New Technology TV

Many people who love TV are familiar with DVR technology. DVR (which is short for digital video recorder) technology allows its users to record TV shows and movies on an internal hard drive, so that they can then watch the programming multiple times or when it's most convenient for them. Although the technology does many of the same things that older VCR technology does, digital video recorders reflect a lot of the improvements that have taken place in television technology in general. Most of these improvements reflect the growing merger between TV technology and computer technology. For example, the fact that all of the video is recorded digitally on a hard drive means that the playback will have very close to the same quality of the initial broadcast. The fact that digital video recorders are very often used to record TV programs that are delivered in digital TV format means that the playback will have the same high quality that's associated with digital TV. If the same programming was recorded on a VCR, it would be downgraded to the analog TV format that VCR's are limited to. In that sense recording digital TV on a VCR would negate the benefits of having digital TV to begin with.

Another, perhaps more tangible, benefit of digital video recorders over VCR's is the fact that they're much easier to program to record video when their users aren't at home. While VCR's had confusing numeric interfaces, DVR's use another type of computer technology: the graphic user interface. That makes programming most DVR's as easy as simply highlighting the program that you want recorded on an interactive program guide and pressing a record button on the remote. Combine that with the fact that most DVR's can record video off of at least two channels at once and there's really no excuse for TV lovers not to be able to watch all of their favorite shows.

Now there's a new type of digital video recorder on the horizon. It's called the Network Digital Video Recorder, or nDVR for short. With an nDVR, TV shows are stored on remote server computers that are owned and run by TV networks. When the viewer wants to watch a program, he or she highlights it on the program guide and presses a play button (or something equivalent) on the remote control. Then, instead of the program being played off of the actual digital video recorder, it's streamed over a dedicated channel and right onto the viewers TV.

This set up has a number of advantages over conventional DVR technology. First of all, it's even more convenient for the viewer in the sense that, the viewer doesn't have to plan ahead in order to program his or her digital video recorder to make sure that the desired program is available- with nDVR the program is available regardless.

There are two main advantages that it supplies for the networks. First of all, if the network controls how the video is streamed onto the viewer's TV screen, it can keep the viewer from fast forwarding through commercials. The other advantage is that the network can plug in commercials that are timely for when the program is being watched rather than when the program first aired. In both cases, this defeats a lot of the complaints that many networks and their advertisers have against DVR's.

In all, nDVR's are a novel solution to several problems associated with watching TV.