Waf

[draven]

That's right, WAF, the all illusive Wife Acceptance Factor. In the interest of being politically correct, we can even call it the Spouce Acceptance Factor, but whatever you might call it, I'm talking about getting my better half to get interested in, or at least willing to use the equipment and software that I put so much time and energy into.

Here is how my living room works right now. I have a dedicated machine that I recently put together because my wife would get annoyed when I was watching TV and she couldn't get to the internet (even though my laptop was fired up in the other room). So I built a dedicated machine from an older computer I had laying around and put it in a nice HTPC case. I also have a projector that I use for work that I will often mount on my ceiling and project onto an 8' screen on my far wall. We will watch movies and TV on that screen at least once a week. I record my wife's soaps everyday for her to watch, as well as several of her other shows (desperate housewives etc...)

So, with all of that background out of the way, let me also add in that we have a cable box also connected to the TV. My wife seems to like the HTPC so long as I am controlling it, and there is an available tuner, but what bugs me... what really has me baffled..... is that she won't even touch the HTPC if she doesn't have to, even though, she'll sit there scrolling through the menu's on the comcast box at lightning speed. She figured that out inside 24 hours, but won't try to learn a thing about BTV or BM. The next box (or rather the same box with new guts) that I'm going to build in teh near futuer will have 2 dual tuner cards and a high def card, a mutch faster processor, and more disk space than I could ever use. This is all in a hope that she'll take to it.

SO long post to get to a small question.... how does it work in your house? Share your WAF anectdotes with us. How do you get your significant other to use (and hopefully like) the system you pour your energy into. Can we ever achieve 100% WAF?

[Grasshopper]

Let me preface this by saying that no male can ever truly understand all the parameters that effect the WAF. It just can't be done. All we poor males can do is approximate, take a few guesses, and hope things work out ....

My BTV server is in the home office. I ran a CAT6 cable into the bedroom and installed a quiet (but not silent) computer in the bedroom for BTV Link. The spousal unit liked the BTV interface and had no problem learning it in 30 minutes. What she just could not get used to was the noise from the computer, anything but silent was just not an option.

Building a totally silent PC was not in the budget. Finding a way to put the computer in another room and then running a video cable into the bedrom was just not practical given the layout of our house. The solution was getting a MediaMVP and use the BTV skin. (Thank you cat6man.) She liked this so much she wanted to put one on the main TV in the living room. Due to the cabling issue a wireless MediaMVP will be much easier so I'm eagerly waiting for that to come out.

GH

PS. The best marital advice I ever received was from my father-in-law. He told me "Remember, you can be right, or you can be happy, but you can't be both. Pick which one you want more. Me, I'm a happy man..."

[davefred99]

I have tried many times to get my wife to use BTV/Link exclusevely but since we have a direct Tivo unit in our living room she prefers it. the funny thing is when I first told her we were getting a PVR/Tivo she said what for, but after about two days she was hooked. She likes BTV but always comments that the DTivo PQ is slightly better and is much easier for her to use. She likes the fact that we have both since with BTV we have the option to save anyting to DVD but does not like the fact that BTV has no PPV program data. Most of our viewing is timeshifted and then deleted. She does like the fact that I can copy/rip DVD's to my HTPC and play them back but I use Zoomplayer from the BM basic/ firefly menu for that. I tried Beyond media but decided it was a not worth the upgrade. I use Winamp for Music.
My wife does use BTV/link on here PC that is in the dining room/kitchen area when cooking though. I have told her that eventualy she will loose the DTVO since direct TV is now building there own PVR and fazzing them out. So for me BTV & the WAF is a work in progress. I have been thinking of trying out an MPV unit for a cheap client but am less than excited about the prospects of it being what I want but it might be ok until someting better comes along and/or BTV fully supports it like the competition. I am also planning for our next TV with HDTV in mind.

[RiderFan]

I have my WAF at 90%. whoo hoo!

I have my main BTV machine with 3 tuners and 3 satalite boxes in our furnace room. I have taken the top off the PC and I have the power supply sitting outside of the case. I have 5 fans howling to keep it all cool (runs at under 30 C fully taxed). Who cares how loud it is when it's in the furnace room. It is hooked up to 50 inch DLP HDTV via RGB (cable goes through the wall). It is all controlled with a firefly remote. Since we don't see or hear the PC, my wife forgets that it even exists. She could never switch back to regular TV. She records so much crap, and never watches half of it, but doesn't understand the term "hard drive disk space". So I showsqueeze all her crap to a NAS 160 gig hard drive and she has no idea, and now I am not so uptight about disk space.

The funny thing is, I have a HD satalite box that is hooked up to the PC and also to the HDTV via DVI (Cable goes through same whole in the wall). When we watch HD stuff, I just change the input on the TV and receiver and watch direct. She doesn't understand why the firefly remote won't work and why we can't pause for bathroom breaks etc. LOL. Tsk, tsk...wives...you gotta love 'em.

I have a BTV link machine in the same cabinet as my BTV machine. It is hooked up via RF modualator to the upstairs 2 TV's. Again, quiet and unseen. I have run a USB cable upstairs, connected to a USB hub, with another firefly hooked up for the upstairs. My wife, I am sure, does not even realize I have 2 PC running. All she knows is that it works.

My system runs so well, that over the last year, maybe twice she has had to yell out, "The TV isn't working!". A quick reboot has her happy as a clam.

I have BM running on both systems (2 liscences), so We watch family videos, Music, DVD's, the works. EVERYONE who comes over is truley amazed when I give them the grand tour.

Bottom line is my wife has no idea what I do to keep everything running smoothly. That means I am doing it right. When the wife doesn't realize what's behind the HTPC, she just know that it works, that is when you know you are in HTPC bliss. (Untill the next upgrade comes, and she says, "What do you mean I can't watch TV for the next 2 hours"...LOL.

[obonaventure]

My wife can live with it or not (as long as the ole' VCR is avail to tape -- eek!). But she does like knowing her shows are avail when she wants to watch, not when the networks say she has to watch.

Last night had the potential to drive the WAF down to big 0%. Grey's Anatomy was "scheduled" to air right after the Super Bowl. Well the BTV guide said Grey's Anatomy was on from 10 - 11, but the Super Bowl stuff was on until 10:25 or so and BTV started to record at 10.

I had to cancel that recording and schedule a manual recording to start at 10:15 and last for 4 hours to make sure I got it regardless the Post game show lasted. She saw the whole thing. Whew!

The funny thing is I never scheduled a manual recording before so I set the VCR up to record too just in case that particular feature did not work for me, etc....... CYA (cover your a$$) baby!!


I had another issue where I set up one of her shows to record new episodes only and the guide indicated that it was a rerun -- She missed it. So now all of her shows are set to record all episodes and she can decide what to watch, skip, etc...

[nanook105]

Originally Posted by obonaventure

Last night had the potential to drive the WAF down to big 0%. Grey's Anatomy was "scheduled" to air right after the Super Bowl. Well the BTV guide said Grey's Anatomy was on from 10 - 11, but the Super Bowl stuff was on until 10:25 or so and BTV started to record at 10.

I had to cancel that recording and schedule a manual recording to start at 10:15 and last for 4 hours to make sure I got it regardless the Post game show lasted. She saw the whole thing. Whew!

The funny thing is I never scheduled a manual recording before so I set the VCR up to record too just in case that particular feature did not work for me, etc....... CYA (cover your a$$) baby!!

I have Grey's recording on both of my PVRs (HD and SD). For the HD recording, I just went into the recording setup and told it to end 40 minutes late. My wife was upstairs watching the SD, and she just went in and added recordings for the News and Jimmy K. Both resolved the problem

[pdaughe]

Bottom line is my wife has no idea what I do to keep everything running smoothly. That means I am doing it right. When the wife doesn't realize what's behind the HTPC, she just know that it works, that is when you know you are in HTPC bliss.

The above quote nails it down, in a nutshell. Both my wife and I grew up with the idea that when you turn on the TV, it works; all the time, 100% of the time.

I take that same position with respect to the HTPC. I treat our living room HTPC as a production machine. I never make changes directly to the production system. I make changes to a bootable backup and test the changes thoroughly before moving them into "production". Furthermore, I have several types of backups in place.

All of us in our home love the fact that there is just ONE REMOTE used to access all this functionality.

If something doesn't work right, it's MY fault. On the other hand, I get credit for it all, and that is why I've said several times: Snapstream has made me a hero in our home.

Cool.

[draven]

Originally Posted by RiderFan

I have my WAF at 90%. whoo hoo!

and quite an accomplishement that is. After a very succesfull superbowl party projecting the game onto an 8' screen, I think I won a few WAF points last night, but I would only rate the WAF of my house at 70% tops. She doesn't mind it, even likes some functionality alot, but just won't use it...... I be that if I gave her only BTV for 2 weeks, she'd be converted... I'd just have to make sure it was 2 weeks that I was on the road

[nanook105]

Originally Posted by draven

I be that if I gave her only BTV for 2 weeks, she'd be converted... I'd just have to make sure it was 2 weeks that I was on the road

That is what got my wife started. I was on a business trip and my wife wanted to record a couple of shows. I talked her through it over the phone, and by the time I got home, she had already set up a few more. When the new search features came out in 4.0, she sat for close to 4 hours and set up over 70 movies. I set up most of the recurring shows, but she records random shows all of the time. I think that WAF is at 100% for her (she never watches TV on anything but BTV).

[walts81]

My wife loves BTV! I've occasionally gone back and forth with SageTV or MeedioTV when one of them adds a new feature to try it out. But in the end, Sage or Meedio will do something stupid (and it only takes once and the wife is FURIOUS!). But good ole BTV is 100%, it NEVER fails or screws up. 100% rock solid and the wife knows it.

- Josh

[draven]

Well, this last 2 weeks, the WAF at my house has been in constant flux.

Superbowl > +5 WAF for being able to project and have 8 people watch comforterably with replay when we want it

Greys Anatomy > +1 WAF because it was on after the superbowl, went past midnight, and I still got it all by setting to record an extra hour

power went out > -25 WAF because my box doesn't auto boot after a power loss, missed General Hospital

wife discovers smart skip > +15 WAF

smartskip is incorrect on the very next show > -10 WAF

wife discovers 30 second skip (again) > + 15 WAF

set up to record a show without telling her. She missed teh show and I showed her the recording > +20 WAF

tried to rent a movie from movie link without setting it up before hand > - 10 WAF

Got the move anyway with some fiddling > +5 WAF

And the battle wages on......