Ten Reasons Why You Should Not Buy TIVO
1. Hostage to the remote. Being able to fast-forward through commercials sounds like heaven. But in reality, we end up in a self-imposed hostage situation with your television and your mate. My husband runs our remote and he just doesn’t like having to pause it to chat with me or while I run out to get a drink. He’ll do it, but he just doesn’t like it and I’ve learned to request it only when it’s important-and to hurry. At this point, I’d welcome the natural breaks in programming.
2. The next generation. My own children have grown up with TIVO and are now unbearably impatient when we watch TV anywhere else. They do not understand that the shows will return after commercials or that we cannot simply watch a show again if they like it.
3. Cache anxiety. TIVO keep a certain number of hours of programming in your cache. Once it reaches its maximum, it either deletes programs in the cache to make room for new ones, or it refuses to record anything new until you make more room. My husband tends to keep long movies like Gettysburg in the cache or eight episodes of Extreme Engineering, I start getting worried that TIVO might not record my new episode of Grey’s Anatomy. This creates a bit of anxiety that causes me to ask him nightly, “SoâÂ?¦you gonna watch that movie yetâÂ?¦?” He often replies, “NoâÂ?¦how many episodes of Sex and the City do you need to keep?’ You can see why this might be a problem.
4. Your Love Affair with Trash TV. We all like to watch it. I used to stumble on shows like Celebrities Shortest Weddings and waste a relaxing half hour hearing about Shannon Daughterty’s romantic mistakes. I would never admit to my TIVO that I like these shows and planning in advance to record them seems to indicate I have a problem, so I miss catching snippets of these crazy, trashy shows. Instead I feel obliged to watch the socially-acceptable programs I’ve already scheduled. As far as TIVO knows, my biggest flaw is my minor addiction to Dawson’s Creek reruns.
5. Social judgment. Have someone over who knows TIVO and has the remote, and you will feel instantly exposed when they turn it on. You will launch into explanations about how it’s your husband who chooses to watch American Chopper and how you can’t really stand Rachel Ray, but you think she makes some great meals. You will feel vulnerable and exposed by your TV choices, and as I already mentioned, you don’t even have your really trashy choices in TIVOâÂ?¦
6. Money money money. A box costs money, then you buy the monthly service. And who has only one TV? So if you want TV on another TV, you need another box and another monthly fee. That’s a lot of money tied up in planning to watch TV-and that doesn’t even include the cost of the TV itself and cable.
7. The TIVO icon and bubbly noises. That little dancing TIVO icon-the TV with legs- is annoying and most people keep the little Blurp-Blurp-Blurb noises that come as the TIVO default. We don’t even notice them now, but when non-TIVO people comes over, they ask if we have to hear those noises every time. We kind of like the noises, but I’ve come to understand that we are mutants.
8. One more remote. I recently decided to write a little laminated card about how to operate our TV. Whenever my mom came over, I had to offer a little 5-minute seminar on how to turn our TV on, change channels, and use TV. With babysitters, it was embarrassing to have to explain it all. We now have four remotes for our main TV and you need to use three of the four to turn it all on. You’d have to be in mensa to figure it out for yourself.
9. TIVO goofs. It is not uncommon for our TIVO to record all but the last 2 innings of the Yankees verses Red Sox game. Unless my husband specifies TIVO to record an additional three hours, he is certain to miss the end. TIVO also gets confused about 40-minute HBO shows like Sex and the City episodes that TBS airs one after the other. It is set up to take in one hour or half hour increments and those episodes get clipped or I miss the beginnings.
10. The TIVO Kool-Aid. Despite its flaws, I still can imagine enjoying TV without TIVO. When I watch live TV somewhere else, I feel like a sucker. We drank the TIVO Kool-Aid, and there is no going back.
