[petew]

Love my Humax too. If you are going to want to save to DVD, it's worth the money.

 

[petew]

Humax DRT800 80 HR DVD Recorder + 1 year of Plus Service = $325

Or as the OP suggested by direct from Tivo fro $20 less see http://www.tivo.com/2.0.1.asp

As to value it depends on how many DVD's you plan to burn. The integrated unit makes it so easy. Simply select the recodings and insert a blank. 20 minutes later you have a disk complete with Tivo style menus and program details.

On a seperate unit recording could take up to 4+ hrs with intervention required for each show.

For example dumping 8 episodes of a 1/2 hr sitcom. Humax 20 minutes, external recorder min 4hrs plus you'll need to manually select the next show every 30 minutes.

 

[petew]

I appreciate your advice. Much like the OP, it's a hard decision as to whether to invest the extra $200 for the DVD burning unit. It is certainly appealing but since I've never had Tivo it's hard to know how much I will use it, or whether I will appreciate the DVD features for the extra money they cost.

Decisions...decisions...

Buy from Tivo with a 30 day money back guarantee. I doubt you'll want to return it.