More4+1 gone?

"Dom Robinson" wrote in message
...
snip

I'd say: "TiVo - it saves me having to think!"

You make my point perfectly!...

In article , Pyriform wrote:
But just as I now expect, when boarding an aircraft, to arrive at my
intended destination at the appointed time, rather than being "forced
down" into a far-flung field by the weather, so I have higher
expectations of my recording technology. I've moved on. It's rather sad
that you cannot.

You're making it more complicated than it needs to be. The only
"expectation" that I have of home recording technology is that it will
record the programme I want at the right time. If a programme starts at
eight o'clock, for instance, I simply set the timer to start a couple of
minutes before eight o'clock, something I can easily do because I've been
able to tell the time since several decades before home recording was
invented. I've no need to "move on" from this, and frankly suspect that if
I was forced to do so it would only be to some unnecessarily elaborate
system that would ultimately do exactly the same thing as the old one
while being much more likely to go wrong.

Rod.

"Roderick Stewart" wrote in message
om...
In article , Pyriform wrote:
But just as I now expect, when boarding an aircraft, to arrive at my
intended destination at the appointed time, rather than being "forced
down" into a far-flung field by the weather, so I have higher
expectations of my recording technology. I've moved on. It's rather sad
that you cannot.

You're making it more complicated than it needs to be. The only
"expectation" that I have of home recording technology is that it will
record the programme I want at the right time. If a programme starts at
eight o'clock, for instance, I simply set the timer to start a couple of
minutes before eight o'clock, something I can easily do because I've been
able to tell the time since several decades before home recording was
invented. I've no need to "move on" from this, and frankly suspect that if
I was forced to do so it would only be to some unnecessarily elaborate
system that would ultimately do exactly the same thing as the old one
while being much more likely to go wrong.

What do you do when the newsflash causes your program to start (and finish)
10 minutes late, 20 mins late, the following day?
How many times have you got it wrong?

How do you find the program you want from the twenty you recorded while on
holiday?
How long does it take to program the twenty recordings?
Did you check for overlaps?

Sky+ and TiVo make it simpler not more difficult a point that you appear to
be missing.

I also like my recordings to be broadcast quality like they are on Sky+.
Sky+ recordes the subtitles which is very useful for my dad who is deaf.

You have no idea what a PVR can do.

In article , [email protected]
wrote:
What do you do when the newsflash causes your program to start (and finish)
10 minutes late, 20 mins late, the following day?
How many times have you got it wrong?

I program run-in and run-out times based on common sense and previous
experience. Run-in can be 2 minutes in all cases. Run-out can be 2 mins for
any ITV channel and 5 mins for any BBC channel, unless it is a live broadcast
or anything preceded by a sporting event, in which case 20 mins or half an
hour. If I miss a television programme I don't cry, because there are more
important things in life, but it happens very rarely anyway.

How do you find the program you want from the twenty you recorded while on
holiday?

I look at them. Or I look at their labels. My disk recorder picks up the
program names from the 7-day DTTV guide, and I can then edit them if I want
to, or I can program the whole thing including the labels manually. The on-air
guide gives programmes up to a week ahead, but Digiguide gives about three
weeks, and I can easily cope with either.

How long does it take to program the twenty recordings?

I haven't yet needed to program that many in one go, but it's only a matter of
minutes to look up the details on Digiguide and type them into the recorder.

Did you check for overlaps?

The machine warns me if a new entry clashes with a previous one, though it
doesn't prevent me from entering the new programme, so I don't have a lot of
tedious re-typing to do. I can then look at the listings and decide which of
my conflicting recordings can be reprogrammed for a repeat broadcast or
allocated to the other machine.

Sky+ and TiVo make it simpler not more difficult a point that you appear to
be missing.

I'm sure they make it very simple, but as I do not and never will want to
subscribe to Murdoch's Monopoly, this is academic to me. My point is simply
that there are plenty of disk recorders that are equivalent to Tivo and Sky
Plus for the free-to-air DTTV broadcasts, and that for broadcasts further
ahead than the programme guide, manual programming is still available as it
always has been since the days of VHS, and is no more difficult than looking
up a train timetable.

I also like my recordings to be broadcast quality like they are on Sky+.
Sky+ recordes the subtitles which is very useful for my dad who is deaf.

Again academic for me because I don't (yet?) need subtitles but I think my
DTTV disk recorders can record them.

You have no idea what a PVR can do.

I have several and use them every day. They just don't happen to be the
particular brands you are talking about. Can you record and play DVDs on your
Tivo or Sky boxes?

Rod.

Roderick Stewart wrote:
I'm sure they make it very simple, but as I do not and never will want to
subscribe to Murdoch's Monopoly, this is academic to me. My point is simply
that there are plenty of disk recorders that are equivalent to Tivo and Sky
Plus for the free-to-air DTTV broadcasts, and that for broadcasts further
ahead than the programme guide, manual programming is still available as it
always has been since the days of VHS, and is no more difficult than looking
up a train timetable.

Not to fuel the fire (and fairly pointlessly, as it doesn't sound like
you have any interest in being convinced of anything), TiVo allows you
to program for broadcasts _years_ in the future, for which no guides are
possibly available. I set up a season pass for "Law & Order" around 4
years ago, while I was at a different address and using Telewest as
opposed to Sky now. I have not changed that season pass in that time,
and TiVo has been reliably plugging away recording it ever since. I
don't even know what day or time it's on at, actually - and I don't need
to know. All I know is that whenever I fancy watching Law & Order -
there it is.

It doesn't even matter if the programme is even on the air; I've got an
autorecording wishlist set up for "Iron Chef" (yes, okay, not the
world's best example). If _any_ channel in my Sky package ever decides
to start showing it again it will be recorded for me without any input
from me at all.

Getting into the area of user-added features, the start and end padding
is applied automatically to all recordings using endpad - and the
current version even allows you to specify what padding individual
channels receive and when (so most channels will get 2 minutes start/4
minutes end, BBC1 and BBC2 can be set to have 5 start/10 end and ITV3/4
can be set to have 10 start/20 end from 1am to 5am as they seem to have
the most atrocious timekeeping overnight).

There is only one DVB-T recorder anywhere close to TiVo in terms of
functionality (that I am aware of, anyway), and that's the Topfield with
an appropriate extra EPG TAP (definitely not the off-the-shelf version).
Everything else is really no more advanced than the video recorders
available a few years ago that got their start and finish times from the
Ceefax TV pages. And that's not a great state of affairs.

--
Angus G Rae Science & Engineering Support Team
Computing Services
University of Edinburgh
The above opinions are mine, and Edinburgh University can't have them

Angus Rae wrote:
Roderick Stewart wrote:
I'm sure they make it very simple, but as I do not and never will
want to subscribe to Murdoch's Monopoly, this is academic to me. My
point is simply that there are plenty of disk recorders that are
equivalent to Tivo and Sky Plus for the free-to-air DTTV broadcasts,
and that for broadcasts further ahead than the programme guide,
manual programming is still available as it always has been since
the days of VHS, and is no more difficult than looking up a train
timetable.

Not to fuel the fire (and fairly pointlessly, as it doesn't sound like
you have any interest in being convinced of anything), TiVo allows you
to program for broadcasts _years_ in the future, for which no guides
are possibly available. I set up a season pass for "Law & Order"
around 4
years ago, while I was at a different address and using Telewest as
opposed to Sky now. I have not changed that season pass in that time,
and TiVo has been reliably plugging away recording it ever since. I
don't even know what day or time it's on at, actually - and I don't
need
to know. All I know is that whenever I fancy watching Law & Order -
there it is.

It doesn't even matter if the programme is even on the air; I've got
an autorecording wishlist set up for "Iron Chef" (yes, okay, not the
world's best example). If _any_ channel in my Sky package ever decides
to start showing it again it will be recorded for me without any input
from me at all.

Getting into the area of user-added features, the start and end
padding
is applied automatically to all recordings using endpad - and the
current version even allows you to specify what padding individual
channels receive and when (so most channels will get 2 minutes start/4
minutes end, BBC1 and BBC2 can be set to have 5 start/10 end and
ITV3/4
can be set to have 10 start/20 end from 1am to 5am as they seem to
have
the most atrocious timekeeping overnight).

There is only one DVB-T recorder anywhere close to TiVo in terms of
functionality (that I am aware of, anyway), and that's the Topfield
with
an appropriate extra EPG TAP (definitely not the off-the-shelf
version). Everything else is really no more advanced than the video
recorders
available a few years ago that got their start and finish times from
the Ceefax TV pages. And that's not a great state of affairs.

I think it's a great pity that TiVos are no longer available new in the UK.
--
Adrian

In article , Angus Rae wrote:
Not to fuel the fire (and fairly pointlessly, as it doesn't sound like
you have any interest in being convinced of anything), TiVo allows you
to program for broadcasts _years_ in the future, for which no guides are
possibly available.

You don't need to convince me that the Tivo is a very clever device, but
for my needs it seems much more clever than it needs to be, as it doesn't
do anything that I'm not already perfectly capable of doing myself with
hardly any inconvenience at all. If I need it, think my present disk
recorders can be set to record the same thing week after week indefinitely,
but I don't really see the point of programming years in advance because
even the broadcasters themselves don't plan everything that far ahead.

And even if it were really possible for a gadget of any kind to relieve me
of the task of thinking for myself, I wouldn't want it. I *like* to think,
I *like* to look and choose and form opinions of my own and decide things
for myself. Thinking is what reminds me I'm alive.

Rod.

"Roderick Stewart" wrote in message
om...

I have several and use them every day. They just don't happen to be the
particular brands you are talking about. Can you record and play DVDs on
your
Tivo or Sky boxes?

Yes. Its linked to an MCE machine.

"Roderick Stewart" wrote in message
om...
In article , Angus Rae wrote:
Not to fuel the fire (and fairly pointlessly, as it doesn't sound like
you have any interest in being convinced of anything), TiVo allows you
to program for broadcasts _years_ in the future, for which no guides are
possibly available.

You don't need to convince me that the Tivo is a very clever device, but
for my needs it seems much more clever than it needs to be, as it doesn't
do anything that I'm not already perfectly capable of doing myself with
hardly any inconvenience at all. If I need it, think my present disk
recorders can be set to record the same thing week after week
indefinitely,
but I don't really see the point of programming years in advance because
even the broadcasters themselves don't plan everything that far ahead.

I think that is the point.
With TiVo and Windows MCE you don't have to know what is going to happen.
It will sort it out even if you aren't there.
My MCE machine will record series that I want even if they are off the air
for 3 months.


And even if it were really possible for a gadget of any kind to relieve me
of the task of thinking for myself, I wouldn't want it. I *like* to think,
I *like* to look and choose and form opinions of my own and decide things
for myself. Thinking is what reminds me I'm alive.

There are plenty of things to think about other than TV listings.

In article ews.net,
LID says...

"Dom Robinson" wrote in message
...
snip

I'd say: "TiVo - it saves me having to think!"

You make my point perfectly!...

Put the world into reverse. It might match your backwards way of thinking.
--

Dom Robinson Gamertag: DVDfever email: dom at dvdfever dot co dot uk
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