AT&T is beginning something called U-verse in the area. This is a fiber optic system where they plan to compete with cable. I talked to a girl who has the feed and if what she told me is correct their DVR's do not have a hard drive. It's like you have a storage space some where. One of her boxes broke and I mentioned it was a pain when that happens because you lose all your recorded content on the hard drive. She began to tell me she didn't lose anything and the box didn't contain the hard drive, she could even tell her box what to record from any computer with internet access. This system sounds pretty interesting. I wonder what, if anything, they use for copy protection. When I had my cable box I could record my stuff onto DVD but it wouldn't allow HD recording. I didn't get into recording with her. I wish I had thought of it at the time. My satelite boxes have no provision to copy HD content either. It would be interesting to see what extent you could use the Blu-ray burner in that Sony combo.