Still, while I can’t imagine not having one myself, having had some version of a PC-based DVR for well over 10 years (never owned a standalone or rented a cable company one and hope never to have to), I can see why not everyone’s jumping on board.

Aside from the startup and monthly costs (or complexity if you go the HTPC route), a lot of people simply like the idea of watching their favorite shows when they’re being broadcast, as it gives their evenings a sense of regularity that timeshifting doesn’t.

It also imposes a certain sort of discipline to one’s TV watching–you’re in, you watch your shows, and you’re out–that DVRs do not, as, in my experience at least, they tend to get you to watch a lot more TV than you’d otherwise (hey, gotta record that nature show about penguins that’s on at 5am!)

Plus, many people like to channel surf, which you can’t do with a DVR.

Finally, a lot of people are just too lazy to set up DVRs, or simply haven’t heard of them.

Thing is, they’re going away eventually, as TV moves to an IP-based platform that will make the idea of a DVR obsolete and weird–who “records” web sites, which are always available? If you can’t catch the initial broadcast of a show, it’ll be there for later viewing on-demand, having been “taped” for you in the “cloud”. Which, of course, means that you won’t be able to FF through ads anymore, like you can’t with streaming video today. And, even worse, ads will be micro-customized for each viewer or household, a la Google ads and Doubleclick. It’s going to get really, really weird.

Also, there’s a LOT of good TV out there, and a LOT of garbage.  My DVR allows to to be pickier, as I don’t have to watch whatever is on at the moment when I do have time to catch up on a few shows.  I’ve cut out so many shows in lieu of better ones, which absolutely has made watching TV more enjoyable.  And the search feature is the best.  If I hear about a show, I don’t have to remember what the show time is, I just need to remember the title, or something close to it.

And don’t get me started about watching football.  Sure, watching live is nice at times, but with the whole Score- Commercial- Kickoff- Commercial thing that they do, I can watch 3 games in the time I could have watched 2 games.  Even less if it’s a blow out. 

I could never go back to watching live TV primarily again.

Also, there’s a LOT of good TV out there, and a LOT of garbage.  My DVR allows to to be pickier, as I don’t have to watch whatever is on at the moment when I do have time to catch up on a few shows.  I’ve cut out so many shows in lieu of better ones, which absolutely has made watching TV more enjoyable.  And the search feature is the best.  If I hear about a show, I don’t have to remember what the show time is, I just need to remember the title, or something close to it.

And don’t get me started about watching football.  Sure, watching live is nice at times, but with the whole Score- Commercial- Kickoff- Commercial thing that they do, I can watch 3 games in the time I could have watched 2 games.  Even less if it’s a blow out. 

I could never go back to watching live TV primarily again.