It was the early 1980's, and although I cannot be sure exactly what year it was, I remember well my first experience with an amazing new device called the VCR.
What a cool idea! We were quite excited to have the ability to record TV shows and watch them whenever we wanted. I was a big fan of David Letterman's show and it was quite revolutionary at that time to have the ability to record it while I slept for later viewing. Being on so late limited my opportunities to watch the show and still be awake the next morning to go to work!
Fast forward a couple of decades. Talk about some cool video technology. My DVD recorder makes the old VCR look like a Victrola! In fact, the VCR I owned most recently now sits idle and unused in a corner of my basement.
My DVD recorder has a lot of neat features, but since I use mine as a replacement for the old VCR, I really don't use a lot of them, like the editing features. Basically, I just want to record TV programs and view them when I want.
What features do I find most useful on my DVD recorder? Forget about rewinding. No more waiting for a tape to rewind when I am finished watching it. When I remembered to rewind it that is! I don't know how many times I missed recording the beginning of a show because I was waiting for a tape to fully rewind in the VCR. Seemed like it took forever!
Another feature I just love is the one that allows you to record a program and then start watching it before it is done recording.
That may not sound that useful until a situation arises where you want to watch a two-hour program that starts at the same time your spouse's favorite show comes on. With the DVD recorder I can begin recording the two-hour program I want to watch while my wife watches her one-hour show.
When my wife's show is over I can hit "Play" on my DVD recorder and start watching my program while it dutifully continues to record the rest of the program for me.
By skipping over the commercials I can often finish watching a show about 30 minutes after the broadcast has ended. With my old VCR, I would have to wait until the broadcast ended before I stopped the tape, which often meant I would have to wait until the next evening to watch the program if I did not want to stay up too late.
Forget about watching the second half of the show as it aired and watching the first half the next evening. That's just something I could never do!
Another feature of my particular model of DVD recorder is a little button on the remote control that is labeled "CM Skip". You can use your imagination for that one!
One tap on the "CM Skip" button jumps ahead about 30 seconds on whatever recorded program you are watching. Three or four taps usually takes me through a commercial break in less than 5 seconds! No more watching people on my TV scurry around at Superman speed using the "Fast Forward" button.
The preview feature is also very cool. If I record a number of shows on one DVD disk, the DVD can display a number of smaller "virtual" screens on my TV all at the same time, each one showing a preview of one of the shows I recorded. Makes it a lot easier to find that little snippet you recorded off the Food Network channel the other day with the salsa recipe on the same disk you recorded about 15 other snippets on!
All I need to do is select the small virtual screen playing the preview of the program I want to watch, hit "Play" and I am in salsa city!
Basically, I consider my DVD recorder as a VCR on steroids. It does all the things my old VCR used to do, but it does them much better.
If you have not yet taken the time to check out DVD players as a replacement for your old VCR, now would be a great time to do it. Prices are coming down all the time and you'll never again be held hostage by a tape on "Rewind."
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