Thursday, September 11, 2008

Thanks Tivo, Thivo

Alright, So I got a Tivo not so long ago, and let me just say that yes, I love it. Yes, it's wonderful, and yes, I don't think I'll ever had a TV without one. Right? Right. Ok. Now then.

What is the hell are all these ads doing all over my Tivo? Most of them are just menu items like the stupid Land Rover one that's been there on my main menu forever (If Tivo knows so much about me that it can record things I like, it should not that there's no way in the world I'd buy a Land Rover even if I could afford one).

Then there's the 'would you like to participate in marketing surveys for our commercial partners' one. Well, no. no, I wouldn't.

But those, as awful as they are, are pretty ignorable. Nothing too egregious. This morning, I wake up and look through to see if any of the AFI top 100 movies were added overnight (very cool service that), and the little antanaed black box decided that I needed to watch an infomercial. I thought for sure it was a mistake. Maybe I accidently hit the record button before I went to bed. Nope, there was even a title to the infomercial saying that this infomercial was specially prepared for Tivo watchers.

Thanks Tivo, Thivo
. (You really need to watch that clip, and perhaps many more from the "Look Around You" series, like I did, wasting an entire morning.)

Tivo forums info

5 comments:

jayfish said...

yeah, when we got home last night, we noticed that one too! lame!!

we don't let tivo record things it thinks we might like and we certainly don't like it recording crap that was "specially prepared for paying tivo customers"

wtf?

sheepish said...

If you disable some of the interactivity (via the privacy settings), then you don't get all that annoying crap. You still get the ads at the bottom of the menus, but those are ignorable, as you say. But increasing the privacy limits the online content you can access (why should that be the case? Because they're nosy.). So I don't have access to the various Guru Guides and other such fun features.

John G said...

Did that guy in the video just repeatedly burn his hand in burning water?

Overread said...

hehe - yeah - that's the whole comedy mood of those "Look Around You" clips.

Oh, that British humor.

John G said...

Wow, I think I might have to watch one every week.