My Time Warner Cable DVR lies to me
Like most of you, I have a DVR. Mine is part of my Time Warner cable box. It presents a schedule listing when various shows are on. I select a show and tell it to record that show or more often, the entire series.
But as it turns out, my DVR lies to me. I tell it to record the new episodes of 60 Minutes on CBS on Sunday nights at 6PM CT. But it doesn't actually do that. It lies to me. Instead, it records whatever happens to be on on CBS between 6PM and 7PM on Sunday nights. At least it only does this on nights when 60 Minutes is showing a new episode. Now you might be thinking, isn't that doing what I asked? No, it's not.
I asked it to record 60 Minutes. I didn't ask it to record what is on between 6PM and 7PM. But that's what it does. So sometimes I get 60 Minutes but most of the time I get 10 to 45 minutes of some football game that ran longer than expected followed by a small portion of 60 Minutes. And of course, the last story, the one I will completely miss due to football, is often the one I really want to see.
In this day and age can't they make the DVR so that it knows when the show comes on? It seems like the DVR is pretty stupid at this point. Despite the fact that it's really just recording a channel from one specific time to another, I can't actually change the time. I can't tell it to record from say 6PM to 8PM for example to make sure it records the entire show despite the football. To work around this stupidity, I tell it to record the show that follows 60 Minutes but sometimes the schedule changes so that show ends up not following 60 Minutes. And other shows, such as South Park, don't always start and end at exactly the times they are scheduled for.
DVRs are great. I hardly watch any TV shows anymore at the time they are actually on. Watching at my convenience is a terrific improvement. But it's not quite there just yet. Fortunately, there's a 60 Minutes app for the iPad which will allow me to watch not just this week's show but any previous show as well and at my convenience. I'm really tempted to go this route. How long will it be before other shows go this route?
Seems like the TV networks are going to be facing the same issues the record industry is now facing. Hopefully, this will lead to a better user experience when it comes to watching TV shows. One can only hope.