Commercials are starting to irritate

[aaronc879]

I watch upwards of 40 hrs of tv a week and haven't watched a single commercial in over 5 years(except Superbowl commercials). I have a DVR with my cable company. I never watch anything live. Even sporting events, i'll pause it and check e-mail or do something else for a few minutes, then go back and watch so that when a commercial comes up I can fast forward through it. With a DVR you can use the restroom or get a snack from the kitchen while the show is paused and never miss anything good then fast forward thru the commercials. Don't know how I ever got by without it.

Warning: If you get one, you'll never be able to watch tv without one again!

[jambo101]

DVR? TIVO? I've still got a VCR hooked up to a regular 19 inch TV,with the amount of commercials i'm not too enthusiastic about spending the big bucks on expensive upgrades just to watch commercials half the time. As for taping shows it works well to watch a show with the fast forward option but i only have a certain time of the day (7-10pm) to watch tv and if i tape shows i dont get a chance to watch them as i'm watching favorite regurly scheduled programs.
I remember on a trip to England some time ago they dont get commercials instead every one pays a licensing fee for tv once a year.

[Nords]

Quote:

Originally Posted by jambo101 DVR? TIVO? I've still got a VCR hooked up to a regular 19 inch TV,with the amount of commercials i'm not too enthusiastic about spending the big bucks on expensive upgrades just to watch commercials half the time.

We have a cable TV subscription feeding two single-tuner Series 2 TiVos. Each one has a wireless adaptor to access our computer network, but they worked just fine over the land line.

Everybody's ditching their Series 2 TiVos for the Series 3 HD boxes. We bought one Series 2 on Craigslist for $85 (including wireless adaptor) and the other for $25. The first lifetime subscription was $399, which is about a 30-month payback over the monthly fee. The second lifetime subscription was $299. You may find desperate Craigslist sellers who are motivated to transfer their subscriptions for a reduced price.

One single-tuner TiVo snags 99% of what spouse cares to watch, especially when shows go on haitus and start airing repeats. Two tuners gets everything she could possibly care about as soon as it's broadcast. One remote control button on the TiVo executes 30-second commercial skips, so she goes through the block of them in under 30 seconds.

You might prefer one dual-tuner Series 2 TiVo, but the advantage of two separate machines in two different rooms is that our spouse watches what she wants and our teen watches what she wants. No more arguing about turning off the TV or popping in a VCR tape-- she knows she can resume right where she left off. No more time wasted on "America's Next Top Model" when she has constant reruns of "I Love Lucy" and "The Cosby Show" to make fun of. No more usurping Mom's machine when our backs are turned or staying up late when she should be sleeping. Our kid can browse Mom's TiVo queue anytime from her TiVo and transfer shows over the wireless network to her machine, which leads to many teachable moments from Oprah, Suze, and Nova. Mom can browse the kid's queue from her recliner and pull the recordings she wants. The only time either one of them has to haul their butts out of the recliners is if they want to add a search to the other TiVo.

TiVo usually checks the programming guide every day or two, so it's rarely surprised by schedule changes. Everyone can schedule or search to their heart's content. I'm totally out of the job of updating recording schedules and swapping VCR tapes among our half-dozen VCRs. The TiVo also uses less power than a bank of VCRs, so our electrical consumption has dropped. I can't tell when it's using the wireless network but if that gets to be a problem then routers usually have software to handle priorities.

Wait until our kid learns that her TiVo will work with her Netflix account. I've seen no reason to make it easier for her to find content.

I was a real slow TiVo adopter, but now there's no goin' back...