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PERSONAL P ERSONAL VIDEO RECORDER VIDEO R ECORDER INTRODUCTION INTRODUCTION
The personal video recorder (PVR), also called digital video recorder (DVR) or digital personal video recorder, is a consumer electronics device that records television shows to a hard disk in digital format. The first disk recording of television was tested on July 8th, 1965, when CBS explored the possibilities of instant freeze-frame and rewind for sporting event broadcasts. Ampex released the first commercial hard disk video recorder in 1967. The HS-100 recorded analog video onto a digital hard disk and could store a maximum of 30 seconds. The two earliest consumer PVRs, ReplayTV and TiVo, were launched at the 1999 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. Ironically, although ReplayTV won the "Best of Show" award in the video category, it was Tivo that went on to much greater commercial success. The devices have steadily developed complementary abilities, such as recording onto DVDs, commercial skip, sharing of recordings over the Internet, and programming and remote control facilities using PDAs, networked PCs, or web browsers. This makes the "time shifting" feature (traditionally done by a VCR) much more convenient, and also allows for "trick modes" such as pausing live TV, instant replay of interesting scenes, and skipping advertising. Most PVR recorders use the SEPTEMBER
MPEG format for encoding analog video signals. The most popular PVRs on the market in the United States are the TiVo and DNNA's ReplayTV, although most home electronics manufacturers now offer models. In the UK Sky Plus dominates the digital satellite market, though TiVO have a small presence; Thomson, Fusion, Pace and Humax also supply digital terrestrial (DTT) PVRs. Many satellite and cable companies are incorporating PVR functions into their set-top box, such as with DirecTiVo, Motorola 6xxx from Comcast, Moxi Media Center by Digeo (available through Charter, Adelphia, Sunflower, Bend Broadband, and soon Comcast and other cable companies), or Sky Plus. In this case there is no encoding necessary in the PVR, as the satellite signal is already a digitally encoded MPEG stream. The PVR simply stores the digital stream directly to disk. Having the broadcaster involved with (subsidizing) the design of the PVR, and directly recording encrypted digital streams can lead to fancy features - like the ability to use interactive TV on recorded shows, pre-loading of programs; but can also lead to too much control by the broadcaster like denying the ability to skip adverts and automatically expiring recordings after a time determined by the broadcaster.
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The Highly Circulated Satellite Magazine
2010