TiVo

TiVo is the Personal Video Recorder (PVR) or Digital Video Recorders (DVR) which can perform simultaneous recording and playback of TV signal. TiVo allows the user to "pause" a live TV program, rewind, fast / slow forward, and store hours of TV programs without use of VCR.

The most impressive are the abilities to skip commercials and to record and play back at the same time. The next is the brief summary of what TiVo can do:

Pause, slow-motion (including frame by frame) and instantly replay live TV.
Fast forward to chose which program to watch or skip.
Simultaneous play back and record.
Skip commercials!!!
Directly access all pre-recorded programs (unlike video tape)
Provide menu, automated recording of programs, program ratings, suggestions, tips, etc. (comes with subscription to TiVo service)

Basic design

TiVo system consist of the Philips Personal TV Receiver powered by the TiVo Service, which gives the user a significant control over the viewing experience. For example, PVR allows to 'pause' real programming at any moment and continue it later from the same place.

Analog TV signals get split into video and audio components, which are converted to digital and compressed using MPEG-2 video encoder and audio compressor.

The signal then is stored on the hard drive after passing the write buffer.

During reading, compressed signals are decompressed and combined into analog signals.

There are other data carried with video and audio signals, such as second audio program (SAP), extended data services (EDS), closed captions (CC), etc. They all should be properly processed by the PVR system.

The most important component of the PVR is the hard disk drive (HDD). With the cost of MPEG-2 chips moving below $50, the hard drive is also the most expensive part.

The PVR of today saves TV programs to internal hard drive that can hold from 14 to 30 hours of programming. There is a choice of trading video recording quality for recording capacity.

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