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Why are digital video recorders that record directly to a hard drive no longer available?
Question : Why are digital video recorders that record directly to a hard drive no longer available?
There used to be (like 3-4 years ago) a large selection of digital video recorders that would take your old-fashioned tv signal and put it directly onto a hard drive. After it was on the hard drive, you could watch it, transfer it to dvd or vhs tape, etc. I have, for example, a Panasonic unit (DMR-EH75V is the model #, I think) that makes it easy to program (off of tvguide.com, I think). The info goes directly to a hard drive. This unit also has dvd and vhs record/play capabilities. We originally got it to transfer our old vhs tapes to dvd’s. Anyway, I would like to get another one of these things, or something similar, but can only find things like TiVo. What happened to the ones like my Panasonic unit, where you don’t have to pay a subscription fee, etc.? Why are these no longer around? Was there some patent infringement case that gave ‘em the boot or what?
digital video recorders
Best answer:
Answer by TV guy
They were relatively expensive and since most set-top boxes include a DVR, the market (at least in the US) was rather small.
They are more popular in Europe where most people don’t have cable or satellite set-top boxes.
They are available but rare.
Part of their demise has been the requirement they have a digital tuner or no tuner, the availability of provider DVRs, the availability of cheap tunerless DVD only recorders, an dthe upturn in PC based DVRs.