Watching TV should be a matter of comfort and leisure, something you do on your own time and watch things that really interest you. Many people don’t seem to find those qualities when they don’t subscribe to satellite TV and when they don’t use an HD DVR in their home entertainment system. There really is no better guarantee that you’re going to have lots and lots of interesting, quality material to watch than the combination of these two factors (a satellite connection and a DVR with HD capabilities). Life in a home simply changes, for the better, once this change has been made, a change that will never be undone.

First of all, you need to establish why satellite connections are the best way to go. The answer can be neatly summed up in one quick phrase: High Definition. There are over 130 channels strictly in HD resolution available through satellite providers, while cable typically only offers customers between 60 and 70. Whatever the number, it’s nowhere near the 130+ on the satellite. People these days want to watch HD material at home and aren’t willing to sacrifice that anymore, as the technology has been around long enough for everyone to want it, and now.

However, there are other reasons for satellite’s superiority over cable. One very good reason has been the traditional standard of customer service excellence set by the biggest names in satellite TV, compared to the generally slow and indifferent customer service of cable companies. Perhaps it has to do with the fact that cable providers are relatively entrenched in local markets, where many have monopolies and therefore don’t feel the need to upgrade their service in the current times: many cable customers don’t they get a digital signal pumped into their home, which is simply unacceptable to the vast majority of people today. Satellite TV, on the other hand, operates in the international market and no satellite provider has a monopoly anywhere, it just doesn’t happen. This has produced a more responsive corporate structure, ready to serve customer needs.

Second comes the most crucial home entertainment device of the last fifty years: the DVR (make sure it supports HD!). What is all the fuss about, you ask? Just the fact that this little box gives the viewer the ability to get all the best from television, and none of the bad. Using the 14-day schedule guide, viewers can go ahead and set up a recording schedule for several days in the future, and can even decide to record entire seasons of a show. Smart search options let you identify what types of shows and programs you’d be interested in, such as searching by title, keyword, or actor name. You can schedule to record more than one show at a time, either with the TV on or off, watching one or the other at the same time or not. So the fact that you can pause live TV is the icing on the cake. And all of that, in HD, is really something else.