Do TV recordings hold any sentimental value ?

Not many people would think that a TV recording would hold any sentimental value. Though like memorabilia that you keep from those that have passed away in your life, so too can a TV recording bring back memories.

Television shows of a once in a life time event, like the olympics, news coverage or seeing somebody you know on TV are greatly cherished by some in our community. It will be remembered even greater if you watched that show or event with loved ones or friends.

Would a grown man or woman cry if these shows were to be lost ? I believe so.

THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW TO AVOID LOSS IN THE DIGITAL AGE

With everything going digital each day sooner or later the VCR will be long gone and we will be left with either a PVR (Personal Video Recorder), which has a built in hard drive or a DVD/Bluray recorder, to record our favourite shows. Just recently more digital TV have built in hard drives too.

After having spent countless hours recording shows for the kids, partner, grand parents, etc. What would you do if the PVR unit you have recorded your shows stops functioning ? If your a TV fanatic, first your heart would skip a beat, then you would hope that there would be some way to salvage the shows on the hard drive.

Unlike computers where there are dedicated people who will recover data from your hard drive this process becomes trickier if your PVR is still under warranty as any tampering you do to the unit will void your warranty.

From my experience a PVR company will not do any data recovery during the repair process and would simply swap the hard drive for a new one.

What will this mean in the next digital TV age ?

It means that people should start sooner rather than later on creating backup plans to save recordings they will cherish for years to come.

As you've probably noticed this recording loss applies to those people would depend on a PVR and never expect anything to go wrong. I believe the people who would suffer the most are the elderly who rely on TV as their main source of entertainment.

How to backup shows when using a PVR.

Always look for PVRs that have the ability to copy content to an external USB stick or hard drive.

More and more PVR are now network ready, which means you can connect them to your home network and transfer files of them.

If you have a DVD or VCR recorder you can plug the outputs of the PVR to one of these devices and record your shows onto a DVD disc or video tape.

Final Thoughts

Always remember that things always happen when you least expect them.l Making a habit of backing up your most cherished shows now will save you lots of tears later.