TVWhore.org TV is my drug of choice

After getting a TiVo last year, I attempted something I haven’t really done before — watch new shows when they premiere.

In the VCR days, I would catch a new show only when it went into syndication. I never watched the first three seasons of The West Wing till Bravo aired reruns. And I can’t watch Without a Trace at its appointed time since its up against Battlestar Galactica and Brothers & Sisters.

So I watched a whole bunch of the serials trotted out this season and bailed on all of them. I didn’t pick up any of the midseason replacements, but I did add a few shows I hadn’t watched before.

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I thought TiVo would be responsible for many hours chained in front of a television set. On weekends, that sometimes happens.

But I think I’m probably watching less TV than before I switched.

I’ve developed a habit with the machine — TiVo will catch it for me, I can watch it later. "Later." That’s the catch, isn’t it?

"Later" sometimes never comes. Last month, I was working on a project that required a number of hours each evening. I ended up watching a lot of TiVo over the Thanksgiving holiday because a three-week backlog built up.

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It’s taken me a month of experimentation, but I finally managed to find the right set of tools to create commercial-free DVDs of shows recorded on my TiVo.

And man has it been a tedious process.

Before I recount that saga, here’s what I ended up with:

• TiVo Desktop — To transfer TiVo programs to a computer on a home network
• DirectShow Dump Utility — To convert .tivo files into non-DRM’ed MPEG files.
• Womble MPEG Wizard — To edit out commercials from the TiVo MPEGs. License required after evaluation period expires.
• DVDAuthorGUI — To author a DVD of the edited MPEGs.
• Nero Burning ROM SE — To burn a DVD. It came with my DVD burner.

So, here’s how the story begins.

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