Got a question: once all tv signals go digital, I've suddenly realized that my current plan of splitting my cable so that I can tape the lower numbered channels while watching the higher ones will no longer work.

When everything is digital, will I be able to tape A and watch B without doing something specatcular? Or will I need a tivo in order to watch programs that air simultaneously?

I'm not sure how that works. I mean, I have digital cable now and I can still do what you're already doing. I'm not sure if the technology changes when we have to migrate.

Tivo (except for the DirectTivo models, which I think have been discontinued) won't split your signal, so that won't help.

But what I really came in here to post was a link to a 102" plasma TV. (Yes, it's only a prototype. But it's pretty.)

102" plasma TV

Oh, dear. Nobody tell the husband.

Don't worry, it's not for sale.

Yet.

Well, technically, the DirecTiVo's won't split your signal, either. It's just that we pay extra to have another line run from the dish. We do get the functionality you're talking about, but it's not the TiVo that's doing it.

So far as I understand it.

Which is, I know, completely useless to your question, sumi. I dunno the real answer to your question.

I guess the other part of my question is this:

on the analog side if I pre-program my vcr to record, I can watch something else while it tapes whatever I programmed -- no need to split the signal to do that. I was told when I got digital that this isn't possible.

Is this still likely to be true when we're all digital?

Sumi, I can do that and I have digital. But the second channel has to be via antenna. That's with Tivo, btw, but would be the same with a vcr as far as I can tell. If I actually did split the signal it might work for any channel, I think.

The Motorola iTunes phone will be announced today. It could be in stores later this week.

Nothing on the Apple site yet.

oh shit!

new phone new phone new phone. I wants a new phone!