~ DVR killed the VCR ~

[tim.s]

Signed up for DVR service this Christmas. Switched to a new Motorola digital cable box with a built in two tuner DVR and 120GB drive (60 hours).

I knew that TIVO and DVR type systems were a good idea, but this is the first one I've really used and I'm very impressed. The options for recording series shows (first run and repeats) are really nice. And I'm finding the "pause and rewind live TV" feature more useful than I thought it would be.

Of course it also helps that the new digital cable box is about 2 years newer than our last one. The guide goes out out at more than two weeks (instead of two days) and browsing through the guide and menus is much faster (the old one paged reeeeeally slow). I think I'll be watching a lot more of "what I want to watch" instead of just "what's on".

Our provider also rolled out a new On Demand service recently with a whole bunch of ("free") regular programming like entertainment shows and kids shows.

Time to hit "play" and get back to the news...

[robrecht]

VCR RIP

VGA PDA w TiVo

[wuttja]

I've had a ReplayTV unit for about 2 years now and I love it. The convienence of watching what you want, when you want, and without commercials can't be beat. My favorite is watching football. I record the game, start watching it from the beginning about an hour after kickoff, and skip all commercials. I catch up to live in the 4th quarter. The best part is I have a 30 second commercial skip button that also is the same amount of time from when a play is over and then they are lined up ready to take the next snap. So if I really want to speed watch an NFL game, I can skip the 'inbetween plays' time where they stand around and line up and the sideline reporter yammers on about nothing. You can watch an entire game in an hour or less.