DVR to DVD?

Dear Rob:

You ask a truly popular question, for which there are still very few easy answers. Unfortunately, it shouldn’t be a surprise to you that cable providers are not interested in making it easy to liberate the show that you first recorded on your DVR. However, there is a way to do it, depending on what kind of DVR box you have and, by extension, which outputs are activated on that box. In other words, just because there’s a USB port on your DVR doesn’t mean the DVR manufacturer made it a working USB port. Don’t ask.

Anyway, first you need a DVD player that records. (While it can be done, it’s still far too complicated to connect your PC to your DVR and record your shows that way.)

Then, hook your DVD player to the DVR using component cable (red, white and yellow) or S-Video cable, depending on which inputs your DVD and DVR players have in common. Those kinds of cable are easily found at Radio Shack.

Attach your DVD player to your DVR using those cables. Next, attach your DVD player to your TV, also using the same kind of cable, depending on what your TV and DVD have in common (composite, S-video, etc.).

Finally, after you make sure the cables are connected properly, turn on your TV, start your DVR’s playback (the same thing you’d do to watch a recorded show), and then hit "record" on your DVD player. You’ll be recording your favorite shows. Then you can erase the shows from your DVR.

One of the best summaries of the process I’ve seen is here:

http://dvr.about.com/od/howtos/ht/htDVRtoDVD.htm

I hope that helps.