You probably aren’t aware of it but there is a good chance that your digital video recorder has the ability to be programmed to record specific TV shows from places other than your living room. This might sound a bit strange at first but let me try to explain how this works. You are especially lucky if your digital video recorder happens to be a TiVo.
TiVo provides an online service that will allow you to access your TiVo digital video recorder over the Internet. This way you are able to program it to record a TV show or movie that you can then watch later at a time that suits you. The online service provided by TiVo comes free as part of your TiVo subscription and is available on all TiVo Series 1 to 3 boxes.
It is not quite accurate to say that you can access your TiVo box online. It would be more accurate to say that you can access the box in a rather indirect way. This mentioned service works by letting you access TiVo’s web servers and by logging into your TiVo account, you can make the changes to what you want recorded. Those changes take place on the servers.
When your TiVo box contacts those web servers (this is done periodically),...