Hello! My name is Equipoise and I’m a recovering Tivoholic! I used to be obsessed with it, but I’ve gotten better, a little.
We have a Sony DirecTiVo with a (hacked) 140 hour capacity, and it’s been filled up more than once. I have things from several months ago I have yet to dub off (the 2003 Academy Awards and the 2003 Independent Spirit Awards that aired in March, a letterbox A High Wind In Jamaica that aired on Fox last April) because it’s so much easier to watch, fast-forward, rewind and pause from the Tivo. If I could I’d record and keep EVERYTHING on a hard drive (or DVD) because I hate videotapes. I have thousands of them, and I’m still constantly dubbing off from Tivo to video. Someday, sooner than later, things will be dubbed off from Tivo to DVD. My dream machine is an HD DirecTivo with a HD DVD recorder. Hollywood hates me though.
I love my Tivo even though I want to bash it upside the head sometimes. Here’s how I use mine.
I wanted everything having to do with Lord of the Rings so in 2002 and 2003 (I didn’t have the Tivo for Fellowship) I made Wishlists of: Lord of the Rings, Return of the King, Peter Jackson, Elijah Wood, Sean Astin, Orlando Bloom, Liv Tyler, Miranda Otto and Andy Serkis. If Jackson or one of the actors was on, say, Good Morning America, as long as their name appeared in the program description, Tivo would record it automatically. No more pouring over the TV Guide or listings sites trying to see who was going to be on what, when. Liv on Regis and Kelly? No problem. I didn’t know about it, but Tivo recorded it. Andy Serkis on Conan O’Brian? Tivo got it. It got so many of those types of things that my Tivo actually filled up and lots of them got deleted before I even watched them. It works longer term too. In the last 2 years I was able to catch all of Miranda Otto’s smaller Australian pictures. Even if they showed up on Lifetime or WE, I’d watch them because it’s unlikely I’d get to see them any other way.
I use my Season Pass for shows such as The Daily Show, Ebert & Roeper, At the Angelica, On The Set, Talking Movies and Charlie Rose. It’s great because I don’t have to set a timer, make sure a tape is in, the VCR is turned off or any of that crap.
Now that you have an idea of how I use my Tivo, I’ll tell you some of the problems.
- If the name in your Wishlist isn’t in the Program Descriptions provided by the station (or however that works), it won’t record. Example: I wanted to get all of Nicole Kidman’s TV appearances for Cold Mountain. She was on The Early Show, but I never would have known it except that Elijah Wood was also on that show and Tivo recorded it. I saw the Nicole interview as I was fast-forwarding to find the Elijah. I double-checked the program description and no, only Elijah was listed. Maybe it was a surprise appearance. This would happen a lot with the morning shows and news programs that don’t always have or take time to list all guests. Your favorite author is going to be on the local noontime news? Well, unless you regularly record the show anyway, or find out about it through some other means, you’re out of luck, even if their name is a Wishlist.
This kind of thing wouldn’t be a problem for movies, because usually all the main cast members are listed (if you press Display) so some obscure movie where Andy Serkis was 10th billed, it would record. It gets movies by director too, so if you wanted all the movies by, say, Carol Reed, you could Wishlist him and Tivo would get them.
The point here is to not depend entirely on Tivo automagically getting stuff you may really want. It’s only as good as the program descriptions provided.
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You constantly have to keep an eye on your “To Do” list. It’s not so bad if you have a bigger hard drive but it can still be a headache. I could easily spend a few hours every week JUST MAINTAINING my To Do list! It can be very frustrating at times.
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You can’t say “record this but not that.” For instance, I want Elijah Wood on Jay Leno. I don’t want Elijah Wood in Radio Flyer/Avalon/The Good Son/Deep Impact/The Ice Storm/The Faculty/on and on and on (hey, I’ve seen them). But, Tivo will get them all and you’ll have to cull out your To Do list to get rid of them. Things you don’t want by people you do want can fill your Tivo up FAST! I wanted all of George Clooney’s TV appearances promoting Solaris. I did NOT want every single repeat of ER where he is, of course, listed in the program description. I couldn’t even put Christopher Lee and John Rhys-Davies in Wishlists for TTT. Do you have any idea how many movies they’ve been in that are played ALL THE TIME?? Yikes! I found out. Quick!
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There’s an option to get “First run” Season Pass shows, which means it won’t get repeats (you can get those too). Here again though, Tivo is only as good as what is provided by the stations. The Daily Show is a great example of frustration here. It’s on 4 times a day and the original episode is at 10:00pm (Central time). Even though I told the Tivo to only get First run, I guess Comedy Central doesn’t label that one as such, so my Tivo ends up getting all 4. All 4 a day. Every day. Argh! I have to go in a couple times a week and cull out the 12:00am, 9:00am, and 6pm shows. Yes, I could set it to record “Comedy Central, 10:00pm M-F” but the last time I did that, they changed the time of The Daily Show and I missed some episodes. With a Season Pass if the station changes the time the Tivo will change with it. Yes, I know, what are the chances that it will change times again but that’s not the point. If there’s a special Daily Show, on at a special time (for instance there was a special movie show last year) it’ll get it.
It’s worse on shows that are repeated a LOT and you have no idea when the original is going to be on. I have this problem with shows like IFC In Theaters, Hollywood One On One and Cinenews. They’re repeated dozens of times and Tivo gets every single one because the first showing of a particular show isn’t marked as such.
- The most frustrating thing about having to delete all these extra programs from the To Do list (and/or the Now Playing list) is that a) Tivo is so damn slow and b) YOU CAN’T A BUNCH OF THINGS AT ONCE! That’s the thing I hate most about Tivo. It’s mind-bogglingly time-consuming to delete every single show individually. I’d love to be able to go to a listing, press a button that will mark it, go to another, press, another, press, more more more, then, press one button to delete. It’ll ask, are you sure you want to delete all these programs? Damn straight I do!
TIP: If you know what you want to delete before actually pushing Select (which will take you into the Program Description), press “Clear.” That’s the same as Delete. It’ll ask you if you’re sure and then you have to press another button, Select, to confirm. It’s still a pain in the ass, but a little faster than having to go into each program (the Clear will delete within the program description too).
- In talking about deleting shows, there’s no Undo either. Once in a great while, I’d delete something and then immediately realize I deleted the wrong thing. I’d be nice to have maybe a 10-minute grace period where you could undelete.
TIP: Say room is not a problem. Say you get a Season Pass for a show that has tons of episodes (reruns of ER, for instance) and you’re going on vacation or for some reason are going to have to let episodes pile up. Go to the “Change recording options” page, and change the “Keep At Most” option to “All episodes.” It could save you a headache. I didn’t get into Boomtown when it was playing, so when Bravo aired a Boomtown marathon I thought “great! I can get into it all at once now” except that I wasn’t going to watch them all until my next day off. When I went to check, there were only 5 episodes there, instead of 10 or 12 or however many there were supposed to be. That “Keep At Most” option was the reason, because the default setting is 5 episodes.
TIP: If you set the Tivo to record a show that might run late, never EVER count on the Tivo to get the overage for you. I now set the Academy Awards for the show plus 3 hours! You can do that on the Change Recording Options page.
For a show that’s notorious for never being on at the same time, change the start and stop times. I have Ebert and Roeper set to record 10 minutes early (the maximum, unfortunately) and 1 1/2 hours longer.
TIP: If you’re like me and have dozens of things in your Now Playing list, it helps to be able to sort them.
Push these, one at a time, in this order:
(S) - Slow button
(0) - zero on the number pad
® - Record button
(T) - Thumbs Up button
You’ll then be able to press Display and sort Alphabetically, by date recorded (the default anyway) or by expiration date. It comes in very handy.
That’s all I can think of right now.
