| The new HDTV technology is amazing, and has vastly | | | | the same time while you watch a third. |
| improved the appearance of our favorite TV shows | | | | The easiest way to get an HD-DVR is by leasing one |
| and movies. But, there is still one small problem: much | | | | from your cable company, for about $6-$10 a month. |
| of the stuff that's on TV is still awful! A stupid sit-com | | | | Most people who do this, though, complain about the |
| will insult your intelligence in high-def just as easily as it | | | | small amount of storage (8-10 hours of HD content) |
| will in standard def, if not more. This is where DVRs | | | | and the user-unfriendliness of the typical hardware |
| come in. | | | | they get. The best solution to this problem right now is |
| A DVR is a digital video recorder, and is also known | | | | the TiVo Series 3 HD-DVR, which costs about $600 |
| as a personal video recorder, or PVR. Its basic | | | | but is vastly superior to the typical cable company |
| function is the same as an old VCR, to record content | | | | boxes in transmission quality, storage, and ease of use. |
| from broadcast TV. But the DVR is much more than a | | | | The positive effects of using a DVR are huge. They |
| VCR. Rather than a glorified tape recorder, it is a | | | | can easily be programmed to record shows of |
| machine that can cut the fat from your media diet and | | | | interest, even if you aren't aware that they exist: for |
| add hours of free time to your busy week, a few | | | | example, the TiVo can be set to record any movie, on |
| minutes at a time, by making the TV watching | | | | any channel, that has John Wayne in it. No more |
| experience more efficient. And the DVR is always | | | | mindless channel-surfing. And of course, the DVR can |
| recording what you are watching, so you'll be able to | | | | be used to skip over commercials, which can eliminate |
| pause a live broadcast as if it were a recording, then | | | | several hours of wasted time per week. |
| come back to it later without missing a thing. | | | | This effect is so significant that 70 percent of TV |
| Regular DVRs have been around since about 1999, | | | | advertisers, in a recent survey, said that DVR |
| but in the past few years they have had to be | | | | proliferation will "reduce or destroy" the effectiveness |
| modified to handle high-def content. A modern | | | | of 30 second spots. And about a quarter of |
| HD-DVR (High-Definition DVR) has a hard drive bigger | | | | advertisers said they would respond by reducing the |
| than the one in your desktop computer and uses it to | | | | amount of money spent on TV ads and focusing their |
| store up to 35 hours of HD content, or 300 hours of | | | | energy elsewhere. With a Blu-Ray DVD player and an |
| standard content. And the new HD-DVRs have | | | | HD-DVR connected to your HDTV, you can finally |
| improved in other areas, too. The TiVo Series 3, for | | | | fight the good fight against the tyranny of mindless TV |
| example, can upscale standard definition content to | | | | ads. |
| give it better quality, and can record two channels at | | | | |