Screwed by our Tivo!

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I love my Tivo. It may sound wrong to love a product that’s only purpose is to help you watch TV. But the reality is, Tivo helps you to watch TV efficiently, on your schedule and terms.

But now and then, Tivo can let you down. Last weekend ours let us down in a BIG way.

We’re big fans of the CBS Reality show Survivor here at the Casey house. It’s one of the few shows on Television that we watch together as a family. In between seasons, we look forward to the premiere of the next show with anticipation. We have a ‘Season Pass‘ set on our Tivo so that it automatically records and saves Survivor so that we can watch it together as a family. Sometimes that means on Thursday nights, when we might start watching about 20 minutes after the show starts so that we can skip past the commercials. And frequently, due to many schedule conflicts, an episode sits on our Tivo waiting for such time as we can all watch it.

That was the case last Thursday. Jenny’s folks were visiting, and her and I were both out at evening events. The show recorded, and we eventually caught it. But somehow we missed the fact that the 2-hour season finale and reunion show would be on Sunday night rather than the regular Thursday night. And here’s where Tivo dropped the ball, it DIDN’t record the season finale for us! It was only by accident we discovered this fact and manually started the recording more than halfway through the show. So we caught the last 45 minutes, and the subsequent reunion show.

I love my Tivo, but I feel like it’s a friend that let me down. Maybe I’m an idiot who can’t work his toys, it’s happened before. But I don’t think that’s the case this time. Regardless, I’m sure I’ll forgive and forget.

4 comments

  • Jeff

    <p>TIVO SUCKS</p>

  • Chris

    <p>I disagree. I don’t think Tivo sucks at all. But as I’ve gotten more used to relying on it to catch the shows I want to watch, any failure like the one I described is a major letdown.</p><p>Why do you think Tivo sucks?</p>

  • December 24, 2005 at 06:03 PM

    <p>I just found out and I thought you should know about the so called lifetime subscription. I was told by a TIVO service rep that the so called lifetime subscription is tied to the box. So if your box goes bad too bad you lose the rest of your so called lifetime subscription. If you want to buy a new TIVO box forget it you cannot transfer your so called lifetime subscription. TIVO SUCKS BIG TIME. Please feel free to pass this information out.</p>

  • January 24, 2006 at 07:22 PM

    <p>I made the mistake of trying Tivos risk free 30 day guarantee, on box and service. ha (see later). the thing hums. the channel guide’ is incredibly slow. it says it won’t record repeats, but it does (i guess it’s not smart enough to look at the original air date, but looks at some tv guide type flag that’s note always there?), the remote can change my tv volume but not it’s channels, the picture quality is also not something i’d want to watch regularly. guess those that love it don’t care about clear pictures. Tried to return it today. Was on the phone for an hour – not exagerating. They apparently had never heard of the ‘risk free 30 day guarantee’. now isn’t that something. even as i read them what their own website said, they were denying it. yup, they are evil. hadn’t run into customer service that rude in years. Stay away.</p>

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