About Digital Video Recorders
Digital video recorders are revolutionizing the way in which millions of people watch television, by giving them unfettered control over when and how they view their favorite programs.
Unlike videocassette recorders that record programs on videotape, a digital video recorder, or DVR, uses a computer hard drive as its means of storage. As a result, digital video recorders offer more recording time and superior image quality, as well as other important benefits.
A number of personal computers now are equipped with built-in digital video recorders. The technology also has been embraced by security firms that use closed-circuit television systems.
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Significance
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Digital video recorders have become extremely popular with television viewers. More than 28 million homes, or 25 percent of TV households, now use digital video recorders, compared to only 3 percent of TV households that were using them in 2004. It is estimated that 52 million homes will have a DVR by the end of 2014.
A recent survey of DVR owners in the United States, Great Britain, Italy and Australia found that respondents ranked digital video recorders as their second-favorite electronic gadget, trailing only cell phones.
History
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The concept behind digital video recorders originated in 1985, and Honeywell Inc. obtained a patent for the device in 1988. The first two digital video recorders, ReplayTV and TiVo, were introduced in 1999 at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. Although ReplayTV garnered early critical praise, TiVo has gone on to achieve far greater commercial success.
Today, several manufacturers have different types of digital video recorders on the market, with prices ranging from $140 to $500. Cable and satellite providers also rent DVRs to their customers for a monthly fee of $15 or less.
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Function
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Digital video recorders store digital TV signals onto a hard drive. DVRs with two tuners, which are the most widely used today, enable people to record two programs at the same time. Since digital video recorders use hard drives as their storage media, there is no need to keep track of videotapes used by the previous generation of videocassette recorders. Newer DVRs can also record high-definition programs with no loss of image quality--another advantage over videocassette recorders.
Benefits
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Besides their image quality and extended recording capability, the biggest benefit associated with digital video recorders is the degree of the control they give television viewers. Two commonly cited examples are the ability of DVR users to pause and resume live television and to skip or fast-forward through commercials.
Effects
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Perhaps the single largest effect of the rise of the digital video recorder is that viewers are watching markedly fewer television commercials. Studies have shown that DVR users skip between 50 and 80 percent of the commercials in the programs that they record.
There are concerns that this trend could negatively impact advertisers, who spend up to $70 billion annually buying TV airtime for their commercials. But a study conducted by researchers at Boston University has found that ads with brand information placed in the center of the screen can still effectively influence consumers, despite being seen for only a fraction of second with no accompanying audio.
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Resources
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