Record more on your DVR

To me, the digital video recorder (DVR) is easily one of the greatest inventions of the past decade. I have been using a DVR since 2002 when I first discovered the TiVo®. After first hooking up the TiVo®, I knew TV watching would never be the same. No more having to worry about rushing home to catch the start of your favorite show or even having to remember that the show was on. Once you went through some basic setup, the DVR would magically handle all of this for you.

Fast forward to present day, my wife and I are the happy owners of two Scientific Atlanta 8300HD DVRs supplied by Bright House Networks. Yes, two DVRs. Each DVR has the ability to record two shows simultaneously, but what are you supposed to do when there are more than two shows on at the same time you want to watch? The answer – two DVRs. I have converted many non-DVR users to DVR users over the past few years. Some took longer than others, but I don’t believe any of them would tell you they would switch back. In my opinion, the DVR has one flaw – it does not store enough. The Scientific Atlanta 8300HD’s 160GB hard drive can store approximately 90 hours of standard definition (SD) or 20 hours of high definition (HD) programming.

My wife affectionately calls me an “HD Snob,” and I really can’t argue. I, of course, set all the shows I want to record in HD, while she sets her shows in SD so we can fit more recordings on the DVR. The age-old quality versus quantity debate. What’s the point of having an HD television if you can’t watch HD programming? Every night when we sit down to watch TV, we used to check the DVR for the dreaded “timers” on the recorded shows list. The timers indicate if a show is about to be deleted to make room for additional recordings. The list would also give you a percentage to indicate how full the DVR was. Ours spent most of the time in the 90% range.

All of this changed when I brought home the Western Digital® My DVR Expander. The My DVR Expander is an external 500GB hard drive for your DVR, very similar to one you would buy for your computer. The main difference is that instead of using a USB connection, it uses an eSATA connection. The My DVR Expander has been tested for compatibility with the Scientific Atlanta 8300 Series as well as TiVo verified™ compatible with TiVo® Series3™ and TiVo® HD DVRs. Western Digital® also offers an alternative model that works with the DISH Network® ViP Series HD DVR. Not all cable providers “officially support” the hard drive, so you should to check with your cable provider, but I had no problems using it with my 8300HD DVR supplied by Bright House Networks. The extra 500GB of storage space allows you to record up to 60 additional hours of HD programming or 300 additional hours of SD programming.

Installation was straight forward and well documented in the included user guide. The basic process is to turn off your DVR and disconnect its power. Connect the eSATA cable from the hard drive to the eSATA port on the back of the DVR. Connect the power to the hard drive, and then reconnect the power to the DVR. Once you power on your DVR and wait for it to boot up, you should see a message on the screen letting you know it has detected an external hard drive and a prompt asking if you want to format it. After hitting “yes” and waiting a few more seconds I hit the “list” button on the remote to check my recorded shows. Fortunately, all were still there, but I did notice one change. Our available space had gone from “89% Full” to “21% Full.”

After using the drive for about a month, my wife and I have not had any problems. It’s really one of those items that after setting up you forget it’s even there. I would even classify it as “wife friendly,” which, unfortunately, is a rarity of the new gadgets I often bring home. No longer do we have to worry about our shows being deleted because we did not have a chance to watch them. The My DVR Expander (model# WDG1S5000VN) is available direct from Western Digital for $149.99, but I have found it for around $130 at many online retailers. To me, it is worth every penny. I even picked up a second one for our other DVR. As I explained to my wife, I didn’t want one DVR to be jealous of the other.

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