TMI: The DVR Generation

The last few weeks have been a very busy time for me thanks to an unusual confluence of work projects that all had to be completed around the same time. Most of this was my own fault. I'm a lifelong procrastinator with an unusual job position that I haven't gotten around to fully defining (but that's on my "To Do" list), so I volunteer (or cannot talk my way out of) lots of odd projects (and I particularly look for ones with no well-defined due dates). This generally works in my favor since I can then work on one project as an excuse to procrastinate on the other N-1 projects. And magically at the end of each job review period, I come out looking pretty productive.

Fortunately, I did foresee that my free (or what other people would call sleep) time would be greatly impacted, but technology came to my rescue.

I'd been meaning to purchase or build a "Tivo-like" device for many years (it was on my "To Do" list, which, by the way, has actually never been written down as maintaining a "To Do" list is also on that list). Procrastination kept paying off as technology kept improving and prices kept falling. Finally, a few weeks ago, it became as simple as disconnecting my existing cable box, driving to the local cable office down the street, swapping boxes, driving back home, and connecting the new box. [Note however, that reverse-engineering the wiring and cabling of one's own fairly basic home entertainment setup that hasn't been touched in several years can still be trickier than first thought].

Now, I don't know how I ever lived without a DVR (Digital Video Recorder), and can see how other people almost worship these things.

It turns out most hour-long dramas only have ~40 minutes of actual content (minus commercials, credits, and recaps of previous episodes). That's a whopping 30+% compression ratio with no loss of data! It's even more dramatic for sporting events where I have no emotional ties to have to see the whole game live. I managed to squeeze 4 to 8 hours of Australian Open tennis coverage into about 2 hours. It helps if one is only interested in the style of tennis played by Hingis or Federer, and want to check out a newcomer like Baghdatis.

The downside of all this? There are actually a few minuses that have emerged so far:
1) I have to figure out how to catch up on 30-40 hours of non-tennis programming on my DVR. In the meantime, I have to avoid anybody at work or on the street who mentions the words 24, Lost, or House even if it's not in the context of those TV shows since you never know when a conversation will take a sudden turn in that direction.
2) Some evenings, I find myself with a painfully full bladder because I've skipped all the commercials and forgot about the ability to pause and go to the restroom.
3) I've also quickly picked up a bad habit of wanting to hit fast forward even if I'm watching live TV. I've even caught myself trying to find a remote while sitting in a long meeting...
4) The DVR from the cable company does not allow easy copying of shows I might want to keep around "forever".

I imagine my next few blog entries may be TV related as I catch up on things.