While many PAY PER View presentations can be paused or even backed up and fast forwarded, the free stuff has lots of commercials and just plain fillers, so that recording it for playback editing is not easily done.

Not sure how's that related to this thread's subject.

Are you talking about using the ROKU to provide a signal to a computer so you can record programs?
Note that an HDMI input on your computer is needed for that, and I think most HDMI connectors on a computer are output only.

I hate commercials myself and haven't had to watch one since I got DirecTV with built-in TIVO about 20 years ago.
Now I have cut the proverbial (satellite) cord for YouTube TV (for less than half the cost of my DirecTV bill), which allows me to record unlimited over-the-air broadcasts to the cloud, that you can then fast-forward through the commercials when you watch the recorded program.
If you want to watch as soon as possible, such as for sports, waiting about 15 minutes for each hour of program before you start watching is usually enough to go through all the commercials by the end of the live program.
(Note It can be confusing that YouTube TV is a completely separate service from YouTube, with different Apps.)

 

Search for the service manual to see what amplifier it uses and see if you can tap off the headphone socket..

I have considered that, but based on the task of opening the set to gain access to any of the circuitry, I have hesitated to do that. Just opening the case is a serious undertaking because of the way it is assembled. The sets I have taken apart previously were not working and so there was much less need to avoid causing any damage to sny of the hundreds of connections.