This is not my area of expertise, so I may sound like a fool. But back in the day, when you wanted to record something on TV, you put a cassette tape in and you pressed record. You could even program the VCR to record at the exact time and channel you wanted. It was simple. It was free.
Now, you basically have TiVo, and TV provider equivalents which all charge you monthly rates to be able to record the shows you want digitally.
Yet, elsewhere on the market there are very, very few products which do the same without any call for subscriptions. In fact, the only thing I can find is a DVD recorder by Magnavox which also has an internal 500 GB HDD.
My question is why are there virtually no devices on the market where you can simply record from video-out and be able to at least manually program dates and times, and possibly be able to export or store the data on an external or thumbdrive? If this exists, I'd like to know about it.
I guess I was extremely lucky to have bought an Aiptek handycam several years ago that actually features a video in recording function. It is essentially a mini-DVR, just not the most convenient means of recording television. Yet, I see nothing else really to choose from, because I'm dead set against paying a monthly fee to be able to record stuff off TV.
Anyone here know more about this stuff than me? Maybe there is something I'm missing here?