Like everyone else in America, I’m taking a good look at my options with regard to the slow yet inexorable coming changeover of the television broadcasting system from standard to high definition. I’m doing my research, considering various options, and contemplating the way I watch TV and what technology will be needed to continue supporting me in the future. In other words, I’m shopping online and reading buyer’s guides.
In all this, there is one question, the answer to which is vital to my TV viewing satisfaction, which I have been completely unable to find any information about. This is the dealbreaker, the issue which will determine the direction of all other decisions. That question is this:
Will this system/service allow me to watch one program while recording an arbitrary number of other programs being broadcast simultaneously?
I refuse to choose between My Name is Earl and Survivor, or The Office and CSI: Original Recipe. Last year, the networks put all their buzziest shows up against one another, requiring me to record up to two things at once while watching a third. I expect this year to be no different. I like the freedom. I enjoy having the options. I wallow in pop culture as transmitted through the cathode ray tube, and I make no apologies for that. If I am forced to watch fewer things in return for the things I watch being prettier, I will resent that beauty and the companies that put me in that situation, perhaps to the point of giving up non-DVD TV altogether.
Right now, I don’t have any pay channels, such as HBO or Cinemax, because my cable company requires a set-top box to be the first thing the cable plugs into, and that box will only allow one channel through at a time. Let me clarify: I gave up nudity for this principle.
The various cable, TV, and satellite companies are all oddly mute on this subject. Maybe they don’t think it’s as important as I do. Maybe they know they have nothing to offer, so they just ignore it and hope no one will notice.
So, someone, please, direct me to the companies and technologies I should be looking at.
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