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Thank God for DVRs

Photo/kikiduck

Thank God for DVRs. Without this miracle of the modern era I don’t think most people with young children could watch any TV that airs prior to 10PM. We would basically miss all free entertainment!

 

I was trying to explain to my 10 year old that TiVo or DVRs were not always available and so we watched most TV live when I was a kid. She cited the VCR, but I laughed at that and reminded her that the VCRs, DVDs and DVRs, were not in existence 20 years ago. To that, she was dumb founded.

 

I just realized recently that I really would miss so much of pop culture without my DVR. I would never be able to catch Oprah; I would always miss American Idol or any show that was inappropriate for my tweenage and under kids (which is 90% of the options). For those who have not “gone there” yet and haven’t discovered the beauty of the DVR, I warn you, it’s like getting a microwave. You can never go back.

 

There is something freeing about this simple device. I watch what I want when I want to and the commercials mostly get fast forwarded. In fact, there are times when both my husband and I purposely wait for the show to be over and do other tasks while live TV plays on in order to have the luxury of what we call “Play”. It is true we will occasionally rewind something that catches our eyes, but for the most part, it’s all about skipping those commercials. Perhaps advertisers should just play 3 ten second bold message screens shots to the new DVR audience. Can’t they program that into the DVR?  With that invention, even with the fast forward option, we would still see the message and the product. Hmmm I think I am on to something here. My point is that I get to watch what I want to and I get to save myself about ½ the time in not watching commercials, brilliant!

 

So, for those of you yet to take the DVR dive, I will say I highly recommend you go for it. If you don’t want to make that investment, check out Hulu.com  for viewing TV shows on your own time. I much prefer my large TV and comfy couch while fast forwarding commercials to watching American Idol or Family Guy hunched over a laptop, but that’s just me.