A couple days ago I called up DirecTV and cancelled our service with them. A 10+ year relationship is now severed. Even though they kept telling me that I was an “A list” customer, they sure didn’t fight too hard to keep me — only making a half-hearted attempt to find out why I was cancelling. It was funny when the DirecTV guy in ‘customer retention’ asked me if there was anything he could do to change my mind. I told him I didn’t think he had the authority or capability to do what would be necessary. He said to try him, so I told him that if he could promise a Tivo interface, instead of their own, on DVRs that worked with MPEG4, I wouldn’t leave. He laughed for a bit and agreed that certainly wasn’t going to happen and that he *totally* understood what I was talking about.

All of our DirecTV boxes will soon be auctioned off through something like eBay. If anyone wants them rather than fighting the auction hordes, speak up now.

We’ve placed our eggs in the Tivo w/ cable-card basket and will soon be acquiring another Tivo — whether it is the Tivo HD or a Tivo Series 3 remains to be seen. The former is cheaper but the latter supposedly supports a higher internal bandwidth which could mean a better picture quality. The latter also supports more external storage options. They priced these just differently enough to make it a tough choice.

I’ve also heard more news about the USB device that will enable Tivo to work with SDV (Switched Digital Video) — it should be out sometime this quarter according to what I’ve read. The problem is I’m not sure how I get one yet since Time Warner Austin hasn’t responded to my e-mails about that.