Trouble in paradise

Well, I was hoping this day wouldn't come, but I guess I'm just too damned optimistic. You know that wonderful PVR box I bought? (If you have no idea what I'm talking about, you need to read my Jurgle post) Not so wonderful anymore. Yeah, there's a fly in the ointment. It has to do with the DVD recording function.

I had recorded the Ron James comedy special on CBC last week and figured it would be a good idea to archive the show to DVD, so it wasn't hogging space on the hard drive forever. I would, after all, like to watch it again sometime. The copy to DVD went without a hitch (although the salesperson did lie to me when he said the recorder can use DVD+R and -R discs - not true - it only records to -R). But when I went to play the disc in my other DVD player, it would not even recognize the disc. Neither would the DVD drives on my PC. A little research turned up the fact that PVRs record the video in a proprietary way that makes them useless on any other player. Well freaking done! No doubt the MPAA and the TV networks had their greasy little hands in that little feature. But fear not my sullen-faced readers - I'm sure some hacker somewhere is working on a hack for the problem.

I guess I better hope my PVR lasts forever, cause I may not be able to play my archived TV programs on anything else. Oh well, if these entertainment people ever lose their jobs when their companies go bankrupt after a cheaper, more efficient method of disseminating media takes over - at least they'll be able to give seminars on 'How to alienate your customer base'.

But I'm not bitter...............

Update: Doh! I spoke too soon...... Turns out all that was wrong is I didn't finalize the disc. Of course, the manual didn't really allude to that procedure very clearly. Seriously, I read the manual! No - really! Yes, I'm a guy........