TiVo, will you marry me?

Two posts in as many days? And both "Nerd Alerts" to boot?? No, hell hasn't frozen over, so let's not panic, OK?

Tonight I came home late (again) and being Friday meant that it was time to watch my Thursday night shows. And until Mythbusters returns in a few days) the only TV I watch presently. "Kathy Griffin: My Life on the D List" is pretty much the maximum amount of TV I'm watching these days. Or nights. When I actually have time. Thanks the universal higher powers (and the universal remote control) for TiVo. But now I have one more reason to thank the powers, the remote, and the software engineers over in Alviso. I'm referring, of course, to the Summer 2008 software update! And it brings the love of my life — TiVo Series 3 — several steps closer to perfection.

"So what's the big deal about some software update? How big of a nerd are you?!"

A really big one. And this update brings with it a great new feature to TiVo: YouTube.

"Really? You're working yourself up into a gay tizzy over YouTube? YouTube?!? My freaking phone has YouTube on it. Geez!"

Well, my phone has it too (and it probably looks better for reasons I won't get in to. BUT... I bet your phone doesn't have a 42" widescreen and pumps out 1080p resolution! Well, YT videos don't actually come in that resolution, but my TiVo and TV both do a great job upscaling it and the results a totally watchable (provided the video wasn't captured on a cheap camera phone). Now I can watch Criso Zills, Michael Buckley, and Match Game clips from the comfort of my sofa. The navigation ain't horrible, but it's definitely not the same searching experience as on a computer (or even an iPhone). And I'm disappointed that for whatever reason, Randy Pausch's Last Lecture, the full 1 hour and 16 minutes of it, is no where to be found (this probably has something to do with it not yet being updated with the new codec). But I can make do with the tons of other videos already out there. Maybe in a future update TiVo will be able to subscribe to YT broadcasters. That would be neat.

There's several other nifty enhancements, many of which really should have been there to begin with, but better late than never, right?

So at this point in my life, TiVo has crossed the threshold of something I love, to something of marriage material. Perfect? No. But far better than anything else I've seen out there.

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You may have noticed that this post has a ton of links in it. Well, you can thank MarsEdit for that. Adding links (and other tags) has never been simpler! I'm having to say that using it is starting to restore the fun found in blogging. My full review of it will be coming at the end of the trial period. Stay tuned…