Devil in the Details...

Well, I have good news and I have bad news on the change from the satellite DirecTV service to the HD cable service...

The old saying that to assume makes an ASS out of U and ME really fits here. I assumed that after reading the specs on the HD DVR, which were really good, that it would have the features I have become accustom to with TIVO. Well, its amazing how stupid you can make good hardware with bad programming. The local cable company uses TV Guide services for its guide and DVR programming. It basically reduces the capabilities of the Motorola HD DVR to a VCR with a hard disk instead of a tape drive. It doesn't know that tomorrow exists as far as scheduling is concerned and sales ads take up almost half of the guide screen so you only see one hour in the guide. So, the bad news is that the HD DVR sucks and is out of here...

But, there is good news too all this. I have merged the new digital cable box with the media center MEGA-PC and it works great - and finally fixed the channel 6 problem with the PC tuner since it always stays on channel 3 now. All of the local and extended and movie channels are now on the PC and the PC's DVR software and guide are very good.

So, in a very unexpected way, all the problems ended up getting resolved and money is being saved - all is good in DaHo.