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Wednesday, March 28, 2007

In praise of Tivo

I love Tivo. I can't live without it. I won't go back to living without it. Leanna and I have three Tivos (networked of course) and record a lot of stuff.

Tivo makes recording easy. You don't have to program a time; you select a show. It's easier to find shows and make sure you got the right show. If you see an add for a new show you want to see, you can go to the search-by-title and find it. If you are just looking for amusing shows to watch, go to your favorite channel (for me: National Geographic, Military, and History) and just click down the listings until something amuses you. If you want a show and it says "Cannot record that without canceling that stupid Home & Garden show your wife programmed earlier" you can back up one step and click on "see other times this this show is on" and select a backup time. You don't have to change tapes or plan ahead to see how much you are recording and how much the tape will hold. You can see a season pass for your favorite shows, and if you see some old show you love (for example Paleoworld) you can see it to record "every episode including re-runs" and just delete the ones you remember seeing years ago and watch the ones you missed back then, or enjoyed enough to see again, or don't remember.

Tivo has other advantages. You can pause live TV and then restart it. Leanna and I love to start our favorite shows about 20 minutes after they start and fast-forward through the commercials. I love the "backspace" key which goes back 8 seconds so if you missed a line of dialogue you can hear it again without the hassle of backing up the tape.

Some shows that I find really interesting (such as Tomb of Jesus or Exodus Decoded) I just leave on Tivo (we have the one that holds 300 hours) to watch again whenever I am out of things to watch, or when I want to watch them again and go over the details. I can watch hours of TV without having to get up out of my recliner and change tapes. I never have to find a tape or wonder if this tape is episode #9 of 24 or episode #10. We pick a show or two to "bank" (leave unwatched for dead times like the Christmas season).

If you don't have Tivo, get it. You will never go back to regular TV.