Gregory Szorc's blog

Instantly in Love With My DVR

One of the benefits of living in the Phi Kappa Theta house is that we get Adelphia digital cable piped into the house instead of the Case cable package (nothing wrong with the Case cable package, but they can't touch Adelphia's offerings). When you have 15 people with cable boxes, the cost of the digital package drops down to a very affordable price, especially considering we are receiving about 50 premium stations, the HD channels, and all the music stations. All of that is on top of the about 200 standard digital channels.

This semester, we decided to get some DVR's for people to rent. $65 for the whole semester gets me a DVR, complete with digital audio and HDMI output, as well as SATA and Firewire connections. Unfortunately, I don't have a HD television (yet), so I can't take advantage of the video output. I am hoping that the Firewire connection and my Linux desktop will play nicely. Time will tell.

Anyway, I love the luxury DVR gives me. I can record shows and watch them when I want, something that will come in handy this semester when my earliest classes begin after 2:00 PM 3 days a week. Perhaps the coolest feature is the ability to pause live TV. When watching a show live, I can hit the record button. I can then channel surf while the original show is recording in the background. When I go back to the channel I am recording, the DVR automatically resumes the show from where I last saw it. Amazing! Then there is the ability to record shows whenever they are on TV. Never again will I miss an episode of Mythbusters!

I love my DVR. I can't wait to make some real $$$ so I can buy my $10000 home theater. Until then, my audio- and videophile temptations will have to wait ;)

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