DVR with powerful tuner for on air signals

A Tivo would be a great choice but not the cheapest by any means. Another option would be the CM7400(check it's sticky thread at the top of your page). It goes for $399 and has no further fees(unless you go for the upgraded guide). It's more like a VCR than a Tivo unless you opt to pay the $50/year for a upgraded guide service. I believe the Tivo is $100(or less) and requires a monthly fee or you can opt for the $100 box and lifetime service(what I have with my Tivo) which I believe runs $500 for a total of $600.
I believe the Tivo and CM are comparable for OTA reception, both being good.
If you want the conveyance of one click recording and a very reliable guide and unit, I'd go the Tivo route. If you want to save some money and don't mind VCR type programming(or paying the $50/year guide) and can live with the growing pains that owning a new piece of equipment can entail, the CM may be an option. Not really too much available unless you want to build your own DVR with a PC and related equipment.

Adding to jjeff's comments regarding using a TiVo for OTA. The internal HDD of the Premier can be replaced with a 1TB drive (I believe you can use a larger drive if desired). Alternatively, WD sells an external 1TB TiVo expansion drive that plugs into the eSATA port on the back. I am OTA, only and have had my TiVo for over three years. I bought a WD expander at the same time I bought the TiVo and it has run 24x7 for 3 years without an issue -- the secret to the expansion drives is keeping them well ventilated so they run cool.

In addition, you will be networking the TiVo so it can get its guide over the Internet. No OTA transmissions are copy-protected so you can transfer anything you record on the TiVo over the network to a PC for unlimited storage. The files can be transferred back to the TiVo at a later date for viewing -or- you can edit them and archive to a HDD farm for streaming playback with a network media player -or- you can transcode them to load to your portable player/phone -or- edit and burn to optical disk for permanent transportable storage.

A good standalone unit with 320GB HDD is the Magnavox MDR513H. It's std def but very good quality on an antenna. Click "HDD DVDRs" in my sig. for lots more info.

I used the Premiere for a full year to fulfill my contract. I have line-of-sight to the TV towers about 25 miles away, except for there being a line of tall pine trees about 100 feet from my outdoor antenna which can not be avoided. Reception was fine when the weather was calm, but as soon as a breeze or wind (this is west Texas) started moving the pine trees the signal meter would start constantly moving and finally signal would be lost.
There is a great deal of discussion over on the Tivo Community about the Premier being poorly adapted to handle multi-path reception and I wish I had known that before agreeing to the one year contract.
I went back to using Netflix for most of my entertainment except when I am rarely able to watch live TV.

Do you have Windows Media Center on that laptop? If so, just get a USB or Network tuner and give it it a try. May not be what you want to do long term but should give you a taste of whether a computer would satisfy you.

If you don't care about HD, you can use the Magnavox, but the TViX 6620 and CM 7400 will let you record in HD. The tuner in the CM 7400 isn't very good, though, so the TViX 6620 is probably the better choice.

I'm not sure how you can control the content to keep it at 720p, but the MDR533H is $209 at Walmart. Taxed but free shipping. You can upconvert the output to a fixed 720p but internally it is stored at 480i. And it burns DVD+-r/rw also. Like the man said, it's not HD and no guide.

The MDR535H is 500GB. That's 100 hours at the HQ setting.