TiVo and YouTube, a perfect combination
I'm a big American Idol fan, always have been. As you may or may not know, last night was the American Idol season finale, where the winner of the season is announced. The battle came down to David vs. David, two men both with excellent voices but drastically different singing styles.
As I always do, I TiVo'd the show so I could watch it later and zip through the commercials. Unfortunately I neglected (more like forgot) to use a feature on TiVo called padding which allows you to add extra time to the recording beyond the scheduled ending time.
This could not have bit me in a worse way. The American Idol recording on my Tivo ended exactly as the host, Ryan Seacrest, said this:
"Ladies and gentlemen, David and David, the winner by 12 million votes of American Idol 2008 is... David..."
Bling. That's the sound my TiVo made to indicate to me that the recording had finished. I couldn't believe it. One more word out of Ryan Seacrest's mouth and I would have known who won. I panicked and immediately checked what is known as the buffer on TiVo to see if it had the part I missed. Nope, I had waited too long to watch the show and the buffer wasn't going to help.
What's a techie to do?
As a techie, I knew I would never live it down if I didn't find a way to watch what I missed. I knew I could just turn on the news to find out the winner but that didn't seem good enough. I wanted to actually see the parts I missed: David's reaction; the other David's reaction; the audience's reaction; the confetti falling while the winner sings the winning song; etc, etc.
So where did I turn? YouTube. Within a few seconds I was watching a clip that someone uploaded to YouTube. Mind you, it wasn't a direct recording of the broadcast. Instead it was footage that someone created by using their video camera to actually film the television while Ryan Seacrest made the winning announcement. Good enough for me. I got to find out who won and see what I missed.
This morning I did another search on YouTube and found a 9 minute clip with much better quality and one that was a direct recording of the broadcast vs. filming the television. I enjoyed the winning announcement all over again.
TiVo and YouTube, a perfect combination.
2 comments for this blog post so far...
May 22, 2008 at 2:08 pm
Craig
Are you using a real Tivo or a pretend one? The DVRs provided by the satellite and cable companies are not nearly as smart as the real Tivo machines. For example, my Series 3 Tivo automatically paddes 12 minutes onto the end of the Idol show last night. In fact, I didn’t even know the show had been extended.
The newest models of Tivo, especially the stand-alone or cable versions, run circles around the earlier versions and put all pretend Tivos to shame.
May 22, 2008 at 2:16 pm
Patric Welch
@Craig, I have a TiVo HD DVR, the standalone version. TiVo never really divulges whether it is a series 2 or series 3 although most people assume it is a series 3. I have it hooked up with the TiVo wireless adapter but my show did not get padded automatically last night.
When I set up a season pass for a live show, TiVo is smart enough to ask me if I want to add padding to the end of the show because it is live. Usually though I decline this option. Guess I should have accepted that option with American Idol.
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