Word: tivo
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...just a gigolo when it comes to gadget love. I get all excited about cool devices, then dump them in a flash for younger, slimmer, faster models. But I've never fallen so hard as I did last month when I bought a Sony TiVo, the tapeless video machine that stores up to 30 hours' worth of TV on its internal hard drive. TiVo delighted me with its ease of use and uncanny intelligence (smart enough to recommend shows it knows I'll like). I was sure I'd found a lasting relationship. So when a friend mentioned that Microsoft...
...find out, I spent last week on a kind of technological Temptation Island, quietly playing with Ultimate TV on the bedroom set while TiVo sat in the living room, blissfully unaware of my cheating. And I'm somewhat relieved to report that for all its dual-channel flashiness, Ultimate TV ultimately failed to sway me from my first love...
Right now, Ultimate TV is only available with DirecTV, which means you have to commit to satellite to use it (score one for TiVo, which works with cable too). Ultimate TV combines receiver and recorder in one box--which should, in theory, be better. But for some reason (possibly all the extra circuitry Microsoft had to pack into it) my Ultimate TV buzzed and hummed like a mini-fridge, even when powered down. I had to unplug it to get any sleep. So much for all those shows I wanted to record overnight...
Ultimate TV's supposedly universal remote didn't fare much better. It was bulky, sluggish, overly complicated and couldn't even be made to turn on my TV. I missed TiVo's slim little clicker, which recognized the TV semi-automatically. And I really missed its thumbs-up and thumbs-down buttons...
DVRs are fairly expensive, however, and as I have discovered, they are still a few bloopers short of a director's cut. There are two leading technologies competing for the market: TiVo, which is cheaper but charges a monthly fee, and ReplayTV, which is the one I've been living with for the past three weeks...