Digital television contains audio/visual signals that are broadcast over the air in a digital rather than analog format. Recording digital TV is generally a straightforward capture of the binary MPEG-2 data being received. No expensive hardware is required to quintile and compresses the signal as the television newscaster has already done this in the studio. The Myth TV DVR supports both international DVB signals and American ATSC signals while the TiVo Series 3 supports only the ATSC signals. In the U.S., the FCC attempted to place a roadblock before digital DVRs with its "Broadcast flag" regulation. Digital video recorders, which had not won prior approval from the FCC for implementing “effective” digital rights management, would have been banned from interstate commerce as of July 2005. The regulation was struck down on May 6, 2005.

DVD-based Pars available on the market as of 2006 are not capable of capturing the full range of the visual signal available with high definition television (HDTV). This is largely because HDTV standards were finalized at a later time than the standards for DVDs. However, DVD-based Pars can still be used with HDTV since currently available HDTV sets also have standard A/V connections.