The One Surprising DVR Feature

I use my DVR (Digital Video Recorder) for all the usual things, especially time shifting. I knew it would have the capability to fast forward through commercials and that’s certainly valuable.

There is one capability… one tiny little feature… that’s a surprise: the ability to jump back a few seconds in time. On my Scientific Atlanta DVR it is a 10 second delay, but I almost always hit it twice.

I use this all the time, especially to go back over dialog that wasn’t well miked, or to rerun a point or fact that’s unclear or interesting enough to see twice. Since the DVR plays back off its hard drive even when you’re watching live TV this feature is always available.

If you would have asked me what I wanted in a DVR I never would have asked for this. I would have asked for picture-in-picture (a feature I seldom if ever use) or the ability to skip ads (I sometimes forget to do this) or other more obvious tools.

There’s a lesson to be learned here. You can’t research a product by asking people what they want in something they’ve never used.

2 thoughts on “The One Surprising DVR Feature”

  1. Unfortunately, I don’t have a TV capable of jumping back in time but agree with you that this would be a feature I would frequently use if I had it. But, also, I wish I had a radio that had that feature because very often I will hear something on the radio that I would like repeated.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *