A big part of the Replay TV/TiVo experience was the interactive EPG (electronic program guide). Based on a spreadsheet (invented for the personal computer less than two decades earlier), you’d select a cell filled by a program title to get more information, change the channel or record the program. Insight Telecast (renamed StarSight Telecast) gave the two DVR companies the basis for their onscreen guides. The explosion of hard drives in computers gave them their storage. MPEG-2 (developed for direct satellite broadcasting and DVDs) gave them the means of compressing what otherwise would be massive storage requirements onto those hard drives. So, basically, all these technologies came together in the 1990s to make the set-top DVR possible for consumers. The DVR changed my relationship to TV. But technology has windows: the VCR was obsoleted by the DVR and DVD; the DVD and DVR (in part) by on-demand streaming. I will use multi-tuner DVRs as long as I have premium cable but I’m finding myself increasingly bypassing cable for the Netflex and Amazon buttons on my TV set’s remote, leaving my FiOS and TiVo remotes undisturbed.