Monday Monday...

In my first blog post I mentioned that I can now record all of the shows on network TV in HD but that I'd use the ReplayTV's and the remaining Tivo to record as backup. The reason for that is the last 3 of 4 episodes of Supernatural that were shown on the WPCW HD station on Comcast had a weird audio problem where the dialogue track was muted while the background music and sound effects tracks could still be heard. I know that it's not my Motorola box as I recorded the episode on the Vista machine also with the same problem. And during commercial breaks the audio was just fine; this only happened during the show. Quite annoying. I got around the problem by hooking the ReplayTV (on which I had also recorded the episode) up to my speaker system. So I could watch the HD picture with the audio from the SD recorded broadcast. The only difficult part of this hack was synching up the audio with the video. Luckily the TV has a Picture-in-Picture feature, so that made it easier to play back the show on both recording devices so they'd be in synch. I emailed Rob Owen (the TV writer for the Post-Gazette) and I also emailed the WPCW station website about the problem. I wonder if either one will respond. I just hope they fix this soon and that we don't have to wait til 2/09 for the digital OTA switch for the problem to go away.

I'll see if I still have use for my remaining Tivo in a couple of months or if I'll be happy enough with the ReplayTV's carrying the load for recording the standard def broadcast stuff. If I could DEFINITELY get $210 for it I'd sell. But if I'll only get something like $170 (a very real possibility), then I'd just as soon keep it until I have no use for it anymore or it breaks. It never hurts to have another 157 hours of potential recording time at your disposal. And Tivo just plain does a better job of keeping track of season passes and when shows change time slots. I trust that it'll grab Robot Chicken when the new season starts. Not so much with ReplayTV. I'll set up Vista Media Center to record Robot Chicken and see how it fares. I should add Mad Money and Chelsea Lately to the Replays and see how it works out. If I find I never use the Tivo, I might was well get some cash for it.

Otherwise, it's the first day of classes for the kiddies here. I can't believe how young they look. It's been a good day so far-- we haven't been overrun yet. Hopefully we won't be all year and we can keep up.