People have wanted to record video from various sources for several decades, to watch at a time later than when it was broadcast. Yet technology is always changing, always moving on. Digital video recorders (DVR) are now growing in popularity as more and more people are utilizing digital television services, as well as using other digital video sources in the home.
There are different kinds of digital video recorders available, including those that are built into a set top box, combination units that are included in larger media systems, and personal units such as MP3 players that include video recording and play back capabilities. Also available are PC DVR cards that can be added to an existing computer system or else bought already installed in a new system.
A DVR card is a computer component that is often easy to install. These items plug into the motherboard inside the computer and are fixed in place with a screw. A software disc would be provided with the card that contains the driver software-that is the software that runs the DVR card. It may also hold software that provides a nice interface for using the card. Alternatively the card may come pre-installed in a computer.
Operation of the device is simple. The PC DVR card takes a digital video input and records it to a hard drive or other storage device. From there the video may be replayed at the owner’s leisure and may be stored long term if that is desired.
DVR cards are available for Microsoft Windows machines, for PCs that are running Linux operating systems, and also for Apple Mac machines. The software that is available for these systems will differ depending on the operating system that it runs on, but all will share similar features. The amount of video that the card can record will depend upon the architecture of the computer itself rather than the card-in particular the larger the hard drive that the machine has, the greater the amount of video that it will be able to store.
A 4 port DVR PCI card is a particularly useful model in that it can output video to up to four different locations at the same time. It fits into the PCI card slot in the computer’s motherboard.
The video quality that these devices produce will be dependent on the type of PC DVR card that you buy. Higher quality cards may record at a higher resolution, and the software that the card runs may also affect the quality.