For recording TV shows, a stand alone is a no brainer.... Easier to use, and you don't have to worry about any of your CPU hardware.... Only limitation is you can't really author menus... To me that's no big deal....
The most ideal way would be to have a capture card that could encode MPEG video on the fly. The cheaper cards only encode AVi, and that takes up to much space.... The Mpeg encoders are more expensive, but will require much less Re-Encoding and save you time.....
You would need some sort of Capture card in your cpu as well as a dvd burner drive. I think Dazzle is making some sort of Capture system... Once you capture the Sat, or cable on your HD, depending on what kind of capture card you have, you may have to re-encode your product before burning to...