10 thoughts on “Time-Shifting TV”

  1. ABC rebroadcasts the previous week’s ep of Lost the hour before the new ep. I missed this week’s ep (which apparently, according to some, had extra WTF-ery), too, but I figured I’d catch a double header next week.

    1. Well, y’see, we were on vacation last week, so our plan was to watch two weeks’ worth of lost yesterday, until I remembered we had the Noises Off tickets…

      Fortunately we’ve got a decent net connection, and most of the networks are offering streaming episodes online these days (if delayed a bit from the broadcast), so we still have options.

  2. We’ve watched full episodes of Lost on the ABC website in the past without serious problems. Occasionally a connection will freeze up, as happens with any streaming video site, and you have to start over, but they let you skip around.

    On the other hand, we’re pretty happy with TiVo. If you’ve been thinking about going that way, allow me to nudge you further in that direction…

    1. We caught the Feb 25th episode on ABC’s website last night. The picture was great, but I really hated having to click a button every time there was a commercial just to go back to the show afterward.

      Not sure about Tivo mainly because of the monthly pricing, but I see they now work with Netflix Instant, so I’m going to have to think more seriously about it…

      1. Eek. Last time I caught Lost on the ABC site, it wasn’t necessary to click a button to go back to the show after commercials. That’s awful.

        Netflix Instant may not be the best reason to go to TiVo. We tried Netflix through TiVo a couple months ago, and we found that if our Internet connection died (or was cut off for more than a few seconds) the TiVo’s operating system froze and could only be reset by unplugging the TiVo (and, obviously, plugging it back in). The worst part of this is that if your Internet connection is still down when the TiVo gets to a certain part of its reboot cycle, the TiVo stays frozen, and this persists until you manually reset via unplugging at a time when your Internet connection is available. Which means you don’t want to use Netflix through TiVo during or preceding a scheduled recording.

        I found a forum online revealing many others had the same problem, and some noted that the ac port on the back of the TiVo is flimsy and will eventually be damaged to the point of being useless if you unplug too often.

        We happened to receive an XBox 360 for Christmas, and it also works with Netflix. We’ve been using that ever since, so I really have no idea if this is still an issue. It may not be, but you’ll probably want to look into it if you’re really interested in Netflix TiVo.

        You should also be aware that the Instant selection is a very very small subset of Netflix’s library, and last we checked, TiVo’s servers weren’t equipped to handle demand, particularly Friday / Saturday nights.

        Having said all that, it’s a huge relief not to have to constantly worry about being able to catch the shows I care about or fit my schedule around them without constantly programming a VCR (which is easy enough, but tedious, and easy to forget to do). You can get a TiVo with a dual tuner and record two shows simultaneously (or watch one while recording another), and if a show you’ve set to record every week airs at a nonstandard time for some reason, or has an special 2 hour episode, etc., the TiVo knows and takes care of it for you (most DVRs don’t do that). The menus are user-friendly and well-thought-out (for example, you can rank the shows you record weekly in order of preference in case there’s a scheduling conflict). There are all kinds of other neat features–for example, if you turn on the tv and discover there’s an interesting program already in progress, the TiVo has the last half hour of it stored in memory, and you can rewind as far back as it goes, or push the record button and watch it all later.

        In short, it’s really really really cool.

        1. Ouch — not a terribly robust design, there.

          We’ve been using Netflix Instant to watch stuff on our computers, so we’re aware of the limited selection (the most annoying thing: TV series where they only have selected episodes, rather than complete seasons). It would be nice to be able to just watch it on TV, but I figure it’s not worth getting a dedicated box. Something dual-purpose, like a Blu-Ray player or Tivo, sounds like a better deal.

          1. Yeah, it’s a pretty serious bug. I believe TiVo has firmware upgrades, so there is a good chance it’s been resolved by now considering its magnitude. I found the discussion by Googling “TiVo Netflix Issues”.

            A Blu-Ray player is a good investment if and only if you have an HD TV. If you like dual purpose, the PS3 is apparently one of the better Blu-Ray players (though its secondary purpose, as a game console, is even now severely restricted by the dearth of games).

            TiVo also has a couple HD models that can record up to 1080i.

          2. A Blu-Ray player is a good investment if and only if you have an HD TV.

            Yeah, it’s on our list for major purchases after the next time we move. I had this whole list worked out with dependencies. Mostly we ended up getting things anyway, since we spent 8 months house-hunting and didn’t find anything (rather than the ~4 months we were anticipating) and took a break for another 4 months, so we went for the phone upgrades and such. But I’m still reluctant to buy a large TV before moving!

            Cost is an issue too, even though we spent more on getting a new notebook than we would have on a TV and Blu-Ray player combined. On the other hand, the old laptop was 95% dead, and the old TV still works.

          3. Are you leaning toward Plasma or LCD? Moving is a bigger issue with Plasma (though obviously still something to take seriously with LCD).

          4. Probably LCD, at least 32″. Definitely 1080p. I don’t see much point in getting anything smaller (and certainly nothing smaller vertically than what we’ve got) for living room viewing. Those seem to be in the $500-$700 range last I looked.

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