It finally happened.  I broke down and got a TiVo.  I was waiting (albeit not very patiently) for the Comcast/Tivo partnership deal to make its way down to the greater Philadelphia area.  But it’s been a few months and the outlook was less than promising.

The final proverbial straw that landed on this camel’s back was that my Windows Media Center PC (which has been acting as my DVR) does not support HD.  I have an HD television and therefore would like to be able to record HD.  As we are nearing the start of a new season of LOST, the last thing I wanted was to not be able to watch it in HD if I happen to not be home some evening when it’s on.

To remedy this, I temporarily switched over to the Comcast HD-DVR by Motorola to see if that would be enough to tide me over, but alas.  Not that there’s anything wrong with the Motorola DVR, that is when it’s working.  However, if (or rather when) it stops working, that’s it.  You and all of your shows that you’ve recorded are toast.  Comcast will come and replace it, but you’re out everything that was on the hard drive.  This happened to me a couple of times with the Motorola DVR I had in NYC through Time Warner and it had already happened to me once in only 3 months with Comcast.  Someone I work with said it’d happened to them 3 times in the past year.

Tivo seemed like the best solution by far.  Plus they were having a $200 rebate by mail deal going on, so the timing seemed perfect.  So just before Christmas I bit the bullet and ordered my Tivo and I may never look back.

It has been a little under a month now, and as stated in the title of this entry, I do indeed “heart” Tivo.  My Tivo is smart, fun, and a quick study.  I love navigating him.  I love checking out the “Tivo Suggestions” folder to see what new things he may have found for me to watch.  I love creating Wish Lists that get automatically recorded so that I am pleasantly surprised by movies that show up under ”Now Playing” that I didn’t even know where going to be on.  I love that he is connected to my wireless network so that I can give him instructions from anywhere. 

Tivo has so completely changed the way I view television that I may never watch it live again.  Just as an example, I was home with migraine-wannabe headache on Sunday.  My head felt like someone was using a jackhammer or wrecking ball or some other heavy machinery to try and break out of my skull.  So I spent the bulk of the day sitting on the couch, popping Advil, and watching TV…or rather, Tivo.  I began by perusing my “Now Playing” list to see if there was anything I had intentionally recorded but had not yet watched.  There wasn’t, so I moved onto the “Tivo Suggestions” folder where I found all sorts of treats that Tivo thought I might like including an old Marilyn Monroe film called Niagara, Bonfire of the Vanities, a Hitchcock film I hadn’t seen called The Paradine Case, and a few others.  Tivo was right – I enjoyed them all.  Bonfire of the Vanities surprised me in the beginning as I watched Bruce Willis in the Winter Garden of the World Financial Center (for those who don’t know, that is where I used to work).  I didn’t flip to live TV once.

Let me close by saying that, with Valentine’s Day fast approaching, I feel fairly confident that if Mr. Right-For-Me has not appeared in my life by then, I will most likely be spending the evening with Tivo instead.