TiVo! Continued

Ug. Wiring took awhile. The back of the TV was a mess of cobweb, and it took me a few minutes to work out which wires were which. The hook-up of the TiVo, very simple hook-up, was easy. Unfortunately, it didn't work. The composite cable sent no signal to the TV. In fact, I still haven't figured out why that is... but because the TiVo folks kindly suggest alternatives, I used the coaxial cable instead and was able to continue. If I want to set up the method to watch another channel while one channel is recording, I've got to get the composite cable working. But for the moment, I'll live with the coaxial.

The network adapter was simple to set up, too. With one USB wire, though, I was expecting that. Once I got to the Welcome screen the set-up proceeded very smoothly. The Guided Setup is braindead simple, and the only hiccup was adding the MAC address of the TiVo network adapter to the access list. It's also easy to add security, with WEP and WPA supported. Once the TiVo connected via our network a couple of times, the whole thing was up and running, with limited capabilities.

Instead of the usual two weeks or so of program guide, the TiVo starts out with just two days. That was enough for me to go hunting for Jeopardy and set it up as a "Season Pass" show. Again, dead simple. This thing is made for the general public, I can tell. Well, once you get past the cables.

I played with the live TV pausing, replay, and rewind. It's pretty fun. I think everyone ought to have this ability... and I think I'm going to get spoiled by it very quickly. There's also a lovely on-screen TV Guide which will also spoil me quickly. I already can't believe I survived without it.

The DVD player and VCR player both still work as expected. Even better, I was able to pipe the signal through the VCR and yet don't have to turn on the VCR like I do with everything else. Boo-yah!

Hmmm, it's possible to restart the TiVo. Maybe that will force an update of the system? Let's try it. Ooooh, yup. It's updating something. Time to play on-line some while waiting for the update to finish.

Playing with the on-line functions... already set-up a bunch of my shows for recording. Heroes, Numb3rs, The Daily Show... This is cool.

Update finished. I've got the latest software. I wonder if that'll fix the problem with the composite cables? I'll try it later, I don't feel like moving the TV again.

Set-up my computer to connect with the Desktop software, and now the TiVo is playing my music on the TV. Ok, I'm even happier. Oops. I turned it off somehow. Less happy. Hmmm. Going to have to troubleshoot. But later, since Jeopardy is about to start, and I'm just not going to mess with the thing at all during the first show it's supposed to record.

Light on the front of the machine went red. I think it's recording. Time to go do other things.

...

Ok, checking the recording. Not bad! Jeopardy for hubby-Eric! But why is it still recording? Oh, I set up The Daily Show, and so it started with the next one shown... right after Jeopardy! Ok. I'm going to post this and go now. Eric should be home soon, and I've got a lot of showing off to do.

One last thing... should you sign up for TiVo, put hubby-Eric's e-mail address (tiktok at eskimo dot com) in as a reference. If five people say we referred them, we could upgrade to a dual-tuner DVR. That would be nice. Especially if my attempts to get the splitter working... don't.