HD TiVo

OK, so some of you may have a DVR - Digital Video Recorder - of some sort.

I started recording TV this way back in 2002 with my first TiVo. My friend, Brian, had TiVo and he loved it so much. I, of course, made fun of him (Oh TiVo, I love you so!) for his infatuation until I was bitten by the same bug. Being able to record your shows and watch them any time completely frees up your nights. Being able to pause live TV so you can go to the bathroom - also essential.

With technology like this, over time you get used to it. When I'd travel and have to watch only live TV, I'd feel like I was "slumming" it. I couldn't stand not being able to pause or back up to hear some key dialogue I'd missed.

During the first of the year this year we finally purchased our first HDTV and, as such, got a HD box from the cable company that had a DVR on it. At first we kept the TiVo as well as the DVR on the TV, though we couldn't record HD on the TiVo because it was just a standard TiVo. For a few months it worked OK. The new DVR was kinda neat. There were a couple things it did that were a little different than TiVo. Learning the new interface was a tad annoying, but it went pretty quickly. Then in late summer, we decided to get rid of our 3rd TiVo. With the DVR and 2 TiVo's, we just didn't need a 4th recording device, so we sold it to a friend. A couple weeks later, my oldest TiVo just died. Seeing as it was a pretty old model and lasted about 6 years, I can understand this. However, this left us just the DVR in the living room for the HDTV. We still had a TiVo in the bedroom, but now we could only record/watch 4 shows at once. This may seem like a lot, but consider you have 4-5 shows that overlap on Monday night AND you want to watch Monday Night Football, and you see the problem. But, we dealt with it. We're not talking about starving to death, we're talking about missing a show now and then, ya know?

As the year progressed, I began to hate the DVR. Controlling the fast-forward/reverse just sucks on that thing. You can move a little faster than TiVo, but TiVo has built into it's manipulation an auto-back feature. So, if you're fast-forwarding a show and you get through the commercials and your show starts and you hit "Play" as soon as you see it, TiVo actually backs up the start of play a bit to compensate for your reaction time. The Motorola DVR from Comcast did not do this. So, you'd fast-forward through commercials, see your program, hit play, then have to back up a bit and hit play again. Also, sometimes it wouldn't record a show. The culmination of this occured when it just decided not to record an episode of Survivor. We had to watch it online and before I was able to start the online episode we saw who'd been voted off. Annoying! It also started saying things like "98% full" when only a few shows were recorded and stored on it. I'd have to shut it down and restart it for it to record again. I called Comcast and they sent some magical signal through it to correct this. 4 days later it started again.

My point is, TiVo is far superior to other recording devices. Not only is the manipulation much better, but the guide, features, management of shows, etc. is beyond compare. Not to mention that you can download any show/movie you want from Amazon.com (for a fee, of course - like pay-per-view), but you can transfer recordings from one TiVo to the other. You can play music from a computer where you have MP3's stored. You can store recordings on that PC, also, either for good or just until you have time to watch them. TiVo has games on it, you can order pizza, check weather, show photos, etc. And, if for some reason something isn't recorded that you think should have been, you can go see WHY. If you delete a show you have a small amount of time to recover it. Like I said - FAR superior.

I kept wanting to get an HD TiVo, but they were pretty expensive. Finally we decided to get one for both of our Xmas gifts to each-other. I found a refurbished one on the TiVo site for a pretty reasonable price and ordered it. It arrived (free shipping) 3 days later. I called the cable company to have the cable cards installed in it. Then I called TiVo because I couldn't get my payment play to switch over to the new TiVo. Turns out that I bought one with it's own plan and, since it was a refurb, they couldn't xfr my old plan to it. So, what did they do? Well, the guy really worked to get something working for me. He said that, since I'd been a customer for 6 years, they really wanted to help me. They managed to reduce my monthly payment by $10. Oh, and they also are sending us another free TiVo to replace the one that dies. Yes, that will cost $6.95 for the monthly service on that, but the device is a dual-tuner that would cost $150. Oh, and I don't have to ship my old broken one back. And it's free, including shipping.

So, we have the new HD TiVo up and running and the free TiVo will be here soon. I re-progammed my Logitech remote to perform all the duties of the remote (while you can't have too many TiVo's, you CAN have too many remotes - the Logitech does everything - I may have to blog on that thing next) and it's working great. I'd even say that the picture is better. I set it up to record our shows and, last night I saw something totally cool. Not only does it have a little red recording light like our standard TiVo, but it displays what is recording on the front of the machine. So, it actually says "Numb3rs" on the front of the TiVo. So, you know what is recording at all times, even without turning on your TV.

This was a lot longer and more boring that I'd planned, but I just am so happy to have TiVo in HD. It's the best of both worlds. If any of you think that you want to start digitally recording your TV, please go with TiVo. They aren't the only game in town any more. But, in my experience, they are definitely the best. You might get a "free" one from the cable company, but you still (usually) have to pay to lease it. And, it isn't yours. If something goes wrong with it, you have to deal with your cable company. And I can say that TiVo support is also FAR superior to your cable company's support.

Go TiVo. Go now. Merry Xmas!

Airplane seats

You do realize that when you recline your seat on airplane you give the person behind you less room, right?

For this very reason, I almost never recline my seat on an airplane unless nobody is behind me.

You also realize that when you bang or kick or mush the seat in front of you, you're jostling the person sitting in that seat, right?

For this very reason, I almost always jostle, poke, kick the seat in front of me when someone reclines suddenly, pinning my knees to the back of the seat painfully.

Change the world one step at a time. Have consideration for others. Whether it's respecting their space, letting them into a traffic line in front of you or just taking a second to open the door for someone. It's the little things that matter. Do one.

Obama

I don't think I can truly express how happy I am about Obama winning.

I've followed Barack for a long time. For me, it's been more about his ability to lead as a PERSON...as an entity of maturity for our nation than about the positions.

America needs a change. A REAL change, not a difference. We need someone who can bring our nation back to universal prominence by his charisma and understanding. An Illinois senator. If IL isn't as representative of the USA as you can get, I don't what is.

Lead us, Barack. Bring back our reputation. Bring back our respect with the world. Bring us back from our humiliating past to a future where we can prove our strength and maturity as a nation. A nation that will lead by example and honor, rather than impudence.

Thank you, America.

If your name rhymes with Urguson...

Chris - reply to my emails, damnit! :)