Satellite TV and Digital Video Recorders: DVR Or PVR

Why you need a Personal Video Recorder (PVR) with your satellite TV

The analog sattelite TV, cable TV and terrestrial TV signals that we have watched and loved for the last few decades will soon be switched off and if you want to continue watching TV when that happens then you will need to upgrade your system to digital. Your old VCR will still give you limited service but if you want to take advantage of all the features offered by the new digital TV services then you will want to upgrade to a digital video recorder (DVR) or a Personal Video Recorder (PVR)

Right now you might be watching digital TV from satellite or cable and also have a tried and trusted analog terrestrial TV system to allow you to watch more than one channel at a time. Unfortunately you won't be able to do this when the analog transmissions are turned off.

What will a PVR or DVR do for you?
Here are just some of the amazing things that can be done with a PVR and your old VCR could have performed only one of them. Use them with your digital satellite TV systems and they can be awesome features.

Time Shift viewing
Shifting the time at which you watch your favourite programs by recording a digital TV program and replaying it later. This is one of the few things that an analog VCR does well.

Tagging a series of digital programs
Some PVR services like the Sky+ digital satellite TV in the UK offer a feature to mark a series of programs and record them when they are transmitted rather than have to enter the information into the recorder for each episode. No longer do you need to remember when they are broadcast any more, just let your faithful PVR do all the work for you. For this feature to be available there must be an electronic program guide available, which means that not all services will support it.

Make your own digital TV channel
You can set your PVR to record many programs from many different channels and then watch these recordings back to back as if it were your own personal digital TV channel. You can even start watching your new channel while your PVR is still recording.

Record a whole series of one program
Capturing a whole series of your favourite program and then watching the whole lot in a mammoth session is so simple for a PVR. You can also then burn the whole lot to a DVD if your PVR has a DVD recorder, and keep it on your shelf.