A friend of mine has TiVo working with his normal (old) Sky box. TiVo came with an IR sender that would switch the external tuner device (Sky / Cable / whatever) to the correct channel before recording from the video-in connector. If you can find a TiVo / substitute solution that can also control the external cable / satellite system then will save you changing the tapes in the VCR. MythTV is great - but not simple to setup. Microsoft XP MediaEdition is pretty cool - but probably means messing around with your current machine / reinstalling. A great (free) PVR is MediaPortal that has all the features of MCE but works with a larger range of capture devices / tuners (Windows). A capture card that will also receive FreeView will set you back £50-70, depending on spec - try and get one with onboard MPEG encoding if you have a low power PC so that its not swamped trying to do the compression (usually slightly more expensive though). Watch out on eBay -- some people have been flogging CDs of this FREE software! Matt *I recommend checking compatabilities of any hardware / software before making purchases - MediaPortal is community developed and is tested on the kit folks have access to.