Attack of the Fisher-Price TiVo

I purchased my first TiVo digital video recorder in 2001, while I was in the Bay Area living a hedonistic, 20-something-working-for-a-dot-com lifestyle. The job didn't last, but the TiVo did. I was immediately charmed not only by the basic premise of timeshifting, but also the great user interface and intelligence behind the concept. When I moved back to Utah, TiVo moved with me.

When we set up shop in Herriman, we ended up replacing the brand-name TiVo with a Dish Network DVR, mostly because Dish gave us all the channels we needed for less money each month. The DVR did not have all the gee-whiz of TiVo, but it was reliable and easy to use (think Chevrolet instead of Cadillac).

Fast-forward and we are now apartment-dwellers in Texas, waiting for our home in Utah to sell. Because we're in an apartment, we opted against Satellite TV. This meant we couldn't use the TiVo (my original TiVo is a Satellite receiver and does not work with cable). Dish's DVR was also out. We signed up with Time Warner Cable and added the DVR option, reasoning it would provide an approximation of the function of TiVo or, at least, the Dish DVR unit.

We could not have been more wrong. Within seconds of firing the sucker up, it received (and still holds) the title "Fisher Price TiVo" in our household. (In the car analogy above, this wouldn't even make GM's lineup. Maybe a Yugo?) Everything in the user interface, from the colors and fonts to the resolution, remote control and menu scheme, seems dumbed down to the point of absurdity. The manufacturer threw out all the accumulated DVR wisdom since TiVo's inception at the dawn of the decade, and attempted to make the product as similar to a VCR as possible. Because, you know, going back 30 years for user interface and functionality is all the rage now.

Case in point: to access recorded programs, you actually "tune" this DVR to the "DVR channel" on the unit. Nevermind that it's accessing a recorded program on the unit's disk drive; we must maintain the pretense of snagging pixels from the ether. I still haven't figured out how to get back to live TV when a recorded program ends, without fumbling through at least 3-4 buttons; the sucker just says "DVR Channel" until you do something.

Second case in point: Selecting a program to record involves searching a channel guide grid and pressing the record button when you finally find the program. I suppose this maintains the analog paradigm of sifting through grids in TV Guide or the newspaper, except that 1) you only get to see four channels and two hours at a time, and 2) you can only look a day or so ahead. Trying to see programming three days hence results in the cryptic "No Data Found" message, implying to the analog user that all TV broadcasting ceases at that point.

I could go on, but given that our stay in this apartment is temporary, we figured that we could live with Fisher-Price TiVo for a few months (one of the few virtues of the arrangement is that there is no contract).

Yet, last week we discovered another irritation, one that seems to expand the design goal of this product to include not only the interface and functionality of 1977, but the reliability as well. We're following a few new shows this season (which is often the kiss of death for a new show, since about the time I decide I really like it, the network cancels it). We dutifully scrolled through the grids, thumb blisters developing as we pumped the "next" button on the remote, for each program we wanted to record. Then, a couple of days ago, the unit inexplicably dropped all its scheduled recording plans, reminiscent of a 1970's VCR's flashing 12:00. Why, I do not know, since the product allegedly has the afore-mentioned disk drive, which should immunize it from power outages. Yet, for some reason, it chose to lose the schedule.

When I moved from California to Utah, my TiVo not only remembered the programs I had on order, but automatically found them in the new time zone and new local channels, without any input from me. That was in 2001. Why is Time Warner stuck in 1977?

So what's all the fuss about? Lots of people don't even have a DVR.

If you've never used a DVR before, let me explain the paradigm shift. When you are accustomed to watching your chosen programming anytime you want, commercial free, your viewing habits change. You see or hear about a program you would normally not have dedicated any time to, just to see if it's any good. (Our threshold has been anywhere from five minutes to three episodes.) If it doesn't work, you just delete it from your queue. But this depends on having reliable tools that are easy to use. Otherwise you're stuck with the TV Guide way of doing things. And having loved and lost (like Frank has), you are definitely worse off than having never gone down the TiVo rabbit hole.

In sum, Fisher-Price TiVo will not be following us to our new abode. I hear TiVo calling...