Just a point or two from first principles (I'm U.K. based) Only digital transmissions, whether they are land or satellite based give programme timing information as far as I am aware. The tricks you are talking about will require a digital tuner of some kind, thus a digital tuning facility in the equipment you acquire will be essential. Over here the current trend is to use equipment with two tuners so you can record two channels simultaneously (and replay a previously made recording as well). Equipment to do this with digital satellite broadcasts has been avaiable for a year or two and it is just now becoming available for terrestrial digital transmissions as these start to take over from our analogue services. Of course the permutations and combinations of such systems are endless and more advances will no doubt be made available to us all as it suits the manufacturers to maximise their profit from each new product. I am sure things will have develped further in the U.S.A.
P.P.