How Does Adelphia DVR Work?

History

The digital video recorder (DVR) is a technology that burst onto the home video market with the advent of TiVO in the late 1990s. A DVR will take the audio and video signal from whatever television program you are watching and record it to a hard disk drive, giving you the option of re-watching it later, recording a program you won't be home for or pausing a program (even live ones) for continuing later on.

The Basics

Adelphia DVR receives the audio and video information from your television signal via a TV tuner built directly into the device. The coaxial cable that carries your cable television signal plugs directly into the DVR, which then plugs into your television. The DVR records anything you are watching, as well as anything you tell it to. During the recording process, the Adelphia DVR converts the signal to an MPEG 2 file format, which makes it optimal for saving space on the hard drive as well as for burning to an optional DVD recorder or outputting to your computer.

Dual Tuners

Depending on your model of Adelphia DVR, your device may have two tuners built into it. This allows you to watch a show as normal and also record a show on a different channel that is on at the same with no interruption in either process. This is essentially the same concept as a regular Adelphia DVR, only with the television signal split between the two tuners when necessary. Two-tuner models also have the ability to be hooked up to two television sets at the same time, though if the user chooses this they would only be able to record what they are watching or a program while they are not home, not two programs at the same time.