A
digital video recorder (
DVR), sometimes referred to by the merchandising term
personal video recorder (PVR), is a
consumer electronics device or
application software that records video in a digital format to a
disk drive,
USB flash drive, SD
memory card or other local or networked
mass storage device. The term includes
set-top boxes (STB) with
direct to disk recording facility,
portable media players (PMP) with recording, recorders (PMR) as
camcorders that record onto
Secure Digital memory cards and software for personal computers which enables
video capture and playback to and from a
hard disk drive. A
television set with built-in digital video-recording facilities was introduced by
LG in 2007, followed by other manufacturers.
DVR adoption has rapidly accelerated in recent years: in January 2006,
ACNielsen recorded 1.2% of U.S. households having a DVR but by February 2011, this number had grown to 42.2% of viewers in the United States.