I no longer have TiVo. It was a tough decision because I love the TiVo. And it is the greatest invention since Al Gore invented the Internets Tubes. See, we moved.

When you move, you’re suddenly a different person to everyone. They forget that you’re the same person and that all you really want is to continue the same arrangement you had before. That was when everyone was happy. Instead, the opt to piss you off and treat you like you’re just schmuck off the street. Your existing contract with your propane supplier? Done (see, it’s wintertime and rates are up now and you were smart and signed up in summer, and we just can’t have that).

DirecTv decided it didn’t want my money. See, they used to support TiVo but now they pimp their own DVR device. But they no longer support TiVo even if you’re an existing TiVo customer of DirectV. Their device doesn’t have some features we wanted, like the ability to communicate with other DVRs. Also, we’d have to pay them and pay TiVo for the same service. It would cost us another $30 or so a month for DirecTv and TiVo (as a separate service). And, like every other affluent person out there, I pay $30 per month to too many people already. Seriously, have you figured out how many people you pay between $20 – $50 per month? It’s probably a lot. For me, it’s cell phones, landline (we have a fax and burglar alarm or I’d lose the landline too), burglar alarm, Al Gore’s Internets, another cell phone, gas, water, and probably more I can’t think of. I get $30ed a month to the tune of at least $240. Sorry, I got sidetracked. Oh yeah, TiVo.

We now have Dishnetwork. It has it’s own DVR system as well but, unlike DirecTv’s, they can talk to eachother. So, here’s my review of the new DVR:

Pros:

Dish Networks beats DirecTv in terms of picture quality.

Programs automatically start being recording a few minutes early and are recorded a little long. If you ever watch Fox, you know this is a pain in the ass on TiVo which defaults to starting on time. I haven’t seen the intro to The Simpsons in a year because Fox always starts early.

One receiver feeds two TeeVees. The TeeVee in the living room and the master bedroom talk to each other. The TeeVee downstairs talks to Junior’s room.

Each DVR has 100 hours of recording time, compared to TiVos 40 or 80.

No suggestions (it’s a pro and a con): No more deleting assloads of shows I won’t watch.

Better DVR player controls. It’s like a tapedeck or CD player on the remote. There’s play, stop, pause, etc. Pretty neat.

It has what TiVo always needed: A skip forward button (I like TiVo’s skip back but thought it needed a skip forward).

More fast forward options (from 4x to 300x).

I can specify from one TeeVee that I’d like a program recorded on another (hence, I could watch live TeeVee and record on the same TeeVee while the other TeeVee does the work).

You can search for shows based on their info, not just title. That’s pretty cool.

Cons:

Not used to the interface.

Not all of our TeeVees talk. Two talk but the four don’t talk to each other. So, I cannot watch any program on any TeeVee.

No suggestions (it’s a pro and a con): I don’t get the occasional hidden jewel of a program I might like. For example, TiVo is how I discovered Robot Chicken.

When you hit the pause, the little timeline doesn’t show at the bottom to indicate how much longer the show is.

No groups. I liked TiVo because you could group the same TeeVee show together (for example, the screen will show Peep (4), indicating four episodes of Peep – if you don’t know what Peep is, you don’t have small children. So, all my Peeps are all over the place).

Overall, I like the new DVR and think it’s better in terms of features. But I’ll miss the old TiVo and it’s warm sounds.

Posted in uncategorized on November 3rd, 2006 by SayUncle | RSS 2.0 |