DVR (take two)

After the fiasco with the previous Digital Video Recorder (DVR) box, I was quite pleased when the cable man came over the replaced my DVR box with a new one (still the same Scientific Atlanta model) a couple of weeks ago. This guy really worked for the cable company and not a subcontractor. He knew what he was doing. He understood how I had the box set up, he was polite and well spoken, and he talked all sorts of stuff about this model box being the older model that they always have these types of issues with and the newer ones being much better. I did ask what I had to do to get the newer box and he said that he would have brought me one but the warehouse was out of them that day. Nuts, so close to a better box. Of course, my research tells me that it would have been a Scientific Atlanta Explorer 8300HD, not the Motorola box that the next county over gets. Still, that would have been nice.

This box has worked well for almost a month now. I love it. Right now I have it configured to record every show that I really enjoy watching, regardless of if I normally watch it live or not (in case I miss it). Right now that includes Stargate SG-1, Stargate Atlantis, Battlestar Galactica, 24, Drawn Together, and The Shield (I don't have Lost on there because there's no way I would miss an episode of that show since we have weekly Lost-watching parties/dinners for that purpose). I love that I can watch things when I want to. For example, I got home on Friday early enough to watch Galactica, but realized that I hadn't yet watched the previous two weeks' worth. So I went to bed and on Saturday morning, while Cin was at a swim meet, I watch all three weeks worth. Sweet.

The ability to pause live TV is really growing on me too. I finally caught an episode of The Simpsons that I hadn't seen but once. So I started watching. Then I realized I had something very important to do that if I didn't do it right then I would forget and trouble would follow (empty my cat's litter box). So I paused TV, did that business, and came back to watch right where I left off. And since I had been gone five minutes, I could fast forward through the remaining commercial break and still finished at the same time as the live show. Double sweet.

DVR = really cool technology. Highly recommend.