Introduction - Observations so far - Models - Real world use

Real World Use

I thought it might be helpful to document a typical couple of hours with a PVR, in our case the Technosonic PVR101, but the same applies to any twin-tuner PVR.

7.20am. You switch on the TV and scan quickly through the PVR's EPG (Electronic Programming Guide). Ooh, that comedy you like is on early afternoon, while you're at work. And you enjoy the cash in the attic programme. Pressing 'Record' on each one is enough to mark it for recording. You power off the TV and set the PVR to standby mode.

12.30pm and 2pm. The PVR comes to life each time, spins up its hard disk and records each programme for you.

6.10pm. You arrive home from work, turn on the TV and press 'Play' on the PVR. It shows you its list of programmes recorded on the hard disk, topmost of which are the two programmes from earlier today. You highlight the comedy and press 'Play' again, enjoying it while you eat your tea. The telephone goes mid-programme so you just pause the recording and then carry on after the call. You also find it really useful being able to skip ahead past the adverts with a single keypress.

8.50pm. You're watching a fascinating wildlife documentary on BBC2, live, when the doorbell goes - it's a friend who wants to chat. No problem, press 'Pause' (even though you're watching the programme 'live') and the PVR will pause the on-screen picture and start buffering up the programme (usually for up to an hour) behind the 'live' feed.

9.35pm. Your friend goes off down the pub and you settle down in your armchair again, pressing 'Play' to resume playback from the live TV buffer. Once the documentary has finished, you press 'Stop' to finish buffering and resume watching live TV.

10.10pm. What a pain. Two great films are on at the same time on different channels. But it's not a problem. You set one recording (for viewing at your leisure) and you watch the other one live.

I hope that's cleared up how a twin-tuner PVR can be used to make you master of the TV rather than the other way around. Yes, you can do some of the above with an old VCR or a DVD recorder, but not as smoothly or invisibly. I believe PVRs are the future, perhaps one day even going solid state - it certainly makes no sense at all these days to buy a Freeview receiver in the UK that doesn't have a hard disk recorder built-in.