TiVo or Channel Surf, The Choice Is Yours & Ours!

We got a TiVo last summer right after my hours away from home insanely skyrocketed with American Express Financial Advisors.

Television viewing has never been the same.

The only way to explain TiVo is that you are creating your own television viewing network that is ready for you on demand.

You watch what you want to watch when you want to watch it and even record other programs and broadcasts at the same time.

A VCR could never do this. You can essentially have 3 programs working at once. A VCR would not allow you to record one show while you were looking at a program already saved.

You can even watch live tv although if you change channels while a program is being recorded, you will receive a warning that the recording of the first program (that is being aired live) will be stopped.

You can freeze, replay, and fast forward as well.

Our daughter Rachel is from a TiVo generation. She turned 4 years old after we got the TiVo. Rachel would say "freeze it" or "stop it" whenever she needed a bathroom break.

But technology is not perfect and our TiVo has been in a coma for some time now.

The TiVo we purchased was a first-generation unit and the internal modem died within it.

The second generation TiVo products now have a network card that uses broadband/DSL service in order to receive the updates (which are better than TV Guide by the way)

We had the TiVo still working until I reset it due to the unit needing to receive the daily updates. The daily updates were available for at least 15 days after the modem died.

Without the daily updates, we could not record and save live broadcasts. This made the TiVo work just like an analog VCR.

This situation actually was escalated since we have DirecTV service.

But without the TiVo working as it should, we cancelled the service and disconnected it from the satellite set up.

The TiVo's remote control (shaped like a dog bone) had everything working through it versus the satellite remote control.

There is a replacement network card available for the first generation TiVo units, but another situation is revealed in that you must have the local telephone company (BellSouth in our area) provide local calling versus any other company that provides local telephone service.

We are team trainers and independent representatives (local calling, long distance, and internet service) for a competitor to BellSouth.

Our technological exploits are being shared to make things easier for you. Our losses should be your gain and they provide for great laughs as well.

We could not laugh about any of this before, but now we can;))

Unfortunately, we will have to eventually return to BellSouth to obtain local calling service before being able to use the same TiVo unit. We have refused to buy a new TiVo unit since our current, nonworking one could save 140 hours of programs.

We will eventually obtain the replacement networking card after rejoining BellSouth and return to being happily entertained by DirecTV.

Right now without TiVo, we channel surf more than we ever did or needed to with TiVo.