If you drop locals (losing EPG info), you are stuck recording with Manual timers. A weekly manual recording for a particular time and channel will always record that block no matter what is on. They won't change day or time beacuse of a program change. There aren't program changes when all progamming has the same title.
You may already have some OTA (sub) channel that just displays "Digital Service". Experiment with making some recordings from that and decide if the convenience of being able to just select the show from the guide, pick New episodes only, have the receiver adjust for shows moving or changing length, ... is worth the $5.
"A little more difficult" is correct, but understates the inconvenience.