Google, knowing that digital TV will become mandatory within the US removing the ability to use all analog TVs without converters, has introduced a digital video recorder that can report for Google TV ads into Google AdWords.

Through a partnership with Dish Networks, the tool monitors time-shifted data from DVRs to give advertisers insight into how and when viewers see ads during the playback of recorded content. About 25% of television households in the U.S. have digital video recorders or DVRs installed, according to the Mountain View, Calif., company.

Google said it processes DVR viewership data from millions of set-top boxes to provide accurate, detailed time-shifted impression counts. There are several ways to view the number of impressions, from same day to seven days. As with all metrics in Google TV Ads reports, time-shifted impressions reflect the viewership of your specific TV commercial, not just general program viewership. The data is available to Google Adwords TV advertisers for free.

This, of course, leads to it being used within Google Analytics to provide additional information on the ads’ ROIs for free as well.

Would this be television’s savior as companies shift budgeting dollars to the Internet that has the ability to track at a deeper level? Maybe, but the problem still occurs that there is no direct correlation to one watching the advertisement and actually seeing the ad beyond the use of vanity URLs that could potentially come through other marketing channels.

That said, computers and TVs are slowly (in a technological advancement aspect) merging into one whole unit that will likely make the DVR specific device obsolete in ten to twenty years once devices such as HP’s Media Center become the norm and TVs becoming just tertiary (not secondary because one has to have two computer monitors) monitors that connect wireless to a household mainframe computer.

Unsure about how that would work? Look at how Youtube is becoming interactive now and the huge jump in tracking that will provide in the future for television (or online video content) with a simple mouse click away.