Personal video recorder Guide, Meaning , Facts, Information and Description
The personal video recorder (or PVR) is a consumer electronics device that records television shows to a hard disk in digital format.This makes the "time shifting" feature (traditionally done by a VCR) much more convenient, and also allows for "trick modes" such as pausing live TV, instant replay of interesting scenes, and skipping advertising. Most PVR recorders use the MPEG format for encoding analog video signals.
The most popular PVRs on the market are TiVo's TiVo and DNNA's ReplayTV. Many satellite and cable companies are incorporating PVR functions into their set-top box, such as with DirecTiVo, or Sky+. In this case there is no encoding necessary in the PVR, as the satellite signal is already a digitally encoded MPEG stream. The PVR simply stores the digital stream directly to disk. Having the broadcaster involved with (subsidizing) the design of the PVR, and directly recording encrypted digital streams can lead to fancy features - like the ability to use interactive TV on recorded shows, pre-loading of programmes; but can also lead to too much control by the broadcaster - like denying the ability to skip adverts and automatically expiring recordings after a time determined by the broadcaster.
Upcoming entrants into the market include products such as Digeo's Moxi, and Microsoft's Media Center.
In 2003, the Yakima, Washington Police Department began using PVRs in their patrol cars to record the activities of officers and suspects. Since then, many other police departments have followed suit, due to the increased reliability and decreased cost compared to analog video systems.
There are ways to make one's own PVR using software and hardware available for Microsoft Windows, Linux and Macintosh operating systems. There are even people working on turning the Xbox into a PVR with a modchip.
There is PVR software available for Linux and Windows for people who make their own homemade recorders.
The two main PVR applications for Linux are MythTV and Freevo both of which are GPL open source software.
El Gato makes a PVR device called EyeTV.
Microsoft Windows has several open source PVR applications including GB-PVR, OpenHTPC, and Media Center Portal
There also are several proprietary applications including SageTV, BeyondTV, ChrisTV , Showshifter and Recordit Plus
See also: Hard disk recorder
This is an Article on Personal video recorder. Page Contains Information, Facts Details or Explanation Guide About Personal video recorder PVR Software
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