Comments on: Sports Fans Need TiVo To Help Save Themselves From Too Much Beer

By: Davis Freeberg’s Digital Connection - 15 Yards And Automatic First Down For TiVo Interference By Sports Announcers

Sat, 09 Dec 2006 17:44:19 +0000

[...] I watch a lot of sports on my TiVo, but the best sport to watch on TiVo has to be football. By fast forwarding the dead spots in between plays I can turn a 3+ hour game into about 45 minutes. Frankly, I think that the NFL could sell these shorter games online under a highlight blitz package or something, but I don’t mind giving my TiVo remote a good work out if it means that I don’t have to sit through the advertisements or replays unless I want to see them. [...]

By: davis

davis — Tue, 29 Aug 2006 21:40:02 +0000

Updating for schedule changes has always been a problem. Even with broadband, the schedules can’t push through fast enough. I’ve always thought that TiVo could do something where people who are watching a live sporting event could somehow signal through their remote that the game was over and when they received so many signals, they could either auto extend the game for overtime or cut the extra padding time off early so the TiVo could record something different. If they could figure out a way to communicate in real time, it could save people from missing the end of a program when a game goes long. As far as trashing the pitchers duel, I can’t help it these American sports make me crave the razzle dazzle. I do appreciate a good 0-1 soccer game though.

By: basil

basil — Tue, 29 Aug 2006 13:52:23 +0000

If they could ever get proper data fed in time, it’d work and it’d be the Next Big Thing.

However, yesterday, I had the hardest time scheduling TiVo to record the Little League World Series game. They moved it from 8:00 PM to 5:00 PM after I left for work. And using TiVo’s online scheduling feature, I couldn’t schedule it to record, since ESPN2 still had WSOP scheduled. Had I told TiVo to record that show, and if they sent an update saying it wouldn’t show, I’d have been SOL. I had to sent family member by to manuall schedule record LLWS.

They need to get the current bugs out before they can follow your suggestion.

But when they do … it’ll rock!

Oh, and shame on you for trashing baseball. I’d rather watch a 1-0 pitcher’s duel than a 120-118 basketball game any day of the week.

By: davis

davis — Tue, 29 Aug 2006 13:33:23 +0000

Dave that is too hardcore for me. I time shift everything and then avoid the internet so that I don’t get surprised. The marketing dollars can shift to live sports, but they won’t catch me in that commercial trapped. Besides baseball is soooooo slow. If you fast foward the ten minutes in between each pitch the game actually gets exciting.

By: davis

davis — Tue, 29 Aug 2006 13:31:26 +0000

Thanks KT Cat, I was hoping that there was a way to customize this for season passes and for wishlists. I never really thought to try and manually trick it into doing it. I think it would especially be useful during the regular season. During playoffs, I’ll take my chances with liver poisioning.

By: K T Cat

K T Cat — Tue, 29 Aug 2006 12:58:24 +0000

Davis,

Cool idea! You can do this right now, just not automatically. Use the record manually feature and record starting 2 hours into the event and ending 30 minutes after the scheduled end time. It will save you 2 hours of hard drive space on your TiVo.

By: Dave Zatz

Dave Zatz — Tue, 29 Aug 2006 11:25:09 +0000

I don’t care if you only watch the last quarter of a game, but the game itself can only be watched live. You can pause a game for a restroom break or use instant replay to rewatch an exceptional play (or prove the ref wrong). But the game must be watched in progress.