to the editor: There is a growing tendency for companies to make products that are less user-friendly and at the same time “improve” them technically. This is usually an attempt to make more profits.
The promise of the “everything, everywhere, everything at once” approach to streaming was to make DVRs unnecessary. But with the sheer amount of content out there today, curation is essential to avoid feeling overwhelmed. To date, no streaming box or smart TV (or app like YouTube TV) has come close to the simplicity and ease of use of TiVo's interface (“Say goodbye to the TiVo box, the device that revolutionized the way we watch television” October 9). And TiVo's peanut-shaped remote continues to ergonomically put all others to shame.
Columnist Michael Hiltzik's claim that “DVRs are not necessary for streaming services” ignores TiVo's best feature: fast forward and rewind on live TV recordings. Without that, watching football, with its constant commercial interruptions and timeouts, is misery for me.
I've been told this is possible with some streamers, but when I tried it, I found it clunky, unreliable, and basically unusable. TiVo just works. And of course, skipping commercials is a breeze with its triple fast-forward: Sorry, CNN and its advertisers. Kudos to Spectrum for keeping our machines running.
Robert Huber, Yorba Linda
