Alphabet changes at my house from VHS to PVR

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 22/05/2010 (5952 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

On this glorious May long weekend, many of you will be opening up the cottage. Others will be getting your hands dirty in the garden.

Me, I have set myself a grimmer task. While my wife handles the bedding plants (divisions of labour rule in our house), I plan to wade through the 50-hour backlog of TV programming on our amazing new PVR.

I resisted the PVR technology for several years. The VCR machine seemed perfectly acceptable to our needs. Obsessive-compulsive by nature, I knew no one better disciplined at taping programs for appointment-viewing later.

True, my failure rate was not insignificant (I screwed up about 25 per cent of what I attempted to tape), but with practice a person adapts to shows with the final 10 minutes missing.

Besides, I enjoyed the social aspect of sharing VHS tapes with friends and colleagues. The single greatest downside of the PVR, I thought, is that one cannot save content to an exterior disc or tape to pass on to the next person.

Still, I caved last fall. It likely had to do with my insecurities about missing the boat on the 21st century. Either that, or I fell for the slick six-months-free-rental come-on from MTS.

I’m not sorry I did. The PVR, basically a computer hard drive attached to the television, is as big an advance over VCRs as VCRs were over staying home and watching the show when it comes on. (Yes, Virginia, people used to do that.)

I love the way it organizes everything so neatly. Gone are my days of messing around with labels and accidentally taping over the final episode of that three-part documentary on Egyptian camel-herding.

Mind you, the PVR has one downside I did not anticipate. It’s such a snap to record things that you end up with a hard-drive filled with way more unwatched shows than what was on that tottering stack of old VHS tapes.

Among our uncountable virtues, my wife and I have always been judicious TV viewers. The box never blares in the background, and we seldom waste an evening watching whatever’s on. (Yes, a medal of some sort is in order.)

Six months after our daughter left the nest, I cancelled all those second- and third-tier specialty cable channels we never watched.

Still, with just basic cable and the Movie Central premium package (my guilty pleasure), the PVR captures tons more than I can find time for.

Among other things, I still have all 10 episodes of that new CBC detective series Republic of Doyle I felt it was my patriotic duty to the Mother Corp to look at. Also, 10 episodes of that HBO series Pacific. After all, it has the Tom Hanks imprimatur.

But these unwatched hours reproach me every time I turn on the TV. Yes, I could delete them, but the electronic pack rat in me asks, "What if they win a Gemini or an Emmy?"

I should fast-forward through a couple of episodes to get a taste. And that’s my goal for the weekend. This is how I sampled many of the allegedly hot new commercial series this past season.

I got hooked on just one, by the way — the sitcom Modern Family. Very witty. Those two gay fellows crack me up.

The PVR has been great for looking at newsy things — Sarah Palin on Oprah, Betty White on SNL — to stay vaguely abreast of pop culture.

Last week, I recorded a couple of episodes of the sitcom Family Guy, of which I had never seen a single minute, after that debate over its value raged on our letters page. Who knew fart jokes counted as sophisticated satire?

Series I always meant to watch and never did I now PVR with ease. The Charlie Rose late-night talk show on PBS is my new favourite, and I’ve familiarized myself with some great bands on Austin City Limits.

This weekend the most PVRed shows by far will be those final episodes of Lost and 24. Not by me, however. Years ago I judged those series as containing way too many empty calories for my Puritan system.

But that three-part doc on Egyptian camel-herding? Is that the way to spend a long weekend or what?

morley.walker@freepress.mb.ca