In the new world of television, things are really getting personal.
Thanks to cable Digital Video Recorders (DVRs), your TV is truly yours. Millions of people have ‘em, love ‘em and can’t seem to live without ‘em. That’s because cable DVRs do a sensational job of taking today’s vast reservoir of television and and turning it into something tailor-made just for you. First, the DVR is built into your set-top box. No additional box required! Then, a few clicks of the remote and your DVR will quickly be full of the shows you love, captured automatically and ready when you’re ready. Plus, with a cable DVR you get the added bonus of being able to pause, rewind and fast-forward when you say so. And that’s not all: You can even pause live television to take a phone call, grab a bite or do pretty much whatever you want. Now that’s getting personal.
And here’s why. A few touches of a few buttons and just about anything you want is digitally recorded and stored inside your DVR at your command. Once it’s nestled inside, your TV show is just that: your TV show. You can watch it whenever you like, with newfound levels of control. If you missed a key moment of dialogue because your neighbor in Apartment 201 was polishing his heavy-metal chord progressions, your DVR lets you tap a button to replay the scene at will (after you politely ask him to turn down the amplifier). If you need to excuse yourself for a refreshment break just before the bad guy gets his deserved comeuppance, simply hit the “pause” button and, like magic, your show halts itself in mid-air. If you can’t bear to watch the go-ahead touchdown by your archrival team from the game earlier this afternoon, guess what? You can blissfully ignore the thing by fast-forwarding right through it. That’ll show ‘em.
To say the digital video recorder has changed television is to revel in understatement. If you’ve ever been hemmed in a corner at a party by a DVR devotee who painstakingly recited the entire contents of his DVR to you, you’ve witnessed the astonishing grip on the human psyche that these seemingly innocent devices seem to possess. Soap-opera buffs love DVRs. So do sports fans. Movie aficionados. Even self-professed TV snobs (you know, the people that claim to watch only PBS) adore their DVRs.
And for good reason. DVRs do a lot of things, but their main contribution to the quality of life is that they offer new levels of convenience and control to TV lovers. And thanks to America’s cable companies, DVRs are now storming the nation: More people with DVRs obtained them from their cable company than any other source. That’s because cable makes it easy to integrate DVRs into your Digital Cable service. One call is all it takes to start getting personal with your TV.