I spoke (wrote) some about my use of DVR in the comments area for the VCR related thread.  If you can't figure it out, I love having a DVR at my disposal and have found it to be a very useful device.  Useful enough to quickly get past the question of paying a monthly fee to use one.

Don't get me wrong, I wish I didn't have to pay extra fees for DVR usage, and for having extra receivers on my DirecTV system (3 total active in my house at this time).  I hate being nickeled and dimed for these extra fees, but I quietly pay the DVR fee because it has long proven to me that it is an invaluable service.

Before DVRs I was left using VCRs to record programs.  There were hassles with having to change tapes.  Image quality typically sucked.  Tapes would stretch and wear and make the image quality even worse.  But, the alternative was having to let the TV schedule rule my life if I didn't want to miss certain programs.

Thanks to DVRs -- especially dual-tuner DVRs -- I don't have those concerns.  I can record programs digitally and watch them with no loss in image quality.  I can watch programs at my own pace, on my own schedule, and stockpile episodes if I want.  I can pause live TV and fast forward through commercials to help reduce the time I do spend watching TV.

Anyway, to me DVRs are marvelous devices.  I'd love to get one for my family, but what stops me is the idea that they aren't DirecTV customers and getting them a TiVo box would add a monthly fee that they don't want to pay.  Even if I paid for multiple years of service for them, eventually they'd have to pay the monthly fees (or I would have to pay again).

I'd suggest that they get a DVR from their cable provider (Comcast), but people that have them have said they aren't the greatest devices and my parents just don't seem to feel they have to have one.  I still think they'd change their mind soon after using one, but you all know the old saying about leading horses to waterin' holes.

I have one through the cable company and I use it to record things I'll miss while I'm out/things I want Adrian to see when he comes home/things that come on at the same time as something else I want to watch.

I sometimes forget to DVR things (like last night when I went to a BBQ and forgot to set it to record the Simpsons, d'oh!) but I still use it at least a couple times a week.

I also recorded a piece of a news broadcast when my oldest was on the news.

I have a DVD recorder, too, but I don't use it because I don't know how.

stockpile episodes

oh yeah, that's fantastic.....I love to do that and then watch 5 episodes of Lost etc all at once. It makes the cliffhangers less frustratiing!

I will never go back to pre-DVR days. It is an essential tool -- not just for paused playback (which was made for football games) but the ability to record at any time, any channel, one-button convenience. I can preprogram the DVR to find episodes of my favorite shows and it'll record them without me even knowing they're on. Too cool for school.

I used to have one and enjoyed having it. I was able to record all the programs I missed. One problem I had, not with the DVR but with my timing is there would be months of programs to catch up on because I just didn't have the time to watch them all. That was surely defeating the purpose of my recordings! Then I realised that I had "On Demand" and didn't need to record all those shows! Unfortunately I gave up the DVRs and my extra cable channel.

Now I'm down to one movie channel and all the basics. I was paying out too much per month just for them and most of the times they repeat everything anyway, or there was nothing to watch!

I like Tova's idea of bying a DVD-R, makes better sense to me!