Russ,

Remind me not to move into Spectrum's service area. ;-)

Are you planning on using Spectrum's service and just coming up with your own multi-room DVR? Or are you thinking about going OTA and streaming whatever else you might want? What kind of budget do you have for this little adventure? One, off the shelf, solution would be TiVo but it's not going to be inexpensive. You could probably set up some kind of home media server but depending on you do it require a bit of technical prowess.

And there's probably other solutions out there, I just don't know what they are...

I assume you know that the FCC has long since ruled on restrictions on satellite dish placement by HOAs, etc. but I can understand not wanting to make waves.

Well, already made waves... lol, the issue, to me, is really about this:

1 - What do i want my service to do?

2 - How much can I save going one way or the other?

Back "in the day" when Time Warner only offered DVR service in a room by room basis, we lived high off the hog having more than one DVR and it did not matter if one DVR had certain shows and the other did not. Since Hopper and Time Warner offered whole house, you expect that level of quality and MY idea is.... why go backwards if you have the option not to do so?

Tivo is a viable option. Comparing apples to apples, though, you have to ask how much you plan to save.

Assuming we record about 15 different shows and only one of them goes haywire and records a marathon (grr.. 'Bones') a 150 hour Tivo would be fine. So, we pay, what? Let's call it $250, for a round number, for a Tivo.

Now you own it.

You also need 2 minis, at $150 each. That is another 300. So you are at $550 for the products.

Now, you still have to get a Time Warner signal, so you really only save about $25.00 a month, the DVR fee and the software fee for the dvr.

Now you pay $15 a month for the Tivo service, so you really only save $10 a month, right?

If you tack on a 3yr extended warranty for the Tivo, you are at $600 and it would take you 60 months to make a profit and that is IF none of it breaks. If it breaks, you never really make the money back, right?

Now, you can add more TWC boxes to the other rooms to get DVR service in them, but they would not be inter-connected so, not really part of the savings.

So, we can do the Directv, and may go that route. We have discussed the FCC regulations with the HoA and while there may be some busy-body HoA members, the officers agree that "best effort" is reasonable, but in the end, my signal and service is more important than whether they complain.

Tons of things to think about.. heh

R

If you have smart tvs, you could try something like a Hauppauge

WinTV-DCR-3250. This uses a cable-card, will record three channels simultaneously; then you could stream to your smart tvs.