mwilding

I got home from my Saturday morning ride all pumped up from the ride and the expectation of watching Lance's Time Trial Run that I had Tivo'd.

Well, it started out boring, but the tension and excitement slowly built as more riders came in and the times started to drop. With ten minutes left things were very exciting as Rasmussen was having problems, Vinokourov had lowered the bar, and Ullrich and Basso were flying along ahead of Lance. With 5 minutes left, Lance looked super strong and it looked like he might win the stage, but by how much?

<PING!>
This show is over
<delete> or <don't delete>

TIVO owners know what I am talking about. The show was 30 minutes longer than TIVO thought is was and stopped recording 5 minutes from Lance crossing the finish line.

ARGH!

Man, I was so pissed. Reading the result on the internet just wasn't as gratifying...

hi565

Koffee is the master at this

oopfoo

Much like my wife coming into the room where I was gleefully watching Lance's lightning run and saying--with raised brow and mildly angry tone, "Are you just going to sit there all morning, having a Michael-palooza?" (This is what she calls the days when I do NOTHING but what I want to do.) I had to keep running back and forth from tasks to the television. She really let me have it later when I watched the Cyclism repeat at 8pm.

shaharidan

Michael-palooza
LOL i really like that, and since i'm also a michael i'm gonna steal it and start using it myself

^*^BATMAN^*^

All you guys/girls with Tivos, why dont you just make it record for like 30-40 minutes longer just incase?

mwilding

Well, most shows end right on the button and it becomes an issue when you have a lot of shows getting recorded... Still, I have added 5-10 minutes to some shows that would kill me to miss even a second (like The Shield).

If there was another time trial tomorrow...

oopfoo

Uh, you'd better ask my wife.

Guest

Dood, I was so mad because Tivo did the same thing to me for stage 18. The main pack with LA, Jan, and Basso just reached the top of the final hill and were about to crest down, when _DING!_ <Delete> <Don't Delete> showed up. By that time, I scrambled to Tivo, but since you know Tivo only tapes an hour at a time, then the new hour starts fresh, I wasn't able to hit the record button fast enough. I was like 5 seconds too late, seriously!

Now, I could be mad at Tivo, but I was mad at OLN. They knew that stage was going to be long, and they didn't account for it in their scheduling. I know they know, because the first thing Al said when stage 18 started was "WELCOME TO STAGE 18 ON OLN, THE LONGEST STAGE OF THE TOUR DE FRANCE...". Duh! C'mon OLN, you couldn't figure out that stage would run over? Grrrrrrrrrrrrr!!!

I ended up watching the stage replay later that afternoon, and I turned it on 30 minutes to the end, and happened to catch exactly where the Tivo ended. But after that, I just planned on taping the 30 minute shows that OLN scheduled just after the Tour ended. Then if it didn't run over, I could just delete it. I got lucky.

Just curious. Why didn't you watch the repeat of the time trial? OLN played that time trial all day and all night. I turned on the television at like 1am on Sunday, and they were STILL playing that time trial.

Koffee

feltdude

Yeah, for the whole tour I tivo'd whatever show came on after it as well just in case.

mwilding

I dunno... partly because my wife and I were watching live tv for much of the evening...

oboeguy

My Time Warner Cable DVR does the same thing. Fortunately, I have a habit of recording what's next in the schedule just in case. Even so, sometimes I do forget and other times there's a stupid gap between recordings (WTF is up with that?) so I've had to record part of the TdF recaps at the end of the day. The problem for me is that I haven't figured out how to record "5 minutes longer" on this box (dunno if it's possible).

sabretech2001

I use a video capture card in my laptop, and run an S video cable from the box to the computer. No problems. Depending on what you pay for the video card (mine is PCMCIA format for laptops, but there are ones in PCI form factor for desktops) you will recoup the cost in under a year when you add up what you save by not having to pay for DVR service from the cable company each month.