Has anyone figured out how to store on demand and PPV programs to an external storage device? I know there has to be a way to do this. Please note, I'm not super techy on ackronims but can keep up if explained. Any help?

You won't have much luck doing that. The best you could do would be to buy something like the Hauppauge HD PVR (http://www.hauppauge.com/site/products/data_hdpvr.html) which will allow you to record the component output (at a slight loss in quality) to a PC.