re: SDG-RNE-I have never tried that
you can buy a tv tuner card that comes with a remote. Windows XP or Vista Media Edition will handle channel and DVR stuff for you I believe, but haven't tried it myself. For the more daring linux types theres an OS out there called free-vo which gets the programming info off of the internet I believe.
I've only read about it though, haven't actually tried to do it. Though a friend of mine has been using Windows Vista as a DVR for quite some time now.
