said by AmericanMan:Anybody know of ones that are completely offline? Ones that let you record from any source (not even necessarily including HDMI, Component would be good enough quality, since I know all of the issues with HDCP) and watch it either on the device or, as an added bonus, any device within the Local Area Network.
We have an old DVD-DVR that I've considered dusting off. It records to either rewriteable or write-once DVDs. It served us well many years ago, and the DVDs that it records are not DRM'ed, so they can be easily ripped. I believe it only has SVideo and Composite Cables for input, and there's no network connectivity.
I've got a bunch gathering dust at home. I still use one to put shows on disc for my GF. But I can also transfer the content from a TiVo to my PC and burn to DVD or BD too. But either way the standalone DVD players are crap. In the early 2000's ,when I first started using them, they were a good option to carry content to my GFs house. But I wouldn't use them for my person use. I would burn to BD for my personal use or what is easier is just putting my content on a hard drive for viewing from a media player.