I don't know if such a beast exists or is affordable but I thought I could bring the question to the gear heads around here.

I am looking for something I can record high-def movies, Titans games, etc. along with burn a few to DVD. If it played DVDs (high-def, blue ray), that would be even better.

Any recommendations?

Would it need to burn HD DVDs (either bluray or HDDVD), or just standard DVDs? That's where it would get prohibitively expensive...

For cost reasons, I would have to go with a standard DVD.

a few stand alone external BluRay / HDDVD burners are coming into markets .... but they're costly ($650)

I'm disappointed in DVD-Recorders as a whole
the first one I bought 5 years ago or so had COMPONENT INPUTS
and I can only find a few with such inputs today

most only allow for input via S-Video
unless you can output HD via iLink or HDV then it really doesn't matter, the quality of the video will be degraded significantly

the best record HD programming with an HD-DVR, like Comcast's Motorola units, and attempt to offload those to an external storage device for archiving

I don't know of any standalone HD-DVR that also burns DVDs. But you should be able to get a DVR as well as a standalone DVD burner (or just use a computer for that job).

Also, burning HD content onto standard DVDs is going to be a problem. It just won't fit for something as long as a movie or football game, not unless you are compressing it (which you could do on a computer).

furthermore .......
a 4 pack of BR-R (BluRay-Recordable) is $75

i have yet to see BR-RW

Good point. I totally forgot about the HD to standard DVD thing.

Comcast has a DVR cable box but I find it unreliable and with not enough storage. I'd like to get something I can run with the HD box.

I don't know of any standalone HD-DVR that also burns DVDs. .

my bad ..... I should have said EXTERNAL BURNER

there is currently NO home theater component unit that burns HD
and there probably won't be for quite some time

the closest thing we'll see is people burning stuff from there PC's in the H.264 codec

I'd suggest looking into a way to copy the video to a computer. From there, you can store them on a bigger HD or compress them and burn them to DVD.

Technically, you could turn a computer into both the DVR and DVD burner all in one. But that may be above and beyond what you are willing to do.

....... or tolerant of ?

I'd suggest looking into a way to copy the video to a computer. From there, you can store them on a bigger HD or compress them and burn them to DVD.

Technically, you could turn a computer into both the DVR and DVD burner all in one. But that may be above and beyond what you are willing to do.
Hmmmmm...

Sounds interesting. And I may have such a computer for the job. Can you recommend any reading out there on somehow getting shows via the cable box into the computer?

Ran across this:
http://www.elgato.com/index.php?file=products_hdhomerun

Actually, the Toshiba has a computer port already though I don't know if would allow me to record with my mac.

From a Comcast DVR:

http://www.pvrblog.com/pvr/2005/01/extracting_hd_v.html
http://jpicune.wordpress.com/2006/10/13/record-shows-from-your-comcast-hd-dvr-onto-your-mac/

Sounds like the HDHomerun could work, too.

^ so did I understand that correctly as video only output via FireWire ?

I like! I'll give this a shot and report back the results. Many thanks.

^ so did I understand that correctly as video only output via FireWire ?
Got me, but I assume it's video and audio. When you connect a video camera via firewire, it's both the video and audio.

you didn't read the article did you ?

No, I just read the 2 posts I linked to. They weren't specific one way or another, so presumably it works (otherwise it would be kind of useless).

Jeff:

I suggest some research here:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/forumdisplay.php?f=26