DVR from cable company or buy one?

Your going to want to stick with your cables box. Basically tivo is good for over the air hd recording, other wise the ends don't justify the means if you are just using it to record cable.

Have you heard of "Cable Cards"? Some TV's have Cable Card slots. Instead of a box - the CATV company gives you a card which plugs into the TV and the coax. This takes the place of a external box. Generally there is no monthly rental fee, but they may have to send someone out to hook it up and activate it so there might be a charge. So ask about cable card when you look at a new TV. The HD version of a Tivo box has cable-card slots so this would let you buy a $300 HD Tivo box to use with the cable card so you have DVR features as well. Dont buy off of eBay as these units are probably stolen and are not compatible with your local CATV system. The cable box's are usually different for each cable system so you cannot simply plug one from another company into your cable. This is part of the piracy protection.

If you have a VCR without the cable box.You can hook up the cable to the back of the VCR antenna in and out of the VCR to the TV.You should be able to record any cable channel.Some cable and satellite company's run promotions for free DVR's.But not all company's do this so you end up having to pay a monthly fee for the DVR.I'm pretty sure that the cable and satellite company's have a control over DVR's

I have a HD DVR box from comcast and i hate it.....its laggy, and sloppy. It sucks. Im switching to DISH for this specific reason(comcasts cable boxes suck)