I am sure you can all remember your first video recorder when it was introduced to your household. It was a real revelation having the ability to record programs from the television when you were not in and then watch them when it suited you.

After a while everyone took the video recorder for granted and it became an essential part of every living room although it introduced a new set of problems which typically involved trying to find enough blank tape to record your favourite program just as it was about to start, forgetting to set the video recorder to tape every episode of a series or keeping track of all of the programs you have taped across numerous unmarked tapes.

After the video recorder the next major innovation was the ability to record to DVDs rather than to tape. This gave better quality recordings and started to make it easier to find the start of a recorded program in the middle of a disk.

Whilst DVD recorders are an improvement over video recorders, they are only an evolutionary step forward.

Over the last few years a new bread of video recorders have started appearing in our shops and at last they have started to drop to a reasonable price. The new devices are typically referred to as Digital Video Recorders (DVR) or Hard-Disk Recorders and are a revolutionary step forward.
So what is so great about these new devices?

Well for starters, digital video recorders allow you to tape your programs to an internal hard-disk just like you store files on a computer. Therefore you can kiss goodbye to all of those VHS tapes / recordable DVDs lying around and the hassle of keeping track of where programs have been recorded. All of the recorded programs are stored in one place inside the digital video recorder in a single list allowing a program to be replayed at the press of a button. The smallest devices have a capacity of 40hrs with the larger devices storing over 200hrs of programs. More than enough for the squarest of eyes!

Even more exciting is the ability to pause live TV. What does this mean? Well if you are watching a program and the phone goes or you are interrupted, just hit the pause button and the program is automatically recorded. When you are ready to continue watching the program, just hit the play button and start watching again. No waiting for the program to finish. You can even catch up on the original program by fast forwarding through the adverts or some boring scenes.

Most digital video recorders are also digital TV receivers giving you access to Freeview digital TV or Digital satelite TV if you get a Sky+ device. Some of the devices have mutiple digital TV receivers allowing two programs to be taped at once ...even while watching something else you previously recorded!

The final and killer feature that not many digital video recorders have is called "Season Pass". This allows a series of TV programs such as 24, Lost or ER to be automatically recorded every week for the whole season so you will never miss a crucial episode again.

So what are you waiting on? If this sounds like the next 'must have' living room accessory take a look at what you get for your money. £150 looks about the average price but make sure you check which features are included and read any available reviews.

Happy viewing!

Labels: dvd, dvr, video recorder