Monday, May 14, 2007
I'm getting my TIVO back :-)
Things have not been well in Pabut-ville since the TIVO was replaced .... and it's more than me! Even Lisa and the kids have been feeling the pain. Again, it's like a cheap knock off .... the menus are hard to navigate ... there's no audio feed back when you push a button ... worse there is a lag with menu response time ... so you keep pushing a button on the remote thinking that the box didn't hear you the first time ... and when it finally catches up you're all screwed up doing something you didn't want to do.
You can't set up a season pass for the same show playing on two different channels ... for example Lisa loves the old series "Homicide" it's on both "Sleuth" and "WGN" the old TIVO would record episode from both networks but with new DIRECTV R15 DVR we must choose one or the other ... I can't even trick it by trying to set up two separate season passes. It's hard to tell what the box is doing at any given instant ... one scenario ... TWO shows are being recorded and you want to watch a LIVE TV show ... with the TIVO I could pop back and forth between the two tuners to see what want to cancel ... with the new DVR there's no easy way ... you need to go into the program list and search for the program with the little "R" on it indicating it is being recorded.
We all had enough ... we all collectively mourned the loss of our TIVO. I was at a point I was willing to PAY MONEY to make this all better .... but as far as I could see there was no way out of this mess. DIRECTV was no longer selling the TIVO. TIVO the company from what I could see was not selling a DIRECTV model. There was no going back. We even considered putting the old broken box back in .... at least it worked better that the new one.
There was nothing left for me to do but to pitch a holy fit to someone at the other end of a telephone. I called DIRECTV and said I was taking this piece of garbage, putting it back in the box and shipping it back to them ... and I wanted to be released from my 2 year commitment ( the piece of flesh I needed to give to get the new box at no cost ) so I could be free to explore my options. Their first reply was ... uh NO .. you already agreed to the "contract" ... I told them I didn't agree to a lesser quality of service .... eventually they transferred me to a supervisor ... who also said it would be "impossible" for the 2 year commitment to go away ... however ... what they could send me was a reconditioned TIVO unit! A real TIVO! The supervisor even commented MANY people in my situation have complained .... and she was surprised they didn't send me a reconditioned TIVO in the first place.
So stay tuned ... new TIVO should arrive in a few days ... I've got my fingers crossed that this all has a happy ending. It only needs to last two years ... at which time I'll probably be ready to upgrade to something HI-DEF anyway.
#posted by Rob Roschewsk @ 2:05 PM
Comments:
Sheesh, what a mess they've made of their product! Kudos for hanging in there. Just played with my first DVR this past weekend, as part of an integrated HD Cable Box offering. Nifty features... I see why people get so hooked on these things.
Comments:
I've always said they're life changing. Oddly I find I watch TV less now than I did before. It's like "no pressure" if it's something I want to watch it will be there waiting for me. It's not like in the old days when you had to camp out every night in front of the tube so you wouldn't miss something.
# posted by 
Rob Roschewsk @ 1:32 PM