DVRs are still in only 1.5 million homes, but prices are falling and manufacturers expect brisk holiday sales. ReplayTV has begun touting its commercial-skipping feature as great for parents concerned about toy-crazed kids. Children’s media advocates see the devices as an improvement over existing parental-control technology. “All the V chip does is block what you don’t want,” says David Kleeman of the American Center for Children and Media. “With [a DVR], you can pick the best programs for your children’s age group from all the different channels.” Even the fiercest critics of America’s TV habit see the devices as a potentially useful tool. “To the extent that parents might use something like TiVo to limit the amount of time kids spend with TV and to control what they’re watching, to move away from the model of plop-the-kid-in-front-of-TV-for-four-hours, that’s probably progress,” says Frank Vespe of the TV Turnoff Network.
