Third Party DVR to use with Time Warner Cable??

[DarkDubzs]

Im helping my parents find a new company to get for TV and Internet. Its probably one of the most stressful things ive done. Its really fucking annoying too, with all the hidden charges, DVR fees, and other little bullshit charges. Sorry, im just really pissed right now and my nerves are frayed. TWC is on top of our list right now, its the cheapest and best right now in comparison with the others in our area. So, with TWC for $90 we can get 15Mbps internet and Preferred TV with "200+ Channels" which is the only package that has the channels my parents want. Sounds great, right, only $90 for all that! Yay! Right where my parents can afford too, in their very small budget right now (not much income coming in). Okay, so now i go to checkout to see what they will charge me extra... im expecting like $5 or something for DVR or some shit, but no... 25 FUCKING DOLLARS a month extra for "HD-DVR" and thats only for one DVR too, its $11.25 a month for more receivers. Now its like fucking $120 a month, which my parents cannot afford unfortunately. If i could find a job soon i could help with some bills, like this rip-off.
My parents say DVR is a must have along with the few channels they really want for it to be even worth to get cable, so im devising yet another money saving plan in my little head. Im thinking we can just buy a third-party DVR and add it to the cable setup here. Ive looked into it, and it seems we would need a Cable Card from TWC, which we can get for only $2.50 a month which is FAR better than $25 a month for a shiny plastic box with a 500Gb HDD. So is this posssible? Can we just buy a couple of third party DVRs for $100 each and somehow use them to just record shows when we schedule them to? We dont care for On-Demand shows, but they do want the ability to rewind and pause TV... would this be possible somehow with a third party DVR or any other way that avoids TWC's insane monthly DVR charge?
Please help me with this issue. Any help at all to my goal is very much greatly appreciated. Thank you in advance.

TWC's extra charges:

Link:http://i.imgur.com/P88ww87.jpg

 

[timta2]

I use Windows 7 as my DVR with Windows Media Center and a HDHomeRun OTA (Over The Air Broadcast) tuner. It works great. You can buy devices that will allow you to use a CableCard to do the same thing.

There's an initial investment, but it really pays for itself over time.

http://www.silicondust.com/products/hdhomerun/prime/
http://cetoncorp.com

 

[Deleted member 88227]

+1 for the SiliconDust Homerun PRIME w/ CableCARD. Then build a cheap box (or use an old existing one) to attach to the TV and connect it to the network. Done.

I paid $500 for my HTPC, plus the SD HR PRIME and I had three of those babies on my network for a total of 9 possible tuners. I watched TV on my laptop, desktop and main TV through the HTPC.