We Atkins' have made a leap in the work of digital recording.
We were long time Dish Network subscribers, with a Dish Recorder. A Dish Recorder is like TiVO, only different. We could set our regular programs to record. And while we could only record one show at a time, with Dish Network we had the East Coast feeds from ABC and CBS so we could still manage to record shows that otherwise conflicted. We couldn't watch live tv while recording something, but we could watch previously recorded shows. And like all these digital recording dealies, we could start watching something while it was still recording. Or we could watch it whenever we damn-well pleased. A beautiful feature of the Dish Recorder was the "flink flink" button (as we called it). Flink forward and it jumped ahead about 30 seconds. You could also flink backward in 10 second (ish) increments. No pesky fast forwarding.
But our Dish Recorder was fickle, as was our service provider. With each update they’d send us, we seemed to lose recording time. This was aggravating enough but periodically our Dish Recorder decided that we didn’t really want the shows we set to record to actually be recorded. You’d go into the family room all ready to hunker down and watch a marathon of all the You Gotta See This’ that you recorded and there wouldn’t be any. Silly you, you didn’t really want to watch that. (OK, I never really want to watch that, but Chuck loves that crap and it would irritate the shit out of him.)
And while the loss of 18 episodes of You Gotta See This not tragic, failure to record NYPD Blue and Ed is. I managed to salvage West Wing, but the love affair was over.
That was last Wednesday.
So last Thursday I called Direct TV. They’re running some special where you get the TiVO box, and up to two additional boxes (we only need one additional box), and the install for like $99. And they could be out Saturday to install. Saturday. Less than 48 hours after I called them for the service it would be installed in my house.
It was with great relish that I called Dish Network to cancel my service on Sunday afternoon.
But here’s the thing with TiVO and Direct TV:
1. No flink flink button. Now we have to fast forward and I admittedly suck at my timing with this.
2. Our TiVO thinks we’re Hispanic. Unlike the Dish Recorder, TiVO records things for you it thinks you might like. I do not know what we watched or recorded that would give TiVO the impression that we’re Spanish speaking, but there you have it. Every evening when I check to see what we have, there are at least five Spanish language programs.
3. I can’t find any of my channels yet. This will just take a bit of time, but for now it kinda sucks.
With the exception of those three issues, the TiVO pretty much rocks. We can record one channel and watch another. Or we can record two channels at once and watch something we’ve already recorded.
You have to love it when your TV watches for you and you watch it at your convenience.
As an avid Tivo user (one TIVO for each of our 3 TVs: the living room, the bedroom and husband's home office), allow me to try and help:
1. I don't know what the flink-flink button did on the Dish remote, but you can "leap" ahead with the Tivo remote if you are *already* fast-forwarding (important!) and then hit the small gray button on the RH side under the FF button that has an arrow with a line next to it.
Every time you hit it, it jumps forward. However, if you hit that button without using the FF first, it will leap all the way to the end of the show.
2. To cut back on Spanish-speaking programs and other crappy programs being recorded willy-nilly by the all too-helpful Tivo, pour yourself an adult beverage, settle in with your remote for a one-time long session and start "red-thumbing" every Spanish program or any other program you don't like that's playing on live TV, or in your Now Playing/Tivo Suggestions queue. At the same time, you can "green-thumb" any shows you like.
Eventually, Tivo gets the hint and a lot of these odd programs go away. (My first Tivo kept recording "The Rifleman" in the beginning; why Tivo decided I loved Westerns, I haven't a clue).
Although if I request all movies with, oh...let's say...Antonio Banderas, for instance, Tivo doesn't realize that I don't want the Spanish speaking movies, just the English. There may be a way to fix this, but I just haven't bothered figuring it out.
3. Channel re-learning sucks, you're right, and I have no tips for that.
Hope this helps!
Annie
Posted by: Annie at November 12, 2003 09:22 AM