Image Snob Meets Interface Snob

For no real good reason I have reversed my stand on being a television Luddite and purchased a 42" Panasonic plasma screen television. Whoo-hoo. Even better is that I bought the thing by remote control while sick on my couch, as my lovely wife Rita and my good buddy the Ulm went out and picked the thing up for me (and I greatly benefitted from Ulm's encyclopedic knowledge of all things HD, too).

So it is here, and set up, and it looks great for DVDs and select HD television broadcasts. It's shocking how fast I've turned into an image snob, refusing to watch anything in standard definition unless there's no other alternative. I mean, I was able to hold my nose to watch a broadcast on Fox Sports tonight, but that's only because it was a Dodger game and because I bought the MLB Extra Innings package to get around the damn Padres television blockade (and because I really, really missed listening to Vin Scully).

So far, so good.

Problem is that I had to give up my TiVO box in exchange for Time Warner's HD-compatable DVR, which runs something called "Moxie." I know that TiVO has a HD box, but it runs something like eight hundred bucks, and even as a TiVO true believer and significant stockholder I just can't go down that much for a DVR.

Please, TiVO, get an affordable HD DVR on the market, and soon ... this Moxie box is OK (and I even like some things a little better, like how your broadcast continues to play in a reduced window when you're noodling around with recording plans), but Time Warner's DVR is really crippled by poor search features and the total lack of wish lists and viewing suggestions. The quick categorization of programs by type (movies, sports, etc.) is good, and I like the visual display of station logos, but the box is next to useless in hunting up new things to watch. If you already know where to find an existing show, you're in decent shape, but if you want to set the box to find, say, "Young Frankenstein" the next time it airs, you are S.O.L. Which means that this tech requires I go back to doing what I most hated about TV viewing -- channel surfing to find out what is on.

I still have two TiVO boxes in the house, but they are on my non-HD sets. I am faced with the ridiculous prospect of using my TiVOs in the other room for search and then manually subscribing to whatever I find on the Moxie box. Pretty stupid.

Fantasy scenario: Apple buys TiVO, my stock pays off handsomely, TiVO functionality is rolled into Apple TV (which is upgraded to include HD), and then I can throw money at Apple and throw everything else in the trash.

Until then, the war for my living room continues.