More Time Warner Issues

I thought that I had gotten to a point where I was relatively happy with Time Warner Cable. However, I just hit a snag. When we were in the process of moving, I was stressing out about watching my hometown sports teams. I had figured out a solution that I was happy with.

With baseball season on the horizon, I went to MLB.TV to sign up for the 2013 season. For $25 for the season, I could watch any Orioles or Nationals game live. Then, I started reading the fine print talking about blackout restrictions. I entered in my ZIP code not expecting any teams to be restricted. I was stunned and extraordinarily perturbed to see that I am in a blackout zone for both the Orioles and Nationals.

I thought that if you could watch the game on TV, then you were in a blackout zone. Other than DirecTV, there is absolutely no way for me to see the games live. If I subscribed to MLB.TV, I could watch the games starting 90 minutes after they end.

I have called MLB.TV to complain.

I have written to MASN to complain.

I have called Time Warner to complain.

I have searched the web and found that MASN and Time Warner are in a dispute.

Time Warner just recently added the NFL Network. If they can delay a channel that their subscribers around the country were screaming for, what is their motivation for making a deal with MASN? My only other alternative is subscribing to the most expensive tier of DirecTV, which has MASN.

Other options:

1. Use my sister’s Slingbox to watch games (when my sister and her husband aren’t trying to watch something else).
2. Figure out how to route my Internet through some proxy server so that MLB.TV thinks I am not in a blackout zone.

I am very upset about this. Especially because my son and I enjoy watching O’s and Nats games together.

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And now a haiku:

Orioles and Nats
Quality time with my son
Nixed by corporate greed

All Tivos are GO

Today, I received a package from Time Warner: two tuning adapters and two cable cards. These were the tuning adapters I ordered two weeks ago that I now no longer need because TW could not figure out why they had not been sent yet and sent a tech out instead. Fortunately, I used one of the new cable cards to replace a non-functioning one and just had it paired successfully. I now have closure.

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And now a haiku:

All Tivos are GO
Activate couch potato
Now entertain us

Cable Card Incompentence

Time has passed since my last post. We are all moved into our new house in Wake Forest. However, the purpose of this post is to bitch about Time Warner Cable. As I feared, the one thing that I would miss the most when I moved from Maryland is my Verizon FiOS service.

The Internet service from Time Warner is not too bad — 30 down and 5 up. Verizon was superior with 35 down and up (and the option for much faster speeds), but I will not complain, since 30/5 seems like it works ok for my purposes.

The TV service is where I am currently having the most issues. Time Warner contracts out their installs, so a tech from Kablelink (which sounds eerily similar to 30 Rock’s fictional cable company Kabletown) came out last Monday. I requested 3 cable cards for my 2 TiVos. In my experience, it seems like every time a tech (from any company Comcast, Verizon, TW) arrives for a cable card install, at least one of the cards is bad. This time was no different. Two of the three cards were bad and, as usual, the tech did not bring any spares.

The tech says that he should have new cards in by Friday and that another tech will come back. A new tech came back on Friday WITH THE SAME TWO CABLE CARDS THAT DID NOT WORK ON MONDAY!! The tech said they should get more this week. I am not holding my breath.

Can I live with one operational TiVo? Of course. Can I live with one operational TiVo that only gets half of the channels that it is supposed to? No, but that is what I am dealing with (First World Problem…I know). I am only getting half of the channel lineup because the tech failed to tell me that Time Warner requires tuning adapters because they use Switched Digital Video — something I never had to deal with before. I called up Time Warner and they supposedly shipped them to me. I am expecting them today, but, again, I am not holding my breath.

Fortunately, everyone at Time Warner and Kablelink have been very pleasant to deal with, so I have refrained from “asking to speak to a manager”. Hopefully, by the end of the week, I will be able to watch the other half of my channels. Fortunately, AMC runs the most recent episode of The Walking Dead many times during the week.

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And now a haiku:

Cable incomplete
Partial TiVo is like hell
Want to watch zombies

Control My Entertainment

The YouTube app on Tivo was recently updated on the Tivo Premiere and it’s much, much better than the old version.  The old version was just good for searching for something specific and watching it. Kind of clunky and not very useful. You couldn’t log into the app to get your subscribed feeds, etc. All that functionality is now in the new version of the Tivo YouTube app. I still hadn’t really paid too much attention to it until last night.

I had read about this new web series called H+ on YouTube that sounded interesting. Last night, I decided to watch it on TV, so I went to YouTube on my Tivo Premiere. I saw something in the settings called “Pair”. I clicked it and was given an URL and a code. Realizing what this meant, I promptly entered the URL and code into my Nexus 7 Android tablet. My tablet is now a YouTube for Tivo remote control. I can browse to a video in the YouTube Android app on my tablet, hit a special “play” button and have the video automatically start playing on my Tivo.

I heard of this being possible with the new Nexus Q media device, but I had no idea Tivo was capable of this. I assume this would work with my Galaxy Nexus phone, too, but I have not tried it yet.

The experience wasn’t perfect, but it was good enough to overcome the hiccups. The main problem I had was that sometimes the video would play without sound. Usually restarting the video made the problem go away.

I don’t know if this is an Android specific feature or if it works with any mobile browser. I think it’s related to something called YouTube Leanback. This feature definitely improves the experience of using YouTube on the TV and I will probably use it often.

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And now a haiku:

Cool integration
Control my entertainment
Tivo meet YouTube

T-Minus 2 Minutes Til 2011…Wait? What?

We had a very quiet and uneventful New Year’s Eve this year. Some might say it was a bit pathetic. We didn’t get together with friends, although my sister-in-law, brother-in-law, and nephew stopped by for about an hour early in the evening. We didn’t even have dinner. I was too tired (or lazy) to get take out or cook anything. I had chips and dip for dinner.

What did we do?

• Jed: Watched a movie by myself
• My wife: Studied for her ESOL Praxis exam
• My kids: Entertained themselves. We were hoping they’d conk out, but they made it til midnight.

Around 11:45pm, we all gathered in our bedroom to watch the ball drop with Dick Clark. Around 11:58pm, I looked at the time on my cell phone and compared it to the TV, which appeared to be 2 minutes behind. I mentioned that I thought something was wrong, but I was hushed by my wife who was caught up in the moment.  Then, my cell phone turned midnight and about 20 seconds later, we heard fireworks being set off in the neighborhood. However, on the TV, Dick Clark wasn’t even close to starting his verbal countdown. I grabbed the Tivo remote and hit the Play button.

Tivo is great for many things, but ringing in the new year may not be one of them. Apparently, sometime earlier in the evening, my wife had paused the broadcast for a couple of minutes. So, while everyone else on the East Coast was kissing and celebrating, we were still waiting for the ball to drop. I wanted to fast forward ahead, but my wife was adamant that we pretend it’s 2010 for another two minutes. Which we did. I was taken out of the moment a bit by our technological snafu, but I was exactly where I wanted to be: with my wife and kids.

Happy New Year!

Poor Conan

I’m not sure why I’m so riled up about the situation with the Conan/Jay Tonight Show situation. I just feel really sorry for Conan. He is totally getting screwed by NBC and Jay Leno. NBC didn’t give Conan any chance at all to be successful. Financially, the Jay Leno Show was a success. However, it provided an awful lead in for NBC affiliates’ local news, which in turn provided an awful lead in for Conan.

For people that like Jay Leno, they didn’t have a reason to stay up for The Tonight Show with Conan. Jay is cannibalizing Conan’s potential audience. So, how can NBC call Conan a failure? That just irks me to no end.

I have never liked Jay Leno. Never. In all fairness though, I can’t say I was a big fan of Conan either. It’s not that I didn’t like him. I had always thought he was funny, but I never really watched him before he got The Tonight Show. I tape The Tonight Show every night and the next day, I’ll usually just fast forward to the guest interviews. I don’t watch the monologues and skits and other stuff.

I know that Letterman is beating The Tonight Show in the ratings, since Conan took over. Of course he is! Why wouldn’t he be? My question is whether Letterman’s audience grew or if the Tonight Show’s audience shrunk. Basically, how many viewers switched from The Tonight Show to Letterman. I bet it’s not as much as you think. I’m sure those numbers are out there somewhere.

When Johnny Carson retired and Jay got The Tonight Show and Letterman bolted to CBS, it took Jay three years to beat Letterman in the ratings. So, now they put Conan in an awful position and blame him for not holding on to Jay’s Tonight Show numbers. It just infuriates me.

Apparently, next week is Conan’s last week. I will be watching and I hope he just totally skewers Jay and NBC all week long. Then, I hope he goes on Letterman and skewers them some more. Then, I hope he goes on Kimmel and Ferguson and Oprah and anyone that will have him and he skewers Jay and NBC some more.

Better Off Ted: Followup

Way back in August 2008, I wrote about a new show called Better Off Ted. It finally premiered about a month or so ago. Before it premiered, ABC was showing commercials for it non-stop. The commercials reminded me a bit of Scrubs, which I found interesting, since they are paired together on Wednesday nights.

The most obvious similarity:

• In Scrubs, J.D., the lead character, often narrates parts of the show by voiceover
• In Better Off Ted, Ted often narrates parts of the show by talking directly to the viewer

Other similarities:

• Smartly written
• Well-defined characters
• Ridiculous plots

Nutshell review: It is a very funny show worth watching.

Basically, the show is about a guy named Ted who I believe is the head of product development for a mega-conglomerate called Veridian Dynamics. Veridian Dynamics is one of those companies that have commercials on TV, but you can’t figure out what they do, which they parody every week with a new commercial.  Hmm…the info on abc.com describes the show better than me.

As far as 1/2 hour sitcoms go, it is probably my favorite show right now. I don’t look forward to it the way I look forward to The Office or 30 Rock, but I think I enjoy it more. It’s a bit quirky, so it’s right up my alley.

So far, my favorite episode is the one titled “Racial Sensitivity” in which the company installed new motion sensors, but there is a problem: they can’t “see” black people. So, how does a large corporation handle this problem? It sounds awful, but it was so incredibly funny.

The problem: According to articles I read about TV, Better Off Ted is “on the bubble”. It’s not clear whether ABC is going to renew it.

I like this show and am tired of shows that I like getting cancelled. So, please watch it. To see past episodes, you can find them on abc.com or via Hulu.

National Turn Off Week

Apparently, I’m not supposed to watch TV this week. It’s National Turn Off Week. I came home from work on Monday and my wife told me about it. I had literally just come through the door. I think if I had taken a drink of water when my wife told me, I would have done a spit take. I started laughing.

I asked what the purpose was. My wife said that it’s because Earth Day is this week and the purpose is to save electricity. That’s what my daughter told her anyway. If that’s the reason, I don’t think that’s a good one. There are other ways to save electricity. I do my part by recycling, turning off lights, and nearly every light bulb in my house is a Compact Fluorescent. If the purpose is to save electricity, I think I’d rather unplug my refrigerator for the week.

I think my daughter’s school was misinformed or that the message wasn’t properly communicated from my daughter to my wife. It may have something to do with electricity, but that’s probably a small part of it. Some research via Google led me to this website. Their explanation makes more sense:

Screen Time cuts into family time and is a leading cause of obesity in both adults and children. Excessive use of screens for recreational purposes leads to a more sedentary and solitary lifestyle and that is unhealthy for all of us, both mentally and physically.

Am I:

• Obese? No.
• Sedentary? Maybe a bit.
• Solitary? Yes, my wife is generally too busy to watch TV with me, so I am generally on the couch alone.

It’s no secret that I watch a lot of TV. Ok, ok…I probably watch way too much TV. However, 90% of the time I spend watching TV is after the kids are in bed, so it doesn’t really cut into family time. Also, we all enjoy watching Amazing Race and American Idol as a family, so there are some benefits to watching TV.

If there’s anyone in my family “at risk” here (besides me), it’s my son. For a five year old, he logs an awful lot of time on the Wii, Nintendo DS, computer, and TV. When we told him about possibly giving up those things for this week, he nearly lost it. His shoulders immediately slumped, he lowered his head, and his eyes got watery. I couldn’t stop myself from laughing. When we ground our kids, we take away anything that uses electricity, so he probably sees Turn Off Week as punishment.

With that being said, there really isn’t much time for the kids to watch TV. Generally, this is our schedule:

• School
• Homework
• Extra-curricular activities (dance, volleyball, swimming, etc.)
• Dinner
• Get ready for bed
• Maybe watch American Idol or Amazing Race as a family if it’s not too late
• Read
• Bedtime

Turn off the TV this week? After the initial panic wore off, I did take some time to consider it. The first thing I thought about was having to wait until the weekend to see Lost and not being able to participate in dissecting the episode with friends/co-workers, but then I remembered it wasn’t new this week. I was on board until I realized that I wouldn’t really be saving anything because I would have to watch even more TV next week to make up for the TV that I missed this week. Also, how would I watch the Capitals playoff games? I decided that I couldn’t do it.

I don’t watch TV because I’m bored or because there is nothing better to do (although my wife would disagree). I’m not a channel surfer. I use Tivo to record what I want to watch and I only watch what I record. I just really enjoy watching TV. As long as there is a good balance between screen time and other activities (which I do think we have in our family for the most part), then I don’t think we’ll really gain anything by shutting off the TV.

Better Off Who?

Apparently, there’s going to be a comedy on ABC called Better Off Ted debuting midseason.

I know that the name of my blog is a play on the phrase better off dead and I don’t have any ownership of that, but I thought the name of my blog was clever and original. Now it just rhymes with the title of a TV show that is most likely going to suck (except that it has Portia de Rossi in it and she was so great on Ally McBeal and Arrested Development).

Hell…maybe I’ll get some new readers out of it from some Google searches gone wrong — although T and J are no where near each other on the keyboard. What is the chance of someone typing “Better Off Ted” in a Google search and Google prompting “Did you mean: Better Off Jed“? Apparently none, since I just tried it.

In fact, when I type “better off jed” into Google, it says, “Did you mean: better off dead“. Searching for “better off ted” simply returns the results without the “Did you mean” prompt. Ted is already a more popular Google search than me. Well, now that I’ve typed “better off ted” many, many times in this blog, I’m sure this blog entry will pop up in a “better off ted” search result. Is anyone really going to search for “better off ted”? Maybe the lovely and talented Portia de Rossi?

Here’s how the series is described:

…Better Off Ted, revolving around an office worker who tries—more than likely in vain—to work his way up the corporate ladder…

Too bad it doesn’t revolve around a guy who has a cleverly named blog who writes mostly about his family, poker, Van Halen, and Tivo. If that were the case, I could probably sue.

Other Names for Remote Controls

I saw this article on TV Squad today about nicknames for the remote control. In my house, we either call it “the remote” or “the remote control”. I guess we aren’t very imaginative.

My 4-year old son either can’t hear the words “remote control” or just isn’t able to pronounce it properly. He calls it the “amoakamatrol”, which always cracks me up.