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DirecTV and Tivo…

Back in the early 90’s, I subscribed to this newish service called DirecTV. Basically, you’d order the satellite service from DirecTV and then you’d also have service from a company called USSB. Combined it created this awesome television experience. I had multiple HBO’s, Showtimes, Cinemaxes, etc. and all the pay-per-view I could imagine. It cost very little back then and was extremely exciting.

So, when I got my first studio, I wanted DirecTV. The problem was that I couldn’t mound a satellite dish on my landlord’s house. Plus, she was providing cable service, so I took it. As the years went on, I encountered the same problems with not being able to set up a dish on the various places I was living.

When Wifey™ and I moved to our townhouse, I managed to talk her into DirecTV with Tivo service. We haven’t looked back. Anyone who doesn’t have a DVR is certainly missing out on a great television experience free of commercials. You basically just search for the programs you like and it’ll automatically record them for you. Goodbye old VCRs. Woohoo. In fact we just donated the last VCR’s we had laying around to Goodwill over the summer.

Then last year we got our high-definition TV set and the world turned upside down once again. Once you watched some hi-def programming, it’s tough to watch it in standard definition. Really tough. At the same time, we upgrade our DirecTV service to their hi-def package in order to take advantage of the sets capabilities.

And now we’re gearing up for changes once again. Some we’re not too sure about, some we’re looking forward to. The bad news first. DirecTV and Tivo are parting ways. This doesn’t mean we won’t have a DVR, just not a Tivo DVR. Instead, they’re making their own DVR and we’ll just have to get used to it. And if we can’t get used to it, we might have to switch to a service that works with Tivo. This is still up for debate.

The good news though is the Home Media Center. Basically, you’ll have a “server” sitting in your house that stores all of your multimedia content from TV shows, movies, photos and videos and this server will, hopefully wirelessly or via ethernet, serve to boxes located in the various locations around your house. This means that instead of recording certain things in one room and certain things in another room and having to watch them in those rooms, we’ll be able to record from any room and watch from any room. It also means we’ll have to upgrade the two other televisions in our house to HD sets. But there’s no rush on that.

Now this might make us sound like total couch potatoes, but to be honest, it’s the techy-gadgety part of it that excites me more than the television content itself. I’m such a computer geek that anything that allows me to share content throughout the house, excites me to no end.

Tags: directv, tivo, ces, entertainment, home, media, hdtv

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