Is there a simple and cheap ie 3-4k harddrive TV recorder available here?
3 to 4K you may get one without harddrive, from unknown Patito brand. The cheapest I’ve seen is Phillips for like 8. There is Lite On, on that price range, but I definetively won’t recommend it.
I have a Panasonic, by the way.
I’m with Icon on this one, don’t get a super cheap one, it’ll have a terrible user interface and it won’t have good connectivity options. Lite On are generally horrible to use despite being cheap to buy. Are you just looking for a simple thing, or you going to get a DVD/HDD all-in-one thingie?
You can get a TiVo here but the’re going for about 10k and only comes with an 80GB hard drive, the 160GB version is close to 13k and I think there’s a service fee as well.
Cheers guys.
I’m basically looking for something simple(not DVD/HD) that can record stuff from TV when I’m too tired to stay up. Probably won’t get that much use but occasionally there are reruns of the Sopranos and new stuff that is interesting.
Icon - how much was your panasonic?
Get a TV-tuner card for your computer, that’s the cheapest way 
Mine was like 15 thousand, but waaayyy back. Now they are much cheaper. It’s got big hard disk, which is great for just watching something without disk/time limitations, like the Olympics Opening Ceremony. 
Plus, it’s all in English.
I saw some models in COSTCO that were reasonably priced. There was a Phillips for like 5 thousand, that I’ll like to give to my family to copy stuff for me. I bought my uncle a Lite On, but it is really not that trustworthy nor easy to use. Pity, because they have a cool Hard Disk model with many useful functions and a lot cheaper.
I like the models you can use to show picture CDs. My Panasonic can even handle SD cards directly. I think a hard disk model would be more suitable for you. I normally check the TV schedule once a week, and set the recordings based on that. It has proven very helpful so I don’t stay awake too late watching unimportant stuff.