Burn TV on DVD

Program Guides: A Tale of Two On-Screen Program Guides

A snazzy living-room DVD recorder won't be of much use if you can't find the programs you want to record or play back. Many recorders integrate TV listing services to simplify finding and recording shows, but some do it better than others.

The most common electronic program guide is Gemstar's TV Guide On Screen. This free service doesn't require Internet access; instead, listings are transmitted within the TV signal, decoded by the recorder, and paid for by ads (which I found maddeningly distracting) that line the left third of the screen. The service doesn't work with satellite boxes.

The Toshiba, Panasonic, and Pioneer models I reviewed support TV Guide On Screen. The service's main competitor, TiVo ($13 per month, or $299 for the lifetime of the unit), comes with the Humax recorder. (A new subscription-based guide from Microsoft should be available in some recorders by the time you read this.)

In my tests, I much preferred TiVo to TV Guide On Screen: The TiVo interface is a lot slicker, and the program grid feels less cluttered, even though it displays more programs.

Though TV Guide On Screen lets you initiate or schedule a recording from within its program guide, TiVo's advanced features (such as its ability to automatically record only new episodes of a series, or to record all programs starring a particular actor) make getting the shows you want much easier. TiVo also allows you to schedule recordings online, a feat that only the expensive Toshiba RD-XS54 could match (when connected to a home network via ethernet). Unlike TV Guide On Screen, TiVo also supports satellite TV connections.