And, as a connoisseur of PVRs, you understand that the cable companies offer anemic light-weight versions.

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PVRs as easy as clicking a mouse: just mark the show to be recorded with a cursor and hit a button.

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But given the slow pace at which PVRs are entering the market, it may be some time before any of these issues need really concern either broadcasters or viewers.

BBC: Digital videos hard to shift

PVRs in the UK don't yet have such a button - no doubt partly because Sky, which markets many of them, is itself a broadcaster with an important revenue stream from advertising.

BBC: Digital videos hard to shift

Acronyms in particular foxed users. 75% of online Britons did not know that VOD stands for video-on-demand, while 68% were unaware that personal video recorders were more commonly referred to as PVRs.

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These PVRs differ from most, however, as they can record content from television or any other attached source (i.e. a camcorder), and transfer the video in MPEG4 format directly to an attached USB flash drive.

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PVRs, already have products in the shops.

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The big Hollywood studios are alarmed at the potential for "file-sharing" - recording programmes and then sending them to friends with PVRs - which they see as a form of piracy which damages the interests of rights holders.

BBC: Digital videos hard to shift

And the current generation of PVRs don't work with interactive television services - a problem for the BBC, which is marketing interactivity as one of the great advantages of the digital television world of which PVRs are also part.

BBC: Digital videos hard to shift