• by Wayne Friedman , Staff Writer, April 3, 2014

Verizon FiOS can now fill all your TV desires -- and then some: Its set-top-box DVR can now record 12 shows at the same time.

I don’t think I even like 12 shows.

Verizon is now on top in this illustrious equipment category, besting Cablevision, which can only do 10 shows at the same time. Dish Network’s Hopper with the Super Joey can only record eight shows at once. DirecTV’s Genie and Comcast’s X1 platform each can currently record up to five shows at the same time.

Virtually all of these systems have multi-room time-shifting abilities, giving you even more complex mathematical media possibilities.

Homes with five or six TVs and perhaps five or six people living under the same roof might explain why all this simultaneous recording is needed.

Verizon’s new Quantum service will also allow some 200 hours of HD programming to be stored or festered on a set-top box.

So, where does it go from here? Recording 100 to 200 shows all the time?

It seems TV is on a natural path to a complete video-on-demand world. The good news is that all the content won’t take up precious hard-drive space. It’s in someone else’s big cloud. But what size cloud (make that thundercloud) will be needed to hold all that content?

Recording a dozen shows at the same time has advantages, if you’re absent-mindedly afraid of missing any of the scores of cable reality shows, or that special rerun of “Big Bang Theory” on TBS, or even more special repeats of “Modern Family” on USA, not to mention the food and home-decorating shows, curling contests, and positive-reinforcement programming.

Set-top-box time-shifting systems complement live viewing, video-on-demand, internet viewing and other TV avenues.

Analysts have said that, with so much good TV out there, viewers who miss something -- either by forgetting or for the lack of TV eyeball recreational time -- can move on too easily to the next show. With these new DVR systems, networks can at least hope there’s a chance for viewers to come back around and take a glimpse.

But if I spend any more time watching TV, I won’t be able to work to pay an even bigger Verizon TV service bill.  

As for me, my old system doesn’t have the room for all that content. I have the “House” finale on my DVR right now, still unwatched. No spoiler alerts, please!