DVR disadvantages

It would seem unlikely that there are any disadvantages with using a Digital Video Recorder, afterall you can pause live TV, record series automatically and you don't run off the end of your "tape."

Well one problem is that you're so into your automatic recordings that you never watch any live TV. Not a problem, except that then you don't get to see adverts for any new programmes which are being shown. If a great new show starts to be broadcast, how do you know to set your PVR to record it?

This is exactly the problem we have, and as usual, I've made a modification to my TVGuide application to help us out with this.

On a daily basis, the TVGuide scans the list of programmes coming a week in advance and pops up new programme names which it has never seen before. I also can tell it only to look at particular genres so that I don't get too many items in the list.

Then I can choose never to be notified about this programme again, or click and view the details of the programme to see if I like it. If I don't I can leave it and it remains in the list until the broadcast has passed.

This has already pointed out some interesting documentaries and one new drama series that we otherwise would not have known about. Given there are quite a few programmes being broadcast every week, why not let the computer do the hard work, so that all you have to do is browse through the final list?