By `read made systems` I assume you mean devices like Nvidia Shield, Amazon Firestick, Vero, the various Amlogic-based boxes, etc. These are basically meant to be plug-and-play so I'm not sure why you think they'd be any more complicated than building a VDR setup. I know several people who use them and I've never heard anyone complain about swapping out storage. If some device does have issues with hot-swapping usb, it's not like turning the box off, swapping the usb storage out and then turning it back on should be a problem.
One of the first problems is waiting so long to upgrade from long deprecated VCR recorders and VHS tapes. I would strongly recommend you _not_ invest any more money into such ancient and dead-end technology and instead use your resources to modernize. The cost of staying with, maintaining, repairing, replacing VCR's and VHS will far exceed the cost to modernize.
The next problem you have is restricting yourself to OTA content providers that sounds like they offer limited and patchy guide data at best. No setup will give you what isn't available. You're going to have to find some kind of alternative for guide data, or make due.
As far as recommendations, only you know what your budget is. If you simply can't afford a suitable plug-and-play device then your only choice is to go with Raspberry Pi (or similar) and get your hands dirty. The one thing I will say is a Raspberry Pi setup is going to cost more than $35 when you factor in the additional cost of a power supply, case, storage, cables, etc. (unless you already have all that). $35 gets you a Raspberry Pi mainboard, it doesn't get you everything you need to actually use it.
On Sun, Sep 27, 2020 at 4:27 PM Timothy D. Lenz tlenz@vorgon.com wrote:
My mom (82 years old) is still using a VCR with a tuner box. We are concerned about it wearing out, the tapes no longer being sold, etc.. She just spent $65 on a 9 pack of tapes from Amazon that could have gone to a new setup and she is saying she wants to get another VCR for backup. But they haven't been made in years, so it would already be used. I have a linux computer running VDR with a couple of dual ATSC dual tuner cards. But it needs to be rebuilt/reinstalled and I haven't messed with it in so long, I would have to learn it all over again and I'm not as good at figuring stuff out as I used to be and money is tight.
You can get VDR/Linux images ready to go for a Raspberry pi which cost about $35. Add a USB Tuner and a USB drive and you have a digital recorder system. And if I ever get mine rebuilt, they could be linked and share tuners and drive space. But it's complicated and time consuming to setup for me atm.
These ready made units would be simpler to get going, but a good one would cost more and be more complicated for her to use. I still have to setup timers for recording with the VCR.
I'm looking for recommendations/options/opinions. While the local over the air guide is mostly a mess, sometimes not sending out the prime time data till nearly noon of that day, we'd want to avoid having to sub to any service to keep cost down. Needs to be local recording, be able to use local guide data and when needed setup blind recordings as done on VCRs, and would be nice if you could plug and remove USB drives/sticks for longer term storing recordings. From what I've seen, these ready made systems don't really like media swapping.
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