Humax -> Tivo -> Humax TIRED OF IT

[Maverik]

Well after the most recent update the Humax DVD Tivo has gotten worse not better like promised this update........or any other update as they promised.

So here is what I did AGAIN:

I call humax and complained about the reposne time and speed issues witht he unit. Here is what they said.
1. It is a known issue and has to do with the software and not the Humax hardware. Please call Tivo with software issues.
2. We can send you a new unit for a credit card hold but it will come with the same hardware and same software and it will perform the same.

I said thanks......for nothing.....and I will call Tivo.


So i called Tivo. Spoke to a nice guy and he said he never heard of the speed issue but he just started at Tivo.

He put me on hold and came back with the following answer.

1. It is a known issue
2. There is nothing they can do with it. I might try a new non Humax Tivo

At this point I said I have been a Tivo customer since like 98-99 and that this is crazy. What I am out like 500.00!!! The next statement was well try selling it to someone else....!!!!! I said so ethics are not part of Tivo trainign eh?

3. He told me he is sorry and he wishes that he could do something.....but there is nothing and NO ETA or any idea what or when will fix it....



So there it is again Bad hardware bad software ......over and over oand over and over....

[qcpw256]

Hey Maverick, I own two Humax DVD/DVR 80 Hour systems and I haven't run into a problem. Let me know what your setup is and maybe I can give you some suggestions.

Later,
GFS

[rkester]

MIne has gotten slower and slower with each update. The latest one with the kidzone, 7.3.1?, has brought it to a halt almost when going thru the guide. If this unit was my primary unit and not a backup in the bedroom I would have probably raised holy heck about it as well.

I keep hoping they fix the speed issues.

Until then my S1 Sony's guide is blazing fast. So I use it.

[Maverik]

Mine has gotten slower and slower with each update. The latest one with the kidzone, 7.3.1?, has brought it to a halt almost when going thru the guide. If this unit was my primary unit and not a backup in the bedroom I would have probably raised holy heck about it as well.

I keep hoping they fix the speed issues.

Until then my S1 Sony's guide is blazing fast. So I use it.


My sony S1 works the best and the quality of the video is better anyways.

I can tell you for a fact....2 things ( cant tell you how)
1. The humax Tivo is working as intended. According to my source.
2. There is no plans to fix this issue becuase it is working within the Tivo guidlines for performance.
3. Humax is not longer producing the units any longer. Anything you get back from them is referb or new one stored in warehouse.
4. Ebay resellability around 100.00

Also remember that is you buy a box from Tivo the new service plan is 20.00 a month. Not the 12.95 you are paying now.

I will keep you all in the loop as this ordeal unfolds.

[megazone]

TiVo is aware of the performance issues in 7.3/7.3.1 and I expect they'll work on improving it in future releases. This has happened before and performance has been improved in subsequent releases.

[steelio]

yes well this is unacceptable. Really people we should stand up and have an organized call in day. This SUCKS! This unit is mine. The wife has the SA S2 and while it is slower with the new update. You can still get into the menu before your dinner gets cold.

[rkester]

This weekend I used my Humax in the bedroom for more than archiving shows ot DVD to watch in the living room. I decided its time for me to stand up and complain to Humax or whoever. From live tv to the Tivo menu after the button press, takes 10+ seconds. that is rediculous.

:/

[steelio]

yes that is what Mine is doing too.
I guess tivo's official answer would be
"Well with the attention span of today's youth we added a longer delay so they would not be tempted to view programs that are not intended for their young tender eyes. We have found out that 11 seconds is all they are good for and then turn the TV off. Yes we understand you are their parent, but sometimes we as corporate america must take the parenting out of the parents hands and act in the best interest of the youth of today."

And thus this is how we got 7.3.1 Kidzone approved TiVo update. A way for coporate america and the religious wackjobs that think everything should be banned from public airways to protect us.

[rkester]

I kinda wish i had upgraded mine way back when it was faster to respond. because then id know i had the older system version and could just reimage it.

oh well. glad i didnt upgrade it, im sure they wouldnt replace it if i did or would not replace my larger HDD with it.

[Maverik]

Do what I did go to best buy get dual tuner 80GB and you get 150.00 rebate.

[rkester]

Except I dont want a dual tuner unit. I want the DVD burning unit I paid good money for to work properly and at a speed that isnt slower than cold syrup. :)

[steelio]

yeah I'm with ya rkester.
I have another TiVo to go with this if I want dual tuning. You know what... I found out I dont. Getting close to not wanting the DVD burning part either.
I seen Cox and TiVo are getting together. Maybe Cox will come out with a box that does the same crap as my TiVo, and then I will just buy a DVD burner unit sell all my Tivo's as be done with it.
Then @ least I will know when they do an update the unit will not quit functioning like it did the day before.

[Brighton Line]

I have a DRT800 and have the same issues. I mean hitting STOP during playback takes awhile for the program to actually stop is very annoying.

[steelio]

Not since I bought a Dyson has something sucked like this. But with the Dyson it was ment too. I mean after all this thing (DRT800) worked great a few weeks ago.

[TiVoEvan74]

What's going on with this? It obviously isn't affecting all units. We have a Humax with DVD burner and it hasn't experienced any slow down--and it's on 7.3.1. Or at least no slow down yet!

I know that's no comfort to those of you with problems, but maybe it suggests there is a software-hardware interaction or hardware-unit related issue--and so a different unit might not show the same problem.

10 second delay is patently unacceptable. Good luck with it.

[rkester]

I did some experiementing with the slowness and timing it... (i replicated these times in one session pretty reliably. I will try again to see if maybe the system was processing something at the time)

From watching Live TV:
- Press Tivo Button, 8 seconds for the main tivo screen to come up
- Press Tivo Button 2x to get NPL, 10 seconds to NPL
- Press Guide button, 3-4 seconds for guide to appear
- In Guide, pressing page up/down, 2-3 seconds for it to respond
- Pressing the "DVD" button, 3-4 seconds for the dvd action menu to appear

Just to make sure it wasnt the remote's batteries, I put in a fresh set and it changed nothing.

I am going to back everything up this weekend and completely reset it across the board and see if that helps. If not I am going to start after Humax to replace or repair it.

[dfreybur]

I did some experiementing with the slowness and timing it... (i replicated these times in one session pretty reliably. I will try again to see if maybe the system was processing something at the time)

From watching Live TV:
- Press Tivo Button, 8 seconds for the main tivo screen to come up
- Press Tivo Button 2x to get NPL, 10 seconds to NPL
- Press Guide button, 3-4 seconds for guide to appear
- In Guide, pressing page up/down, 2-3 seconds for it to respond
- Pressing the "DVD" button, 3-4 seconds for the dvd action menu to appear

Just to make sure it wasnt the remote's batteries, I put in a fresh set and it changed nothing.

I am going to back everything up this weekend and completely reset it across the board and see if that helps. If not I am going to start after Humax to replace or repair it.

I don't quite get the 8 seconds until response but I also started seeing this a couple of weeks ago at the most recent update.

I'll add that the beep noise in response to the button push is immediate. It's the on-screen response that's slow. But, ah there's always a but, it seems to miss some of the button pushes. Maybe one in four. and moving closer to the unit doesn't seem to change the miss rate.

[TiVoEvan74]

OK, with old batteries, and controlling our Humax DVD unit from an upstairs bedroom via Radio Shack's AV Signal Sender system, with IR relay--which should make things much worse, and take a much longer time. I did the same tests and used the time-honored "one-thousand one, one-thousand two" precision measuring system! :)

This is under 7.3.1-oth on a Humax DRT800.

From Live TV:

To Tivo Central 1.5 seconds

Pressing TiVo button again for Now Playing 3 seconds
(that's leting screen refresh fully)

For Guide 3-4 seconds

Page Up/Down (too few channels to make this meaningful) < 1 second

DVD button < 2 seconds

Yeah, try a restart and see what happens. If it doesn't improve, it'll be interesting to see how Humax responds.

[ivyvine]

My unit was working fine (other than the slight lagging still) and I have had the 7.3.1 update since it was first released to poeple on the request list (have had it well over a month, can't remember exactly how long).

AsI said, it WAS working fine until a few days ago, now it reboots 3-4 times a day, ruins my recordings, ruins my tivo transfers to my tivo desktop, and I am ready to sell it.

I love my DVD burner unit, but since I have set up my home network (in March), I find that I hardly ever use it to burn dvds (just transfer them to my PC or laptop), and we hardly ever use the DVD player to play dvd's (not like I don't have 6 other dvd players, one actually not part of a computer (not a normal player as we sold that when we got our new tivo and sold our series 2 tivo as well), but a portable 7 inch LCD screen player that can hook up easily (oh, and I had forgotten about our 2 xboxes we own as well, both with the dvd kit/ remotes, heh).

But while I do wish we had a dual tuner (bought a tv tuner with MCE remote kit just to be able to record/watch a second show now that fall programs are starting up again), I don't want to do through the hassle of trying to find someone to buy my very expensive unit.

Anyone that has another dvd player laying around and has a home network with a dvd burner available on the computer, I would just suggect getting Sonic's My DVD (studio) 8 (or whatever upgrade they are now at) which is specifically made to work with the .tivo file extension and costs about $80 maybe? Buy the dual tuner tivo, get the software and you can still burn to dvd anything you want... And with the home network, you can always store your programs on your pc and just transfer back to the tivo the one(s) you may want to watch on your TV screen, if you don't like to watch tv/movies on your computer. Me, I love to watch all my movies and some tv show on my laptop as it has a nice LCD widescreen and we just have a cr*ppy 27inch CRT TV in the livingroom...

[TiVoEvan74]

sonic is only windows, right?

Were you kidding? the laptop screen is better for watching than a 27" tv? Wow!

[TIV0addict]

My Humax DVD-R Tivo box is slow to respond too. Everything else seems to be working fine, but very slow to bring up the guide and change channels. So are we just SOL.

[ivyvine]

sonic is only windows, right?

Were you kidding? the laptop screen is better for watching than a 27" tv? Wow!
Yes, I think it is only for windows, and I believe that Tivo Desktop is also only for windows. If you are using a mac (or any other OS), then I guess keeping your Humax DRT-800 would be the best call...


And I am not kidding... I got used to watching a small screen with my portable 7inch LCD dvd player, and my laptop is only a 14.4 but its widescreen and I love the quality, it makes up for the small screen big time... If I could afford a 32-37" widescreen LCD tv I would totally get one...

[TiVoEvan74]

The Mac does have TiVo Desktop, so we can stream photos, itunes (music only, no video podcasts) to the TV via TiVo.

Hmm... I've really liked the LCD TVs we've seen in Circuit City. We have a small 13" CRT TV in our bedroom, but it's too small and too far away to read the closed captioning (which we like when the shows are playing songs at the same time there's dialog--whoever thought that was a good idea?). So maybe we should get a 15-17" LCD TV, that is, if they are reasonably priced! If it came on a pedestal it would even lift it up some to be seen more easily over the comforters! Appreciate the feedback.

[ivyvine]

Well you should take a look at www.tigerdirect.com as they have really good prices for some items... I don't know how much you would trust a brand that is relatively unknown, as I am not sure I would, but they have some great deals on these items ($699 for a 32inch LCD, and I have seen 37inch models for $600-999 (final price) and sometimes you will get up to $150 mail in rebates for them... We just bought the Magnavox 27inch CRT last September (we only had a 19inch before that), and so I think it's too soon to try and convince my roommate (the one with the cash and lots of credit cards with high balance limits) to splurge on one, as he has mostly stopped watching tv lately, and is living his life on IRC chats every night and weekend... You could also look at the Apple Cinema Displays, as the 20inch is $699 but you would need to hook it up to a computer (mac or PC, the website gives the system requirements) but could be useful as then you have a nice large display for your computer (especially if you have a mac laptop). But then you would also have to deal with graphics cards and tv tuners etc. Dell has LCD TV's (and Plasma's), the smallest LCD they have is a 23inch and it is $699 as well, and its an actual tv, with 1 year warranty. I haven't really looked at many smaller LCD screens to know what the average compared to good price would be, but prices are going down quite quickly, and by next year they should be very reasonably priced for their size... Just remember that if you don't mind the bit of extra cost for graphics and tv tuner, LCD monitors can be the better bet as they can expand and upgrade your computer system as well while tv's can only really be used as tv's...

I googled the results for "burn tivo programs to dvd for mac" and this link was the second hit listed, it actually tells you how to do this without tivo desktop and even with a series 1 box... The steps if using tivo dxesktop should make it easier as you will already have gotten the files off of your tivo, and there are a few suggestions on what programs to use to burn.. . One person comments that they bought the Humax DRT-800 and how much it simplifies things, so again, it may just be easier to keep that box if you have one, or at least wait until you have a good program and working process of burning your programs before selling it.

Here is that link... http://www.hitormiss.org/2005/03/07/tivo-to-dvd-via-mac-osx/

Hope this helps some.

[TiVoEvan74]

Wow! Lots of good info. Much appreciated. We'll have to look into the bigger LCD TVs too, and the monitor/TV combos.

At the end of the thread on TiVos and the Mac is a link to tivotool.

http://www.tivotool.com/

Looks interesting.

[dugbug]

damn, my humax is doing the same thing. Agonizingly slow response times.

-d

[Sniper_X]

My Humax and all my freinds Humax DVD units are all DOG slow!

This ballistic approach to software updates (by ballistic i mean shoot it out there without adequate testing) is unacceptable.

I would overclock this thing if i knew where to start!

I want to get the HD Tivo but this problem is keeping me from spending the $800 buck to do it, why WOULD I after all it seems that Tivo will simply bog this one down when they get antsy about adding software when this one becomes older.

I want to roll my unit BACK to 2 years ago!
it was FAST then.

this is an appliance! I dont build windows or Myth TVs becuase I want to have a dedicated box that doesnt bog down/crash require mainenance, etc...

Humax and Tivo have ruined that with this load of software!

Im NOT getting a HD Tivo only to have it mucked up when Tivo developers get a bright idea to include more ""features".

Are you listening Tivo?!

[magnumis]

My DRT800 is also real slow after the last software upgrade.

[ivyvine]

Hey, check this 20inch LCD screen out... decent price at $299...

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/searchtools/item-Details.asp?EdpNo=2205172&sku=S452-2020&CMP=EMC-TIGEREMAIL&SRCCODE=WEM1199V

[tai-pan]

Mine varies between slow and real slow but is your freezing on a screen for upwards of 2 hours at a time? Mine has twice this weekend.

[monkeybutler]

I remember complaining half a year ago that my Humax tivo seemed slow and I've subconsciously trained myself to just work in slow motion. Press the guide button, wait... press down, wait... etc. Combine that process with a completely useless forced comcast cable box and changing channels literally takes minutes. Its sick but i got used to it.

But here's what got me furious. I visited my dad and his tivo was incredible. I'm sure its no faster than everyone elses but to me it was just amazing that i've been living with a crappy experience for so long.

This is under warranty with best buy but i want the DVD function and nobody makes something similar. So i'm in the boat where i just want them to fix the problem or upgrade me to something substantially better. Because this thing just plain sucks.

[bicker]

My understanding is that TiVo's and Humax's perspective on this is, "Get over it." They're not going to publicly declare that they screwed over thousands of customers. They're not going to do anything in the short term to address it with a hot fix or anything like that. In some unspecified future release they may do something, but no guarantees.

[TiVoEvan74]

Does BB sell the Toshiba RX series? If so, and you could swing it, you could return the Human DVD and try the Toshiba. There seem to be fewer complaints about T's model. Or complain enough and get your money back-- or a store credit--perhaps your state has a lemon law of some sort. Then buy a Toshiba DVD from someone else.

Note: we have both and have experienced no slow down with either... but I do feel your pain. The delays described are inexcusable and the software/hardware should be fixed!

Ah, I should correct one thing... there are two places where I don't like the response time... the new "feature" where it puts in an X when you delete a show is simply a confusing delay (yes I know I can move along, but if one's not careful one can mess up the cursor location). The other is the time for the guide to show up... but then we virtually never watch live TV and even more rarely use the guide so that doesn't matter.

[HoustonRage]

I chose "clear settings and programming" and it helped alot. Still hangs a bit when trying to bring up the programming menu. I have read that a complete reset will solve this as well but I have a lot of stuff that I am not ready to lose.

[rkester]

The only thing we do have on our side is being able to back eveyrthing up to DVDs.

Still havent had time to do this myself here. I need to make a list of SPs I wanna keep, backup anything that needs backing up, and reset mine too. But its way low on hte list of priorities right now. Busy schedule, etc keeping me from even catching up on the programming on it ive recorded.

[monkeybutler]

I chose "clear settings and programming" and it helped alot. Still hangs a bit when trying to bring up the programming menu. I have read that a complete reset will solve this as well but I have a lot of stuff that I am not ready to lose.

Has anyone verified this? I have alot of stuff I'd lose, but considering the new tv season is coming up then now is probably a better time than ever to do a reset. IF it works...

[rkester]

Too bad there isnt a way to "burn" all of you settings, SPs, etc onto a DVD and restore it on these. Or dump it ot your computer and use it later when resetting it all up.

[TiVoEvan74]

Agreed! Being able to capture one's SPs on line or transfer them from one unit to another would be really helpful!

[monkeybutler]

If anyones interested, i took a quick video of my Humax delay off my camera. It was actually pretty snappy compared to how it usually runs so it seems to run much slower at night during primetime.

YouTube - Humax Tivo (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_AspxPsnSJc)

I tried to make my button pressing obvious so you see the delay but you can also see the light go off and how long it takes to react. Who knows, maybe this is normal and I'm just whining, but I know all the other Tivo's ive seen are very quick.

[rkester]

monkey - while not as slow as some, thats still sluggish. i notice yours seems to be a bit faster than mine when going to the Tivo menu and NPL. I need to try again and compare to your speeds.

ANyone know if they slealth sneaked a speed fix in on 7.31? seems like mine suddenly got faster one day. Even tho its still about 2-3x behind my S1 in speed. And probably near that to its self when it was new in speed.

[ivyvine]

With the 7.3.1 update, things got a bit faster but it is still more sluggish than it was before... I haven't cared about the sluggishness part though, but the bleeping restarts are getting to me. I made the mistake of mentioning yesterday that I had noticed it had not happened for the past few days, and so I cursed myself and it did it again last night. 48 minutes into Standoff... it takes 6-7 minutes to restart and start the recording again, so I ended up with the second "part" being 6 minutes long, 3 of which was the end commercials and previews of next week. I got to see the "bad guy" name a name to the "good people", and then commercials hit, tivo did its BAD THING, and when the show started to record again, I got to see the kidnapped little girl being returned to her parents (which her father was the "bad guy"). Great, huh?

I am now officially sick of this, I DO NOT pay $13/mo or $155 per year for the "tivo service" (which is FREE with programs you get for free when you purchase a tv tuner for your PC), to have it constantly Restart during my programming and to usually miss the end of or the best part (the climax leading up to the end) of the show. I also have this $500 machine that does the exact same things that my 2 other desktops, and 2 other laptops do, and my current tv tuner being used with my media center laptop is only hooked up with an antennae (not the cable tv which goes to our tivo) and it is more trustworthy nowadays than the tivo...


I could take the lagging, but refuse to spend another penny for something that can and should be free (or at least much cheaper). And don't say tivo can do anything better than my free program can do, as this program will look at the priority of a season pass (which it can do, as well as manual always same day/time recordings) and if the higher pass conflicts with another show at the same time but it will repeat in the next ??? days and it can record it then, it will go and schedule THAT other day for it and get me the lower priority recording show for that first night. So I get both... While with tivo, I have to actually see that I can do it, go and manually schedule the first show for the 2 days later, and then tell the lower pass show to record that first night (again manually). And this is what I pay the $13/mo for???...


I can't even believe that tivo has started to make people sign up for a year or more contract for their serrvices, and is it that if you only want to pay month to month, you have to pay $16 or so a month instead of the $12.95??? I was lucky enough to not have to deal with that, but my now almost 2 year old Humax DVD tivo just doesn't seem to make it all worth it as any of my other computers with home network and 4 extra external hard drives can do it all if not more...

I cannot even add music to "publish" without making the tivo desktop software take forever to load up (if it does properly), it reminds me of the problems with version 2.2, but as soon as I take away the published music, it goes back to normal. So if my tv shows get botched when recording, tivo restarts so much it's hard enough to just watch programming that is ON the tivo unit itself, and I can't use the "home media network" features for what they are supposed to do (at least they don't make people pay $100 for that anymore), then really, what is the point in having the tivo at all???

Anyone want to buy a used tivo/humax DRT-800 box?

[Chester_Lampwick]

Anyone want to buy a used tivo/humax DRT-800 box?

I'll give you a $100 if you USPS it to Canada......

[Chester_Lampwick]

monkeybutler,
I watched the video, and I must sayyour DRT-800 seems reasonably responsive. Mine is about the same. I wsih it was as fast as my Seies 1, but I can still tolerate it....

[njmnguy]

With the 7.3.1 update, things got a bit faster but it is still more sluggish than it was before... I haven't cared about the sluggishness part though, but the bleeping restarts are getting to me.


This is incredibly annoying to us as well. Ever since we got the KidZone update, we've seen the following on our Humax DRT800:

1) Horrendously slow performance, often taking 10 seconds or more to change menu screens or stop or start playback. The "ding" happens immediately, but then we wait and wait.

2) Weird behavior at the tail end of playback about half the time. When I get to the last 10-15 seconds of many shows, the screen freezes for 10 seconds or more, then prompts me ot resume playing. If I say yes, it will delay again, then play the last few seconds of the show and end normally with the prompt to delete the show or keep it around.

3) Occasional freezes while playing back recorded shows or watching live TV. I haven't let one of these sit for longer than a half hour or so before pulling the plug and rebooting.

4) Worst of all are the constant crashes. We didn't see any crashes for the first week or so after the upgrade. Then it started multiple times a day. It seems to range between once and six or seven times a day. Most days seem to have at least two or three reboots.

:mad:

I was really starting to think the hard drive must be going bad. Then I looked around here and see I'm not alone, and we appear to have been given a bad code update. Tivo really needs to fix this.

Amazing how they break our Series 2 box right when they offer us the privilege of moving to Series 3 and carrying our lifetime service over for only $1,000.

[alexcue]

add me to the list of reboots! and of course slowing. It is not the hard drive, I've had Tivo's since pretty much day 1 and know those symptoms. This is just buggy software. Who ever tested this should be fired 'cause they did a lousy job!

[CCZaphod]

I have not had the reboot problems with mine, but mine has been slower than "stock" ever since I added the 300GB drive. After the Kidzone thing, it's even slower.

My DirecTivo slowed down considerably when I switched from the original 40GB drive to dual 120GB. I always thought this was due to the larger "index" or "Table of contents" required for the 100 or so movies I've got on the thing.

I have noticed considerable differences in speed on all my TiVo's when I purge out old TV shows.

[technomutt]

I'm both glad and sad I found this thread. Is the slowness of the DRT-800 directly related to the size of your hard drive or do ALL DRT-800's run slow now with 7.3.1? I've got a 200GB Western Digital in mine, and compared to my SVR-3000 (120GB drive) the Humax is in a coma. If running a smaller drive is better, I would consider going back to the 80GB drive. The lag time is unbearable.

PS - I've got analog cable (no blasters, no box) and standing 3 feet in front of the unit with the stock remote (fresh batteries) my response times are as bad as Monkey's YouTube video and often worse. This thing ran great with the original 5.x software on the 200GB drive, so it's got to be a bug in the latest version.. or shall we call it a "feature"? Perhaps a new oversize drive detector? :eek:

[TiVoEvan74]

Hmm... is it a common denominator in the slow down that larger drives were put in the stock unit? I didn't recall seeing that before. Ours is the standard 80gb and times really haven't changed much with the OS update--nothing approaching a coma They seemed to get a bit slower, as expected, when we added an IR extender and a wired household broadcast system.

What happens if you reduce the cabling, hook ups to the bare minimum--and just have the cable run into the Humax and the Humax into the TV? Same miserable slow response?

You all have me worried that this problem will show up on my units, too.

Could it be some new sub-routine in the new OS that needs rooting out? Perhaps some quality control debugging routine that escaped and was released?!

Let's hope that the gnomes at TiVo are working on a software patch for this.

[CCZaphod]

I've noticed that the speed of my TiVos is directly proportional to the amount of disk space IN USE. Prior to the latest software update, I noticed no difference in performance between the stock HD and an empty 300GB (or empty dual 120GB) drives.

Clearing out shows on my DirecTivo whenever it started to slow down resulted in a noticable increase in speed.

I have not yet tried purging out my shows on the Humax unit in order to increase speed. I think from the other reports and my own observations, that the latest update did slow things down, though I'm used to clogging up my Tivos with too much TV (I often collect entire seasons of shows before I watch them).

[njmnguy]

Well, my DRT-800 is stock, 80GB drive. And, I definitely saw a significant slowdown with the new KidsZone release.

The release before that is the one that gave us the recently deleted folder. Prior to that, we rarely had our drive more than half full - my wife is pretty religious about deleting old shows. With the new Recently Deleted folder, we were much closer to filling the driver. I erased about 25 shows there and the response time seems to have improved already.

Now we'll see about the crashes. Still seems to crash several times a day. It's gotten to the point that I hit Select-Play-Select-3-0-Select every time I start watching a show because odds are it crashed recently and lost the 30 second skip setting.

If I leave it on a DVD menu, it sits for days without crashing. Interesting.

[TiVoEvan74]

This is truly horrible... I'm supposing that you've contacted TiVo directly. What do they say? I'd e-mail rather than get time wasted on the phone.

Is this happening to just the Humax DVD TiVos--or is it more widespread?

Maybe a help on this latest issue is to Turn OFF suggestions, to reduce space devoted to recorded shows. Or, could it be the opposite? Turn it on so that the system automatically and quickly deletes the deleted shows? (Or are we all jumping up and down 37 times on one foot or throwing salt over our left shoulders thinking that matters?) (Seems not as the fix--deleting deleted shows--is a repeatable solution.)

[bicker]

TiVo, like many mass-market high-tech companies, doesn't provide email tech support.

[TiVoEvan74]

That's too bad about no e-mail support-- although I really think this is a matter to alert the higher-ups, even company board, etc. about.

It strikes me as less a matter of tech support and more one of waking a sleeping lion. They should be more responsive--and acknowledge a serious problem (or have they somewhere?).

There isn't an e-mail address on their *entire* web site? Then complain through their web pages... to the Suggestions page. Or spend 37 cents and send them a copy of what would have been the e-mail.

Something needs to be done. We still haven't been affected (knock on wood), but these slow downs, sluggish response, resets, really sound as if it's rendering the product unusable!

[bicker]

Alerts to higher-ups are almost always better-off on paper.

It's not a matter of whether you CAN email them -- it is a matter of what is the best medium for communicating something important, so as to be most likely to have the greatest constructive impact.

[HLSgeek]

I'm also having this problem. Is it worse on the Humax? I assumed all Series 2 were as bad as mine, but it might be that my Humax is affected more.

I am out not just the money I spent on the box, but the lifetime service fee. I can't find the terms of the orginal contract, but we had a reasonable expectation that they wouldn't force on us software to tank its performance? We paid for a lifetime of TiVo service on the box, what we are getting now is below the level of service we were lead to expect.

It has been two months since I called them, and since then others have called and written about this. I think by now it is quite clear that they are ignoring us. Unless you're buying a Series 3, you don't count. Maybe a class-action suit is the only way to make them listen. If the people waiting on their Netflix DVD can get a settlement . . .

[Chester_Lampwick]

I'm also having this problem. Is it worse on the Humax?


I'm sure that the Toshiba RS-TX20 would be the same as it's hardware identical, only cosmetic changes. The OS would be somewhat different as it offers TiVo Basic....

[dbsanders]

Hadn't used my DRT-800 in a few months, so I decided to sell it on ebay. I thought it would go for a bit more with an upgraded disk, so I purchased a WD 250GB for $60 (with rebates) at Circuit City (good deal!).

After using MFSTOOLS 2.0 and doing the upgrade, the program data was dog-slow. Changing channels seemed ok, but the program data that pops up after a channel change takes about 2-3 seconds every time. The guide was also very slow.

I though, "What the hell is up with this new drive?" I tried the upgrade several different ways with the same result. Finally, I put the original 80GB drive back in. Hmmm...same problem. Maybe I never noticed it before or maybe it was the result of a TiVo software update.

I also tried to "delete and reset everything" or whatever it's called. So I did the guided setup all over again and retrieved all the program data. After a couple hours of indexing and whatever, SAME RESULT. Slow program data.

So it doesn't seem to be a function of how large a disk or what's on the disk at all, at least for me.

Still selling it on ebay, but I did mention the issue in my auction, to avoid a surprised or unhappy buyer.

[Chester_Lampwick]

I upgraded my DRT800 a couple weeks ago. I managed to increase the swap to 256MB using the -s 255 option when doing the restore and increase the block size to 4 MB. I then had to initialize it properly with the tpip program. I'd say that now, as the drive is getting full it's still quite snappy, probably faster than the stock drive. It's still not as quick as any of my S1s but still quite tolerable.....

[what the!?]

I'm glad I found this. When I first purcahsed this it was just as fast as my TC540 model Series 2.

It wasn't until it was updated to 7.x when it started slowing down. It's quite frustrating to me now and i'm considering selling now.

When I fast forward it will click 2 times for me even though I pressed it once. When I hit play to stop the forwarding it takes me several tries so I end up jumping far ahead into the show. I've gotten to the point where I don't even FF the commercials anymore because it takes longer for me to FF, Stop and go back to where it should have stopped to begin with.

I called up Humax and they said that they are aware of it and that they have no eta on when the "fix" would be available.

I don't know how much more frustration I can take from this. I might try to hack it and replace the sensor as I've heard some people have had good results from it.