I can’t say I love DirecTV, but TiVo just made it a lot more bearable. I still blame DirecTV for the slow performance of the grid guide on our HR10-250 recorder, but other than that, it’s a solid product, especially with the dual tuners.

DirecTV is also at fault for the silly old software version running on the thing, presumably to make their other boxes not look so lame compared to TiVo. The new version is so fast and convenient with folders.. and our 4XX hours of recording capability gest slightly out of hand… but I expect no upgrades. I like the HR10-250 over prospective future products because it tunes HD over the air, allowing us to avoid paying DirecTV for a LOWER QUALITY version of the same broadcast I pick up with our 20 yr old aerial. All this still ends up being cheaper than cable, which I guess is something.

I upgraded it with a second 300GB drive for expanded storage, and am looking forward to adding network capabilities to the TiVo, because the Home Media Option is also disabled by DirecTV, thus forcing me to hack it back in. Sigh. Other fun things involved in setting up this new box included running a second coax cable from the dish, and replacing the old circular dish with a 3LNB Phase III oval dish. I can’t wait to turn the old dish in to a parabolic microphone– but i need to find a way to finish the (currently textured) surface of the old dish with a glass smooth coating. I’m thinking a thick polyurethane? Or that stuff I’ve seen on tables that is a quarter inch or so of plastic.

What an awesome mothers day gift…

On a completely unrelated note, check out an ad for this website @ Filter a couple of weeks ago: