Tikkabik

Somehow I think I'll be ignored (as is usual with this recommendation), but my advice is to get a TiVo.

Seriously. It pretty much ends binge TV watching, and even if you do wind up watching hours of TV, it's TV that you *want* to watch, not some crap that you're watching because it's the best thing on.

You can also do things like lock out certain channels unless you enter a passcode, and entire show ratings (so you can keep your kids out of watching shows that you don't approve of).

Best of all, it fits TV into *your* schedule, not the other way around. This means that if you happen to be busy when 24 is on, you can watch it later - as a matter of fact, I still haven't watched this week's episode, but I'm confident that when I have 45 minutes to spare, I can go down there and sit down and watch it.

To bring up a comparison, I would think of TiVo as something like the iPod - when I first heard of the iPod I was very skeptical - a $400 5GB MP3 player? But I can go out and buy a 12GB Nomad Jukebox for that much! Then I had a chance to see and interact with an iPod, and *then* - ah, it actually has a usable interface! I can fit it in my pocket! And it downloads music automatically! I understand now...

TiVo is the same way. You hear about it and think that it's an expensive toy for people who watch too much TV, but I would argue that it's best for people who want to watch less TV that's better.

My advice is to plunk down the $150 and try it for a couple weeks - if you don't like it or don't think it's worth it, you can always return it. If you're not sure, check out the www.tivocommunity.com forums - there's a huge cult following, just like everyone's favorite fruit company, and we all know how superior an Apple is. ;)

Oh, believe me, I very much want a TiVo, but the expense has held me back a bit. I'm also a bit concerned that Comcast is going to come out with its own DVR -- that's been hinted at strongly as one of their plans for 2004.

Ah good... sorry if I sounded a bit fanatical, but talking to people about DVRs is often like talking to people about a Mac... they just give you funny looks. :-/

Anyway, as a full-fledged TiVo fanatic, I would be wary about the cable provider's DVR. The two main things that sets TiVo apart from anyone else are a) the interface and b) the recording engine.

Let's put it this way: My mom can schedule a recording on a TiVo. She can't attach a file to an e-mail in Hotmail without looking at a bunch of directions I put together for her. Again, I'll use the iPod for comparison: Every other interface sucks compares to it.

Secondly, most other DVRs do not have the smarts of TiVo when it comes to recording - most of the time it's something along the lines of "If the guide shows that ER is on from 10 to 11 PM on Thursdays, then record it." If ER suddenly moves timeslots or is two hours long, other DVRs may fail, but TiVo will pick it up and automatically re-arrange its schedule without intervention according to your priorities. There's a full list of what those priorities are, where you can go in and set what shows are more important then others in case of conflicts (Season Pass Manager). You can also go in and see what exactly is recording for two weeks out (To Do List), and see what recorded, what didn't, and why (Recording History). Most other DVRs regulate you to scrolling through the program guide to find out what it will record.

Now, any DVR is better then none, and I'm mainly comparing it to the Time Warner DVR that they've started offering (ReplayTV used to have some of the same problems but I believe the latest version of their operating system fixes many of them). I'm not saying Comcast's will suck, just something to keep in mind if you ever look at DVRs.

I do understand about the expense thing - the only reason I got mine is because the person I do most of my work for these days wanted to upgrade to a Series 2 and so I managed to work out a killer deal w/his lifetime subscription included. If I hadn't arranged that, I might still be drooling instead of viewing.

Lastly, Samuel L. Jackson, Shannon Elizabeth *and* the Woz like TiVo. How could you go wrong if Samuel L. Jackson, Shannon Elizabeth *and* the Woz like it? ;-)

Rufo:

How does TiVo handle the variances in programming for a show starting at 8:59 or 9:01 as opposed to exactly at 9? This is something that always bullshit me about recording on a VCR.

You can tell the TiVo to start recording at a certain time. In the recording prefs, you can tell it "record on time" or "start a minute early" or "end 3 minutes late" or something like that. I've had to do that with a couple shows. Works like a charm.

So. What's the next excuse? ;-)

Money, honey.

I have a DVR through my local TimeWarner Cable... I'm sure the interface and execution isn't as good as Tivo, but I didn't have to buy it, (just get an extra monthly charge on my cable bill), and it combines the cable box so that's one less machine and set of wires to worry about.

I've had the opposite reaction to Rufo... I'd watch crap on TV before the DVR, but suddenly finding myself watching Becker or yet another "very special" ER was like a dash of cold water to the face and I'd turn off the damn thing. Now, I've always got something decent to watch and so I think I'm watching more TV rather than less. (It might also be because its been cold as hell and I'm not walking the 2 blocks to go out to dinner or hear music in the evenings).

I also feel slightly oppressed by my backlog of shows to watch. Sometimes it seems like just another to-do list.

I'm not giving the machine back or anything, I just think one has to be prepared to form a new viewing dynamic, and I haven't quite figured mine out yet.

I have this weird relationship with TV. We don't actually have cable and I don't even think I can get one channel in a watchable state. My TV is small (think 1/2 the size of a bondi iMac) and nestled into a somewhat inconvenient place. The kids watch movies on it sometimes, though they watch more on my computer (they don't even understand what TV is or how it works; when they very rarely see a TV show, they turn off the TV when the credits roll because they think the tape is over). When I personally watch TV, I can't believe how bad it is. It's like nothing has been accomplished since I stopped watching TV regularly back in 1987. I can't believe how predictable and stupid the programming is. Ok, now that I've said that... when I sleep over at my buddy's place I sleep in the living room with the TV and his wife is always watching it. So when they turn in, the TV is still on and I just sit there and flip through the channels, usually stopping on something like Blind Date (yeah, you read that right). I will stay up until 3 in the AM flipping through over 80 channels, not enjoying any of it and yet unable to stop watching. It's like some kind of weird drug. I keep hammering away on the remote thinking the NEXT channel will be the good one. Regardless of whether I like TV or not, it's a good thing I don't have a steady supply of it in my house because I doubt I could ever say no to it.

Peter,
That's an interesting thing we've been wrestling with in our house... like lyssa says, you can schedule a recording to start early or end late.

The problem therein is that you can't start late or end early. This has been an issue in our house wherein my sister wants to watch both CSI (good show) and ER (hate it, but she doesn't). CSI runs from 9 'til 10. ER, according to the guide data, runs from 9:59 'till 11. TiVo cannot schedule ER to start one minute late, so basically only ER or CSI gets recorded with a normal season pass. The solution to this is to set up a weekly manual recording (VCR-style) for ER from 10 'til 11, but that kinda blows because then TiVo won't detect if the show changes timeslots, if there's a re-run, if it's two hours, etc. So basically NBC is screwing with the schedule on purpose, and any relatively smart DVR is freaking out on this (I don't think *any* DVR lets you run short, actually).

But most of the time, the increased scheduling does the job. It's just rare occasions like that when things get hairy.

Re: Colin's comment... yes, I can easily see watching more TV (I usually wind up watching less, as I used to just watch whatever was on, whereas now I only watch the handful of shows I want to watch) - but as you mention, it's still *better*. Instead of watching crap, you're watching stuff you're interested in - stuff with actual value to you. My TV viewing actually varies greatly - if I'm busy (like I am this week - deadlines, what deadlines?!?), I'll watch the bare minimum of shows that I need to see (24, newest Simpsons, Curb Your Enthusiasm.). If I have more free time then I'll watch all the rerun Simpsons, late night talk shows, CSI, etc. (I have a limited selection what with the whole 12-channel ghetto basic cable package). Again, the whole "fits into your schedule" thing.

Can't stand television, and that has little to do with the fact that I work in television. We grew up in a household where we watched tv A LOT - it got to the point where i would get up at 3:00 to watch the million dollar man repeats, then go back to bed. Luckily, when I got closer to graduating from high school, i quickly lost interest in the tube. University saw me indulge in everything except for television, which i only witnessed going in and out of our dorm, when a dozen or so sports "jocks" (more like ex-jocks) were glued to the couch, regardless which hour of the day or night.

Ever since then, tv has figured little in my lifestyle. I've gone through periods, sometimes three years long, where I didn't get a cable hook-up, but kept the tv to watch the occasional video. I'd much rather spend time in front of my Mac using my brain writing, photoshop'ing, comping or video editing, rather than abusing it with late night talk shows. I'm no angel - Spike TV's Most Extreme Elimination Challenge is my current weakness - the tv might be on for twenty minutes before i switch inputs and use it to play my ps2.

For my wife, however, tv is a passion. While she's very disciplined about not having it on all day, and she spends a good chunk of her time preparing her yoga lessons and working on self-improvement, she spends what seems like a lot of her free time every evening flipping through the channels. It's not an obsession, but, from my point of view, it's an awful lote of time i would rather spend doing something more productive.

I guess it just comes down to personal preference, and perception.

Nothing but a TV with VCR, DVD player, and rabbit ears here. I watch Enterprise once a week, some local news, and that's it as far as the live stuff goes. Can't afford cable, and there's virtually nothing on it worth my time anyway. My parents have digital cable, so I can go visit them if there's something I just have to see. But when a show ends and they toss me the remote, I'm more likely to turn it off than to try to find something worth watching.