None that are as simple as a single box connected to your TV. Your other commercial alternatives for that kind of thing are Tablo, SimpleTV, and Tivo. They all have some form of subscription or "lifetime" one-time payment costs that put their total costs higher than the Channel Master. At $250 (or $350-$400 once you add external storage) for lifetime cost, Channel Master is the cheapest. (See the table of total costs here:
http://www.cnet.com/products/tivo-roamio-ota/2/ )
The only down side I see to the channel master is that it is one-unit for one-tv. If you want to have the same functionality on two TVs in your house, you either have to pay for two of these things ("awww. . . I recorded that show on the living room DVR but now want to watch it in the bedroom!)) or set up something with your ATVs. Speaking of which. . .
Well funny you should ask. . .Yes!
I describe the system I use in detail here:
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1714136/
In short, my system works like this:
Antenna -->
HD Homerun Plus (connected to my router via ethernet) --> Macbook Pro running
EyeTV --> Apple TV.
The HD Homerun Plus is the (dual) tuner. Plug the co-ax from your antenna into it and it streams the OTA broadcast through your router to your Mac running Elgato's EyeTV software, which acts as your DVR. EyeTV on your mac accepts the streaming video from the HD Homerun Plus and lets you view and schedule your recordings. (and do minor editing like commercial removal if you want to). Once a recording is completed, EyeTV automatically exports it to iTunes. Once in iTunes, any Apple TV on your home network can play them via Homesharing.
Costs:
HD Homerun Plus is $130
EyeTV is $80
So the total up-front cost here is: $210.
(I assume you already have the Mac, the router, and the Apple TV(s).)
There IS a recurring cost for this: $20 per year to TV Guide, which provides the electronic programming guide information to EyeTV. (That's $1.67 per month.) The first year is free, but then add $20 per year thereafter.
So your total cost after three years would be $210 + ($0 first year + $20 second year + $20 third year) = $250.
You can lower that a bit if you buy the $90 HD Homerun instead of the $130 HD Homerun Plus, saving $40. The downside to that is the "Plus" transcodes the OTA broadcast from mpeg2 to H.264 in real time, while the regular HD Homerun does not. Apple TV / iTunes needs the recordings in H.264, so if your HD Homerun hardware doesn't do that, EyeTV has to do it using your MAc's CPU. This is fine, but it tasks your Mac's CPU heavily and it means the recording isn't available on your Apple TV until an hour or more after it was recorded (effectively meaning you can't watch it until the next day, if it was recorded near bed time). The "Plus" does the transcoding in real time, taking the load off your computer and making the exported recordings available in iTunes within 3 minutes of being recorded.
Some benefits of this system:
-Only store one set of TV show recordings on your mac, stream to as many Apple TVs as you want.
-Keep your entire TV interface through your Apple TV. Fewer TV "input switches" might help your Wife Acceptance Factor (WAF).
-You can play with AppleScripts like "ETV Comskip" to automatically filter out the commercials. . . or just fast forward through them when viewing on your ATV.
-You can set EyeTV up so that you can stream your recordings to your iPhone or iPad on your local network OR over the internet.
Some down sides:
-With so many components, there is a higher likelihood of bugs/problems than with a simple one-box-for-one-TV system like the Channelmaster or Tivo. If there's a problem, it could be due to the HD home run or network problems with your router or issues with your Mac, EyeTV, iTunes, or the Apple TV.
-Because of the above, it's likely you'll be the only one in the house who can troubleshoot the system, unless your other family members are tech-savy and have the patience for this.
At the end of the day, it is possible to get a very flexible and low cost system, but it will probably cost you some setup and troubleshooting time. If you're willing to pay a bit more for the simpler, commercial solutions, it might be worth it for you.
Personally I've been using the above-described system in some form for 3+ years. It works well. But as Apple TV adds more and more of its own "apps/channels" (like FoxNow, which lets you stream current season primetime shows, albeit with commercials) I find it's easier to use that for DVR-like functionality.
