I am going to put this here since it somewhat relates.

What is everyone using?

I will be purchasing one soon ... missing some TV shows/sports games on nights that I stay at work late is not going to cut it anymore, and I do not want a VCR.

I have not read into them much. I just want something fairly basic with a small-medium sized HD that is capable of 10+ hours at the very minimum.

Why not just use a DVR?

Like a TiVo?

How exactly does that work? The price tag seems hefty and I am unsure about the "monthly, 1, 2, or 3 year" service plan thing.

Sorry ... I was born when VCR's were still expensive.

DVD Recorders and HD Recorders are two different things, I think. I think you mean you want a HD Recorder. TiVo is what you want, or maybe a HTPC. Thats pretty much the extent of my knowledge pertaining to that though.

Something I can record TV shows onto similar to a VCR.

I assumed a DVD recorder was just a VCR replacement giving you two options: 1) record TV shows to a DVD-RW or 2) record TV shows onto a hard drive.

Hmm, I'm sure there are units that allow you to burn from the HD to DVD for archival.

I believe there are, but I will not be needing to burn copies of the shows. Just watch, and delete.

Call up your TV provider (or look on their website) and ask about their DVR (digital video recorders). It is basically a TiVo unit, set it to record your shows and it does, go in and watch then delete. I think basically all digital cable/satellite providers have them. Here it is like an extra 15$ a month charge or something like that to get one.

Yeah, DVR is what you want.

I would stay away from anything Panasonic (the DVD-R menu's are really hard to navigate). Phillips makes some really nice stuff that's pretty easy to use, but it is more pricey.

For a cheaper alternative, look into something from Sylvania. Another easy to use brand with a cheaper price tag. A few of them just have the DVD recorder, but some of them have an internal Hard Drive as well.

Yes, DVR is the way you want to go. Like said above, all you do is tell it what to record, and bam...done. The newer units boast about 100 hours of HD recording time and 500 SD recording time. You will need a HD or SD box depending on if you use HD. Typically, if you buy one for say, DirectTV it is gonna cost you close to 300 for the box. My cable company charges me 14.99 for the service and 3 for the box.

One thing that I have seen is Multi-room DVR. It is where you have one box set up to record and you can watch from any tv in the house that is connected to your Sat/Cable provider. Cool feature, not sure if it is something you would use though.