viewing habits - Time shifting ?

[davexnet]

I suppose it began with VHS, when we could record a program and watch it
when it best fitted our schedule, then continued with the much more sophisticated DVR/PVR.

What I would like to know is, what is the typical record-watch delay?

I recorded an episode of Doctor Who in the early 90's when KCET (PBS) Los Angeles were showing them
on a Saturday morning, and I just watched it today for the first time, from that original tape.
It's a bit excessive for the record now/watch later paradigm - however, we typically have recordings on
our Time Warner Cable DVR going back more than 6 months.

Any thoughts on this ?

[lordsmurf]

A lot of people are video hoarders -- they rent, record or buy what they never watch. Hoarding is the idea that something is good "for later" but later never comes. I was guilty of this for several years, until I canceled cable and started to rely on my tapes and DVDs alone. I would guess that even owning a VCR tends to separate the hoarders from non-hoarders. I knew many people in past years who did not own VCRs, and then no digital capturer, either.

In my experience, a typical delay is 5-10 years for those who keep long-term. It's not uncommon for me to have recorded a show on VHS/S-VHS back in the 1990s (Lois & Clark off TNT, for example) and the DVD releases came out before I had watched the tapes. I bought the DVDs on clearance a few years after release, and pitched the tapes. I still haven't watched the final season. I watched S1-S3 only last year, in 2009. I know a LOT of TV collectors, and this is the norm.

I see most TiVo/DVR users record shows, never get time to watch it, then delete them because it's out of space -- everybody's TiVo/DVR is always "out of space", I think. Some people don't even care about missing episodes of a show before seeing the next one, and they never go back, having not recorded it (or deleting it) and not buying the DVDs. I think those folks are strange.

You should ask this at http://www.tvpreservation.com/forum and see what your responses are from the collectors that hang out at that site.

[davexnet]

lordsmurf, thanks for a very considered answer. Even in the early days of VHS, I started to build a collection
(at least when the price went down on blank tapes - they were 10 UK pounds each in the beginning), while my brother,
obtained a small handful of tapes and made do with them. He watched and reused. Never saved anything "for later"
He's always been like that.

When home DVD recording in the PC took off, I bought some DVD-RW so I would get into the habit of reusing them,
but all I did was buy more DVD-RW until I got to 150, then I put my foot down and said no more.

We've been pretty good about managing our DVR recordings. My wife does most of them, she likes many of the
Networks popular programs. But on the odd occasion that an episode was missed, she always finds it
somewhere, even if, on the rare occasion we have to download it.

Thanks for the link to the TV forum, I'll take as look.

[yoda313]

For my dvr I usually watch next day or at the very longest the following weekend. I have about a dozen shows that I set to record. A few only show up once in a great while (some history channel stuff and some Star Trek stuff that is harder and harder to find on the basic + cable package I have). Others are comedy reruns I want and a lot of food network shows.

As for live events like football (nfl and ncaa - I'm a junkie and I admit - Hey I still watch the Lions - even today - yes I need help but I can't ask for it ) live events I watch live but will use the half hour buffer judicially. Like taking short breaks for physical needs or answering the phone or getting food and beverages - that sort of stuff. I'm typically no more than one commercial break behind live most of the time.

I usually don't have more than 40% filled on my dvr (cable comcast motorola two tuner model). I regularly delete my shows. Though I do occasionally have some I'll dub with my hd-pvr. Though not much is worth saving and I don't have a big enough commitment to do a tv series justice. Plus the popups are so large and the animated ones are really annoying so saving those aren't really worth it to me - and editing out commercials is a pain. Usually I end up buying the tv series on dvd if its really good.

But since I've bought all ten seasons of Stargate SG-1 and all 5 of Stargate Atlantis I haven't had a tv show since that I am remotely interested in saving or buying (I hate Stargate Universe - too dark, no humor, bleak, depressing, etc...).

I still have a few dvds I have yet to watch as I mentioned in my other thread I started the other day. But usually I try to watch a new movie purchase right away at least once. It might be awhile before I watch it again or explore any bonuses but I still open it.

[lordsmurf]

SG Universe = no humor = almost an understatement.
Caprica was cancelled for that very reason, so I wonder if SGU's days are numbered.

[davexnet]

I agree about the SG universe - it is a bit of a gloomy show. Even so,
I actually quite like it, but I also liked "Journeyman" and "Flashforward" when the rest of my household,
and apparently most of the public hated it.

I usually miss it when it's shown, so I can catch up from the next day with Time Warner on demand. It's a bizarre
presentation, about 5 mini-breaks of about 10 seconds each, with the channels own shows being advertised.
The last one I watched featured 5 promotions for their wrestling program. I guess that's what happens
when SciFi turns into SyFy.

On the theme of hoarding, I've got hundreds of VHS tapes that are almost unreachable. They're in boxes
since we moved, and due to lack of space, It's difficult to access them. I would like to go through them
to see what is worth preserving, capturing or even watching... I suspect it will be very, very little.

[zzyzzx]

SG Universe sucks, but I watch it anyway. I don't have cable so it's easy enough to not get too backed up. Besides that, I need to reformat the HD in my DVR so I'm trying to go through it completely. I'm sure I have an errant episode of last seasons Cheaters on it, but most stuff gets watched in a couple of days.

[vhelp]

I used to time shift back in the early days of vhs. I would record my soaps, AMC, OLTL and GH. I did that for so many years until I got burnt out. Well there were other reasons too. But, every day, after work, i would race back home to rewind and play. I got soo good at it that I could watch 15 to 20 minutes work through fast forwarding the tape. Hay, i'm going way back to the mid to late 80's and some 90's. But those were the good old days, where nothing was as complicated as today with the far too many (lazy) features they have added now. We are too luxurious in our tech toys.

I have directv dvr plus, 100 hours. But i don't really watch everything the same or next day. most of the stuff I recorded I already saw when it aired again a few days later, sometimes on another channel. BUt sometimes I wonder why i even bothered with the dvr. Still, it offers me the security that I can record the episode if at any time. Plus, if I'm already in to the show 10 or so minutes later, when I press record, the show will record from the begining. That's a good feature. Cause I now have the option to capture and encode it for archival purposes. So, there are always going to be pros/cons in time shifting.

-vhelp 5438

[Forum Troll]

I usually record stuff to the DVR during the week and watch it on my nights off. The rest of the DVR is filled with interesting bits of History channel shows and fragments of COPS whenever they tazer someone.