FTA and PVR
I have a RCA DRC 7005 that is a standalone and it has all features of TIVO and I have used it with Fortec Ultra and Dish Network with no problems. There is no satellite guide but it does have a guide for regular antenna or cable TV.
I just bought a ILO DVD recorder at Walmart for $159 and it works better than my PVR. It uses +R and +RW dvd blanks. It will rerecord on a RW disc 1000 times. Even at EP setting (4 hours) I can put 2 two hour movies on it and the quality is still very good, very near dvd quality. This might be an alternative to PVR. And the price is right. The DVD recorder is actually a Lite-On 5005, I believe.
MrM