An Antenna PVR is used for pausing and recording your favourite shows on your TV antenna.
PVR stands for personal video recorder. Sometimes they are also called a DVR which stands for digital video recorder. Their functionality is very similar to a cable or satellite PVR except that they are not compatible. So, if you have a Rogers PVR or a Bell Satellite PVR it will not work on your HD antenna because its a totally different transmission technology. Most PVR’s have an EPG or electronic program guide. They can record, pause, fast forward and rewind. You can also setup different recordings.
There are a number of different antenna PVR manufacturers on the market.
Channel Master has a number of units that they have had on the market for awhile. TIVO is big in the US and they have some units as well. HomeworX is a basic unit which is fine if you want to just pause live TV and setup recordings. The guide is very basic on it. HomeRun HD is a networked based unit that can be used to stream the HD video to a number of different streaming boxes and streaming media servers. It requires some good technical knowledge to figure out how to set it up. A couple of other network based antenna PVR units are Simple.tv and Tablo.
UPDATE: THE CHANNEL MASTER ANTENNA PVR IS NOT LONGER AVAILABLE. WE ARE WAITING TO FIND A COMPARABLE SOLUTION.
Whichever unit you decide to go with make sure you do your research. Right now there is not a good antenna PVR solution for Canada. The new channel master Stream+ does not work here. For a basic and best priced unit go with the HomeworX. We sell both units and have installed and tested both of them.