When you first describe a PVR to someone, it's hard to convey how much it changes the way you watch television. "So it's like a VCR," they usually say. But of course, it's much more than that.

Hanford Lemoore worked on the first ReplayTV, and he estimates that he'd probably been using a PVR in his home longer than just about anyone. Lemoore had a ReplayTV unit in his house for a year before they hit the market.

But when his hard drive died a year and a half ago, he unplugged his ReplayTV and decided to see what life was like without a one.

The BBC Trust has approved rollout of a BBC video-on-demand service following a public test of the new iPlayer service.

So what the heck is an iPlayer? Basically it's a service that offers BBC viewers online access to every television episode that has run on the state-regulated network over the past week, commercial-free.

10,500 viewers and organizations offered comments during the test period. I'm guessing most of the comments were positive.

No word yet on when the service will roll out. The BBC press release says it "will be announced in due course," which sounds so much nicer than "it'll be ready when it's ready."

[via NewTeeVee]

The other day, I was on assignment for another publication (yes, I write for other publications... gotta keep up the flow of bling and Courvosier) at a Manischewitz-sponsored kosher cook-off, and I saw this older guy running around with a cameraman, getting in the contestants' and judges' faces and asking them questions about the food they were either cooking or eating. The identifier on his microphone said "Shalom TV," and since I'd never heard of it, I asked the gentleman for a card.

It turns out that the gentleman was Rabbi Mark Golub, the founder of a new digital cable on-demand network called Shalom TV, which will broadcast shows about Jewish heritage and culture. Apparently, it's the first national TV network dedicated to the Jewish faith. Right now, it's only on a couple of cable systems, the biggest being in the Philadelphia area, but it's already gotten some media coverage, including a mention on The Daily Show's "The Week in God", video of which is after the jump. Let's just say, Sam Bee isn't particularly kind to Shalom TV (my favorite line: "Finally, a TV network that's run by Jews!"). But the network put it on their website. Any publicity is good publicity, right, bubbeleh?