Monday, November 06, 2006

Lost in TiVo Land

I'm sorry, but I just do not get the whole TiVo thing.

Obviously that makes me a dinosaur. Or maybe the little girl from the Emperor's New Clothes, who - no matter now hard she looked - just couldn't see what the big fuss was about.

Seriously, was using a VCR that hard? Did I need a computer to guess what I want to see? Do I really need to record a whole season of American Idol...since logic dictates that if I didn't have time to watch the episodes during the season, I probably still don't have time to watch them now.

Some will argue that the quality over VCRs is significant. Digital, baby, it's a new revolution! It's hard to argue with this. Except...most people don't have HD televisions yet. And frankly, do you really need to watch The Flavor of Love in digital quality picture?

But do you want to know what really gets me about the whole TiVo thing?

You pay for it. Bloody hell, you twits are paying someone so you can record your shows. Are you kidding me?! You pay $12.95 a month so that someone will record all your shows for you, when I paid $3.49 for an 8-hr VHS tape 3 years ago that I'm still recording over.

Oh. And Tivo prices are going up. $19.95 a month, unless you pay for a year or three in advance.

Do you really watch THAT much television, and yet have SO LITTLE time to sit down and watch all of these shows that you claim to be addicted to...that you're willing to pay a monthly fee so that a machine can record it for you?

In this age of recordable, rewritable discs...someone has suckered the world into buying their product that will record things for you. For a fee.

Here's a thought. Maybe...just MAYBE...if all the TiVo tool-heads hadn't bought the product, but instead held out for...oh, I don't know, a RECORDABLE DISC PLAYER...you wouldn't be paying these outrageous fees.

Then again, as P.T. Barnum might have said: There's a TiVo customer born every minute.

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