I finally bought myself a Windows XP Media Center Edition computer. Wow! Awsome! Sure, it’s a Microsoft product and yes there are bugs and “features” you will not like. But it is really nice. Recording works great, I can sleep instead of stay up late and watch CSI:NY uncut.
The system is similar to the US/CDN sat and cable boxes you have. An EPG and you can select and record with one button.
One thing I miss: digital TV. Man, in Switzerland Digital Cable is way to expensive and my service provider is kinda lame (sorry :-))
Next is coding. There is a nice SDK out from Microsoft.