Our recently launched segment called Unscrambled takes a look at some Time Warner Cable services and features that subscribers may not know about. In this installment, Jill Urban looks at the different DVR options available to customers.
Having DVR is all about having options: What to watch, when to watch and where to watch. But when it comes to choosing the DVR service itself, you also have a lot of options.
"Customers have so much choice with respect to DVR. They have the option to choose whatever fits their needs, their viewing style and their household," explains Alix Cottrell, General Vice President of Video Product at Time Warner Cable
There are different types of DVR services that can all be mixed and matched. It really just depends on how many shows you want to record and in how many rooms.
The traditional DVR is one box with two tuners in it. That means you can record one show while watching another or record two at one time. If you want a little more coverage than that, the Whole Home DVR option allows you to connect and share a few DVR boxes throughout the house.
“It’s a traditional DVR but you can have more than one in the home and they can talk to each other so you can set recordings on multiple boxes within the home," notes Cottrell.
And with that you can start watching in on one room and finish in another.
Then there is the Enhanced DVR option, which maximizes your storage on one box and minimizes your conflicts.
“The Enhanced DVR is a six tuner, 1TB hard drive DVR and it offers up to about 150 hours of storage for a consumer to record their shows," says Cottrell.
It can also be part of a Whole Home experience. So, typically in that case, many people will have one Enhanced DVR in one room and traditional set top boxes in the others to view that content. It all comes down to how many tuners you need and how much storage you want.
It is important to remember, if you upgrade your DVR, you cannot transfer the shows from your old DVR to your new one, but you can transfer all of your settings and scheduled recordings.
You can control all your DVR settings from any one of the boxes, by logging into your TWC account , or you can use the TWC TV App, which allows you to use many of your TV services remotely. More on that in my next report, so stay tuned.
Meanwhile, for more information on the various DVR packages, visit timewarnercable.com. And once you figure out the best combination to record all the shows you want to watch, you then just need to find the time to watch them all.