For The Record

For The Record is an advanced software application that gives you the possibility to set up an automatic scheduler to record your favorite TV shows using a multitude a rules. It can run as a service for multiple clients and lets you play recordings as soon as they're saved on the disk.

During the installation procedure you can select the role of the machine for For The Record: both a server and a client, a standalone server, or a client. Alternatively, you can opt for custom mode to handpick the exact components you want to install while excluding the rest: server core services, web access and IM service (enables communication via Windows Live Messenger), recorder, tuner, and GUI clients.

In the following step, you can pick a user name and password to remotely access the For The Record service, configure the core services with default or custom settings, install the web server using the internal web server, existing Microsoft IIS or website files only, or enable web access user authentication.

After setting up all the necessary details, you can bring up the management console to review the TV guide and find out the exact shows you want to record. As previously mentioned, this is done with the help of an intricate rule-based system which permits you to capture the exact content you want while eliminating unnecessary data.

For example, you can indicate a pre- and post-record time, choose the preferred TV guide, change the default server for For The Record, configure an email server (SMTP), limit the free and minimum free disk space, set up a delay time for waking up the server before an event, automatically create thumbnails for all television recordings, or modify the default text encoding mode.

The application used low CPU and low-to-moderate RAM during our evaluation. It didn't hang, crash or display error messages. On the other hand, it hasn't been updated for a long time and its advanced options are not that intuitive for less experienced users. Nevertheless, you can test For The Record for yourself, since it's free.