If you are like most people, you love watching television. Whether it’s a children’s show, your soap operas, a prime time comedy or drama or even a sporting event – we log a lot of time watching the television each year. Fortunately HDTV has come along to help improve our viewing pleasure. But what happens if the doorbell rings? What happens if the phone rings? Maybe a spouse has come home with groceries and wants your help to unload the car. With regular television, you would end up missing your program. But with the advent of HDTV DVR, you will not miss a second of the action.
DVR is an acronym that stands for Digital Video Recorder. This device records programs much the same as VCR’s used to do. Except where the VCR uses tape, the DVR records the programs digitally to a hard drive inside the device. The biggest difference between the VCR and the DVR is that with the DVR you can pause the program and then un-pause and resume playing the live program. The DVR does this by buffering the satellite signal. This is helpful in case you are watching the football game and need to go away from the T.V. for a minute or two and have not been recording the program. When you return to watching, you just need to press “Play” and the live program will resume from where you paused. For those of us sports watchers or those who like to watch On-Demand (”Pay Per View”) movies, this feature is nothing short of awesome! The HDTV DVR is an HDTV receiver that has been designed to work with the High Definition Television (HDTV) format that has been adopted in the United States.
You might not see any additional benefits beyond the ones listed above but there are some that many people do not readily see. The HDTV DVR allows you to record programs well in advance so that if you are going on vacation, you can record all of your favorite programs. The feature can also record two programs at the same time. The kicker here is that you can record both and watch a previously recorded program all at the same time (something your VCR could not do). The menu for the recording functions, is also very easy to follow so that even if you are a technophobe or someone who is not technologically inclined, it will be a snap to record. Some of the television services (FIOS TV for example) also allow you to record on one HDTV DVR and then watch it on another HDTV DVR in the same house.
Perhaps the biggest advantage of having a DVR is the ability to get back your time. What would take someone 60 minutes to watch a regular length show, will only take about 35-40 minutes to watch on a HDTV DVR. This is due to the ability to fast forward through commercials in seconds. You get back your time twice though as you are able to do something else when the program is first broadcast and when you sit down to watch the show it takes less time to watch it. Many people who have an HDTV DVR organize family TV nights and then simply watch all of their favorite shows they recorded in the previous week in one night. This is perfect for today’s busy family in that it allows them to pursue their outside interests, but brings them all together for a night of entertainment.
DirecTV, Dish Network and FIOS TV offer HDTV DVR’s that also act as the HDTV receiver. This means you do not need a separate box to receive the television signal coming into your house. Most people though, opt to purchase their own HDTV DVR so that they can still access previously recorded shows if they change television service providers.
Either way you go, you cannot go wrong by purchasing an HDTV DVR. Your life will change for the better and once you have one, you will wonder what you ever did without it.
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