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85-530: YurView is a group of cable television networks featuring both national and local lifestyle and sports programming. The group of networks are owned by Cox Communications and are available exclusively to Cox subscribers. Beginning in February 2017, Cox began to rebrand their various local origination as YurView. The networks continued to broadcast local high school and college sports, as well as other non-sports programming of local interest. New national programming

170-521: A cable network ) is a television network available via cable television. Many of the same channels are distributed through satellite television . Alternative terms include non-broadcast channel or programming service , the latter being mainly used in legal contexts. The abbreviation CATV is used in the US for cable television and originally stood for community antenna television , from cable television's origins in 1948; in areas where over-the-air TV reception

255-576: A personal video recorder ( PVR ) particularly in Canada and British English, is an electronic device that records video in a digital format to a disk drive , USB flash drive , SD memory card , SSD or other local or networked mass storage device. The term includes set-top boxes (STB) with direct to disk recording , portable media players and TV gateways with recording capability, and digital camcorders . Personal computers are often connected to video capture devices and used as DVRs; in such cases

340-720: A FireWire port to record the MPEG2 transport stream from a FireWire-equipped cable box (for example: Motorola DCT62xx, including HD streams). Applications can also change channels on the cable box via the firewire interface. Only broadcast channels can be recorded as the rest of the channels are encrypted. FireRecord (formerly iRecord) is a free scheduled-recording program derived from this SDK. There are several free digital video recording applications available for Microsoft Windows including GB-PVR , MediaPortal , and Orb (web-based remote interface). There are also several commercial applications available including CyberLink , SageTV (which

425-425: A camcorder. Some editing of the resulting DVD is usually possible, such as adding chapter points. Some digital video recorders can now record to solid state flash memory cards (called flash camcorders ). They generally use Secure Digital cards, can include wireless connections ( Bluetooth and Wi-Fi ), and can play SWF files. There are some digital video recorders that combine video and graphics in real time to

510-550: A constant sampling rate. In many devices, the resulting digital video and audio are compressed before recording to reduce the amount of data that will be recorded, although some DVRs record uncompressed data. When compression is used, video is typically compressed using formats such as H.264 or MPEG-2, and audio is compressed using AAC or MP3. Many consumer DVRs implement a copy-protection system called Copy Generation Management System—Analog ( CGMS-A ), which specifies one of four possible copy permissions by means of two bits encoded in

595-405: A dedicated analog circuit-switched service. Other advantages include better voice quality and integration to a Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) network providing cheap or unlimited nationwide and international calling. In many cases, digital cable telephone service is separate from cable modem service being offered by many cable companies and does not rely on Internet Protocol (IP) traffic or

680-491: A digital video recorder can be more complex than recording analog signals or broadcast digital signals. There are several different transmission schemes, and the video streams may be encrypted to restrict access to subscribers only. A satellite or cable set-top box both decrypts the signal if encrypted, and decodes the MPEG stream into an analog signal for viewing on the television. In order to record cable or satellite digital signals

765-543: A high elevation. At the outset, cable systems only served smaller communities without television stations of their own, and which could not easily receive signals from stations in cities because of distance or hilly terrain. In Canada, however, communities with their own signals were fertile cable markets, as viewers wanted to receive American signals. Rarely, as in the college town of Alfred, New York , U.S. cable systems retransmitted Canadian channels. Although early ( VHF ) television receivers could receive 12 channels (2–13),

850-466: A higher rate. At the local headend, the feed signals from the individual television channels are received by dish antennas from communication satellites . Additional local channels, such as local broadcast television stations, educational channels from local colleges, and community access channels devoted to local governments ( PEG channels) are usually included on the cable service. Commercial advertisements for local business are also inserted in

935-405: A local VHF television station broadcast. Local broadcast channels were not usable for signals deemed to be a priority, but technology allowed low-priority signals to be placed on such channels by synchronizing their blanking intervals . TVs were unable to reconcile these blanking intervals and the slight changes due to travel through a medium, causing ghosting . The bandwidth of the amplifiers also

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1020-463: A microwave-based system, may be used instead. Coaxial cables are capable of bi-directional carriage of signals as well as the transmission of large amounts of data . Cable television signals use only a portion of the bandwidth available over coaxial lines. This leaves plenty of space available for other digital services such as cable internet , cable telephony and wireless services, using both unlicensed and licensed spectra. Broadband internet access

1105-466: A multitude of advanced functions over VCR technology including video searches by event, time, date and camera. There is also much more control over quality and frame rate allowing disk space usage to be optimized and the DVR can also be set to overwrite the oldest security footage should the disk become full. In some DVR security systems remote access to security footage using a PC can also be achieved by connecting

1190-553: A rarity, found in an ever-dwindling number of markets. Analog television sets are accommodated, their tuners mostly obsolete and dependent entirely on the set-top box. Cable television is mostly available in North America , Europe , Australia , Asia and South America . Cable television has had little success in Africa , as it is not cost-effective to lay cables in sparsely populated areas. Multichannel multipoint distribution service ,

1275-452: A receiver box. The cable company will provide set-top boxes based on the level of service a customer purchases, from basic set-top boxes with a standard-definition picture connected through the standard coaxial connection on the TV, to high-definition wireless digital video recorder (DVR) receivers connected via HDMI or component . Older analog television sets are cable ready and can receive

1360-565: A recording before it has been completed) and skipping over advertising during playback. Many DVRs use the MPEG format for compressing the digital video. Video recording capabilities have become an essential part of the modern set-top box , as TV viewers have wanted to take control of their viewing experiences. As consumers have been able to converge increasing amounts of video content on their set-tops, delivered by traditional ' broadcast ' cable , satellite and terrestrial as well as IP networks,

1445-565: A series of digital video recording devices called EyeTV. The software supplied with each device is also called EyeTV, and is available separately for use on compatible third-party tuners from manufacturers such as Pinnacle, TerraTec, and Hauppauge. SageTV provided DVR software for the Mac but no longer sells it. Previously sold devices support the Hauppauge HVR-950, myTV.PVR and HDHomeRun hardware with its DVR software. SageTV software also included

1530-732: A series of signal amplifiers and line extenders. These devices carry the signal to customers via passive RF devices called taps. The very first cable networks were operated locally, notably in 1936 by Rediffusion in London in the United Kingdom and the same year in Berlin in Germany, notably for the Olympic Games , and from 1948 onwards in the United States and Switzerland. This type of local cable network

1615-450: A single RF channel, some PVRs can record two channels and view a third, so long as all three subchannels are on two channels (or one). In the United States, DVRs were used by 32 percent of all TV households in 2009, and 38 percent by 2010, with viewership among 18- to 40-year-olds 40 percent higher in homes that have them. DVRs are integrated into some television sets (TVs). These systems simplify wiring and operation because they employ

1700-504: A single power cable, have no interconnected ports (e.g., HDMI ), and share a common remote control . VESA -compatible DVRs are designed to attach to the VESA mounting holes (100×100 mm) on the back of an LCD television set (TV), allowing users to combine the TV and DVR into an integrated unit. Over-the-air DVRs are standalone receivers that record broadcast television programs. Several companies have launched over-the-air DVR products for

1785-417: A special telephone interface at the customer's premises that converts the analog signals from the customer's in-home wiring into a digital signal, which is then sent on the local loop (replacing the analog last mile , or plain old telephone service (POTS) to the company's switching center, where it is connected to the public switched telephone network ( PSTN ). The biggest obstacle to cable telephone service

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1870-526: A subset of this information (that can later be transferred to DVD ). An ATSC DVR will also act as a set-top box , allowing older televisions or monitors to receive digital television. The U.S. FCC attempted to limit the abilities of DVRs with its " broadcast flag " regulation. Digital video recorders that had not won prior approval from the FCC for implementing "effective" digital rights management would have been banned from interstate commerce from July 2005, but

1955-404: A television signal, a television tuner must first demodulate the radio frequency signal to produce baseband video. The video is then converted to digital form by a frame grabber , which converts each video image into a collection of numeric values that represent the pixels within the image. At the same time, the audio is also converted to digital form by an analog-to-digital converter running at

2040-544: Is a DVR software by Microsoft which was bundled with the Media Center edition of Windows XP , the Home Premium / Ultimate editions of Windows Vista , as well as most editions of Windows 7 . When Windows 8 was released in 2012, Windows Media Center was not included with Windows 8 OEM or Retail installations, and was only available as a $ 15 add-on pack (including DVD Playback codecs) to Windows 8 Pro users. An embeddable DVR

2125-467: Is a popular option for home-theater PC (HTPC) enthusiasts. There are many free and open source software DVR applications available for Linux . For example, TV gateway interfaces to DVB tuners and provides network tuner and TV server functions, which allows live viewing and recording over IP networks. Other examples include MythTV , Video Disk Recorder (VDR), LinuxMCE , TiVo , VBox Home TV Gateway , and Kodi (formerly XBMC). Geniatech makes

2210-520: Is a standalone device that is designed to be easily integrated into more complex systems. It is typically supplied as a compact, bare circuit board that facilitates mounting it as a subsystem component within larger equipment. The control keypad is usually connected with a detachable cable, to allow it to be located on the system's exterior while the DVR circuitry resides inside the equipment. Television and video are terms that are sometimes used interchangeably, but differ in their technical meaning. Video

2295-422: Is achieved over coaxial cable by using cable modems to convert the network data into a type of digital signal that can be transferred over coaxial cable. One problem with some cable systems is the older amplifiers placed along the cable routes are unidirectional thus in order to allow for uploading of data the customer would need to use an analog telephone modem to provide for the upstream connection. This limited

2380-399: Is generally a straightforward capture of the binary MPEG data being received. No expensive hardware is required to quantize and compress the signal (as the television broadcaster has already done this in the studio). DVD-based PVRs available on the market as of 2006 are not capable of capturing the full range of the visual signal available with high-definition television (HDTV). This

2465-481: Is largely because HDTV standards were finalized at a later time than the standards for DVDs. However, DVD-based PVRs can still be used (albeit at reduced visual quality) with HDTV since currently available HDTV sets also have standard A/V connections. ATSC television broadcasting is primarily used in North America. The ATSC data stream can be directly recorded by a digital video recorder, though many DVRs record only

2550-521: Is no longer available after Google acquired it in June 2011), Beyond TV (which is considered discontinued despite an official announcement from SnapStream since the last update was October 2010 and they are concentrating on their enterprise search products), DVBViewer , Showshifter , InterVideo WinDVR , the R5000-HD and Meedio (now a dead product – Yahoo! bought most of the company's technology and discontinued

2635-482: Is the need for nearly 100% reliable service for emergency calls. One of the standards available for digital cable telephony, PacketCable , seems to be the most promising and able to work with the quality of service (QOS) demands of traditional analog plain old telephone service (POTS) service. The biggest advantage to digital cable telephone service is similar to the advantage of digital cable, namely that data can be compressed, resulting in much less bandwidth used than

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2720-451: Is the visual portion of television, whereas television is the combination of video and audio modulated onto a carrier frequency (i.e., a television channel) for delivery. Most DVRs can record both video and audio. The first digital video recorders were designed to record analog television in NTSC , PAL or SECAM formats. To record an analog signal a few steps are required. In the case of

2805-435: Is usually in 720p/1080i. Digital video recorders configured for physical security applications record video signals from closed-circuit television cameras for detection and documentation purposes. Many are designed to record audio as well. DVRs have evolved into devices that are feature rich and provide services that exceed the simple recording of video images that was previously done through VCRs. A DVR CCTV system provides

2890-488: The DVB-C , DVB-C2 stream to IP for distribution of TV over IP network in the home. Many cable companies offer internet access through DOCSIS . In the most common system, multiple television channels (as many as 500, although this varies depending on the provider's available channel capacity) are distributed to subscriber residences through a coaxial cable , which comes from a trunkline supported on utility poles originating at

2975-1171: The Sky Q box. TiVo launched a UK model in 2000, and is no longer supported, except for third party services, and the continuation of TiVo through Virgin Media in 2010. South African based Africa Satellite TV beamer Multichoice recently launched their DVR which is available on their DStv platform. In addition to ReplayTV and TiVo, there are a number of other suppliers of digital terrestrial ( DTT ) DVRs, including Technicolor SA , Topfield , Fusion, Commscope , Humax , VBox Communications, AC Ryan Playon and Advanced Digital Broadcast (ADB). Many satellite, cable and IPTV companies are incorporating digital video recording functions into their set-top box , such as with DirecTiVo , DISHPlayer/DishDVR, Scientific Atlanta Explorer 8xxx from Time Warner, Total Home DVR from AT&T U-verse , Motorola DCT6412 from Comcast and others, Moxi Media Center by Digeo (available through Charter, Adelphia, Sunflower, Bend Broadband, and soon Comcast and other cable companies), or Sky+. Astro introduced their DVR system, called Astro MAX , which

3060-494: The application software used to record video is an integral part of the DVR. Many DVRs are classified as consumer electronic devices. Similar small devices with built-in (~5 inch diagonal) displays and SSD support may be used for professional film or video production, as these recorders often do not have the limitations that built-in recorders in cameras have, offering wider codec support, the removal of recording time limitations and higher bitrates. The first working DVR prototype

3145-611: The high band 7–13 of North American television frequencies . Some operators as in Cornwall, Ontario , used a dual distribution network with Channels 2–13 on each of the two cables. During the 1980s, United States regulations not unlike public, educational, and government access (PEG) created the beginning of cable-originated live television programming. As cable penetration increased, numerous cable-only TV stations were launched, many with their own news bureaus that could provide more immediate and more localized content than that provided by

3230-523: The vertical blanking interval : CGMS-A information may be present in analog broadcast TV signals, and is preserved when the signal is recorded and played back by analog VCRs . VCRs do not understand the meanings of the bits but preserve them in case there is a subsequent attempt to copy the tape to a DVR. DVRs such as TiVo also detect and act upon analog protection systems such as Macrovision and DCS Copy Protection which were originally designed to block copying on analog VCRs. Recording digital signals

3315-404: The "Best of Show" award in the video category with Netscape co-founder Marc Andreessen as an early investor and board member, but TiVo was more successful commercially. Ad Age cited Forrester Research as saying that market penetration by the end of 1999 was "less than 100,000". Legal action by media companies forced ReplayTV to remove many features such as automatic commercial skip and

3400-508: The Australian market allowing free-to-air television to be recorded on a removable hard drive. Some dual-tuner DVRs also have the ability to output to two separate television sets at the same time. The PVR manufactured by UEC ( Durban , South Africa) and used by Multichoice and Scientific Atlanta 8300DVB PVR have the ability to view two programs while recording a third using a triple tuner. Where several digital subchannels are transmitted on

3485-521: The Internet. Traditional cable television providers and traditional telecommunication companies increasingly compete in providing voice, video and data services to residences. The combination of television, telephone and Internet access is commonly called triple play , regardless of whether CATV or telcos offer it. More than 400,000 television service subscribers. Digital video recorder A digital video recorder ( DVR ), also referred to as

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3570-604: The Meedio line, and rebranded the software Yahoo! Go – TV, which is now a free product but only works in the U.S. ). Most TV tuner cards come bundled with software which allows the PC to record television to hard disk. See TV tuner card . For example, Leadtek 's WinFast DTV1000 digital TV card comes bundled with the WinFast PVR2 software, which can also record analog video from the card's composite video input socket. Windows Media Center

3655-459: The UK, BSkyB introduced their first PVR Sky+ with dual tuner support in 2001. These machines have two independent tuners within the same receiver. The main use for this feature is the capability to record a live program while watching another live program simultaneously or to record two programs at the same time, possibly while watching a previously recorded one. Kogan.com introduced a dual-tuner PVR in

3740-483: The UK, digital video recorders are often referred to as "plus boxes" (such as BSKYB's Sky+ and Virgin Media's V+ which integrates an HD capability, and the subscription free Freesat+ and Freeview+ ). Freeview+ have been around in the UK since the late 2000s, although the platform's first DVR, the Pace Twin, dates to 2002. British Sky Broadcasting marketed a popular combined receiver and DVR as Sky+, now replaced by

3825-485: The United States have switched to or are in the course of switching to digital cable television since it was first introduced in the late 1990s. Most cable companies require a set-top box ( cable converter box ) or a slot on one's TV set for conditional access module cards to view their cable channels, even on newer televisions with digital cable QAM tuners, because most digital cable channels are now encrypted, or scrambled , to reduce cable service theft . A cable from

3910-523: The ability to capture programming and view it whenever they want has become a must-have function for many consumers. At the 1999 CES, Dish Network demonstrated the hardware that would later have DVR capability with the assistance of Microsoft software, which also included access to the WebTV service. By the end of 1999 the Dishplayer had full DVR capabilities and within a year, over 200,000 units were sold. In

3995-447: The ability to use interactive TV on recorded shows, pre-loading of programs, or directly recording encrypted digital streams. It can, however, also force the manufacturer to implement non-skippable advertisements and automatically expiring recordings. In the United States, the FCC has ruled that starting on July 1, 2007, consumers will be able to purchase a set-top box from a third-party company, rather than being forced to purchase or rent

4080-535: The ability to watch YouTube and other online video with a remote control. MythTV (see above) also runs under Mac OS X , but most recording devices are currently only supported under Linux. Precompiled binaries are available for the MythTV front-end, allowing a Mac to watch video from (and control) a MythTV server running under Linux. Apple provides applications in the FireWire software developer kit which allow any Mac with

4165-404: The basic selection. By subscribing to additional tiers, customers could get specialty channels, movie channels, and foreign channels. Large cable companies used addressable descramblers to limit access to premium channels for customers not subscribing to higher tiers, however the above magazines often published workarounds for that technology as well. During the 1990s, the pressure to accommodate

4250-563: The cable box itself, these midband channels were used for early incarnations of pay TV , e.g. The Z Channel (Los Angeles) and HBO but transmitted in the clear i.e. not scrambled as standard TV sets of the period could not pick up the signal nor could the average consumer de-tune the normal stations to be able to receive it. Once tuners that could receive select mid-band and super-band channels began to be incorporated into standard television sets, broadcasters were forced to either install scrambling circuitry or move these signals further out of

4335-429: The cable company's local distribution facility, called the headend . Many channels can be transmitted through one coaxial cable by a technique called frequency division multiplexing . At the headend, each television channel is translated to a different frequency . By giving each channel a different frequency slot on the cable, the separate television signals do not interfere with each other. At an outdoor cable box on

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4420-515: The cable to send data from the customer box to the cable headend, for advanced features such as requesting pay-per-view shows or movies, cable internet access , and cable telephone service . The downstream channels occupy a band of frequencies from approximately 50 MHz to 1 GHz, while the upstream channels occupy frequencies of 5 to 42 MHz. Subscribers pay with a monthly fee. Subscribers can choose from several levels of service, with premium packages including more channels but costing

4505-506: The capability to copy content from a source DVD ( ripping ). In the United States, this is prohibited under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act if the disc is encrypted. Most such DVRs will therefore not allow recording of video streams from encrypted movie discs. A digital camcorder combines a camera and a digital video recorder. Some DVD-based DVRs incorporate connectors that can be used to capture digital video from

4590-675: The case of no local CBS or ABC station being available – rebroadcast the programming from a nearby affiliate but fill in with its own news and other community programming to suit its own locale. Many live local programs with local interests were subsequently created all over the United States in most major television markets in the early 1980s. This evolved into today's many cable-only broadcasts of diverse programming, including cable-only produced television movies and miniseries . Cable specialty channels , starting with channels oriented to show movies and large sporting or performance events, diversified further, and narrowcasting became common. By

4675-498: The chosen channel into the TV set on Channel 2, 3 or 4. Initially, UHF broadcast stations were at a disadvantage because the standard TV sets in use at the time were unable to receive their channels. With the passage of the All-Channel Receiver Act in 1964, all new television sets were required to include a UHF tuner, nonetheless, it would still take a few years for UHF stations to become competitive. Before being added to

4760-410: The consumer market over the past few years. Some pay-TV operators provide receivers that allow subscribers to attach their own network-attached storage (NAS) hard drives or solid-state or flash memory to record video and other media files (e.g., audio and photos). Software and hardware are available which can turn personal computers running Microsoft Windows , Linux , and Mac OS X into DVRs, and

4845-415: The fact that the descrambling circuitry was for a time present in these tuners, depriving the cable operator of much of their revenue, such cable-ready tuners are rarely used now – requiring a return to the set-top boxes used from the 1970s onward. The digital television transition in the United States has put all signals, broadcast and cable, into digital form, rendering analog cable television service

4930-769: The flash card, called DTE or "direct to edit". These are used to speed-up the editing workflow in video and television production, since linear videotapes do not then need to be transferred to the edit workstation (see Non-linear editing system ). DVRs can usually record and play H.264 , MPEG-4 Part 2 , MPEG-2 .mpg , MPEG-2 . TS , VOB and ISO images video, with MP3 and AC3 audio tracks. They can also display images ( JPEG and PNG ) and play music files ( MP3 and Ogg ). Some devices can be updated to play and record in new formats. DVRs usually record in proprietary file systems for copy protection , although some can use FAT file systems. Recordings from standard-definition television usually have 480p/i/576p/i while HDTV

5015-454: The growing array of offerings resulted in digital transmission that made more efficient use of the VHF signal capacity; fibre optics was common to carry signals into areas near the home, where coax could carry higher frequencies over the short remaining distance. Although for a time in the 1980s and 1990s, television receivers and VCRs were equipped to receive the mid-band and super-band channels. Due to

5100-450: The headend, the electrical signal is translated into an optical signal and sent through the fiber. The fiber trunkline goes to several distribution hubs , from which multiple fibers fan out to carry the signal to boxes called optical nodes in local communities. At the optical node, the optical signal is translated back into an electrical signal and carried by coaxial cable distribution lines on utility poles, from which cables branch out to

5185-456: The jack in the wall is attached to the input of the box, and an output cable from the box is attached to the television, usually the RF-IN or composite input on older TVs. Since the set-top box only decodes the single channel that is being watched, each television in the house requires a separate box. Some unencrypted channels, usually traditional over-the-air broadcast networks, can be displayed without

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5270-437: The late 1980s, cable-only signals outnumbered broadcast signals on cable systems, some of which by this time had expanded beyond 35 channels. By the mid-1980s in Canada, cable operators were allowed by the regulators to enter into distribution contracts with cable networks on their own. By the 1990s, tiers became common, with customers able to subscribe to different tiers to obtain different selections of additional channels above

5355-425: The local utility poles or underground utility lines. Coaxial cable brings the signal to the customer's building through a service drop , an overhead or underground cable. If the subscriber's building does not have a cable service drop, the cable company will install one. The standard cable used in the U.S. is RG-6 , which has a 75 ohm impedance , and connects with a type F connector . The cable company's portion of

5440-423: The maximum number of channels that could be broadcast in one city was 7: channels 2, 4, either 5 or 6, 7, 9, 11 and 13, as receivers at the time were unable to receive strong (local) signals on adjacent channels without distortion. (There were frequency gaps between 4 and 5, and between 6 and 7, which allowed both to be used in the same city). As equipment improved, all twelve channels could be utilized, except where

5525-402: The nearest network newscast. Such stations may use similar on-air branding as that used by the nearby broadcast network affiliate, but the fact that these stations do not broadcast over the air and are not regulated by the FCC, their call signs are meaningless. These stations evolved partially into today's over-the-air digital subchannels, where a main broadcast TV station e.g. NBC 37* would – in

5610-408: The old analog cable without a set-top box. To receive digital cable channels on an analog television set, even unencrypted ones, requires a different type of box, a digital television adapter supplied by the cable company or purchased by the subscriber. Another new distribution method that takes advantage of the low cost high quality DVB distribution to residential areas, uses TV gateways to convert

5695-420: The open market. In Europe Free-To-Air and Pay TV TV gateways with multiple tuners have whole house recording capabilities allowing recording of TV programs to Network Attached Storage or attached USB storage, recorded programs are then shared across the home network to tablet , smartphone , PC, Mac, Smart TV. In 2003 many Satellite and Cable providers introduced dual-tuner digital video recorders. In

5780-504: The programming at the headend (the individual channels, which are distributed nationally, also have their own nationally oriented commercials). Modern cable systems are large, with a single network and headend often serving an entire metropolitan area . Most systems use hybrid fiber-coaxial (HFC) distribution; this means the trunklines that carry the signal from the headend to local neighborhoods are optical fiber to provide greater bandwidth and also extra capacity for future expansion. At

5865-451: The programming without cost. Later, the cable operators began to carry FM radio stations, and encouraged subscribers to connect their FM stereo sets to cable. Before stereo and bilingual TV sound became common, Pay-TV channel sound was added to the FM stereo cable line-ups. About this time, operators expanded beyond the 12-channel dial to use the midband and superband VHF channels adjacent to

5950-561: The prototype was demoed to industrial partners including Sony, Intel, and Apple. Consumer digital video recorders ReplayTV and TiVo were launched at the 1999 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Nevada . Microsoft also demonstrated a unit with DVR capability, but this did not become available until the end of 1999 for full DVR features in Dish Network's DISHplayer receivers. TiVo shipped their first units on March 31, 1999. ReplayTV won

6035-476: The range of reception for early cable-ready TVs and VCRs. However, once consumer sets had the ability to receive all 181 FCC allocated channels, premium broadcasters were left with no choice but to scramble. The descrambling circuitry was often published in electronics hobby magazines such as Popular Science and Popular Electronics allowing anybody with anything more than a rudimentary knowledge of broadcast electronics to be able to build their own and receive

6120-508: The regulation was struck down on May 6, 2005. DVB digital television contains audio/visual signals that are broadcast over the air in a digital rather than analog format . The DVB data stream can be directly recorded by the DVR. Devices that can use external storage devices (such as hard disks , SSDs , or other flash storage ) to store and recover data without the aid of another device are sometimes called telememory devices. Recording satellite television or digital cable signals on

6205-404: The set-top box from their cable company. This ruling only applies to "navigation devices", otherwise known as a cable television set-top box, and not to the security functions that control the user's access to the content of the cable operator. The overall net effect on digital video recorders and related technology is unlikely to be substantial as standalone DVRs are currently readily available on

6290-463: The sharing of recordings over the Internet, but newer devices have steadily regained these functions while adding complementary abilities, such as recording onto DVDs and programming and remote control facilities using PDAs, networked PCs, and Web browsers. In contrast to VCRs , hard-disk based digital video recorders make " time shifting " more convenient and also allow for functions such as pausing live TV, instant replay, chasing playback (viewing

6375-410: The signal must be captured after it has been decrypted but before it is decoded; this is how DVRs built into set-top boxes work. Cable and satellite providers often offer their own digital video recorders along with a service plan. These DVRs have access to the encrypted video stream, and generally enforce the provider's restrictions on copying of material even after recording. Many DVD-based DVRs have

6460-418: The signals are typically encrypted on modern digital cable systems, and the set-top box must be activated by an activation code sent by the cable company before it will function, which is only sent after the subscriber signs up. If the subscriber fails to pay their bill, the cable company can send a signal to deactivate the subscriber's box, preventing reception. There are also usually upstream channels on

6545-403: The subscriber's residence, the company's service drop cable is connected to cables distributing the signal to different rooms in the building. At each television, the subscriber's television or a set-top box provided by the cable company translates the desired channel back to its original frequency ( baseband ), and it is displayed onscreen. Due to widespread cable theft in earlier analog systems,

6630-532: The upstream speed to 31.2 Kbp/s and prevented the always-on convenience broadband internet typically provides. Many large cable systems have upgraded or are upgrading their equipment to allow for bi-directional signals, thus allowing for greater upload speed and always-on convenience, though these upgrades are expensive. In North America , Australia and Europe , many cable operators have already introduced cable telephone service, which operates just like existing fixed line operators. This service involves installing

6715-552: The wiring usually ends at a distribution box on the building exterior, and built-in cable wiring in the walls usually distributes the signal to jacks in different rooms to which televisions are connected. Multiple cables to different rooms are split off the incoming cable with a small device called a splitter . There are two standards for cable television; older analog cable, and newer digital cable which can carry data signals used by digital television receivers such as high-definition television (HDTV) equipment. All cable companies in

6800-647: Was also added. Two of the first new shows launched were Dash to the Desert , a show offering analysis of the NCAA tournament and Tech Trends , a show featuring highlights from the Consumer Electronics Show . YurView is also offered to Cox subscribers in Cleveland, Ohio and Sun Valley, Idaho , but it is unclear whether these areas carry local programming. Cable television A cable channel (sometimes known as

6885-478: Was developed in 1998 at Stanford University Computer Science department. The DVR design was a chapter of Edward Y. Chang 's PhD dissertation, supervised by Professors Hector Garcia-Molina and Jennifer Widom . Two design papers were published at the 1998 VLDB conference, and the 1999 ICDE conference. The prototype was developed in 1998 at Pat Hanrahan 's CS488 class: Experiments in Digital Television, and

6970-444: Was limited by distance from transmitters or mountainous terrain, large community antennas were constructed, and cable was run from them to individual homes. In 1968, 6.4% of Americans had cable television. The number increased to 7.5% in 1978. By 1988, 52.8% of all households were using cable. The number further increased to 62.4% in 1994. To receive cable television at a given location, cable distribution lines must be available on

7055-427: Was limited, meaning frequencies over 250 MHz were difficult to transmit to distant portions of the coaxial network, and UHF channels could not be used at all. To expand beyond 12 channels, non-standard midband channels had to be used, located between the FM band and Channel 7, or superband beyond Channel 13 up to about 300 MHz; these channels initially were only accessible using separate tuner boxes that sent

7140-559: Was mainly used to relay terrestrial channels in geographical areas poorly served by terrestrial television signals. Cable television began in the United States as a commercial business in 1950s. The early systems simply received weak ( broadcast ) channels, amplified them, and sent them over unshielded wires to the subscribers, limited to a community or to adjacent communities. The receiving antenna would be taller than any individual subscriber could afford, thus bringing in stronger signals; in hilly or mountainous terrain it would be placed at

7225-469: Was the first PVR in Malaysia but was phased out two years after its introduction. In the case of digital television, there is no encoding necessary in the DVR since the signal is already a digitally encoded MPEG stream. The digital video recorder simply stores the digital stream directly to disk. Having the broadcaster involved with, and sometimes subsidizing, the design of the DVR can lead to features such as

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