Realtime channel changing

[Scott NY]

Hi folks,

I just asked this on the TiVo forums, but figured I might get good help here as well.

I was wondering if anyone has found a way to make this work: I have a Series2 TiVo-branded box connecting to a Scientific Atlanta box from Cablevision via the IR cable. Changing channels is painfully slow, as even when I enter the channel and hit Enter, it takes a good 3 to 4 seconds as I watch TiVo make the screen go black, then it comes back on the same channel I was just on, then the cable box slowly change the channel. It is frustrating and I want to be able to control the Cable box in a more realtime manner.

Is there any way to have the TiVo send channel changes immediately? This means entering a number on the TiVo remote will result in that number being sent immediately to the cable box, and if I hit Enter, it will send the Enter key immediately. This way, if I press 04 Enter, the cable box sees 0, then 4, then sees enter and changes as if I wre using its own remote instead of TiVo's rmeote. Right now, if I hit 04 Enter, the TiVo screen goes black for a second, then flashes back to the channel I am on, then tells the cable box to change to channel 4, and then the cable box changes. This is getting on my nerves!!!

This should also work when I press channel up or down, as that would be sent as a channel up/down as well. I can't believe how much time I waste not being able to channel surf the way I should be able to.

This way, the channel would change much faster... I know TiVo is not really supposed to be about watching Live TV but sometimes during the day or on weekends when my wife or I are home watching the news or channel surfing for a few minutes, we don't like waiting so long for the channels to change.

Anyone have any advice? Even if it's a hack that won't always work, it may be worth exploring. Please let me know. Thanks!

-Scott

[ZikZak]

This should also work when I press channel up or down, as that would be sent as a channel up/down as well. I can't believe how much time I waste not being able to channel surf the way I should be able to.

No, there's no way to do what you want. Most tivo users get out of the channel surfing habit eventually. If you record everything you like to watch, then there's always something you want to see waiting in Now Playing. Then you've got tivo's Suggestions and the Live Guide for that added splat of randomness.

If after a few months of owning tivo, you find that you're still a die-hard channel surfer, consider splitting the cable and sending one side directly to the TV, and surfing with its tuner instead.

By the way, the delay you're seeing is not a delay in sending the channel change; it's the delay in stopping and starting the live TV buffer, and there's nothing anyone can do about that.

[Scott NY]

So much for TV my way. I don't like building up 5 minute recordings and snippets of news programs and stuff and I am not paying more money for another cable box so I can flip through my premuim channels. This is so sad that it can't be made faster. i understand the encoding issue, and I realize there will be at least some delay, but it could be made faster. The technology has to exist. I shouldn't have to wait for and buy a Series 3 to get the Cable card slot. Thanks for the reply at least.

[ZikZak]

*shrug*

[crowfan]

Scott,

I really have noting more to add that ZikZak didn't already mention, but I wanted to second it.

As ZikZak mentioned, IR is really the only option you have (unless you want to use the TiVo without your cable box -- channel changing would be instantaneous but you wouldn't get any channels above 75 or so). I also have Cablevision (I'm in Massapequa) and I have the SA boxes too. There is no serial port, so we're stuck with IR.

I felt exactly the same way when I first got TiVo. But it didn't take long for me to pretty much forget about Live TV. Just have your TiVo record *everything* so that when you want to watch junky stuff, it's in Now Playing too. Suggestions are good for this stuff too. And I find that I like "surfing" with the TiVo guide.

You can always split the cable as ZikZak suggests, but if you really give the TiVo a chance to do its thing, I suspect you'll feel like I do in a couple of months.

[Scott NY]

Thanks guys,

I know everyone thinks I should forget about Live TV and just record everything to watch it later, but my wife and I have very wide tastes in things and sometimes like to channel surf and find new things. TiVo Suggestions just don't seem to do much good for us over the years. Someimtes we'll be in the midst of watching something on TiVo and want to switch to Live TV and then realize "oops, we last recorded something on Lifetime, let's switch to ABC and get the news" and then we wait. And then we get there and realize we just missed the weather, so we switch to NBC, and we wait. And oops, then we missed sports, so let's switch to News 12. and we wait...

I have had TiVo since the spring of 2003, so I am already an expoert in how to use the TiVo and I have special splits already set up elsewhere. However, becuse of my current setup, I don't have another input to use, so either I change the channels using the TiVo remote and wait or I use the Cablevision remote and confuse the TiVo... either way, it's a pain. And either way, my wife doesn't get to use one remote, which is actually quite important to her.

Please don't take this the wrong way because I know you guys are just trying to help, but the whole idea of TiVo is not to record everything and watch it later, it's to watch TV your own unique way and do what you want to do when you want to do it. For some, that may mean recording everything like you guys do, but for me that means being able to watch Live TV sometimes and being able to switch channels. My brother-in-law and father-in-law both switched to DirecTV and their almost defunct TiVo model last year because they couldn't stand the delay in changing channels, and they both do a lot of recording as well. For them, TiVo was not working their way.

I just feel that this should be possible based on technology, and that TiVo is holding out on us. I think there should be able to be an advanced option to allow buttons pressed on the TiVo remote to be immediately sent to the Cable box. And why does it have to stop encoding and start encoding when it changes channels? why can't it keep the half hour from the previous channel in tow?

I guess I am just too demanding, wanting to have something that is supposed to work to suit my tastes actually work to suit my tastes... Ok, now that's not demanding, it's just sarcastic, but you get the idea. Thanks for taking the time to reply at least.

[atmuscarella]

Scott NY:

I recently connect my Dish Network DVR to my TiVo (I used to use TiVo for OTA only but was running out of room on the Dish DVR)) and when I want to channel surf I just use the Dish remote instead of the TiVo remote, which doesn't seem to cause any problems. You could try using your cable boxes remote for channel surfing and see what happens.

Good Luck,

atmuscarella