Chalk it all up to a little misunderstanding.  Some of you may know I am a staunch American Idol opposer.  I hate it with every fiber of my being - in fact, I hate it almost as much as I hate Oprah.  So understandably it was with great trepidation that I mashed the "record" button on tonight's and tomorrow's shows for my new roommate.

Now, I mentioned this at work, and Marc's eyes grew to the size of saucers.  "WHAT?!  You're taping Idol and not LOST!?"  I returned his shocked expression with a blank stare of my own.  "No, I'm DVRing Idol in the background while I DVR Lost."  It was there that the communication breakdown became obvious: Marc's never had experience with a dual-tuner DVR.

In case you've never encountered such a beast either, dual-tuner DVRs allow you to tune in to/record two shows at once.  To use tonight as an example, while I'm recording that Idol crap Lost will be recording as well.  I could also watch something I already recorded while they both go, but I wouldn't be able to switch channels without losing either Lost or Idol.  I don't plan on switching away from Lost, so it should all be ok.  I'll just have to make sure I delete Idol as soon as she's done watching it so I don't involuntarily vomit all over the place when I see it on the "MyDVR" list.

For Marc, this realization was like an epiphany.  I admit that I'm late to the DVR party, but I really don't see it being useful without the dual-tuner model.  How do you people live only being able to record/watch one thing at a time?

    -Tucker

At first, I had the Frank Barrone "Holey Crap!" look. But now it's even a little clearer...

So you can record two shows but can't channel flip? There lies the catch. Because my Panasonic DVR is hooked up to my receiver No.1, I can tape on the DVR while watching regular tv on my regular cable antenna feed. Like you, I can also watch a recorded show on the DVR while taping the other at the same time.

The advantage is being able to switch over to antenna cable and watch regular tv (I don't yet have digital cable, and refuse to do so until I get a new HDTV and upgrade to the HDTV package -- no use spending the money yet.) However, if you are out one night, it is definitely awesome to be able to tape two shows on the same DVR at once. VERY cool.

Regardless, I still can't believe you're taping A.I. -- wimp. :)

To clarify, I can have two shows recording and watch a third, or I can have one show recording and flip around, timeshift other channels, whatever. But to record two shows at once and watch a third live, you'd have to have a third tuner in the device. Though I can't really think of any current TV schedules where I'd have a three-way schedule conflict... I guess if that happened I'd just have to go back to BitTorrent.