So, I love my TiVo. I was an early adopter, and I own one of the (very expensive when I bought it) TiVo HD boxes. One of the features I love best is the TiVo KidZone.
I can set up a section of my TiVo for my kids. It shows only the TV shows we have designated as being suitable for the KidZone. If they try to watch live TV, it will only show it if it happens to be airing one of the approved shows. And the kids can’t get out of it to regular TiVo without a password.
Yay!
Here’s what I don’t like. When I visit the regular TiVo list of what is saved and ready to be watched, all of the kid’s shows are jumbled in with my shows. It would be a simple thing to segregate them all to a folder called (wait for it) “KidZone”. Or maybe, “Now Playing in KidZone,” or something. Maybe they can’t do folders nested inside folders (something I haven’t seen in TiVo, and something that would be necessary for this scheme).
Of course, having just gotten a feature update from the mothership (thanks for the Boolean searches, TiVo… should have been an original feature), I don’t expect anything new from them for at least six months.
If I had the money in the monthlies for a subscription.… I love the idea of a TiVo, but I’ve never been able to take the plunge. Maybe when they flip the switch on HDTV and the prices come down. As of right now, Ava’s only watching a couple Caillou DVDs, so no broadcast TV for her. I know that situation can’t last forever…not with my background.
I am intrigued. Are you a closeted TV junkie? A former TV employee? A PBS volunteer on pledge day? Do tell.
Let’s simply say I used to spend A LOT of time in front of the tube. My gateway drug was probably Davey & Goliath (let’s see if the comments support HTML), which quickly gave way to Batman reruns (I just learned, after all this time, that this show ended production in 1968, a full six years before I would’ve been watching it. Weird.). By that time it was all over for me. Bugs Bunny and Roadrunner Show on Saturday mornings, Dr. Max right after school, and A Team/Dukes of Hazzard/Dallas/Riptide/Magnum P.I./Simon & Simon, etc. after dinner. Then, in junior high and high school, there were the weekends spent lounging on the couch in front of whatever movie marathon Ted Turner was showing. Man, did I blow a lot of hours in front of the set. Jesus. I have only my genetics to thank for the fact that I’m not presently a 400-lb. diabetic.
I spent summers in reruns in California: All the cartoons before anyone was up (Tom & Jerry, which I’d never let the boys watch now, Laff-A-Lympics, Dastardly and Muttley in Their Flying Machines, Wacky Races, Secret Squirrel, The Pink Panther, Super Chicken… then Adam 12, Emergency, I Love Lucy, The Price is Right, and CHiPS later in the morning.
I can’t imagine how many brain cells I left in Grandma’s house.