TiVo HD, Company

excessor insisted I come up with an idea for a Xmas present he could give me, so I consented to his buying us a TiVo HD now that they are reasonably priced. I didn't really want to change the setup that much (while the Comcast DVR is sucky in many ways, it worked well enough.) Attempts to upgrade usually set off an unforeseen cascade of other problems and projects.

So I oohed and ahhhed over the box when he gave it to me, then stuffed it in my closet so I (or zzbear) wouldn't be tempted to try getting it going while he was here.

Last week I opened it up and connected it as an auxiliary device. An hour of fiddling (had to connect another patch cable in the Cat5 wiring closet upstairs to activate the Ethernet port behind the TV, download updates, install a TiVo program on the Mac to serve up music and photo files, and go through a config program.) Satisfied that all appeared well, I signed up for TiVo service for a year, then had to go through another cycle of software downloads apparently dependent on having paid service. Then I travelled to the Comcast office to return their DVR and pick up two single-stream cablecards, which their web site said were required to have two streams (2 recordings at once) - a cablecard mediates the security and decoding functions so you can use anyone's hardware on the cable system. Gumchewing girl gives me two cards after I ask for two single-stream cards. Back at home, I insert the cards and copy down the various codes the TiVo displays, then call Comcast to set up the service. It turns out to both cards are dual-stream, so one is superfluous, but a single dual-stream card works fine. The helpful Comcast guy says return the other one ASAP, so there's another 20 minutes I'll never get back again. Oh, and another half-hour of downloads happens before everything is up and running.

I had TiVo'd last night's PBS HD broadcast of Company, which is one of the very few things I'd want to keep for later viewing. I tried the easy-to-use OS X widget "Now Playing" and couldn't get it to recognize the MAC (Media Access Code.) That failure took an hour. Then I downloaded TiVo Decode Manager, which is clunkier (one would have to input the IP# of the Tivo every time), but is merrily downloading the 15 GB file as we speak. The approved solution suggested by TiVo for Mac users is to pay $80 for Roxio's Toast, which I don't need and in previous eras caused more trouble than it was worth; PC users get a free TiVo-supported utility for this.

And hmm, I just realized I'll have to compress that 15 GB file to fit it onto a DVD, since I don't have a Blu-Ray recorder yet. [exits for a few minutes] Okay, I've set the Tivo to record it again in non-HD, since I suspect that will be far easier to deal with.

It's a full life.