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Buffalo News

By Stephen T. Watson

When their television set finally went kaput about eight months ago, Donna and Gary Kolk replaced it with a new high-definition TV, a souped-up digital cable package -- and DVR.

Now Donna Kolk says she would have a hard time going back to the digital dark ages, a time when she couldn't pause and rewind live TV or record an entire season of a show all at once.

"It really is a huge difference in your television watching," Donna Kolk, a retiree from Amherst, said recently as she took a break from shopping at Walden Galleria.

Demand for DVRs, or digital video recorders, is on the rise.

About 17 percent of U.S. households, and 16 percent of Time Warner Cable customers in Western New York, have DVRs.

DVRs are so popular that Time Warner had a backlog of 2,000 orders here in April and May, leaving waits of as much as six weeks for the set-top boxes that provide DVR and digital cable.

The backlog has since been cleared.

"It's a good problem," said Robin Wolfgang, a Time Warner spokeswoman in Buffalo.

DVR and other recent advances in technology are fundamentally changing TV-viewing patterns. There are more channels than ever to watch and more places -- from your crystal-clear HDTV to your computer or cell phone -- to watch them.

"You have an enormous amount of flexibility in what you can watch," said Elayne Rapping, a professor of American studies at the University at Buffalo.

The technology behind DVRs has been around for the past two decades, but it caught on slowly at first with consumers.

DVR works like a VCR, though the TV signal is stored digitally on a hard drive instead of on a cassette tape.

ReplayTV and TiVo were among the first companies to market DVR to consumers, selling devices purchased separately by cable subscribers.

In 2001, about one million U.S. households had DVR service, according to Forrester Research.

By 2005, 13.6 million households had the service, and the total is expected to soar to 33.3 million households by the end of this year.

Interest in DVR use rose when cable companies recognized the need to offer the devices and the service themselves, said James McQuivey, a Forrester principal analyst.

Now, subscribers tend to add DVR service when they move up to digital cable, HDTV or other premium packages offered by their cable provider.

It's a matter of just one box. But when it comes to the different services, "It's like a mechanical chip, if you will," said Wolfgang of Time Warner.

Having the box set for digital cable costs $6.95 a month, and it's a dollar more for DVR. Then, DVR service is an additional $4.95 a month.

"Most people don't do it a la carte," Wolfgang said. "We have packages that give you price breaks."

In general, "Your price is going to depend on which you sign up for, your package and where you live," Wolfgang said.

The DVR devices offered by the cable companies are cheaper than TiVo's DVR device, though technology reviewers tend to praise TiVo's features more.

Users say they love having the ability to stop or rewind live TV, record two shows at once and -- most of all -- skip over the commercials when watching a show later. "The DVR is a put-the- viewer-in-the-control-seat technology," McQuivey said.

It's a lot easier to record TV with a DVR than with a VCR or a recordable DVD player, and that's why DVR has surpassed those technologies, experts said.

And homeowners are so happy with the service that they're buying second DVRs at a faster rate than people bought second TVs or VCRs, said Pat McDonough, senior vice president for planning, policy and analysis with Nielsen Media Research.

"That says that this is a technology that, once people get it, they really like it," McDonough said.

Locally, the number of DVR subscribers among Time Warner Cable's 310,000 customers rose 28 percent between January and June, said Wolfgang, the company spokeswoman.

Time Warner has made a big push here to promote DVR service, running ads on TV and on the sides of buses directing subscribers to DoYouDVR.com.

Interest was so high locally that there was a backlog this spring of 2,000 orders as subscribers snapped up digital-cable and DVR set- top boxes.

Scientific Atlanta, the primary manufacturer for the set-top boxes used by Time Warner, "could not keep up with our demand," Wolfgang said. "They were backlogged for Time Warner across the country."

Wolfgang said Time Warner has caught up with the backlog.

A spokeswoman for Scientific Atlanta, however, said the company hasn't had any problem meeting the growing interest in DVR-ready devices.

Stephanie Vogt ran into the local DVR supply crunch.

The special-education teacher from Buffalo ordered DVR service in mid-April and was told to expect a two-week delay. Instead, she ended up waiting six weeks before Time Warner gave her a used set- top box that didn't include any instructions.

The device worked for four days before it broke down and Time Warner replaced it.

Now that Vogt has a functioning DVR, she loves it.

"I wouldn't say I watch more TV. Now I'm watching what I want to watch," she said.

When DVR viewership is taken into account, ratings of broadcast- network, prime-time programs -- the shows most likely to be viewed on DVR -- go up an average of 73 percent over the next three days, according to Nielsen.

Viewers aren't at the mercy of the broadcast and cable networks anymore, and they're only watching about half the commercials they used to, Nielsen's McDonough said.

And when DVR is combined with HDTV and other new services, some users can't imagine watching TV any other way.

"I'm somewhat addicted to it now," joked Allison Jackson, a Lockport college student with digital cable, DVR and HDTV.

Is it good that people can watch any of hundreds of TV programs live, on DVR playback, on a HDTV screen, on their computer or on a cell phone?

As with any technology, it depends on how it's being used.

TV can be a passive and solitary medium, UB's Rapping said.

But watching a favorite show can prompt online exchanges and water-cooler conversations the next day, as in the case of the widely discussed final episode of "The Sopranos," Forrester's McQuivey said.

What's clear is the way we watch TV has changed, and greater change is coming.

Cable companies are exploring the idea of putting every show on DVR themselves, storing the episodes on their own servers and letting people watch them whenever they wish without having to remember to record them in advance.

And the TV and cable networks are stepping up their fight to keep people from bypassing the ads that are their lifeblood.

Networks are beginning to offer a video-on-demand service that lets viewers watch an episode at any time with the pause and rewind function intact but without fast-forward.

Further into the digital future, homes someday will have a DVR- type device that controls all media in the home: radio, TV, photos and online content.

"And we thought we made a huge leap when we got the remote control," McQuivey said.

News Staff Reporter Janice Habuda contributed to his report.

e-mail: swatson@buffnews.com1

Originally published by NEWS STAFF REPORTER.

(c) 2007 Buffalo News. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.