Hi everyone...pretty much a audio/video newbie so please have patience!....My father in-law has an old Hughes/Tivo DVR/cable box from DirectTV sitting the garage that he isn't using anymore and I thought I would take it and extract the hard disk from it at least maybe to use in my PC. Then I thought about whether I could use it with my current TV, just as a digital recorder, even though I get a direct basic cable feed direct into my TV. Wanted to know whether i could stick this DVr in the middle and still get the basic DVR function out of it een though it was intende to be used with another cable service. Further from that, maybe give it a network connection so i can stream audio/video back and fourth from my PC? Have seen a few articles on creating your own DVR with great software etc. but nothing really on taking an existing box and altering it to make good use, so any advice, links or suggestions would be appreciated. I realise i dont have the specific model numbers for the hardware to give for more specific answers, but general responses to enthuse me will gladly be accepted!...thanks for reading my post!