So our new TiVo HD arrived earlier this week and everything was hooked up. It was even able to pick up the local channels when I plugged in the cable. Now I just had to wait for the FIOS dude to come with the two CableCARDs and activate them.

That happened on Wednesday. The dude showed up at the door with five CableCARDs in hand (they’re fragile, so just in case). He had never done a TiVo install, but how hard could it be?

The included instructions from TiVo state to do it one at a time. So we pop a CableCARD into the first slot and wait a minute for it to initialize. Error 161-4. Hit continue. Error 161-4. D’oh! So we pop it out and pop in another CableCARD. Same thing. Bad omen.

We then pop it out and pop it into the second slot. Takes a minute or two to initialize and then it shows the CableCARD IDs that the dude needs to activate it. (On a side note, Verizon has given their dudes a laptop that they do virtually any of their tasks on instead of having to call home all the time and recite long strings of numbers to someone. Good call.) Dude activates it via his laptop, and TiVo starts downloading channel guide info through the CableCARD. We wait an obscenely long period of time and then it fails. Uh oh.

At this point, the dude calls around to the other dudes and see if anyone has done a TiVo install before. Finally reaches the Sally dude that has done four of these, and Sally dude claims to never have had any hiccups. Too bad Sally dude wasn’t assigned to this visit. Sally dude gives a couple pointers.

Also at this point, we call up TiVo tech support and keep them on speaker phone. We explain the situation. First step is to restart the TiVo. So we do that. When it’s back up, we pop in a third CableCARD in the first slot. Error 161-4 again. Pop it out and pop it in the second slot. CableCARD IDs come up, dude activates it. TiVo downloads channel guide data, and then wah-la! We see the channel 10 news! So second tuner is working.

Back to the first tuner. We pop in fourth CableCARD, still 161-4. Pop in fifth, same thing. Try first and second cards again, ditto. Dude is visibly frustrated. TiVo tech says hold on. So we hold on. Dude calls Sally dude while we wait. Sally dude doesn’t know, never had this issue. TiVo tech says he thinks the slot is bad on the TiVo. Ugh. Gotta exchange it.

So, the lesson of the day is that we’re still stuck with the p-o-s Verizon DVR. Had to ship back the TiVo and hope to have the new unit soon. Dude has another job scheduled so he leaves his boss’s number and tells me to call him when the new TiVo arrives so that he can come back and finish the job. On a good note, he did leave two of the CableCARDs, so I’m hoping I may be able to finish the job myself. We’ll see.

Go crazy? Don’t mind if I do!

The Verizon DVR sucks. The “Series Recording” feature is like 24’s season 2. Trying to copy previous success (as in TiVo’s much smarter Season Pass feature) and failing miserably.

The main difference is that when you set up a Season Pass to record only new episodes, that’s exactly what the TiVo does. On the Verizon DVR, I set up a Series Recording for new episodes of The Simpsons, which is on Sundays at 8pm on FOX. The problem? Well, our local FOX affiliate also runs syndicated episodes twice a day, and the Verizon DVR wanted to record them all. Ugh! That would have filled up the hard drive in no time!

And then there’s one of my favorite shows, Mythbusters. Now that we have HD, you bet your patooey that I’m going to be recording that in HD. And I only want new episodes. But apparently, Discovery HD ran a mini-marathon over the weekend, and the Verizon DVR nicely recorded them all, leaving almost no room for the actually new episodes of our Monday-night shows.

So I called up TiVo to find out what kind of deal I could get for the TiVo HD. They offered to knock off $100 of the price as well as transferring my existing multi-service discount over to the new unit at the old prices (our second TiVo had a monthly subscription grandfathered in at the old rates when TiVo increased the monthly rates earlier this year). That was quite a bargain!

After ordering the new TiVo, I now called up Verizon to order two CableCARDs for the TiVo (so that the TiVo could decode the channel streams). After a lengthy discussion with the associate that I talked to (he turned out to be extremely knowledgeable, unlike some of the other reps I’ve talked to before), he set everything up for me, and we’re scheduled for Wednesday to get the TiVo set up and to return the p-o-s DVR.