There were also some DVR's that were hard drive only (very similar to TiVo) that included modems for downloading program guides, but that did not require the phone line to operate if you were willing to manually set up timers. Panasonic made a line called the Showstopper (a few relevent links here , here , here , and here ) that used the same OS as the units made by ReplayTV, who both developed the OS and built some hardware of their own (links here , here , here , here , and here ). Neither are still in production today, but there appears to be a community of owners and fairly active used market. According to this EFF page , ReplayTV was forced out due to legal pressure (we're not supposed to be able to skip those lovely commercials). ReplayTV has apparently refocused on PC software (see their current site for more on that).