings?
- can you record from one channel and watch another simultaneously?

First of all, it is a Magnavox. I shouldn't rely on my memory. Model MDR515H/F7 and is about two years old.

I can schedule recordings, seemingly endlessly. I have never exceeded its capacity to schedule recordings. The hard drive is huge and I have never come close to filling it up.

The cable terminates in a splitter and the TV is on one output and the recorder is on the other. So they can operate independently of one another. The recorder connects to the TV with an HDMI cable. When recording I watch the TV so I am not sure if I could use the recorder to watch a different program. I don't think so but am not at all sure. There is no reason to do that. The picture is a little better using the TV to choose channels so that is my preference.

It can play DVD's and copy the recorded programs to DVD's. It also has editing functions I have never used.

As I said, it may become an expensive door stop in the Fall when Charter encrypts its signal.