Series 3 Have Channel Change Delay?

[spudley]

I have a series 2 and a cablevision HD DVR. The tradeoffs are dramatic. While I love the Tivo interface I "need" the HD recording capability of my cable box DVR. So I look forward to series 3 where I'll swap out my cable box and rent 2 cable cards.

Question: I expect that the delay caused by sending cable box commands via the IR blaster will be removed with Tivo Series 3, will there still be some channel changing latency?

Thanks.

[jsmeeker]

I have a series 2 and a cablevision HD DVR. The tradeoffs are dramatic. While I love the Tivo interface I "need" the HD recording capability of my cable box DVR. So I look forward to series 3 where I'll swap out my cable box and rent 2 cable cards.

Question: I expect that the delay caused by sending cable box commands via the IR blaster will be removed with Tivo Series 3, will there still be some channel changing latency?

Thanks.


That's a good question. Something I am curious about myself. I've only ever used analog cable via my TiVo, so changes are fast. When I channel surf, I do it directly via the TV, totally by passing the TiVo.

So, I don't know if digital cable and digital channels (i.e. HD) makes any difference or not. Does your TV have a CableCARD slot? If so, you could try tuning directly with the TV and see how fast it is.

No matter what, channel changing will be very reliable. Is it fast enough for people who really like to quickly surf and are used to analog cable? I dunno. Again, it may have more to do with the nature of digital channels than TiVo.

[eisenb11]

Any DVR unit should have a small amount of channel changing delay because it takes a little bit of time to start recording the new channel.

The IR blaster delay will be gone at least and the chance of IR misfires (happenned all the time to me) will be gone as well.

[BrettStah]

I have a series 2 and a cablevision HD DVR. The tradeoffs are dramatic. While I love the Tivo interface I "need" the HD recording capability of my cable box DVR. So I look forward to series 3 where I'll swap out my cable box and rent 2 cable cards.

Question: I expect that the delay caused by sending cable box commands via the IR blaster will be removed with Tivo Series 3, will there still be some channel changing latency?

Thanks.
How much delay do you see with your Cablevision HD DVR? I would take a guess that a Series 3 Tivo would have a similar delay...

[Steve_Martin]

I have a CableCard in a plasma TV. There is a delay when changing channels, but it is much less than when the TiVo changes channels on the STB through the serial port. When changing channels on CC, the screen goes black for a half second or so then everything syncs up and you get sound and picture. It is noticable, but not annoying like waiting for the serial channel change is.

If I try and tune a pay channel for which I don't have access, I get one of two conditions:

1. A blank screen for 5 seconds followed by a 'Channel not available' message.

2. A blank screen, then about 1.5 seconds of live action and sound, then a frozen screen with the last image displayed.

[rminsk]

There will be a small delay. It can not display an image until it hits the first I-Frame in the mpeg stream. With a TiVo it also has to go through the disk I/O subsystem first which may add a few extra frames of delay.

[bkdtv]

Question: I expect that the delay caused by sending cable box commands via the IR blaster will be removed with Tivo Series 3, will there still be some channel changing latency?

The channel changing delay on the Series3 is unlike that in any other Tivo. The delay is comparable to what you see on a CableCard TV or the DVR from your cable company.

In other words, you're looking at a <0.5 sec delay instead of a 2 sec delay.

[spudley]

Wow. What what a great response to my first post. This must be a great forum. Thanks everyone.

My cablevision DVR has virtually no noticable delay. In know this isn't a technical description, but it's my perception that Tivo works by playing back only what's been previously recorded, even when it's "live". Specifically, it records and then immediately plays it back in that situation. That's where I've seen latencies beyond the IR blaster.

I've always felt that if Tivo "knew" it was up to "present time" that it should switch to showing a broadcast "before" it gets recorded. The moment any delay is introduced by the user it would switch to "after" data is read from the disk.

Hope that makes sense.