Screen Saver

[stoutfellow]

This semester, since I'm in class every evening Monday through Thursday, I'm having to tape almost all of the television shows that I watch. Tuesday evening, that's "Gilmore Girls" and "Veronica Mars". I've set my satellite box and VCR to record them automatically every Tuesday. Or so I thought.

Since they're back-to-back on the same channel ("The New CW"), I set the satellite box to tune to that channel at the beginning of GG, and the VCR to tape for two hours. I didn't bother telling the satellite box that I'd be taping VM as well.

Dish Network has a new trick. Under certain circumstances, presumably related to inactivity, it goes to a screen saver. It didn't go to the screen saver during last week's episode of GG, presumably because I'd set the timer on that show. However, I'd made no such request on VM.

That's right. My VCR taped a solid hour of screen saver instead of "Veronica Mars".

The kicker? GG was an episode I'd already seen.

Sigh.

Comments

[spiffikins]

how unfortunate!

my tivo did the same thing to me a couple of times - occasionally a show will be identified as broadcasting on two or three channels at the same time, and tivo will tape it on the channel that spends the full hour broadcasting a blue screen that says "please watch channel 03 instead".

btw, I found you from the LMB list - may I friend you? I haven't been keeping up with the list, but I'm always interested in finding new people on LJ that have similar interests.

[stoutfellow.livejournal.com]

may I friend you?

Sure, why not? (Be prepared for discussions of math, popular music, and dogs...)

[norabombay.livejournal.com]

In this situation, I think TIVO is probably the only solution.

Not that it will always avoid the situation of taping a blank channel, but because it makes the whole recording process much much simpler.

Just make sure to get the satellite tivo.

[spiffikins]

I am a tivo convert - I <3 my tivo and would never go back to watch tv without it.

That being said, I'm peeved that tivo have stopped selling lifetime subscriptions and are forcing everything into a pay as you go plan. I despise monthly service plans - I hate feeling like I'm buying the same thing over and over again.

If my tivo ever breaks, and is unfixable, I may build my own box and use the open source tools that are out there instead of paying $12.95 a month to pick up the tivo programming guide.

[hornedhopper.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that'd be truly annoying. I haven't written yet about our Tivo Beast adventures, mainly because it was a total gift and would sound like I was whining - like I never do that (g). In any event, we went through the same thing, except mine was 2 hours of C-Span instead of L&O:Criminal Intent. Certainly I should be interested in the workings of our gubment, and there is ample criminal activity to be found, but somehow, C-Span just didn't have the same dramatic intensity...

As of last Monday, we now have a monthly subscription with Cox, our digital TV, telephone, and Internet provider. Only $10.00 more a month. And it records two channels at the same time, so we got both L&O:CI AND Veronica Mars.

Alec and I won't watch new VM until we've seen the first season DVD, which arrived yesterday.