Cryptosmith

I’ve been living with a computer-age annoyance: my Tivo crashes about once a day. This has been going on for a while now, which shows how little TV I’ve been watching since the writers’ strike and its resolution.

I’ve scanned the Internet for discussions of Tivo crashing and, surprisingly, it’s not a topic that gets discussed much. In fact, the only explanation I’ve seen people put forth is that it’s caused by hardware failures.

Now, I’ve had my Tivo for almost four years. To convert this to computer terms, I’ve been running a dedicated computer with its hard drive continuously for about four years and (surprise, surprise) it’s finally started to fail. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised.

I really can’t complain overall about Tivo. This is the first ‘serious’ trouble I’ve had with it. My wife loves it – it’s the first time she’s felt comfortable recording shows to watch later. I don’t think she ever programmed our VCR (and I never liked the process myself).

The only real problem I’ve seen is with MPEG decoding – every so often the Tivo has trouble playing back a show, and treats me to sound dropouts and pixelation and other nasties. It happens just often enough to be annoying.

Stay tuned. I ordered one of their cheap “refurbished” models. I can’t wait to see if the problems clear up.

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