I love the TiVo - -
Totally not crap.

Continuing on the bitching about TiVo thread though:

- Mine records the wrong channel more often than 1 out of 150. For me, it's more like 1 in 50. And I tried to find a way to make it change the channel better, but you can't do it if you are using the serial cable conneciton to your cable box. Bummer.

- It won't stop recording shows I don't want it too (I've given them 3 thumbs down) yet it still records the show because its description contains a word on my wishlist.

- It won't do my taxes for me.

- It would be great to be able to set it up so it would put different shows, depending on who wanted to watch them, into different folders. So for example, America's Next Top Model would go into my girlfiriends folder, G-String Divas would go into my folder, and Spongebob would go into my kids folder. Wait, I don't have kids. But if I did, this folder shit would be cool.

- The obvious one, which isn't so easy without a special hookup, would be for the TiVo to be recording something while I'm watching another live, or psuedo-live show. (I heard this is going to be possible in the next generation TiVo's as well as being able to record more than one program at a time.)

- It would be cool if I could program my TiVo via webbrowser from work (actually, I know you can do this with hacks and/or that home media option that you can buy) BUT I should also be able to watch anything in the "Now Playing" list remotely on any computer with a broadband connection. Good idea, right!? Hunh? C'mon.

- I should be able to make my own television shows with my TiVo. For example, I could make my own World Poker Tour, and it would be awesome!

- TV shows should start writing in secitons in their scripts where their characters sleep or go take a piss for like a minute or two because without commercials, I end up sitting on the couch for 2, 3 or 4 hours at a time without getting a break to go pee or get myself something to drink.

I can't wait to get that On Demand thing in my neighborhood. I saw that at my gf's parent's house in detroit and it sounds pretty awesome. That's obviously the future of television, no? They're obviously going to have to figure out new ways of advertising. John has a good idea that I won't spoil here cuz maybe someday he'll get rich from it. But I like that thing where if you're watching a commercial for say The Apprentice, and it pops up that little thing that says, "Press Thumbs Up to Record". I use that quite a bit. So, keep that up whoever you are.

TiVo rules for slow motion, commercial skipping, and finding stuff that you never would have found if you didn't know where to look for it.

I love the TiVo. Oh, and TiVo runs linux.

seriously, what, in the episode of friends where rachel is trying to seduce this dude by wearing her old cheerleader outfit, there's a shot where she's taking her bra off under her shirt and you can see like the top 2/3 of her left (your right) tit. without tivo i never woulda been able to say definitively that it's 2/3 and not just half.

russ, i don't mean to be all like "um, doude" or nothin, but as far as the watching for 3 or 4 hours straight cause there's no commercials... i heard there's a hack you can download that gives it some kinda bizarre "pause" feature, i think they called it. i'll try and dig up the url for you.

Yeah, it's kinda funny that the pause button on the remote is the single biggest button on there.

The only time I hit it though is if I suddenly remember that I need to look up some website on my laptop (which is right by the couch) and I don't want to miss what's going on on the TV. And then I forget that I was watching TV, and after I get tired of looking at stuff on the internet or emailing or playing online poker, then I remember, "Oh Yeah, I was watching that show! I thought it was kinda quiet around here."

Or, "No wonder I can hear that cat yelling at me." Or, "Man, are my legs really asleep. I couldn't get up if I wanted to."

Or, "I bet I could take Vince Van Patten with one eye closed. If he makes one more stupid comparison, I swear I will."

Or, "Maybe I should work out instead of sitting here all the time like a retarded 21st-century-techno-loser. Nah, I've gotta finish this show so I can talk about it with John tomorrow. He'll be pissed if I didn't watch it. The guy watches more TV than whatever. At least I'm not as pathetic as he is. At least I don't have my TiVo recording something on one TV while my VCR is recording something else on the other TV. Jeez, what an addict."

You know, it's cold outside. At least it was. I'm sure things will be different as it warms up. Right.

sounds like you need to get yourself one of these babies...

http://www.sonystyle.com/is-bin/INTERSH ... 1&Dept=cpu

easy there tiger, keep it in your pants!

Wow. That thing is pretty nice. GigaPocket eh? Never heard of it. Sounds pretty cool. Too bad it's a Sony Viao. I don't think I really like the Sony's very much. I'm pretty in love with my Toshiba, but I'll look into it more.

russ

well i don't wanna stray from the topic too much here, but out of curiosity, what is it about the vaio that you don't like? if it's worth anything, which since you don't know me from adam it probably shouldn't be, i currently have two and am rather happy with both.

Uh, let me see, things I don't like about the viaos:

1. They are overpriced. Much like macs.

2. I like that little nub thing that IBMs and Toshibas have. I don't like touchpads and those little scrolly wheels.

3. They seem like they are pretty flimsily made.

4. There's too much proprietary junk included with them. Like that media stick thing.

5. When they make small notebooks, they make this with lots of base stations and make them hard to use. Whereas if you look at something like the Toshiba Libretto L1's, they are tiny, yet look really great and seem like they would be easier to use than the small vaios.

But, like I said, that link you included to that Vaio looked pretty cool. I wasn't really looking at the laptop as much as I was looking at the features .

russ

1) overpriced, maybe. more expensive than others, certainly. but they're good. they're solid. and that's part of why they cost more.

2) i used to look at the nub vs touchpad when deciding what laptop to get. that was before. every computer i own or use must have a microsoft intellimouse explorer (usb, optical, 5-button muthafucka). carrying a mouse around to use with my laptop is a cinch. i will never go back. so the nub vs touchpad, while it used to be a dealbreaker for me (and ironically, i used to be a big fan of the touchpad, then had a computer with both and preferred the stick), it is now a total non-issue. i can't even imagine life without 5 buttons and a wheel. i have mine set up so clicking the wheel launches windows explorer, one of the thumb buttons is the control key (so i can do multiple select without the keyboard), and the other thumb button is "back" in explorer. browsing is a lot easier this way, trust me.

3) not at all. BUT, i must stress, i don't even look at tiny laptops. my laptops are always considered desktop replacements, so i go for features and not for size. i have the biggest laptop like ever, a vaio with a 16" screen. it's big, it's solid as hell, and it's heavy. but i'm strong enough to handle it weighing 9 lbs instead of 5. y'know? the little ones may very well be flimsy. i have no idea about them

4) um... pretty much everything in a laptop is proprietary. i mean, everybody might use hitachi HD's, but the memory, the motherboard, sound cards, disc drives, all that stuff is all proprietary from one laptop to the next, unlike desktops. right? the media stick is probably tacking an extra $50 onto the price, true. i am a big fan of sony for my consumer electronics needs, so since i have a sony digital camera, i'm glad to have that memory stick port built-in. and sony had firewire (i-link) standard on their laptops before most other manufacturers did. which is great, cause it's fast as shit. okay, yeah, so is USB 2.0, but it's still nice to have both. my sony video camera uses the firewire like a champ. so do many external HD's or DVD drives.

5) yeah, i haven't been blown away by the small sony's i've seen. but as i said, i don't like the idea of a small laptop to begin with. alls i need is the ability to throw it in a backpack and take it around. i've actually had both of my vaio laptops in my backpack at the same time, and i was okay. i do agree though, in that the small vaio's don't look so good to me.

yeah, 533 MHz bus. DAMN! DVD burner and tivo! DAMN DAMN! makes me wish i actually needed to replace my 1GHz P3 vaio. $2200 is a lot, though. but worth it, for the features.

and hells yeah the slumber party skit was funny.

steve wrote:I spend less time when I do watch TV, and I enjoy it tremendously more, now that I have TiVo.

Worth every penny because I no longer have a generally negative opinion of television, and I can watch TV with absolutely no frustration.

The best device in my personal life. Better than Sonicare.

It really does change your life. It is absolutely indispensable for watching sporting events as well, especially with a group of people who distract everyone from the game and thus you miss key plays or whatever.

I am proud to tell people I have no idea what they are talking about when they ask me "Have you seen that new reality show blah blah".

Nope. And I don't see commercials for those dumb shows.

And a TiVo trick for new users: To enable the 30-second skip feature (using the Advance key on the remote) press Select-Play-Select-3-0-Select on your remote. Ding Ding. New feature.

Rock.

Chris

how do all the TiVo users here have their compression set up? i was just looking at the TiVo FAQ's and it said that using the least compression (notice, not "no compression", but "minimal") a 14hr unit only gives 4 hours of recording...

how do y'alls have your TiVo's set, in terms of compression? that's one thing i've always disliked about the TiVo, is the noticably compressed video. always apparent when i've paid any attention to the image. how's about the audio, too? pretty much like mp3? at best it would be cd quality, but i have a feeling it gets digitally compressed just like the picture, right?

anybody who says TiVo is good and mp3 is bad should get punched in the nuts.