R.I.P., Average Jane’s TiVo

It’s been a long ride, but it’s time I admitted that it’s over.

I bought my husband a TiVo for Christmas in 1999. It was one of the first ones on the market and we were delighted to suddenly have the freedom to record our favorite shows and watch them whenever we got around to it.

I also purchased a lifetime subscription to the service at the time, which of course refers to the lifetime of the box. The $250 cost of service back then compared to the current yearly fee shows we’ve basically been getting free service since about 2001.

Our TiVo has a small hard drive, can only record one thing at a time, and has gotten rather slow over the years. Still, we were determined to milk it for every ounce of value. That was all well and good until about three weeks ago when there was an apparent software upgrade that screwed everything up.

The first thing we noticed was that the display at the bottom of the screen looked different. The second thing we observed was that the TiVo seemed suddenly incapable of changing channels on its own to record. It thought it was changing channels, but it would just record the requested time slot on whatever channel it happened to be on at the time.

We did everything we could think of to fix it: rebooting, re-selecting our cable provider’s schedule from the list, etc. Sadly, nothing helped. A peek at the TiVo support forums shows that this is not an uncommon problem (in fact, it’s a recurring issue), but doesn’t provide any useful suggestions.

Today’s the day I give up and call to get a DVR from our cable company. We’ve long since gotten our money’s worth out of the original box and as much as I hate to give up the prepaid service, I think it’s time.

Maybe someday we’ll even venture into HD…but not until our ancient projection TV gives up the ghost!