What’s TIVO Got To Do With It?

My son bought us the TIVO for Christmas. It cost him $120 for a year’s service and the box for free. TIVO uses a 40GB hard drive to store shows you want to record. It also uses TV GUIDE software as an interface.

My son uses MYTH TV instead, on a Linux mini computer (with AMD chips) to do about the same thing our TIVO does. Yeah, his is much more labor intensive, considering all the progamming you have to do, and it crashes a couple of times a week, too. Way too much ‘fun’ for me, thanks anyway.

But, we love our TIVO. Before we had that, we had Mediacom cable, and a cable modem for the Internet. Believe me, having an always on cable modem will forever spoil you for anything slower (DSL or dialup).

We had/have the sort of standard setup in our living room (actually our den – Connie has the living room closed up tight, ‘just for visitors.’) Anyway, we have a large CRT-type television, setting above a mid-level (cheap) surround sound box that has both VCR and DVD players in them. Works great with the Digital Cable Box from the cable company (the box is free, with a couple of movie channels thrown in).

You see the setup, right? We can watch anything we want on DVD or VCR, or from the cable company show list. We just can’t record anything, except to lowly analog VCR tape, and only off the Cable, not off the DVD. So recording a favorite movie that we rented off DVD is not an option (no big deal to us. We either rent the DVD again, or buy the stupid thing if we like it enough).

I understand our taste in progamming does not look like most anyone else’s, which is fine. Just give me my Stargate SG-1 and my Discovery, Bio, and History channels and I will be happy. Obviously, your mileage will vary.

But when we got the TIVO, our viewing habits changed dramatically. Suddenly, we could watch a bit that we missed simply by hitting the rewind button – even on live tv. I can’t tell you how much this changed our viewing habits. Now we can take a call without worrying about what we might have missed on our favorite show. Now my wife can interrupt me without me pretending to listen to her while locking my eyes on the last minutes of CSI (your wife ever do that to you?)

But the best part for me was the TV GUIDE interface was the best feature (and here is where I lose hope for Apple’s new toys). With one button, I can instantly see what is on now with a detailed description, and what is on the next ten channels playing now, and what will be on the channel I am watching for the next 12 hours. Amazing! Plus, I can do everything from the TIVO remote (now that I have four remotes on the coffee table).

Actually, the TV GUIDE interface that came with our cable is sort of sucky, but that was all there was before TIVO came along.

The only downside to TIVO is that it is like pulling teeth to move the saved movies and shows off of the TIVO hard drive onto VCR. But I am sure this is because of all the DRM and RIAA posturing that TIVO decided to play it that way.

But, being a loyal Apple fan, I was hoping the new Intel Mac minis would replace our TIVO soon.

Not going to happen. Apple does not have an interface with our cable service provider like TIVO does with their TV GUIDE software. Nor does Apple’s new Front Row software compare in features and ease of use to what the TIVO has, in rewinding live, or in storing and retrieving our shows.

Sorry, Apple.

I admit the new Intel Mac mini has wonderful prospects for being able to see anything I happen to make or download from iMovie, or iDVD, and to be able to access an iPod and iTunes from the mini is wonderful. So is being able to access the Internet and my email from my couch.

Isn’t that enough to justify buying a new mini?

Not for me. I couldn’t easily connect a new mini to my cable, nor would there be any great software in place to navigate everything, like I can now, with the lowly TIVO.

Until the new Intel Mac mini can do everything the TIVO can do, it won’t be in my living room.

Sure, the mini might make it as a desktop computer, but I already have an iBook, which I am using right now, sitting in my den, with the TIVO and cable playing in the background. I think I already have the best of both worlds here, with the setup I already have.

It is not just all Apple – yet.

Apple had not knocked this one out of the ball park – yet.

Somehow, for the mini to become the rage in the living room, it has to grow a TV GUIDE-like interface, and it has to offer what the TIVO already does.

It is just not quite there yet.

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