I am willing to wager that I was one of the first 1000 TiVo owners. I had an original Philips 14 hour unit when they first hit the shelves (although it was back in 1999 or 2000 when I was pretty much buying everything online using a bajillion free coupons the etailers were throwing around, courtesy of brilliant venture capitalists. But I digress), and I am definitely one of the ‘converted’. TiVo has changed my life.
Not necessarily for the better, mind you. I used to watch TV quite infrequently, I followed NO shows religiously, and didn’t really mind re-watching Days of Thunder on TNT every other weekend (it IS a new classic, after all). Fast forward to today (do-doo, do-doo, do-DOO!) and I have a couple of dozen Season Passes, and commercials cause me physical pain. I cannot (I will not!) watch TV without the ability to time-shift.
Now I want more. I want the handy little peanut-shaped TiVo remote to have some control over life events. I’d like a 30 minute buffer. Now of course the ideal would have me able to make changes once I’ve rewound, but I’m not greedy. With the buffer, I could plan to do a few things time-shifted. For example, I could skip through bus rides. Or waiting in line at the doctor’s office. Now I run the risk I might miss something interesting (for example: Apparently here in San Francisco, when a bus is driving through Chinatown, instead of the standard $1.25 fare, a can of pineapple juice works in lieu of payment. I would never have guessed such a thing, but it’s true!), but I’ll take my chances.
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