Why Americans Don't Buy DVD Recorders

Ant writes "CNET News.com reports on the reasons behind the unpopularity of DVD recorders in the US. The devices, which have seen heavy support in Europe and Asia, fall flat in the United States. The biggest reason is the penetration of Cable television. With cable, the same show can appear on a channel several times. In Europe and Japan, viewers need to grab copies of shows when they can, as it could be some time before the episode is broadcast again. TiVo also took off more rapidly in the States and elsewhere. TiVo is also one of the reasons selling TVs with embedded hard drives in the States remains a challenge."

Comments

Eh?

[Malevolent Tester]

In Europe and Japan, viewers need to grab copies of shows when they can, as it could be some time before the episode is broadcast again

The author must be watching a different BBC to the one I get.

Re:What DVD recorders COULD be, but aren't

[trolltalk.com]

LG LRA-850 - $99.00 just before christmas, so I bought 3.

Easy to use:

1. stick blank dvd in (I use rewriteables)
2. asks if you want to initialize disk - hit "ok"
3. show starts - hit record button
4. show's over - hit eject

Wait a minute while it creates the menus and finalizes the disc, and you're done.

As a bonus, it also plays divx files just fine.