Word: tivo
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...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...
Pressing thumbs is how TiVo learns which shows you love and hate; when it figures out the kind of stuff you like, it records it automatically. With Ultimate TV, you have to wade through the onscreen schedule and manually select each program you want to record--unless you choose a "season ticket," which records a show each time it's on. The device also warns you immediately about scheduling conflicts and, as with TiVo, makes it insanely easy to zip through the commercials...
...fair to Ultimate TV, its main advantage--two simultaneous channels of everything--is a huge one. Last Thursday, for example, it dutifully recorded both Survivor and Friends. With TiVo, I can't watch one while recording the other. If you're a career couch potato with many such conflicts, you may be able to overlook Ultimate TV's faults...