Does TiVo Have an Opening for a Copy Editor?

Because, WOW...

TV Hates Me

All I do is love it, and this is how it repays me?

I noted the weird channel move of Bravo in my SFist post today, how it moved from channel 48 to channel 181, but how Comcast had no explanation for it when I called them. So when I came home tonight, I checked to see if the "Top Chef" finale was recording, and TiVo said it was, but it was actually recording another channel. I was now not getting channel 48 OR 181. So I called Comcast and got some snooty guy who was all smug about how it wasn't Comcast's fault, it was TiVo's and there was nothing they could do about it. He also informed me that On Demand doesn't work with TiVo at all--even though I was told it would when I signed up for digital cable. But fine. Whatever. If it's a choice between On Demand and TiVo, I'll take TiVo.

OR SO I THOUGHT.

TiVo doesn't have 24 hour tech support, so I tried to go in and see if I was just getting the wrong channel line-up, and went through the steps to check my cable set-up, which didn't seem to be working. So I tried to get out of that screen.

And the TiVo crashed.

And rebooted.

And then told me it was now ready to begin Guided Set-up. You know, the thing you do when you get a brand new TiVo.

A brand new TiVo that doesn't have any programs recorded on it.

A brand new empty TIVo.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

This is when fear overcame me. I expected the worst. All through the guided set-up thing, I was convinced I had lost everything; all my recordings all my season passes, everything. Tears were shed. I bit my nails for 30 minutes while the set-up went through.

THANKFULLY, that was not the case. Everything is still there.

Well, everything but the BRAVO CHANNEL!

I know I should be mad at TiVo over this, but really, I'm just pissed at Comcast and the fact that there doesn't seem to be any option out there for me that will play nice with the TiVo. No other cable choices, and DirectTV is all about their own lame DVRs. What else is there? The Dish network? Are they TiVo haters as well?

CAAAAAAHMCAAAAAST!

God, I hate Comcast cable. I am seriously considering switching to DirectTV because I am sick of dealing with Comcast's bullshit. But I am also extremely lazy and unmotivated, so I probably won't.

The thing is this morning I woke up to find the TiVo telling me that a channel line-up change had occurred. Some new channel called "Seth" was added, and Oxygen was dropped.

Oxygen dropped? Oh, HELL no.

So I went to TiVo's channel selection screen, and sure enough, 165 was no longer there. And for some reason, channel 204, which is the DIY network, was now unselected. And indeed, when I went to channel 204, all I got was a blank screen.

What. The. Hell.

So I called Comcast to find out what was going on. I was then told that Oxygen has never been offered by Comcast--even though I have been getting the channel for over a year now. Also, DIY isn't offered as channel with the digital package I get. Once again, even though I have been watching that channel for over a year. When I told the customer service lady that TiVo had been recording these channels for me for a long time, she told me that for some reason some people with TiVo can sometimes get channels that Comcast doesn't even offer. (Yet another reason to love TiVo.)

This doesn't make a lick of sense to me. Comcast doesn't carry the Oxygen channel, and yet I was able to get it through their cable system. So, obviously, it is possible to get that channel, they just don't LET anybody get it. There wasn't a lot of stuff on that channel I watched, but I was enjoying "Tori and Dean: Inn Love," so I am pissed that I can't see it anymore.

I definitely wanted to keep getting DIY, and some other channels that I apparently can't get (but was getting) with the cable package I had, so I had to upgrade to another package for three more dollars a month. Fine. They're already raping me, so why not throw three more bucks at them? I also learned that if I wanted to upgrade to the package higher up, and get HBO, I would have to pay FORTY MORE DOLLARS A MONTH.

That? Is pure insanity. Why is Comcast able to monopolize cable television like this? There is only one other cable company in San Francisoc, called RCN (now Astound), but they don't provide service in my neighborhood. Which is Nob Hill. So I can totally see why they wouldn't want to provide service to the deadbeats around here.

Hurry Up and Wait

I was excited by the news that TiVo is teaming up with Amazon for direct-to-TiVo downloads, and immediately signed up for it (it doesn't cost to activate the service). It's a nicer idea than downloading movies from iTunes (or other means) because there's no need to get an Apple TV or the like to be able to view them on a TV set.

I was thinking it would be a good alternative to Netflix for those times when I don't manage to get new releases the week they come out on DVD, and are then relegated to the dreaded Very Long Wait dead zone for another month or so. A nice idea--but judging from Amazon's selection of "new" releases, they seem to be Very-Long-Waiting as well before putting up titles for download rental. I searched for five of the "long wait" movies at the top of my Netflix queue, and none of them were available for rental. Some were available for a video download purchase, which runs about 15 bucks, but I really don't see the appeal in that. Fifteen dollars so I can have a movie permanently on my TiVo? That I probably won't be allowed to burn to DVD? (And if I wanted it on DVD, why not just buy the damn DVD in the first place?)

Nice try TiVo (and Amazon), but you aren't rocking my world yet.

TiVil

Last year I got a dual tuner TiVo, and it rocks my world. Getting that new box meant moving my old TiVo into my bedroom for those times when there are more than two shows that I want to see at a given time. I set it up. It did its thing. And all was good with the world.

Back in, I think, November, that TiVo done died on me. Fatal disc failure or something. It was one of the old Sony machines--although at six years old, it really wasn't THAT old; such is the lifespan of consumer electronics. Getting the thing fixed would cost a couple hundred bucks, which would have been ridiculous since some new TiVo boxes cost less than that. So I basically unplugged it and forgot about it. Since I was able to take advantage of free streaming video on most network TV sites, the problem of missing those third shows on a given night was solved, and the need for a TiVo (or a TV, for that matter) in my bedroom was virtually nil.

Then I remembered I was actually still paying a monthly service fee for that dead box, and finally gave TiVo a call last week to cancel it. When I told them the situation, they told me they could sell me a brand new TiVo box to replace it for only 10 bucks, and I'd be paying the same subscription fee with the new one that I was paying with the old one.

Well, twist my arm why don't you!?

So, now I have a shiny new TiVo in the bedroom, and the TV that hasn't been turned on since last year is now getting nightly viewing. This is not good, especially since one of the things I have now started to watch is "Dancing With the Stars."

God help me.

I have successfully avoided this show for the three seasons it's been on. When I first saw ads for it, way back when, I was sure it was a joke, or at least thought it would be a show played for laughs, not an actual competition featuring a bunch of second-rate celebrities actually dancing, like, seriously. Really? And when it turned into a smash hit, I was dumbfounded. And yes, I did try to watch it during its second season, but I just am not that enthralled by ballroom dancing to begin with, and the whole thing just felt so...weird to me; like everyone in the world was pretending to be totally and non-ironically into the show, but they were all, in fact, just doing it to make me look stupid. Or something. Anyway, I was not a fan.

And I still am not a fan; I still think the whole thing is BIZARRE. But the prospect of seeing Heather Mills's leg flying off during a meringue is just too much to resist.

Isn't It Great When Something Great Gets Even Greater Than Great?

Apart from a rocky start wherein the people at Best Buy gave me the wrong TiVo, and I didn't notice until I had gotten it home and thus had to go back and get the right damn box, the new TiVo has been AWESOME. Setting it up was super easy, and being able to hook it up to my home network meant downloading all the programming info took about an hour instead of the three-plus it took with the old one. And being able to program two recordings at once is just...the bestest thing ever. Plus, now I've got the old TiVo in the bedroom, so on the rare occasion when I want to record three things at once, I CAN! Also pretty great is the "clipping" feature offered in Series 2 boxes. No more missing entire shows because the show before it ran long.

What I thought would be the tedious thing--reprogramming all those Season Passes on the new box, was actually kind of fun. It required writing down all of my old Passes and re-entering them by hand, but I've come to realize I like that kind of tedious work.

So far the only complaint I have is the fact that TiVo doesn't offer TiVo-To-Go features for Macs. What's up with that crap? And is there any kind of hack out there to get around that fact?

I've Really Gone and Done It Now!

I think last night is what sealed the deal. I had to watch and take notes about "Survivor" (for my "local reality" post) at 8pm, while at the same time taping "My Name Is Earl" and "The Office" (with a VCR--like an ANIMAL!) in the other room. And next week "Ugly Betty" joins the Thursday at 8pm line-up! At 9pm, I watched "CSI" because I knew "Grey's Anatomy" would be repeated tonight at 8pm. But then I forgot to set the VCR for "ER" because I was watching "Six Degrees" and ended up missing the first 15 minutes of the show. (About "Six Degrees": it's gotten a lot of bad press, but I actually liked it. It was slow, yes, and not about a huge mystery or disaster that connects the show's six people, but instead about how, indeed, very chance meetings can end up changing your life dramatically. I'm hooked in. Which means it'll be cancelled in about three weeks.)

Anyway, it was all just too much to remember, and the last thing I need is for my TV viewing to become complicated.

So I ordered a new 80 hour, dual tuner TiVo! I should be getting it tomorrow. That means I can move the old TiVo into the bedroom, and I'll ultimately be able to record THREE SHOWS AT THE SAME TIME!

I am never going to leave my house again!

I imagine this weekend is going to be filled with much cord wrangling and banging of my head against the wall as I try to configure everything, but hopefully it will all be worth it.

As God is my witness, I WILL NEVER MISS A SHOW AGAIN!

Ru-Ro

My TiVo is acting up. Some of its recordings are impossible to watch, with the image and audio freezing in fits and starts. Last night it was happening while I was watching the season finale of "Rescue Me," and I got so frustrated that I pounded on the TiVo box, and shook it a little. And whaddya know, it helped. I'm sure I didn't fix it, and it will probably start happening again, so I need to start looking into getting a new box. The question is, do I get a dual tuner box? Or one that records DVDs? Unfortunately, no matter what kind of box I get, it will have to be a Series 2 machine, and I don't like that. Yes, Series 2 offers a lot improved features, but it can also allow stations to limit how long you get to keep a recording before you watch it.

In other, more important news, it seems my kitty might be sick. She's got a little pee problem, meaning she's peeing a LOT, and sometimes she doesn't seem to make it off of my bed in time to get to the litter box (ugh!). I am hoping it is nothing serious, and just the result of her being 16 years old. But I also have to face the fact that she is 16 YEARS OLD, and odds are, she won't continue to live her later years as illness-free as she has been. (She's been an amazingly healthy cat.)

So, I won't say more about that until after her vet appointment today, but keep those fingers crossed for her, won't you?

Sucky

Well, as demonstrated by the post below, this weekend was kind of sucky. My excitement over my new cable was overshadowed by the tragedy that befell my TiVo. I've reached the acceptance stage of grief over that, and I'm trying to look at the bright side. While I lost some recordings and season passes that I had managed to save for years, the hard drive cleaning has resulted in a zippier TiVo. Also, since it's summer, I didn't have as many season passes to recover as I usually do. I did my best to get them all back, but I'm sure I've forgotten some...

The biggest annoyance was that the "this will take an hour" message was a load of bull, as I suspected. I was afraid it might not recover at all (I had read horror stories from other people wherein it just stayed on that screen for days) but instead it took about 4 hours. After which I had to do the whole TiVo set-up thing, and it had to make The Call and get all the programming stuff, and index it and everything, so that took another 4 hours. Which meant I didn't have anything recorded for Sunday.

And that would normally be fine, because I had planned on spending the weekend with some Netflix movies, in an attempt to save some money by not going out. But, you see, someone STOLE MY DVDS! My mailbox has been broken for a couple of months now (a long story, and partly my fault, which is why I haven't had the landlord fix it. Like I said, long story. ) but I figured, it's behind a gate, and I'm sure my neighbors are trustworthy. If they see my mailbox is open, they aren't going to STEAL anything, for pete's sake.

Wrong. WRONG!

None of my three Netflix DVDs arrived this week, even though they were sent out to me on Monday. And, come to think of it, I haven't gotten a few issues of some magazines in a while either. Damn IT! So, to the asshole who took my movies, I really hope you enjoyed In the Realms of the Unreal. Something tells me if you're the kind of idiot who steals mail, you're not the kind of person who would enjoy a documentary about outsider art. Jokes on you!

So, the majority of my Sunday was devoted to reprogramming my TiVo which, what with all the new stations and all, took a loooong time. But I was able to catch a showing of The Long, Long Trailer on TCM, so the day wasn't a complete bust...

And hopefully the sad, blank screen that is my "Now Showing" list will fill up soon with my season pass recordings and kooky TiVo suggestions...

Despair

I was so happy. I figured out how to get the TiVo and my new digital cable to be friends, and I was programming movies left and right. Sure, there's a bit of a lag time when I change channels, but patience is a virtue, right?

What I couldn't stand, though, was the fact that TiVo kept bringing up this stupid demo screen and video every 30 minutes---WHILE I was watching stuff. So I did some looking on the Internets and found what I thought was the answer from the TiVo site.

But it wasn't....oh, it wasn't. The advice they gave was for a different model, so when I did it on mine, it ended up RESETTING THE ENTIRE TIVO. It didn't even give me a warning. No "Are you SURE this is what you want to do?" message. It just did it! That means all my season passes, the recordings I had saved, all my favorites, gone. Five years of slow and steady TiVo programming gone. Forever!

And now I'm stuck looking at a screen that says "Clearing and deleting everything. This will take an hour." Like a constant taunt. And I just KNOW it's going to take more than an hour--if it ever reboots at all....

Oh TiVo. Why hast thou forsaken me?

Want a Free TiVo?

You know you do. And as reported by the fine folks at SFist, one can be yours if you are a Comcast cable subscriber and you show up at their headquarters in Alviso (?!) tomorrow morning. Awesome.