Originally posted by: rbV5
For $50 to $60, you are looking at a software card like the popular leadtek cards, and I've seen Lifeview cards recommended here. You could almost swing a hardware card, but would likely have to rely on freeware software, and maybe even refurbished or used hardware.
You might get away with the software shipped with the software cards, MythTV in Linux or a number of Windows based programs. For hardware cards, GB-PVR or similar for the freeware route, and SageTV or BeyondTV come to mind (BTV also supports some software based cards IIRC) MCE 2005 for an OS/PVR frontend combo.
Is there anything that automatically edits out commercials?
I use DVR-MSToolbox which does a great job with logo'd MCE recordings, so I'm sure there is something for the non-MCE community based on similar tech.