What is a DVR?
Technology
advances everyday and as consumer’s we are able to take
advantage of these advancements. It of course may take money
before we can completely upgrade a piece of our equipment, but
just knowing the technology exists can be enough. Digital video
recorders are a piece of technology that has sprung up in recent
years. What is a DVR (digital video recorder)? Well it is a
piece of equipment that allows you to record television shows,
but it doesn’t stop there.
DVR is
technology that allows us to record video images without the use
of the VHS tapes most of us have grown up with. Instead DVR
actually records to a hard drive. The hard drives of different
models of DVR vary in memory. The less expensive versions will
not have as much memory as the more advanced versions. You can
also save this information to a disk, much like the DVD
recorders on our computers.
There are two
manufacturers DVR and TiVo, but the both work in pretty much the
same way. You set the digital video recorder to record a show
while you are away making sure to set the satellite TV to the
correct channel and then when you get home you can play back the
show you missed while you avoid the commercials. You can also
set the DVR to record a show while you are watching another
show. This is something you have not been able to do with a VHS
recorder. You have to have a dual tuner DVR model in order for
this to happen.
Dish DVR or
DirecTV DVR can come equipped with this dual tuner so you can
still watch your satellite TV without missing other programs.
Often there are programs on the same night that you wish to
watch and have had to choose between one or the other in hopes
that it will be replayed at some point. Now you don’t have to
worry about that if you have the right equipment.
Some models of
digital video recorders allow you to cut the commercials from
the programs you are watching. You can essentially fast forward
through the commercials even while you are watching the program
on the satellite. They used to have satellites equipped with a
block so you didn’t have to see the commercials and now they
have returned to that idea with the DVR.
The great
thing about how a DVR works is that you can purchase one with
your satellite equipment or at a later date in order to record
the programs you don’t want to miss. Instead of having several
tapes lying around you will either have DVD discs or you can
simply save to the hard drive. Digital video recorders make
watching TV easier when you miss a program and it doesn’t take a
genius to set it up to record. Technology will continue to
advance so who knows what they will come out with next to make
TV watching even better.
|
