any recommends for recording TV?

[a-10tankkiller]

On top of building a desktop I've decided to blow away more money and buy a laptop for my work, but also get a tv tuner and dvd burner in it to use as a dvr kind of unit. Can someone recommend what hardware to use for best results? Also curious, I was looking thru Hauppage and it looked like their cards or portable units all only pull in the basic 125 channels of cable/sattelite, and I would like to be able to record any of the channels, ie the digitals, High def's that aren't over air, and record the Sirius music that comes with Dish. Am I dreaming being able to do this with a computer? Would a DVR unit with a hard drive be a better option?
Thaks for any input!

[GilbertsGrape]

a friend of mine uses Sage TV

[DarkFury]

Honestly, I've done the HTPC thing as a DVR and now I own a DVR that does that function with an internal hard drive and a DVD burner attached.

The DVR is much more "polished" in performing the task and well worth the money in my opinion.

The one I have, I don't think is still available ... it is a Sony unit that I bought about 2 years ago for around $500... it has a 160GB hard drive and a DVD +R/-R/RW burner. It uses the TV Guide channel to build a programming grid for recording.

If you can find something like that today, I'm sure you'd be alot happier with the results over trying to do it with a PC.

[a-10tankkiller]

Thanks for the info. I went to a different Best Buy than I usually shop at and hit a guy who knew what he was talking about and he said same thing you did DarkFury, better off buying a DVR with hard drive.