Genius: thy name is TiVo!!
Yes, here it is. The long awaited TiVo post has arrived.
I'm going to make a very bold statement that I will stand by: TiVo is the greatest television-related invention EVER! It beats Color. It beats the TV dinner. It beats the VCR. It even beats the recliner. There, I said it: I would rather be without my recliner than my TiVo.
For those who don't know, TiVo is a digital recorder for Satellite TV (like Direct TV and teh Dish Network). It wrks like a VCR except that there's no tape, you can record 360 hours of TV and its smart. Not "Terminator self-aware machines" smart. But "I will tape every new episode of the Daily Show for you" smart. So you don't have to worry about ever missing your favorite show or it ever trying to kill you, which, I think, is the least we can ask of our digital friends.
TiVo is so wonderful, I'm having a hard time developing a coherent structure to this post. How do you list the wonders of perfection?
I'll start by mentioning some of the less-than-obvious advantages it has over the VCR. You know how you always believed that you could watch one show and record another using your VCR, but you never could quite figure out how that worked? And if you depended on a cable box, then forget it, it ain't happening? Well, with TiVo, watching one program while recording another is one of it's more trite features. Say you you have the TV on in the background and it's tuned to Oxygen, which just so happens to be playing the classic TV-movie, MY Breast starring Merideth Baxter-Berny. You're not paying attention, just farting around on the computer but you just so happen to look up right when they show her near-perfect titty. Even though you're not recording the show, you can actually REWIND right then and there and make sure that that was in fact her titty. And then you can pause it and just stare at the titty for a while. And if you want to resume watching the show from that point on, you just keep watching. Or if you want to catch up to the actual like broadcast, you can do that, too. You see, whatever you're watching at that moment, it's recording for you. And if you rewind, it will continue recording the show that you're missing while you're ogling Mrs. Keating's titty.
My favorite use of this feature is actually not for Skinamax. It's for the NFL. Every Sunday, I will record the Steeler game. It then frees me up to flip around to the other stations during comercials, punts, official reviews or commentaries by any Fox announcer. If I flip back to the game and it looks like something actually happened during the punt, I will rewind it to see for myself. This also allows me to replay questionable calls (like a holding penalty) that the announcers more than likely missed.
Next, if you happen to love NYPD Blue but you're beautiful signifcant other doesn't, you can set up what's called a Season Pass. Any time NYPD Blue is on ABC, it will record it for me. I can specify that I only want first-run episodes. I can specify that I only want it if it's in a particular time slot. Whatever. Currently, we have a Season Pass for NYPD Blue (for me), CSI (for her) and the Daily Show & South Park (for the whole family).
Another great feature is the Fast forward. Yes, yes, the VCR has the fast forward. But on Tivo, when you're going super-fast through the commercials and the all of the sudden you see that you're back on the show, you click play. TiVo will actually send you back by about 5 seconds, figuring your relexes made you miss that much time at the start of the show. No more trying to guess how many commercials there might be during a break. You just wait until you see the show again and you don't miss a thing.
Granted, it's not prefect. It has an annoying feature where it will record shows and movies for you. Crap that you wouldn't ever watch in a million years. But with 360 hours of space, I don't mind the inconvenience of deleting them. And every once in a while it will catch you something you've actually been wanting to see.
Seriously, if you have Direct TV, it is almost inexcusable to NOT have TiVo.
And it does make watching Skinamax a lot more fun!
I'm going to make a very bold statement that I will stand by: TiVo is the greatest television-related invention EVER! It beats Color. It beats the TV dinner. It beats the VCR. It even beats the recliner. There, I said it: I would rather be without my recliner than my TiVo.
For those who don't know, TiVo is a digital recorder for Satellite TV (like Direct TV and teh Dish Network). It wrks like a VCR except that there's no tape, you can record 360 hours of TV and its smart. Not "Terminator self-aware machines" smart. But "I will tape every new episode of the Daily Show for you" smart. So you don't have to worry about ever missing your favorite show or it ever trying to kill you, which, I think, is the least we can ask of our digital friends.
TiVo is so wonderful, I'm having a hard time developing a coherent structure to this post. How do you list the wonders of perfection?
I'll start by mentioning some of the less-than-obvious advantages it has over the VCR. You know how you always believed that you could watch one show and record another using your VCR, but you never could quite figure out how that worked? And if you depended on a cable box, then forget it, it ain't happening? Well, with TiVo, watching one program while recording another is one of it's more trite features. Say you you have the TV on in the background and it's tuned to Oxygen, which just so happens to be playing the classic TV-movie, MY Breast starring Merideth Baxter-Berny. You're not paying attention, just farting around on the computer but you just so happen to look up right when they show her near-perfect titty. Even though you're not recording the show, you can actually REWIND right then and there and make sure that that was in fact her titty. And then you can pause it and just stare at the titty for a while. And if you want to resume watching the show from that point on, you just keep watching. Or if you want to catch up to the actual like broadcast, you can do that, too. You see, whatever you're watching at that moment, it's recording for you. And if you rewind, it will continue recording the show that you're missing while you're ogling Mrs. Keating's titty.
My favorite use of this feature is actually not for Skinamax. It's for the NFL. Every Sunday, I will record the Steeler game. It then frees me up to flip around to the other stations during comercials, punts, official reviews or commentaries by any Fox announcer. If I flip back to the game and it looks like something actually happened during the punt, I will rewind it to see for myself. This also allows me to replay questionable calls (like a holding penalty) that the announcers more than likely missed.
Next, if you happen to love NYPD Blue but you're beautiful signifcant other doesn't, you can set up what's called a Season Pass. Any time NYPD Blue is on ABC, it will record it for me. I can specify that I only want first-run episodes. I can specify that I only want it if it's in a particular time slot. Whatever. Currently, we have a Season Pass for NYPD Blue (for me), CSI (for her) and the Daily Show & South Park (for the whole family).
Another great feature is the Fast forward. Yes, yes, the VCR has the fast forward. But on Tivo, when you're going super-fast through the commercials and the all of the sudden you see that you're back on the show, you click play. TiVo will actually send you back by about 5 seconds, figuring your relexes made you miss that much time at the start of the show. No more trying to guess how many commercials there might be during a break. You just wait until you see the show again and you don't miss a thing.
Granted, it's not prefect. It has an annoying feature where it will record shows and movies for you. Crap that you wouldn't ever watch in a million years. But with 360 hours of space, I don't mind the inconvenience of deleting them. And every once in a while it will catch you something you've actually been wanting to see.
Seriously, if you have Direct TV, it is almost inexcusable to NOT have TiVo.
And it does make watching Skinamax a lot more fun!
posted by RauluaP at 1:21 PM
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