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TV Time Shifters

Digital video recorders gained fame with TiVo. New competitors range from rented boxes to Media Center PCs--and our TV addict tried them all.

Lincoln Spector

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Dell Dimension XPS Gen 5 With Windows Media Center

DVR rating: Fair to Poor

Inclusion of Windows XP Media Center Edition turns a PC into an all-purpose home entertainment system with, among other things, the functions of a DVR. Media Center computers usually come with a remote control, as well.

To judge how satisfactorily they work as DVRs, I looked at a Dell Dimension XPS Gen 5. This state-of-the-art PC has a dual-core 3.2-GHz Pentium Extreme Edition 840 CPU; a fast DVD±RW drive; 1GB of RAM; two 250GB hard disks; a large, eye-popping wide-screen LCD; and an equally eye-popping $3999 price tag. (You can get lesser Media Center PCs for under $500.)

For all its power, I found the Gen 5 a clumsy device to put between a TV signal and a television. I had major problems both in receiving a cable signal (this unit handles only standard TV) and in sending it to the set. I eventually solved these issues, after many hours of hard work and significant help from Dell tech support.

TV and PC technologies just don't merge well. Some people may get them going without trouble, but you can't yet count on being that lucky.

Microsoft's user interface is clean and easy to use, and has plenty of nice features. The keyword search, however, looks only in program titles.

Bottom Line: As good as this high-end multimedia system is as a computer, difficulties in getting PC and TV technologies to cooperate make it a dubious choice as a DVR.

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