... so over the next few days I'm going to fiddle around with using my ASUS Netbook as an I/O device with the LG flatscreen. If my mentally drawn wiring schematics are correct I should be able to not only watch online video from the networked ASUS but I should also be able to catch video from the screen's output and then record it to a DVD. Not quite a DVR, but close enough.
Man, I feel like Philo Farnsworth!