pick it and click it

Tonight seemed like a good night to try the new DirecTV DVR Scheduler. I only learned of it recently when a short training film about it turned up in my list of recorded programs.

I was upstairs and online while my wife, son, mother-in-law and brother-in-law were all downstairs watching the HD screen. I thought I could schedule the DVR to record "Last Comic Standing" without disturbing whatever movie they had on. I logged on to my DirecTV account, chose My TV Schedule and clicked on "Last Comic Standing." Here is a screen shot:



The only choice for WBIR was the satellite-delivered channel 10. There was no option to record channel 10-1, the over-the-air digital channel that I use. The local channels have been giving me some trouble lately. Last night I recorded "American Idol." The first hour is mostly unwatchable due to digital drop-off and pixelization. I adjusted my antenna around 9:00 p.m. and at least got the second hour. I remembered to add time for the traditional Idol finale overrun.

Back to tonight. As it turned out, I had to ask my son to pause "Transformers," go to the on-screen guide and record channel 10-1 for me. After all that, "Last Comic Standing" wasn't even in HD. C'mon NBC. Get with it.