Satellite TV

The invention of color TV opened new dimensions for the electronic media. Lots of enhancement in this context were made and are still being made to provide the people more and more quality information and entertainment with ease. As the time passed life became busier people started thinking that its hard to watch a live show at that particular time, so there would have been some way that we can catch that show later and VCRs came in action. BUT everything that has its benefits has its drawbacks and VCRs have lots of them like quality loss after 3 or 4 recordings, limited hour recording, waiting for The recording completion to watch your favorite show, etc.

Imagine a device that relieves you from all these headaches and provides a far better quality service, yes there is one, the Digital Video Recorder (DVR).

DVR WorkingA digital video recorder (DVR) records the programs from antenna, cable or satellite digitally on a hard disc (like one in PCs).
Basically a DVR consists of

• Hard disk
• Mpeg2-encoder
• Mpeg2-decoder
• Tuner

All the components are integrated on a board and the module enclosed in a nice looking box that looks descent in your entertainment arrangements. The back of the contains connectors which connect the device to the outer world. In fact cable, antenna or satellite are connected to a built in tuner that receives the analogue signal and sends to the mpeg2-encoder which converts the analogue signal to digital signal to be saved on the hard disk but at the same time the signal is also send to the mpeg2-decoder which converts the digital signal back to analogue to be send to the television.

DVR Software and DVR TypesHardware is nothing without software so a DVR is driven by an operating system just like one is your home PC contains. The operating system resides on the hard disk. Different types of DVRs have different types of installation. In the market there are three major types
TiVo, Replay TV, UtimalteTV. TiVo DVR is driven by LINUX. The most important aspect of a DVR is its playback feature. You want to watch your favorite show from 20 minutes earlier, just rewind the recording and watch without any effect on the usual recording that is the recording still continues.
There are also many hardware-software combinations and standalones available in
the market that are considered DVR
alternatives. These DVR alternatives  somehow provide more control to
the user instead of the manufacturer. Some names in this innovation are
IPTV,
MeedioTV, MythTV etc.
DVR ToolsEach type of a DVR provides the user with the tools, which help him or her in recording. Search tools are common in all types such as in TiVo a tool named wish-list tells the machine to search a particular named program like always keep an eye on the movie stars by Mel Gibson. Similarly tool name season-passes can be used to tell the machine that always record that movie or always record your favorite show name “CSI”.

Recording TimeDVRs can give you recording from 30 hours to 320 hours depending upon the standards and types available in the market. A device that can give you 30-320 hour recording, provided with automatic recording tools and most importantly playback features what else you can even think.