NDS (News - Alert), a supplier of digital technology and services to digital pay-TV operators and content providers, has recently conducted an international survey on the usage of DVRs (digital video recorders) and has reported that DVR owners have ranked it as the second most essential household technology item and they cannot live without it.

 

The survey was carried out by Consumer Analysis Group in July 2008 which involved 1,012 people - UK (256), US (252), Italy (251) and Australia (253) who were aged 18-70 and have a DVR at home. Consumers were questioned using a mix of phone, street and online interviews.

 

DVRs are one of the widely-accepted technologies with several advantages that include: considerably better image quality than VCR recordings, more consistent and allows for video archiving and transfer of video data.

 

The statistics and trends detailed in the NDS DVR Report demonstrate the role played by DVR in day-to-day life. The survey has revealed DVRs as the second most indispensable items available today, the first being mobile phones.

 

Other key findings of the survey revealed that DVR owners watch on average slightly more than four hours (4.075) of recorded and live television a day and nearly 61 percent of consumers think that a DVR is much easier to operate than a video cassette recorder.  Additionally, almost 58 percent of them find they are watching more interesting TV programs and many respondents with only one DVR are keen to get a second one.

 

Commenting on the survey, Nigel Smith, chief marketing officer at NDS, said, “We commissioned this consumer survey to celebrate the milestone announcement that NDS technology now resides in over 13 million DVRs worldwide, making us the global leader in this market.

 

On the survey results, Smith said that it shows just how fast the DVR has become an indispensable part of people’s lives in the U.K., U.S., Italy and Australia. Smith also said that NDS is investing heavily in R&D to expand the usage of this technology.

 

“Our next-generation DVR technologies, currently in development, will enhance the end user viewing experience still further, while also providing incremental revenue streams for our customers,” Smith said.

 

NDS delivers DVR technology that allows operators to provide digital content to TVs, set-top boxes (STBs), DVRs, PCs, mobile phones, portable media players (PMPs), removable media, and other devices. NDS XTV is a complete end-to-end solution with built-in VideoGuard conditional access. NDS's unique and patented RASP (Random Access to Scrambled Content Protocol) technology enables encrypted channels to be recorded and stored on the disk and provides heightened security by ensuring that decryption and conditional access (CA (News - Alert)) business controls take place at the time of viewing, rather than at the time of recording.

Jai C.S. is a contributing editor for TMCnet. To read more of Jai's articles, please visit his columnist page.

Edited by Eve Sullivan