I have a Sony DVD/VCR recorder that needs a converter from my cable co.which costs $10. a month to rent. Does anyone know of anything I could purchase and what it is called, to make it work. It says it requires an "external tuner for live tv recording."

If you want to record what's on cable, you'll need a cable TV tuner somewhere in the system. In the past, for unscrambled channels, most VCR's included a built-in tuner. But for scrambled channels (HBO, etc.) you needed an external tuner/descrambler, and then the recorder would record from the Line-in video and audio inputs rather than the RF cable or antenna input. These days, it's a bit more complicated still. VCR's and DVD recorders typically have analog tuners, but yours says it requires an external tuner, so you'll need a cable box just to pick up the analog cable stations. You can purchase these over the net for not a lot of money. HOWEVER, there are two new things that cable companies are doing... some (many in some places) of their non-premium channels are being sent digitally on the cable using what's called "clear QAM". This means that to receive these channels, you must have a digital cable tuner to translate the digital signals into an analog signal that your DVD/VCR recorder can handler. The second thing is that cable companies are sending some or all of their premium channels digitally too, but they are encrypted so that a "clear QAM" tuner is not enough to be able to receive them. In this case, you need a tuner with a CableCard slot, into which you put a CableCard from the cable company, and plug it into that slot. I think they usually rent these cards for about $5/month. That card has the necessary authentication logic to permit the decrypting of the premium channel. As a side note: The most recent TiVo units have duo clear QAM and CableCard capable tuners in them. So this is an option if you don't want to pay the cable company much money per month (I don't blame you). TiVo isn't cheap, though... ~$700 for the recorder plus a lifetime subscription to their guide service.

Thanks, Zenmonk, helpful answer. I am not mentally equipped for equipment!!! I thought I would need one of those new converter boxes that everyone is talking about because it doesn't say it has a built in tuner in the vcr/dvd box. Thanks again.