• by Mitch Oscar , Op-Ed Contributor, March 27, 2007

On an early winter posting on TV Board I professed my appreciation for TiVo, praised its ability to save relationships, and recommended that it promote, through advertising, this special ability -- this gift -- to the general public in order to garner more subscriptions. How did I appreciate thee and thy partners. Let me reiterate the ways (not in order of importance):

Season’s Pass

3 speeds of fast forwarding

Pause

Electronic Program Guide

Recording myriad hours of programming

Slow-motion/instant replay

Personal preferences

Recording catalog

Store music from PC

Display digital photos

Home networking

DVD burning

TiVoToGo

Product Watch

TiVoCast

GuruGuide

Ticket purchasing (Fandango)

Broadband content plays (BrightCove)

Program Placement

Downloading connectivity (Amazon Unbox)

Wireless connectivity (Verizon)

Yahooing

Recently I was down in San Antonio receiving a demonstration of AT&T’s U-verse platform from Karl Spangenberg (ad sales honcho). While he was going through the personal video recorder demo, I noticed two features that I thought would make my TiVo experience even richer: 1) the service provided a green bar that showed graphically and numerically the amount of time left to view in the recorded program; and 2) when we were scrolling through the guide checking out the individual program listings, I noticed that there was a numerical indicator of how much time was left to view, or record, if so desired. I’m not sure if U-verse had a “start over” feature, which, theoretically, would record the in-progress program from the beginning regardless of when the record was activated.

I’m sure some of you have suggestions as to how to improve the functionality of these wonderful personal video recording devices. Care to share?