Life with PVR: One less reason to leave the couch

Written 15 January 2005

After months of lusting after one, we've finally acquired a Rogers PVR (personal video recorder). Basically a digital VCR, a PVR essentially does two things:

1. Automatically records whatever you happen to be watching, thereby allowing you to pause or rewind “live” programming at any time.

2. Records selected programs, storing them on the device hard disk for later viewing. You can record up to two programs at once and can choose between one-time or all episodes of a program. While recording, you can watch something else (live or recorded).

Sounds cool, eh? Well, this is what we think of it so far.

Digital cable

Since you can't get this service from Rogers without also getting digital cable, I'm going to start by talking about that. (Satellite companies also offer PVRs, but we've never tried those.)

What digital cable adds to conventional cable is:

• Improved picture and sound. I can't say I noticed a huge difference — the sound is not as good as a DTS DVD, for example — but it is noticeably better than the “analog” cable picture we get through the VCR.
• Online programming guide. Now, this is really is great. Whenever you change channels, it tells you what's on. So if you switch to a channel, and a commercial is playing, you can still find out what show is on. For more information about a particular program, you press the Info button for a synopsis. You can also pull up the full guide grid at any time and search around for what else is on, while your current program appears in a corner of the screen.
• Yet more channels. Hundreds of channels. It's quite absurd, really. But, some are actually worthwhile. The time-shifting ones gives you networks in other time zones, allowing you to, for example, watch Rick Mercer's Report an hour early and Da Vinci's Inquest two hours later, if that's more convenient (or if you've missed the earlier broadcast). And a few of the specialty channels are interesting; notably, The Documentary Channel (many world premieres of interesting movies), The Independent Film Channel (films often not seen elsewhere), BBC Canada (best of British drama) , and the pure fun of MuchMoreMusicRetro (nothing but classic music videos, commercial-free).

Given that it doesn't really cost us more than regular cable, there isn't any reason for us not to have digital cable.

PVR: The good

There are certain aspects to PVR that really are as wonderful as I expected.

Easy to record. I've had my VCR for years, I record a lot of things—but I still mess it up about 10% of the time, cause it's just too bloody hard to program. On PVR, I navigate to the program I want on the interactive guide, press the Record button on my remote, and either accept the default or customize the options (like end time or how long to save it). Done! I haven't made a mistake with it yet.

No tapes to deal with. Used to drive me crazy trying to remember what shows were recorded on what tapes. Now, I press List on the remote and get the full list of all recorded programs waiting to be viewed.

No missing favourite shows. The shows that play too late, like The Daily Show with Jon Stewart? Shows that move around to different times and days with little warning, like the new Medium? Shows that are pre-empted for weeks, so you have to try to remember to watch them two months later? None of these things are a problem any more. Once you've set the PVR to record all episodes of a program on a particular, it will do so—even if the day/time changes, even if the show is not on for weeks, even if it suddenly switches from being a half-hour show to being a one-hour prime-time special. I don't have to find and remember this stuff—the PVR does it all for me.

One remote—almost. The one remote controls the TV, digital box, sound system, and VCR. The only other remote we still need is for the DVD player.

Watch when convenient. For you, is 9:00 a better time to watch TV than 8:00? I know it is for me. Now, fortunately, regardless of when a show is broadcast, I can always watch it when it's convenient for me.

Fast-forwarding commercials. We rarely watch live TV anymore, so fast-forwarding commercials is becoming a way of life. I realize this could become an economic issue, in that commercials are what is supposed to fund what I enjoy watching. But in the meantime, I don't miss them much. (I still stop on the occasional one that looks interesting...)

Pause and rewind on demand. Missed that last line? Need to pee right now? Yes, it's often nice to be able to rewind a bit or to pause and attend to more important matters.

PVR: The bad

Of course, nothing's perfect, particularly with a relatively new technology like this.

Time overrides don't always work. PVR depends on the interactive digital guide for its information. If the guide says that The Sopranos is exactly 60 minutes long, that's how long it will record—even though, in fact, episodes are often more like 70 minutes long. You're supposed to be able to override this, and tell the PVR to record a bit more at the end. But that doesn't work, or doesn't work very consistently, especially with programs set to “record all.” So, we often miss the ending of irregular length programs or programs that start and end a bit late (like Alias).

Cutting out at the end of a recording. You can watch programs as they're being recorded, and while doing so, you can rewind, pause, or fast-forward as needed. That's all great. The only problem is that if you're watching an earlier part of the program when the recording ends, it just cuts out on you completely, and switches to live TV. It's completely disconcerting, and slightly annoying, as you then have to select the show again and fast-forward to where you were in order to see the rest of it.

Watching more TV. Jean, strangely, finds he watches less TV, because if nothing of interest appears on the list, he goes to do something else. Me, I find I'm watching more—somehow, there's always something on my list. Since I no longer have to choose between shows or drop those that play at a bad time, it's all there. I'm realizing this isn't a good thing, but am still working on the best solution for it.

PVR: The ugly

PVR is basically a computer. And like all computers, it has some bugs. Problems we've encountered so far include:

• Sound persistently cutting out after changing channels or fast-forwarding.
• Detecting recording conflicts (trying to record three programs at once) where none exist. After fighting with it on this point one day, it somehow ended up recording 22 hours of the Documentary Channel, completely filling up its memory.
• Arbitrarily not recording a program that was scheduled to record. (I've actually only noticed this once. And we found and taped the show on another channel in a different time zone instead.)

Our solution to first two problems will be familiar to anyone who owns a computer: We unplug the PVR for a while, then restart it. At that point, the sound/time conflict problem goes away.... at least for a while.

So despite these early-adopter bugs (and, no doubt, a price that will look ridiculously high in a couple of years), and the risk of becoming overweight couch potatoes, we wouldn't give up our PVR. But we are thinking of putting a treadmill in front of the TV.