Posts Tagged ‘TiVo’

« Older Entries

TiVo’s Big Announcement Is…WebTV?

By Chief Oddball on March 4th, 2010 at 3:10 pm

Filed under Commentary ··· Leave a Comment

Last month, TiVo teased us with an upcoming announcement, saying that their inventing the DVR was just the opening act, or some such puffery. This week they finally revealed the meat and potatoes: it’s the all-new TiVo Premiere, otherwise known to us old hats as the Series4.

The big news about this box, to me, is the fact that the long-familiar TiVo user interface has been completely redesigned using Flash, of all things. It now runs in full HD resolution, unlike the existing UI which is 480p only. It also adds a “picture in picture” view of the channel you’re watching in the upper right corner like most cable company DVRs, an oft-requested feature. But the central point of the TiVo Premiere’s release, if you believe all of the TiVo marketing speak, seems to be the fact that it’s a “single box solution” for all of your video needs, including streaming video from Netflix and Amazon as well as web video from YouTube and what-have-you.

Personally, I found this announcement strange, because my TiVo HD already does all of those things. I’ve long been able to watch Amazon video on demand, although I never do because of the cost. I’ve long been able to watch YouTube, although I never do because, trust me, most YouTube videos look like total shit when they’re blown up to 1920×1080 on a 57-inch screen. I’ve even been able to stream Netflix Instant Queue titles to my TiVo, although I never do because the interface is poor and the performance is far inferior to the streaming on either my Xbox 360 or PlayStation 3 (the latter of which is currently my Netflix streaming device of choice).

So it was hard to see the TiVo Premiere’s apparent raison d’être as anything but a new skin on a feature set that’s already been there for months or even years. If I were to get really derogatory, it’s almost like the TiVo Premiere is the next generation of Microsoft’s WebTV — a set-top device designed to as an alternative to a computer that allowed people to browse the web on their TVs, albeit at standard-def resolutions (a miserable experience) and without the features of most PC-based web browsers.

Now, realistically, TiVo is known for their great UIs, and from what I can see of the new UI in action, the Premiere UI looks to be no exception. Still, as a current two-TiVo owner and lifetime subscriber, I can’t help but feel a little underwhelmed — my current TiVo seems to be at least as capable as the Premiere when it comes to being a “single-box solution” for getting content on your TV. And, as one commenter on Engadget remarked, how can the TiVo Premiere be a “single-box solution” if it doesn’t play Blu-ray discs and DVDs?

Continue Reading…

Comments (0)

2009: The Year Entropy Accelerated

By Chief Oddball on November 6th, 2009 at 2:51 pm

Filed under Journal, Rants ··· 3 Comments

As the ill-fated 2009 starts to wind itself down, it’s making it more clear than ever that it’s not going to let us forget how much pain and suffering it inflicted on us all. Some more than others, obviously, but by-and-large it’s been a pretty depressing year. My family in particular was hit harder by more cataclysmic events at once than at any point in my lifetime, with my dad losing his job due to the slowing economy, the deaths of two family members (just a month apart, no less) and a myriad of other problems besides.

Although Apple and I have fared pretty well in comparison to many other Americans — even other members of our families — we’ve still received a disproportionate amount of negative reinforcement from The Powers That Be. This week, in particular, was like a microcosm of that very idea, presenting us with one out-of-left-field event after another: breakdowns, unforeseen events, ridiculous instances of lightning striking twice. The Second Law of Thermodynamics seems to have conspired against us to accelerate entropy to an almost comical level.

I used to do a lot of bitching on this blog. Not so much anymore. But today is one of those days where I feel like if I don’t get it off my chest here, I’ll take it out on someone who doesn’t deserve it, so away we go with a little old-fashioned rant.

Forfeiting the Comcast Battle (But Not Quite the War)

My seemingly eternal struggle with Comcast over the billing and service for my TiVo HD came to an anti-climactic end early this week. (You can follow the history of the saga here.) After apparently getting a solution from corporate to the two HD service fees I was getting charged — one for each CableCARD in my TiVo — the celebration came to an abrupt halt last weekend when my second tuner lost all HD service. Again.

Sick and tired of it, I bypassed phone support altogether and filed another corporate complaint. This time, however, despite the corporate head office’s agreement with my position, the “corporate liaison officer” at our local Comcast department gave me a call to say there was nothing that can be done. In my area, she explained, the billing system requires that a separate HD service charge be assessed on each single-stream CableCARD. So, if I want HD service on both tuners of my DVR, I have to pay for it twice. And that’s that.

So I asked her, if Comcast would offer me a multi-stream CableCARD to replace my two single-stream cards, would I only pay one HD fee despite getting the exact same service? She said yes. Of course, Comcast still doesn’t have multi-stream CableCARDs here. As a result, I pay twice as much for the same service, because of their lack of equipment. Oh, that’s really nice; I’m so glad I could help. Is that extra money I’m paying you going to finance, say, acquisition of any fucking multi-stream CableCARDs, by any chance? (The woman did say that multi-stream cards were currently being tested and would be offered to us early next year, but I’ll believe that when I can hold one in my hands.)

As a consolation, the Comcast corporate liaison officer told me that they’re already crediting me for the extra $6.95 HD service charge by lowering our second CableCARD fee to $1.50, because it’s normally like 8 bucks. Huh? According to Comcast’s own CableCARD FAQ, the second card fee can be only “up to $2.05.” They’re saving me 55 cents, not $6.95. And if you check that same link, you’ll see that I wouldn’t even be paying a second card fee if I just had a multi-stream card. That’s another $1.50 I wouldn’t be paying if Comcast could offer current equipment.

But by this point I had had it. I’m sorry, I really had. I just can’t do this fucking song and dance anymore. I told the woman to just go ahead and restore service to my second CableCARD, and I’ll pay their extra $6.95 monthly fee. What else am I gonna do? At some point you have to recognize that it’s just seven fucking dollars. I will be hounding them next year to make sure I’m one of the first people to get a multi-stream card — assuming that wasn’t just a line of bull — but until then, I have more important things to deal with.

Speaking of which…I’m just getting started.

Continue Reading…

Comments (3)

That Got Their Attention

By Chief Oddball on October 23rd, 2009 at 4:41 pm

Filed under Journal ··· 2 Comments

I recently complained here about the problems we’ve been having with our Comcast service, both Internet and TV related. The gist of it is this: The underground line from the drop box to our home had degraded to the point where our service was being partially or completely interrupted. Almost three weeks ago I finally got a technician to identify the problem and schedule a line replacement, but I had been waiting for the work to be done ever since. Permits had to be pulled, utilities flagged, etc.

After some time went by, I started calling Comcast to see if they could tell me when the repairs would be happening. After all, when the line gets replaced, my Internet is going down. Since I telecommute, this could mean that I’d need to pack up and go work elsewhere for the day, and I wanted to be prepared. Each time I’d call in, they’d tell me that the job was scheduled for sometime in the next few days. So I’d copy my work files to a portable hard drive and get ready to leave on a moment’s notice. But when those days went by with no results, I’d call again, and they’d give me another date which was magically a few more days away. Meanwhile, my wife Apple and I were starting to miss our shows because we were getting no digital or HD channels whatsoever (and the analogs were so snowy as to be unwatchable).

Then, this week, yet another Comcast problem arose. We got our latest bill, and found we were once again getting mis-charged for our TiVo HD. The billing for the TiVo and its two CableCARDs has always been unnecessarily complicated in this area, requiring that manual discount codes and other crap be applied to our bill to make the charges come out right. But this month those credits were gone, and we saw we were being billed two HDTV service fees — one for each CableCARD — despite the fact that both cards are in a single box.

This has happened before, and fixing it is never fun. I have to call Comcast’s customer service number and try to explain the whole situation until they work whatever magic is necessary to sort it out. I never know exactly what steps they take to fix it, which is maddening because I can’t give them guidance on how to do it right. Which I’d love to do, because they often fix it wrong (by simply removing one of my CableCARDs from the account, thereby deleting all service access on one of the TiVo’s two tuners), screwing up the level of service I get on my other standard-def TV, and a host of other possible outcomes. But I’ve always managed to — eventually — get things sorted.

Not this time. Despite calling in on several occasions and talking to different people each time, Comcast’s support folks continually assured me that their billing me two HDTV service charges was correct. One guy even said that his notes on TiVo customers indicated that this was how the account should be set up, and that he was required to bill me for HDTV service on each CableCARD because I was getting all the HD channels on each tuner.

Continue Reading…

Comments (2)

The Greatest Inspiration of All

By Chief Oddball on May 5th, 2009 at 7:53 am

Filed under Journal ··· 2 Comments

We’ve finally made it back home. And home, as it turns out, is the greatest inspiration of all.

It was a bit of work getting here. You know how it goes — nearly 48 hours of nonstop travel across four separate flights, some lasting an hour, some lasting 13. Countless carrying of heavy bags, sitting in cramped quarters for a veritable eternity, and feeling the ever-increasing desire to just lie down and sleep, even though you can’t. But as these excruciatingly long trips go, this was about as smooth as it gets: Perfectly-sized layovers in each airport, no delays, no luggage snafus, everything exactly according to plan.

Except one thing.

I wrote in my last post that I thought my wife Apple was getting a minor cold. And it probably would have been minor, if she’d been able to rest and recuperate in bed as she needed to. But instead she had to travel and go without more than an hour or two of sleep for two days, in the exceptionally dry recycled air of one airplane after another. Let me tell you that by the time we got home, “miserable” doesn’t even begin to describe poor Apple’s feelings.

But here’s how my new outlook on life — and the lessons I learned in Thailand — came in handy during what could have been a very painful journey home. Normally, I admit, I’m not the most patient guy in the book. If things don’t go according to the plan I’ve laid out, or the routine I’ve set, I can get very irritated and unpleasant. While traveling, things are apt to take a detour from your expectations, so it would occasionally be stressful to travel with me. And Apple doesn’t like flying much either, so we were not a good pair when things went wrong.

I’d like to think, however, that such behavior is behind me. This time, even as we were in the airport waiting for our first flight, I could see that Apple was suffering terribly with her runny nose and a headache. My first, base inclination was to become annoyed at life, ask the rhetorical question of why she had to get sick, and be upset because I didn’t want her to suffer. But then I realized, if I’m in a foul mood, that’s only going to make her feel worse. As her husband, it’s my job to care for Apple, protect her and support her. And I couldn’t do that if I was being a grouch.

Continue Reading…

Comments (2)

Sunday Slacking

By Chief Oddball on January 11th, 2009 at 12:16 pm

Filed under Journal ··· Leave a Comment

Finally, another Sunday has arrived, that coveted day of the week on which I (usually) do no work. I put in some time at the office yesterday, managing to wrap up another two Flash videos, leaving 10 more to go. Some additional components of an ongoing sidework project arrived, but I’ll save them for tomorrow; the deadline is still two and a half weeks away. Today, I’m going to relax.

It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood...

It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood...

Apple hasn’t been feeling well the last couple of days — I think she got a cold, probably from her nephew Achi, who has been sick a lot lately — so neither one of us has been sleeping all that well. But putting a positive spin on it, I was able to get up this morning at an earlier time that I usually do, even during the work week. Our housekeeper is here today, doing the big Sunday housecleaning. While she’s busy, I’m hanging out on the back patio with the laptop, as you can see from the picture.

The weather is fantastic. There’s a strong breeze blowing near-constantly, keeping temperatures mild. The reports say it’s about 82°F out here, but it feels more like a pleasant 76 here in the shade. Given that everybody I know back home — family, friends, and colleagues — is dealing with historic snowfall, ice and winter storms, which in at least one case has brought with it a cracked house foundation and a leaking basement, I think I should be exceedingly thankful that I’m here right now. (Although I’m sure the weather at my own home in Florida is fairly pleasant right now, too.)

I should also be thankful, I do believe, for the work I have. With new reports of layoffs at my dad’s company, and the increasingly bleak employment and economic statistics coming out of the United States, it’s a good time to be gainfully employed. It’s an even better time to work for a company that seems to be in a fairly good business position, as my company seems to be. January, a historically dead month at my workplace, has instead been full of new business, new releases and custom contract work this year. We’ll be putting out four new product versions next week, releasing a major update to a fifth shortly thereafter, just landed a couple of new contracts for our most expensive service as well as several hundred hours of new contract work. I don’t know what’s going on, but I am the absolute last person who will be complaining.

It’s also good to know that my colleagues and acquaintances outside the office are doing well. A guy who I’ve done sidework for in the past, for example, just had his flagship product bought out by a large medical diagnostic firm, and I’ve been subcontracted to make some changes to his website (which I previously designed and deployed) at the buyer’s behest. It’s a good time for him, I’m sure, financially at least. Ironically, this is the same way this guy has made his fortune (he’s retired and in his mid-forties) — by creating innovative software startups and either selling them or getting bought out. He managed to sell one of his solutions to the government of almost every state in the U.S. before cashing in his stake. Not a bad way to get rich. And yeah, these are good contacts to have!

On a more personal front, I finally got around to posting a bunch of pictures to my Flickr account. The photo gallery integration with Oddball Update still hasn’t been completed, but you can see them all on the Flickr site just as easily. I’ve created a new set just for photos from this trip, so I’ll be filling it up with any pictures I might take on an ongoing basis. You can keep checking this same link to see new stuff as it’s added. And eventually I’ll get the Flickr integration up and running…I just have to fix about three dozen HTML files first. :rolleyes:

Continue Reading…

Comments (0)

Creative Drive

By Chief Oddball on July 31st, 2008 at 5:59 pm

Filed under Journal ··· Leave a Comment

After a trying start to the week, things have begun to look up for me. I’ve gotten a lot of work cleared off my plate, we’ve embarked upon a concise plan of action to prepare for our travels in Thailand, and our roof repair has finally been scheduled for next Wednesday. Somehow, this had the effect of “drawing back the curtains” in my mind, and a surge of creative energy came straight in.

In the last 48 hours, I’ve dabbled in three of my favorite classic hobbies: gaming, web design and programming. And it’s all revolved around good old Wolfenstein 3-D. I got it in my head that I didn’t want to mess with a dedicated DOS gaming computer anymore, so I tried to see if I could “virtualize” my Wolfenstein operations with a combination of the DOSBox emulation software and a Windows-based map editing utility. I succeeded.

But this wasn’t good enough, because then I started to get it into my head that I should enhance my Wolfenstein project’s engine to include some spiffy new features, made possible by the modern crop of editors like WDC and Chaos-Edit. For example, it’s now possible to embed custom demos and end art in the VGAGRAPH file, instead of shipping a bunch of external files all willy-nilly with your custom add-on.

Additionally, I modified the engine to read the ceiling color, floor color, music selection and secret elevator “back to” floor from the level itself. Now, rather than having to recompile the Wolfenstein engine every time I want to change a ceiling color or the song that plays on a level, I can just change the values of the tilemap data in the top row of the level itself. The engine just reads the values of the tiles I’ve placed up there and does the rest. If I don’t add any more features, I won’t have to recompile the code again for the life of my current project.

Continue Reading…

Comments (0)

A Taxing Week Indeed

By Chief Oddball on July 29th, 2008 at 5:01 pm

Filed under Journal ··· Leave a Comment

Hard to believe it’s only Tuesday, after how taxing this week has already been. It seems like everything I’ve done so far this week has been met with an inordinate amount of complication and frustration. Even the simplest stuff…even stuff I’ve done time and time again. Everywhere I’ve turned in the last couple days, it seems that a spanner has been invariably thrown into the works.

I haven’t had too much serious trouble with my job, at least, although my work has had its own fair share of “why isn’t this working how it’s supposed to?” instances. Most of the complication has been related to bureaucratic, governmental and paperwork related headaches. We’re working through it, slowly but surely, but it’s frustrating when you just seem to keep running into a new roadblock every five minutes.

As I’ve described on this site before, Apple and I are still in the process of trying to have kids. This has proved difficult for us, so we’re going to need the intervention of In-Vitro Fertilization procedures. IVF isn’t such a big deal in this day and age, except that the process isn’t guaranteed to work the first time, is insanely expensive and isn’t covered by most American health insurance companies. In Thailand you can get the same quality care for a lot less money, so that’s where we’re going — but you still have to be prepared for the possibility that you’ll need to try several times before it works. Because there’s a two-month “cool-down” period between tries, success could come right off the bat, or take the better part of a year.

Because of this uncertainty, we’re going to need legal permission to stay in Thailand for as long as possible. For myself, I’m applying for a multiple-entry non-immigrant O class visa, which is perfect for foreign spouses of Thai nationals who want to visit their families. It gives you a 90-day stay for each entry over the course of a year, but if your last entry is one day before the year is up, you get a “bonus” 90 days. That makes it really more like 15 months total, if you play it right. Since you can only stay in 90-day increments, you have to make what’s colloquially called a “visa run” every 3 months. This involves crossing the border into a neighboring country, then turning around and coming back into Thailand, starting the clock over again at another 90 days. It’s been done time and time again by foreigners.

Continue Reading…

Comments (0)

Still Breathing!

By Chief Oddball on April 15th, 2008 at 4:10 pm

Filed under Journal ··· 1 Comment

I was going to title this post “I’m Doing Science and I’m Still Alive,” after a line from the end credits song for Portal. But I didn’t, because a cursory Google search revealed that a ton of other like-minded nerds did the same thing — months ago, in fact — so it’s already passé. I know better than to beat a dead pop culture horse.

But hey, welcome to Oddball. I’m still here, and in a functioning mental capacity to boot, lest you think otherwise. No, I haven’t been busy, though that’s usually my excuse when I don’t post for a while. In fact, quite the opposite: I’ve been enjoying my job, learning lots of new stuff that used to vex me. In the off hours, I’m spending lots of time playing video games, hanging out with Apple, going to some new places and watching my favorite movies. It’s great, it’s reduced my stress level significantly, and no — I’m not a bit sorry.

In a couple of weeks we’ll be flying out to Thailand again. This time will be a bit different from last year’s trip, in particular because we’ll be staying at the new home Apple’s parents built. It’s in a very nice, quiet area not too far from their old house; we visited the place a few times last year before it was completed, basically just to check the property, water the plants and soforth. Their old house is in a very busy (read: noisy) industrial part of town, so this will be pretty cool.

We’re actually not sure how long we’ll be staying. A lot of that is going to depend on some of the stuff we’re planning to do there, which I won’t get into. Our tickets have us coming home in a month, but it might wind up being longer — we’re sorta flying by wire here, actually. So I’m planning to make sure we have everything we need to be comfortable for a longer period of time, like cellular phones and our own DSL connection at the house. These sorts of services are affordable and require no contracts in Thailand, so there’s no great barrier to entry.

Continue Reading…

Comments (1)

Loving the TiVo HD

By Chief Oddball on January 11th, 2008 at 4:15 pm

Filed under Journal ··· 1 Comment

After all the hell I went through to get it working, I have to say that Apple and I are really loving the TiVo HD. The other day we went through the list of upcoming HD movies and selected several to record. There were a few others that I thought about recording, but did not. Lo and behold, since I had suggestions turned on, the TiVo was smart enough to pick those up for me too. As if to say, “Hey, I saw you were on the fence about these, decided to go ahead and get ‘em for you anyway. Enjoy!”

Last night I watched Full Metal Jacket in HD. Today, I see TiVo suggested that I might like to see Wayne’s World in HD, too. Oh, hell yes I would! Hey there, Mr. Donut Head Man, who’s trying to kill ya?

And the picture quality is so much better than the old Comcast crap-box, that today while I was watching something in standard definition, Apple comes over and asks, “Is that high-def?” Heh…nope! But it sure looks good, doesn’t it?

Totally satisfied. Big thanks to my parents (and grandmother!) who contributed to giving us this gift. You guys are going to love yours, trust me — it’s worth it.

Comments (1)

TiVolution!

By Chief Oddball on January 9th, 2008 at 6:49 pm

Filed under Journal ··· 2 Comments

Today was Comcast’s third (and last) chance at sending a technician out to put working CableCARDs in my TiVo HD — last chance, that is, before I escalated it up to a supervisor. Fortunately, with about 15 minutes left to spare before the expiration of the appointment window, the tech appeared at the door.

The only problem was, I was in the middle of a 3-hour conference call at work, wherein we were training the sales and support staff on how to use the new online store and CRM system we’ve built. The meeting was important enough that I didn’t dare leave, but after waiting this long for a Comcast tech to show up, I didn’t dare send the guy away, either. So, what ensued for the next 45 minutes was a ridiculous series of events: Listening into a cell phone with one ear, the Comcast guy with the other ear. Manipulating the GoToMeeting on my laptop screen with one hand, and the TiVo remote with my other hand. All-in-all, more dexterity than I’ve been called upon to muster since I last picked up a pair of drum sticks.

Today’s cable technician knew nothing, repeat nothing, about CableCARDs, which was the first thing he admitted to me when he came in. He was an amiable fellow, but he possessed only the bare minimum knowledge of the job. Thus, I must thank the very helpful folks at the TiVo Community Forums for teaching me practically everything I know — for without that knowledge, today’s experiment would surely have ended in another failure. As the tech himself complained about how they send him out to do jobs that the customer could easily do himself by phone (yeah — assuming your employer would deign to let me talk to someone who’s actually trained properly!), I ran through the diagnostics screens and gave him instructions on what to do next.

We replaced both CableCARDs and started fresh. The first card worked pretty much straight away. The second one did not, but unlike my last installation appointment, this time I knew it wasn’t going to magically start functioning on its own. I prodded the tech to call back into the head-end and ask the woman there to read back the Card ID and Host ID numbers to verify they were correct. Sure enough, the Host ID had been miskeyed. So we got that fixed, and sent a re-initialization hit to CableCARD 2.

The init signal didn’t take, so the woman at the head-end (who was now talking to me directly through the tech’s cellphone, while he simply held it up) told me to take the card out and put it back in. After which, she repeated the initial setup on that card. This time, it started to work. I ran the channel test and confirmed I was getting everything I was supposed to, on both tuners.

At last! The CableCARDs are working!

Continue Reading…

Comments (2)

« Older Entries