One Great Advantage of Cable or Satellite—The DVR

A DVR is a Digital Video Recorder, available for both cable subscribers and satellite TV.  It operates in the same manner as a VHS tape but with many more features and according to an entirely different technology.  For starters, the DVR system is not a tape recorder but a glorified hard drive that can record content on memory.  Right away, that means you don’t have to hassle with blank tapes or worry about having the VCR on the right channel.  The DVR system simply records a program by name and saves it to hard drive.  You don’t have an unlimited amount of space, but you have much more available space than just six hours of programming.  You can also watch programs multiple times and erase them at will freeing up more recording space.

Gone are the days when you had to specially program your VCR to start and stop recording at a certain time.  Although this feature is still available, it’s far easier to just point and click at the programs you want to tape on the cable or satellite TV guide.  You can even search for the type of program you want to watch and record, filtering programs by name, actor or director name.  One of the most amazing features of the DVR system is that you can pause or rewind live TV.  This happens because you are constantly taping what you are watching.  Therefore, if you pause the feature you can still pick up at the same point as where you left off. 

What are the advantages of using a DVR system?  First of all, the image quality is far superior to what you’ve been accustomed to seeing on your VCR, and all the more so if you order an HD DVR system.  Some DVRs offer the ability to archive and transfer content onto to CD roms or CD-RWs.  Others have the ability to quickly locate a show, jump to a certain scene, or even record an entire season of one show.  If you are always missing an episode of The Simpsons or WWE Monday Night Raw now you can chill, because you can program your DVR to record every episode as it is broadcast. 

Another popular feature of DVR is connectivity with the Internet.  You can access your DVR player from any location by using a high-speed Internet connection and programming it from the web.  This means that even if you forget to tape the all important program (like Bob Saget’s Surviving Suburbia, perhaps?) right before your vacation that you can access your DVR from a laptop.  Don’t forget that in addition to the DVR system, cable and satellite TV also offer on-demand features, which operate similarly to a DVR, in that you can pause and rewind these program as they play “live” on your TV. 

If you are interested in upgrading to “TV 2.0” then by all means call your local satellite or cable provider and ask for a subscription with a DVR system.  This special hard drive-based recording system is available with all major providers and for a low monthly fee.