The Fun Zone: The Fun

Anybody want to buy a slightly used* TiVo?

It's been a good four years or more since we first fell in love with the TiVo. It's Rob and Katie's fault. They showed it to us upon our first visit to their apartment. We immediately (the following weekend, if I recall correctly) ran out to get our own. Everything about the device was revolutionary: the interface, the performance, the ease of use, and the ability to follow your favorite shows automatically when they changed dates or times without your knowledge. It was the rare device that did exactly what it claimed it would do. It changed the way we watched television.

But that was four years ago. A lifetime in technological terms.

A couple of weeks ago, a salesperson from AT&T stopped by, offering to upgrade us to their new U-Verse fiber optic system. This would transfer our existing phone and DSL service to a digital phone and wireless gateway-based system, as well as offer us a wealth of digital television options. Plus, they'd give us a free month of service, and a hundred bucks. "Um..." I said, "Let me think about it a sec."

I've been resisting the upgrade of our standard analog cable hookup for a long time. Our brief experience with a cable box in Fishkill did not go well. Often, planned VCR recordings would fail because the box was tuned to the wrong channel, or turned off entirely. The TiVo has the ability to interface with a cable box, but only through a IR-based system, one that isn't 100% error free. I wasn't excited about adding an extra technological layer to our system. Still, if we ever plan on upgrading to an HDTV setup, we'll need digital cable, and Comcast just keeps raising the price of analog while removing programming from the analog lineup (last I checked, $56 a month for "extended basic"). Switching to the AT&T bundle would save us about $40 a month.

Oh, and the new system comes with a DVR. I didn't really pay attention to the specs, because I intended to continue to use the TiVo though the cable box, but in the back of my mind I heard the words "...can record four programs at once." Hmmm... interesting, I thought. We don't really need a DVR, but I guess it will be worth wading through the clunky UI as a backup to our VCR setup. I told the sales guy okay, and we set up an install date.

We got the system this past Friday. It took longer to get up and running than anybody expected, so I didn't really have a chance to fiddle with things until Saturday. Still, the TV worked, our standard Friday night recordings were being picked up by the new DVR (since the TiVo was technically blind at that point) and both of my studio computers could access the internet (though not each other, more on that in a sec), so I was pretty happy to start with.

Then I tried setting up the TiVo. Hookup cable box output to TiVo input, check. Rerun TiVo setup, uh-huh. Zip Code stays the same... Do I have cable, or satellite? Um... neither? Okay, let's try cable. Wait for it to call home... nope, the only cable option is Comcast. Okay, back up, and choose satellite. Wait for it to call home again... DirecTV or Dish Network? No, I have U-Verse now, TiVo. Where is that?

The TiVo suggested that I go to the support forums online. The official FAQs didn't help a whole lot, but a Google search soon located some other forums that addressed what I needed. See? All we have to do is call TiVo, and they'll give us a zip code that DOES include the U-Verse info... but it's not 100% correct. Oh, I can request that they update their lineup on the TiVo website, but that takes 2-3 weeks. What's this? People can't seem to get the IR blaster to change the channels on the U-Verse box. What? Need to buy a third party IR cable? Huh? Don't point it at the IR port on the cable box, but about three inches to the left of it? And remove the front cover first? What? The best results were found by holding the IR emitter two inches above the box, over the left-hand corner, and rotating it 45 degrees? Oh, and the U-Verse box has a habit of falling asleep when it's idle, requiring user input to return to programming, so you often end up with a recording in the TiVo marked "Doctor Who" that's just an hour's worth of a screen saying "Press OK to continue?"

My head started to swim. This wasn't going to work. Even if I could get MacGuyver some sort of setup that worked most of the time, there would always be that doubt in the back of my mind that something wouldn't record because the two boxes wouldn't communicate properly. We're going to have to cancel the U-Verse. We certainly can't abandon the TiVo! Our TiVo.

Or could we? After all, the U-Verse included a DVR, one that, while different, wasn't all that bad. What was I trying to do? Get my four-year-old box to interface with the brand new unit so I could get it to do exactly what the new box was capable of doing on its own. And the new DVR can record four shows at once. No more priority lists. No more VCR backup. No more needing to watch anything live ever again. Plus, it has video on demand, picture in picture channel surfing, and the ability to browse menus while the video continues in the background.

It slowly dawned on us (it took me longer than Stef). This was okay. We'd gotten our money's worth out of our TiVo. It was time to move on. Then we checked eBay. 80-hour Series 2 units with lifetime subscriptions are still going for several hundred dollars. Well, that settles it.

So, nearly all of our season passes have been migrated over to the new DVR. The TiVo's still connected, as there are a few more shows in there that we'd like to watch, but it's not set up to record anything anytime soon. Actually, it thinks it's attached to a DirectTV system and that it's able to change channels and everything. I just couldn't bring myself to tell it the truth.

This isn't to say that everything is peaches and cream with the U-Verse system. My two studio computers, which used to be hard-wired to a Linksys router in the old DSL setup, are now connected to the wireless gateway in the other room via USB wireless antennas. I'm still fiddling with the antenna positions, and I do occasionally lose the connection. My shared folders, which used to be visible between the two computers, are now missing as well. From what I can gather, it's likely a firewall issue, but I haven't had the guts to dive into both the Norton and Windows firewall settings, armed with port numbers and IP address ranges, to make it all work. Not sure what I'm going to do on that front quite yet. Do I need to call the Nerd Herd?

On the whole, though, we're pretty happy with our upgrade. Plus, since we get the first month free, we have the super-deluxe package, with, like, eight HBOs. Yesterday, I watched some classic Doctor Who on Demand. No, I'm not talking Christopher Eccleston. This is Patrick Troughton, Doctor Number Two, from 1968. Odd.

Goodbyes are so hard. Later, TiVo!

*Okay, moderately used** TiVo.

**Fine. Ridiculously overused TiVo. But well loved.