Hating TiVo

I don't really hate TiVo. In fact, I love my TiVo devices and the TiVo service. Sure, they're expensive, but they are top notch devices and the service is outstanding. Let me emphasize again, I love TiVo. But, I also hate it.

The problem isn't the cost. I willingly spent the money for devices and for lifetime service.

I first got a TiVo device back in 2006, and have been a fan through all the years, upgrading as time went on. And, after my pleasure of working with a TiVo Roamio, I was excited when the features of the newer TiVo was announced a couple of years ago. I was ready to upgrade my TiVo Premiere and anxiously awaited the release date.

Then I saw one.



I am not putting something that looks like that in my house. I don't know what kind of crack they were smoking, but I won't get near that thing.

Sure, the specs are great. And, if it looked like something a normal person would have in their house, I would have bought one when it came out.

But, I'm not spending my hard-earned money on something so stupid looking as that.

So, I decided to wait. Surely, they'll make something that a sane human being wouldn't be ashamed to be seen near. But, as the years have passed, there's been no indication that they're going to fix that abomination any time soon.

I've spent a decent amount of money over the years, purchasing a Series2 (that should have been my first indication that their brains were cockeyed when they left out the space between "Series" and "2"), a Series3, multiple Premiere, and a Roamio.

Speaking of Roamio (stupid name, another flag I missed), I have an OTA that is sitting in a box. But, where I want to use it -- that is, where I currently have a Premiere running -- has a cable package. There's no antenna, and the location is far enough away from TV towers that an indoor antenna won't do the job. And I'm not going to go through the time, trouble, and expense of putting up a sufficient tower and antenna. So, there's a Premiere still running there, not a Roamio (which I'd buy if I could find a new one that supported cable card) or a Bolt (which looks stupid as hell).

So, I'm hating on TiVo. The dumbasses at TiVo that came up with the idea of the appearance of the Bolt, and the dumbasses who won't put a decent-looking device out in its place.

I'll just keep my money.

I remember when I ran the TiVo remote

This weekend has been a hugh role-reversal for us at the house.

The old stereotype about the guy hogging the remote? Well, pretty much the truth here at the house.

Now, truth be told, we have two TiVo remotes. The one that came with the TiVo, and a second one I bought for The Wife. Different color (lavender) so we could tell them apart.

Still, despite the fact that we both had a remote for the TiVo, I was usually the one that would hit the fast-forward through the commercials. Unless it was a Sonic commercial. I love the Sonic commercials.

Then, "Twilight" came out on DVD.

The Wife ordered it, gosh, like a month or two ago. I don't know when. Other than the day it came available for pre-order.

And, since Amazon ships the day a DVD comes out -- as opposed to, say, Apple, who delivers on the day an item comes out -- "Twilight" won't arrive at the house for several days. The Wife didn't spend anything extra on delivery.

However, to Amazon's credit, they did offer a free discount for a rental. That way, anyone to ordered "Twilight" could watch it the day it came out.

So, she sent me the code, and I punched it in on Amazon Video On Demand. And, sure enough, it showed up as available for download to the TiVo. So, we downloaded it.

After it downloaded, she pressed "play."

So, I got to watch her watch "Twilight" last night. Twice.

And, again today.

Every female she's related to came over ... not all at one time ... and they watched "Twilight."

I still haven't seen the movie. Oh, bits and pieces, to be sure. But, quite honestly, it's not the kind of movie I'd be interested in. I can't get into a movie where the hero looks like he needs a haircut and an ass-kicking.

The Wife, though, has really enjoyed watching "Twilight." And, she's run the remote. She's pressed "pause" when someone asked a question about which "good vampire" or "bad vampire" was which. Or why the girl looked paler than the vampires. And why was this scene in the movie when it wasn't in the book. And who was this guy. And so on.

She ran the remote, and seemed to enjoy it. It was a huge switch from the way things normally are.

She's really enjoyed "Twilight." So, I upgraded. We don't just have the rental (which has now expired), but we have the purchase on the TiVo. That is, it's permanently in our Amazon On Demand library. We can download it again any time we want, and don't have to pay again. She can watch "Twilight" on the TiVo any time she wants.

The DVD hasn't arrived yet. And, I'm sure she'll enjoy the "extras" that make up the second disc. But, to watch it? She doesn't need to put the DVD in the machine. Just find it on the TiVo menu, and press play.

She'll be running the remote.

And loving it.

The "Best" Movies (updated)

I've decided to watch all the "best" movies. If you want to know why, read this.

But, after posting about it, I've had questions for the lists. So, here they are:

• AFI's 100 Years, 100 Movies (2007 list)
• AFI's 100 Years, 100 Movies (original 1998 list)
• AFI's 10 Top 10
• Academy Award® Best Picture winners

Some films are on just one list. Some are on all four. Most fall somewhere in between.

Here are the combined lists:

• Alphabetical listing
• Ranked listing
• Listed movies I have seen
• Listed movies I have not seen

I hope you find the lists useful.

UPDATED: I have now seen them all.

The "best" movies

I like movies. Not all movies. But some. Or a lot. I guess it depends on how much "a lot" is.

I've always enjoyed going to the movies. I never wanted to be in the movies. And won't. But watching a good movie is ... better than good. It's great.

When I was just out of high school, I was a night DJ at the radio station in my home town. Got off work at midnight, then would go home and watch "The All Knight Movie" that the station in Savannah would show. Saw lots of classic movies, and gained an appreciation of black and white films.

Later, when I worked in Jacksonville (20-25 years ago), I would use my time off to go to the movies.

At Orange Park, just south of Jacksonville, there were three theatres all right together. You could see them all from a single spot while driving. That place had the most movies showing at a close proximity than any place in the Jacksonville area.

So, come weekend, or if I got an early night, I'd head to Orange Park and have a great chance of finding a movie playing that I'd like.

Haven't gone to the movies a lot over the past several years. Not like I'd like to, anyway. And that's one of the reasons I've enjoyed the TiVo/Netflix streaming thing they do.

I enjoy TCM's presentations with Robert Osborne or Ben Mankiewicz, with all the trivia and anecdotes about the films they show. Good stuff.

A while back, the American Film Institute came out with a "100 years, 100 movies" listing of the "best" movies of the first 100 years of films. I'd seen many of them, but many I hadn't.

They later came out with an updated listing. Then, they added a listing they called "10 Top 10" -- their picks for the top 10 movies in 10 categories (Animation, Romantic comedy, Westerns, Sports, Mystery, Fantasy, Science fiction, Gangster, Courtroom dramas, Epics).

Of course, the Academy Awards have their own picks for the best pictures each year.

That's 13 lists (Top 100, Top 100 updated, 10 Top 10, Best Pictures winners). I decided to watch them all.

So, I compiled of listing of all the movies that made those lists. With many films on more than one list, that totaled 221 films.

Over the years, I've seen many of them anyway. But, now I've decided to make an effort to watch them all. And, as of now, I've seen 135. That leaves 86 more to go.

Not all of the movies are easy to find. "Wings," for instance, will be hard to find. As will "Intolerance" and "The Birth of a Nation," unless I want to shell out some bucks.

Some of the movies on the big list, I saw when they came out, and hated. "Reds" and "Apocalypse Now," for instance. Others, I finally watched because they were on the list, and hated. "A Clockwork Orange" is one.

Others, though, I've really enjoyed. Either when they came out, or watching them later. "Casablanca" is one I never saw until I was in Kuwait. I love that film. "The General" is another film from before my time, but I think it's one of the best ever made.

Not sure how long it'll take me to watch the remaining 86 films on the list. But I'm going to give it an honest try.

If you're interested, here are the films on the list that I've seen:

• 12 Angry Men
• 2001: A Space Odyssey
• A Clockwork Orange
• A Few Good Men
• A Man for All Seasons
• A Night at the Opera
• A Place in the Sun
• A Streetcar Named Desire
• Aladdin
  
• Alien
• All About Eve
• All Quiet on the Western Front
• All the President's Men
• American Beauty
• American Graffiti
• An American in Paris
• Anatomy of a Murder
• Annie Hall
• Apocalypse Now
• Back to the Future
• Bambi
• Beauty and the Beast
• Ben-Hur
• Big
• Blade Runner
• Blue Velvet
• Bonnie and Clyde
• Braveheart
• Bringing Up Baby
• Bull Durham
• Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
• Caddyshack
• Casablanca
• Cat Ballou
• Chariots of Fire
• Cinderella
• Citizen Kane
• Close Encounters of the Third Kind
• Dial M for Murder
• Double Indemnity
• Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb
• Driving Miss Daisy
• Duck Soup
• E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial
• Easy Rider
• Finding Nemo
• Forrest Gump
• Frankenstein
• Gigi
• Gone with the Wind
• Goodfellas
• Groundhog Day
• Harvey
• High Noon
• In Cold Blood
• Invasion of the Body Snatchers
• It Happened One Night
• It's a Wonderful Life
• Jaws
• King Kong
• Kramer vs. Kramer
• Lawrence of Arabia
• Little Caesar
• Marty
• MASH
• Miracle on 34th Street
• Moonstruck
• My Fair Lady
• National Velvet
• Network
• North by Northwest
• Oliver!
• On the Waterfront
• Patton
• Pinocchio
• Psycho
• Pulp Fiction
• Raging Bull
• Raiders of the Lost Ark
• Rain Man
• Rear Window
• Rebecca
• Red River
• Reds
• Rocky
• Roman Holiday
• Shrek
• Singin' in the Rain
• Sleepless in Seattle
• Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
• Some Like It Hot
• Stagecoach
• Star Wars
• Sunset Boulevard
• Terminator 2: Judgment Day
• The African Queen
• The Apartment
• The Bridge on the River Kwai
• The Day the Earth Stood Still
• The French Connection
• The General
• The Godfather
• The Godfather Part II
• The Graduate
• The Grapes of Wrath
• The Great Ziegfeld
• The Hustler
• The Jazz Singer
• The Last Picture Show
• The Lion King
• The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
• The Maltese Falcon
• The Manchurian Candidate
• The Public Enemy
• The Searchers
• The Shawshank Redemption
• The Silence of the Lambs
• The Sixth Sense
• The Sound of Music
• The Sting
• The Ten Commandments
• The Treasure of the Sierra Madre
• The Usual Suspects
• The Verdict
• The Wizard of Oz
• Titanic
• Tootsie
• Toy Story
• Unforgiven
• Vertigo
• West Side Story
• White Heat
• Witness for the Prosecution
• Yankee Doodle Dandy
• You Can't Take It with You

Here are the ones on the "to-do" list:

• A Beautiful Mind
• A Cry in the Dark
• Adam's Rib
• All the King's Men
• Amadeus
• Around the World in 80 Days
• Breaking Away
• Cabaret
• Cavalcade
• Chicago
• Chinatown
• Cimarron
• City Lights
• Crash
• Dances with Wolves
• Do the Right Thing
• Doctor Zhivago
• Fantasia
• Fargo
• Field of Dreams
• From Here to Eternity
• Gandhi
• Gentleman's Agreement
• Giant
• Gladiator
• Going My Way
• Grand Hotel
• Guess Who's Coming to Dinner
• Hamlet
• Harold and Maude
• Hoosiers
• How Green Was My Valley
• In the Heat of the Night
• Intolerance
• Jerry Maguire
• Judgment at Nuremberg
• Laura
• McCabe & Mrs. Miller
• Midnight Cowboy
• Million Dollar Baby
• Modern Times
• Mr. Smith Goes to Washington
• Mrs. Miniver
• Mutiny on the Bounty
• Nashville
• No Country for Old Men
• One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
• Ordinary People
• Out of Africa
• Platoon
• Rebel Without a Cause
• Saving Private Ryan
• Scarface
• Schindler's List
• Shakespeare in Love
• Shane
• Sophie's Choice
• Spartacus
• Sullivan's Travels
• Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans
• Swing Time
• Taxi Driver
• Terms of Endearment
• The Best Years of Our Lives
• The Birth of a Nation
• The Broadway Melody
• The Deer Hunter
• The Departed
• The English Patient
• The Gold Rush
• The Greatest Show on Earth
• The Last Emperor
• The Life of Emile Zola
• The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
• The Lost Weekend
• The Philadelphia Story
• The Pride of the Yankees
• The Thief of Bagdad
• The Third Man
• The Wild Bunch
• To Kill a Mockingbird
• Tom Jones
• When Harry Met Sally...
• Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
• Wings
• Wuthering Heights

Update: Updated, corrected listings are here.

UPDATED: I have now seen them all.

Amazon on TiVo

I've really enjoyed my TiVo. Got the first one back in April, 2006. It was a reconditioned Series 2 machine, with one tuner and a small hard drive. It cost about $150 and included a year of TiVo service. It really was a good deal.

However, TiVo has upgraded, and as I mentioned recently, so have I.

We now have a TiVo HD, which is essentially a Series 3, though they aren't calling it that now. And, while the TiVo HD supports Netflix streaming (as do other systems, including the XBox 360), all TiVo boxes ... including the Series 2 (the cheaper ones) ... support Amazon downloads, called "Video On Demand."

Now, while the Netflix process is streaming ... that is, it doesn't have to fully download before you start watching it, just like, say, YouTube ... Amazon.com videos are downloads.

Netflix streaming is including with any of their unlimited packages. We have one of the low-end packages, and essentially use just the streaming.

Amazon.com, though, is a pay as you go process. I rented a Batman movie, and had 30 days to watch it. Once I hit "play," I had 24 hours to watch it as many times as I wanted. That's pretty standard, for instance. iTunes or Apple TV has the same structure.

I bought A Christmas Story, back around Christmas. It downloaded, and we watched it a few times.

The thing I like about Amazon.com's setup is that they keep the videos available. I don't have to keep it on the TiVo box.

I deleted A Christmas Story, and after removing it from the "Deleted Items" ... essentially, fully and completely removing it from the TiVo ... it was still available in my Amazon.com "Video Library." I can download it again, watch it, delete it, then download it again, watch it, delete it, then download it again ...

Bottom line is, unlike iTunes or Apple TV, Amazon.com knows if I have it on my TiVo. And, if I don't, it lets me put it there. It only takes up space on my TiVo if I want it too.

They also have a wide selection of older TV shows.

Remember the cheesy Irwin Allen show, The Time Tunnel? As a kid, I loved that show. So, I bought it ... all 30 episodes ... from Amazon.com. They are in the library, and if I ever want to watch them, I can download them again, and don't have to pay for them again.

Of course, they're protected files, and you can't burn them to DVD. If you want to do that, it's just as cheap to buy the DVD instead of download.

I've also purchased 4 "seasons" (74 cartoons) of Looney Tunes. Actually, I bought 6 "seasons" (110 cartoons), but 2 of those "seasons" (36 cartoons) would not download. I've been dealing with Amazon.com for a month trying to get that resolved, and they finally have decided to issue me a credit and remove the videos from my library. I'm okay with that. They've already removed the videos and issued the credit.

Still, other than that one hiccup, I've been very happy with the Amazon.com Video On Demand, and will rent or buy going forward.

Now that I've got a TiVo HD, I'm waiting for the number of HD movies available through Video On Demand to increase.

When they do that, I'll become a full-time couch potato.

Netflix on TiVo

We've been TiVotees for a while. Well, okay, I have. The Wife is not quite as big of a devotee of TiVo as am I. Still, we've enjoyed it.

We bought a reconditioned TiVo Series 2 (from TiVo, not off eBay or anything) nearly 3 years ago. Recently, though, we upgraded. Seriously.

Bought a TiVo HD. It has lots of features that you don't find on the old Series 2. Dual tuner, for one thing. Sure, you can get a new Series 2 with dual tuners, but our old reconditioned TiVo box had but one tuner.

Oh, and the quality of the new TiVo HD is better than the old one. We don't have digital cable or HD channels, but the newer TiVo sill has a better picture.

The feature that I've enjoyed the most, though, is the live streaming from Netflix.

You can't do it on a Series 2, but the Series 3 or HD models allow you to watch 12,000 selected Netflix videos on your TiVo.

To use it, you have to have an unlimited Netflix account. And you have to go to the Netflix Website to add videos to the "Instant Queue." Oh, and only a portion of the Netflix catalog is available for watching via TiVo. Still, it's great being able to watch a movie without having to wait for it to show up on TCM or in the mail from Netflix.

I've watched some Star Trek episodes, Vantage Point, Roger Rabbit, Walking with Dinosaurs, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (TV series), The Bone Collector, Duck Soup ... well, a lot more than I should have.

And I'm sure I'll be watching a lot more.

TiVo upgrade

I operated on my TiVo recently.

Elective surgery.

My TiVo got a hard drive enhancement.

When we got the TiVo a couple of years ago, it was the smallest, cheapest one they had. In fact, it and a year of TiVo service were the cost of a year of TiVo service. For all practical purposes, it was free.

And small.

It held 40 hours of programming.

But here's the thing: you know how when you buy a VHS tape (remember those?) it might say "6 hours?" Well, that's at standard quality. Most VCRs have (or had) 3 speed settings. The slow setting allowed you to get 6 hours out of a tape. The medium speed setting let you get 4 hours. And the fast setting let you get 2 hours.

And, the faster the speed setting, the better the quality; likewise, the slower the setting, the lower the quality.

Same thing with TiVo. The 40-hour capacity on our TiVo is for basic quality. TiVo has 4 quality settings. And at the best quality, the capacity is only about 10 hours.

You'd think that's plenty, but it wasn't.

For instance, The Wife likes her soap operas, or, as we say here Down South, her "stories."

We also record some other programs. And we like to set several up to keep until we delete them. Otherwise, when the TiVo gets full, it'll delete the older programs. And, if that happens, we might miss something.

We don't get to watch everything right off, you see. Busy and all. So, while on the one hand, TiVo can record more than we can watch, on the other hand, it records it all at basic (low) quality.

And, even then, we still do, on occasion, watch everything it's recorded.

So, a newer, bigger TiVo might be in order, huh?

Well, yeah. Or, just maybe, an upgrade to the current one.

So, a DVR upgrade might be in order. Which, of course, meant me going to DVRUpgrade.com.

Bought a new hard drive. And it wasn't hard to follow the upgrade procedures. And, now we have a bigger, better ... same ... TiVo.

We new have 177 hours of best quality. That translates to 626 hours of basic quality.

And, with the new TV, we're recording everything at best quality.

Which means that, on Sunday afternoons, I get to sit with The Wife, watching As The World Turns or Guiding Light. All day long.

You know, at first, this whole upgrade seemed like a good idea.

I'm not so sure anymore.

Homicide

The Wife and I have finally discovered Homicide: Life on the Street.

Yeah, I know. The show went off the air in 1999. 122 episodes. And just now, we've started watching it.

I'd seen some episodes on TNT, when they'd air Law & Order episodes that crossed over with Homicide.

But that's all I ever saw.

When the show started, back in 1993, I was in Korea. And it didn't air on AFKN.

Season two, which was only four episodes, aired in January 1994. And that's when I got back from Korea. And was looking for a place to stay, after the Ex- notified me she was about to become my Ex-.

Seasons 3 when I was in the Army and working on becoming single again.

And season 4 when I was single, trying to be a non-custodial parent.

Season 5 was airing when I left the Army and moved to the Columbus area.

And I'm not sure why I missed seasons 6 and 7, but I did.

Well, recently, the TiVo suggested up an episode of Homicide, and I Googled it, wanting to see what it was all about.

That's when I found out that the episode that TiVo had suggested was near the end of the run. And, checking the schedule, I discovered that it was starting from the beginning soon on WGN.

So, week before last, I set up TiVo to record the show, adding it to the To Do list.

And last week, we began watching it.

I like it.

A lot.

Yeah, I know. It's all old hat to you.

But we're getting to experience it for the first time.

Thank goodness for WGN. And thank goodness for TiVo.