What’s For TV?
If you had a choice of satellite, cable or the dish for TV viewing, which would you choose? We have cable with a DVR. DVR’s are the best invention since sliced bread. To be able to stop in the middle of a show when your kids have a question or you need to answer the phone is so nice. And time shifting is very convenient. Having had a VCR for so long, being able to record shows so easily, (I find it hard to say record, I still say “tape” much to my kid’s chagrin) is simply fantastic. If you don’t have a TiVO or a DVR, you have to check them out. You won’t regret it. It’s the best $6.50 a month I spend. As far as choosing your provider, if you are lucky enough to have a choice, choose a company that provides On Demand viewing. This is a great feature. If you miss a show on one of the premium channels and you forget to set it up to record, you have several chances to catch it. We have Time Warner cable. They are ok. We looked at Dish Network but were appalled at the cost for a lot less choice than cable. We also use Time Warner for our internet. In the past we had DSL provided by our phone company. It was good but not nearly as fast as the fastest Road Runner set up.
A DVR or a TiVo 
The nice thing about this procedure is that you don’t miss a show because you forgot and you don’t start a show late or cut it off early because you messed up. How many times has that happened to you over the years? And if you have HD you lose no quality. Digital recording is lossless. There is no degradation in quality. In the photo above you see a page containing some of our recorded shows. You simply press “list” on the remote, and then select your show and that’s all there is to it. To look at your scheduled recordings press A. Scheduling a recording is as easy as going to the guide, clicking on the show you want to record and that’s it. So simple, even your grandmother can do it!
November 17th, 2007 at 12:37 pm
You’ve sold me on it. Now I just need to convince my husband. We also have Time Warner Cable, but still the antique vcr, and I almost hate watching taped shows because we lose so much quality (we’re really getting spoiled with the HD programming) We used to have Dish, and had so much trouble with rusting parts needing to be replaced each year outside on the dish, that when we got our new HD TV, we switched to cable. It would have cost us an additional $30 per month to get HD programming from Dish. With cable, I believe it’s only an extra $6 or so and we love it! Great post and very informative.
November 17th, 2007 at 12:46 pm
For me it’s the best invention since the computer, seriously. I don’t watch a lot of TV but when I do I have to have that DVR especially now with HD.
November 18th, 2007 at 2:47 pm
DVR’s are the best invention since sliced bread. haha
I need to setup something like this, good post
November 21st, 2007 at 4:17 pm
You’ve convinced me too. Actually, I’ve been thinking of getting Tivo for some time, but we didn’t need the extra expense. I use cable because I can get my Internet service on the same bill. I don’t like how the dish gets interrupted by wind and rain. It would certainly be worth getting Tivo for an extra $6.50 per month.
November 24th, 2007 at 7:24 pm
We love our DVR! I don’t know what we did before we had one.
March 20th, 2008 at 12:08 pm
[…] The satellite dish was cheaper for TV but you had to clean the snow off the dish which was a real pain and when it became very windy, the picture would come and go, especially on digital channels, when it’s all or nothing. I wrote about what I like about cable TV on one of my other sites, Today’s Gizmos. […]