Infopackets Reader Don R. writes:

" Dear Dennis,

Continuing on with your recent discussion on video transfer to computer (and to CD): I've heard that there are ways to set up my PC to record TV shows on an automated schedule (similar to "Tivo"). I have a newer system with Windows XP and two DVD burners. Is this difficult to do? "

My response:

No, it's not difficult to do; at the minimum requirement, you would need a video capture card (or a video card with an input port), software to schedule when to record your shows, a sound card, and enough hard drive space to store the video. There are a ton of links on Google that explain how to go about doing this.

http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&q=homemade+tivo&spell=1

If you plan on archiving the shows to DVD (or onto a 650 megabyte CD-Recordable as Video CD / Super VCD), you may need a video editing utility to re-encode the video into the appropriate format. This can be done with Virtual Dub or Movie Shrink and Burn v2 (as mentioned in the feature article).