Tivo in Costa Rica!

I made a huge mistake before I moved to Costa Rica back in 2004. For the final six months that I lived up in Gloucester, MA, I signed up for Tivo from DirecTV. Oh my. I got completely addicted to the fact that I could record TV shows and watch them when I wanted, and most importantly, that I could fast forward through the commercials.

When I was preparing for my big overseas move, I did a lot of research and heard that it was possible to continue your DirecTV account down here if you bought a bigger dish, pointed it at the correct satellite, and somehow configured it so that it wouldn’t know you were in CR.

I even brought my DirecTV box with this in mind. Well as you can probably guess, the rumors I heard were untrue and try as I might there was no way I was going to get US DirecTV service at my little farm way out in the back of the Diamante Valley. So I signed up for the Costa Rican DirecTV service, which was my only option for television service.

Before you start giving me grief about being a TV addict, let me explain. For the 20 years before I moved here, I was constantly traveling as a consultant, spending all my weeknights in hotel rooms. Since I was on a computer all day, writing, I just had no interest in putting my eyeballs back on words in a book for the evening. TV became my traveling companion. Anyway that’s my excuse, I’m sticking to it.

I’m not even going to lie and claim that I only watch the History Channel, or movies, or some other highbrow tube offering. Nope. I’m completely into Reality TV: Survivor, The Amazing Race, Top Chef, American Idol, anything with real people completing for something. Even the Price is Right will work. My friends used to laugh at me when I would bag out of a party invitation because it was the finale to American Idol. Hey, a girl has her priorities.

Back to the farm. When I signed up for DirecTV back in 2004, I was given the option of buying the equipment (for $450) or renting it ($14 per month). Since I was fully prepared to live in Costa Rica for the rest of my life, it seemed like a no-brainer, so I coughed up the money and I bought the equipment package. Everything was great for a few years (albeit Tivo-less), until DirecTV was bought out by Sky.

Sky decided that ALL customers would pay to rent the equipment, and began charging me $14 per month for equipment that I already owned. Say what??? I made numerous phone calls (bored reply: “sorry, it’s not our policy”) I was infuriated and contacted the consumer organization in Costa Rica, all to no avail. It was my first lesson in Latin American consumer protection, i.e. there ain’t any folks .

So I went on for a few years, watching what was available on Sky TV, staying up late at night to see specific shows, and suffering through the commercials. And oh, what suffering! TV commercials on Sky are just that: commercials for other TV shows. If you think about it, Sky TV, which is out of Mexico, has such a wide and diverse area for its consumer base that it makes no sense for advertisers to pay airtime. So just about all of the commercials are previews of upcoming TV shows. They repeat the same commercials over and over, sometimes even repeating the same commercial in one commercial break! Aarrgh!

Fast forward to 2009. I had seen advertising on Sky for something called “Grabador” and upon consulting my trusty Spanish dictionary, I was excited to learn that grabador actually meant recording of some kind.

I called Sky, waited awhile for the English speaking attendant, and asked “Are you actually going to offer Tivo service in Costa Rica?”, barely able to keep the excitement out of my voice.

“Well, it’s not actually Tivo,” he said hesitantly, “and it’s not yet available but should be in the next few months.”
So every once in awhile I would call the Sky folks just to check. One day, which happened to be June 1st, I got the news I wanted.

“Hi, I’m calling from Costa Rica and I’d like to sign up for Sky Plus.”
“OK, when would you like the installers to come?”

“Really? Are you serious? It’s available? OK, please come as soon as possible! Tomorrow? Yes! Yes! Yes!”
And sure enough, the next day a nice little Suzuki Samarai with a ladder on top and a big yellow Sky logo on the side pulled up to my house. Two Tico guys got out, verified that I was the nutcase who wanted this new service and seemed to be overly excited about it, and they went to work.
After they climbed up on the roof and installed a new electronic thingy on my existing dish, they brought in the new DVR box and proceeded to do the software installation.

Oh oh. This doesn’t look good. One guy was perusing the installation manual, while the other fiddled with the buttons on the box. There was a lot of back and forth between the manual and the TV set and several calls to the office. It was beginning to be clear that these guys had never installed a DVR box and didn’t really have a clue what they were doing.

As it turned out, my call to Sky on June 1st resulted in me being the very first person in Costa Rica to receive Sky Plus. It was just a coincidence, really, but it turned out to be a very funny lesson in Tico culture.
For one thing, Ticos NEVER want to tell you bad news. They will go so far out of their way to avoid a confrontation, that they will make up stuff just so you walk away happy.

For example, you might ask “When will this be ready?”

“Oh…(pregnant pause, scratching head)…Quince dias (15 days). When you hear “15 days” you know that either a) they have no idea whether or not they can actually get it or b) they totally know that it is an impossible request and you will never get it. But they won’t tell you that…so “15 days” actually means “Go away and don’t bother me for another two weeks when I will tell you it’s going to be another 15 days and eventually you will stop coming back to ask me.”

Back to the Tivo installation. These two guys hemmed and hawed for something close to 3 hours. Repeated calls to the office, back to the television screen, push buttons, wait.

Towards the end, they seemed to be making some progress, but they still had one last software installation to do. They punched the correct buttons (referring to the manual all the time) and finally got to a screen displaying a progress bar that would show how much of the software had loaded so far.

And they sat down in front of the TV to watch. Except that the progress bar just sat there, blankly displaying no progress whatsoever. Hung up, defunct, installed incorrectly, who knows.

“Um…I think it might not be working.” I said hesitantly.

“Oh no, you have to wait. That’s what the instructions say.” And so they sat there, waiting, for 15 minutes with absolutely nothing happening on the screen. Ticos have such patience.

“Um…I don’t think anything is happening, maybe you should try it again.”

“No, you have to wait,” they insisted, as one of the guys called the office again to make sure.

They did this THREE times: get to the progress screen, sit down, wait 15 minutes, scratch their heads, look at the manual, call the office. Nothing.
It was now about 7 pm at night. I was getting tired and I didn’t want these idiots in my house anymore.

“I think maybe it’s time to call it quits, OK? Maybe you can go back to the office and learn how to do this install and then come back on Friday.”

“No, you just have to wait.”

“I’m sorry, I just can’t really wait anymore. Please leave and come back on Friday OK?”

“OK” they reluctantly agreed, giving me really frustrated looks, like I couldn’t possibly know what I’m talking about. They loaded up their ladders and tools, got back in the Suzuki and returned to San Isidro.

The next day I got a call from the Sky Customer Service.
“How do you like your new Sky Plus?”

I explained that I hadn’t had a chance to use it since the installers didn’t seem to know how to get it hooked up. Unbelievably, the very next day, the manager of the service office in San Isidro showed up at my door, quickly installed the Sky Plus service. He even rewired the cables to my dish, to make sure I had the best signal.

I’ve had Sky Plus for almost 3 years now. They were correct, it isn’t Tivo in the sense that you can’t set a “Season Pass” and have a particular show automatically recorded for you. It is more like “Stupid Tivo” where you have to manually record each show, or set a timer to record a specific time slot each week (but you won’t see the name of the show on the recording list). But it does record, I can watch what I want WHEN I want it. That’s great for a gal who goes to bed at 8 pm. I can fast forward through all the commercials. I can watch a one hour show in 20 minutes.

But the real kicker is this: when it’s raining really hard out, and I lose my TV signal, I can still watch whatever I have in my recorded library. So it’s perfect for Costa Rica!

[custom_script adID=97]

Written by VIP Member Linda Gray who has lived in Costa Rica over nine years. Originally starting with 200 acres of raw land in the Diamante Valley, she created what is now a small community of organic farmers, including the raw food wellness center Finca de Vida. For many years she ran a successful horseback tour business (Rancho Tranquilo), and even sold pizza out of the back of her Hilux. Find out how a mature, single gal made it happen in Costa Rica!

Andrew Makarik

to@welovecostarica.com

Andrew Makarik is the main editor of WeLoveCostaRica, a fan of this sunny country. He is also a loving husband and a has a lovely daughter. By being a devoted family man and the biggest Costa Rica fan, he wants to make more people feel at home there. WeLoveCostaRica unites people and helps them find new home or a new travel destination. This website is a friendly community where everyone can find not only information, but also new friends and travel pals. Andrew is also passionate about IT and programming, so he himself maintains a friendly atmosphere in this cozy environment of WeLoveCostaRica.com.