OK, first, I’m the idiot who booked a flight on the afternoon of Super Bowl Sunday. I still think the game is the last Sunday in January. But I got a cheap flight and a light traffic day and a nice weekend away.This also may be Karmatic retribution for the technological snobbery of my Top 10 Mantiques blog.
Anyway, today DVR is an acronym meaning Didn’t Vreaking Record! There’s a fabulous feature on my co-branded Verizon-Motorola HD DVR (QIP6416-2) – “Delete Bumped or Reschedule”. It means the program you originally selected to record with one-click ease from the guide has changed. They throw up an exclamation point icon next to your selection in your Scheduled To Record tab (which I’m sure you refer to often). If you do nothing, so do they. They don’t record it! I can understand if I was taping Dance War: Bruno vs. Carrie Ann and it was interrupted with a Presidential address to request a bump, but I’d still expect the default to tape it and for me to figure out what happened. If the program time shifts an hour, shift the record time – the programs each have unique IDs.
But this was the Super Bowl. It starts at 10 AM and ends at 10 PM (or later). I chose to record the game and the post game, and skip the 8-hour pregame special. I’m fairly certain between Friday afternoon and Sunday evening, kick-off was not rescheduled or pre-empted. Yet while I was away this weekend, my DVR threw a flag, which I couldn’t see from Orlando, and it skipped the recording. *$#% me!!!
When I returned home Sunday night at 8 pm, I didn’t see the familiar red record light on my DVR and I freaked [worse than any whopper missing from the menu at a BK’s Lounge, my friends]. Honestly, my freak-out was hurling my remotes one by one into a cushy chair. I had to put the battery cover back on one. But I was pissed!
So I missed the first half of the game. With a score of 7-3, I wasn’t too heartbroken. I composed myself and selected reschedule for the game and postgame. Postgame wouldn’t take. Forget it! I’ll just watch it live. I'll just rewind here – wow, it went back 30 seconds. OK! Then live it is. I did pause the game several times as I unpacked, for convenience – kind of the point of the DVR. That, and not having to switch out videotapes or worry about missing a show.
One of the great things about my DVR is my 30-second fast-forward: perfect for skipping ahead after the end of a play, through the huddle, and straight to the next snap. So I thought I had plenty of time to catch back up to live. But then I got hungry. So I paused for a good 15 minutes.
So I’m pausing and watching and running upstairs, pausing and watching and running outside. I get to 1:56 left in the game. It’s 14-10 (Pats leading) and I’m thinking, “Boy this is still a close game. I wonder if…” The DVR reaches the end of the recording and switches to live TV, where there are 4 seconds left in the game, the Giants have somehow scored a touchdown and prevented a Patriot comeback, all in the blink of an eye. Actually two eyes, because mine are both fluttering away tears.
Verizon believed the game would end at 9:45 so that’s when it stopped taping. It was 10:00 in real time when I realized this. I had assumed I was on the live TV channel pausing and watching – I guess I was watching the recording of the show I thought never happened.
In retrospect, I could have set up the VCR as a backup, but it wouldn’t have been in high-def and when the power spiked just once over the weekend, my programming would have been lost. I would have returned to good old blinking midnight.
Next time, I’ll record two shows at once and manually set the start and end times. I get both Baltimore and Washington HD channels – a nice benny living in an area that will be the first to be wiped when the big one drops. I’ll also ask friends to tape it and then ask them not to spoil it for me. I’ll ask the same think of all media (radio, internet, tv, print, bloggers), just so I can catch up on Monday.
Like I said in the beginning, I’m the idiot who scheduled a flight on Super Bowl Sunday. And the idiot who started taping the second half for apparently no reason other than to rob myself of the last two minutes. But, Verizon and Motorola, if you could hear me now…
Technology sucks. Sometimes.
4 comments:
I had just about the same thing happen. I order a Pay-Per view fight. The fight went on longer than expected, supposed to end at 12:00pm. I was only about 5 min behind live TV. We were watching in between the Second round getting ready for the 3rd. All the sudden recording stops! It starts playing live TV, showing the WINNER with his hand raised, all in a blink of the eye...I was not happy, nor where my friends...Your not alone. I had to buy a new remote...
The Super Bowl is played in FEBRUARY!
Same thing happened this year (2013)to me; I scheduled ONLY the super bowl itself to be recorded, it accepted the recording, the red light appeared so I thought it was recording. When I went to review the show, NOTHING. Fortunately I had watched the game live at a local bar, so I didn't miss it, but I like to be able to watch it over sometimes. Verizon, your DVR's don't do the job right. OH, BTW, they also start and stop off of indicated time. either the networks are starting their shows early and ending them early, or your time is off.
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