Tivo should stay on the menu screen

[matt8268]

Here's something I don't understand. If I hit the Tivo button and bring up the menu and then do nothing, eventually the Tivo menu times out and kicks into Live TV. Dear Tivo Designers: what is the advantage of this? If it would stay on that menu screen, I would have no problem with turning off my TV. As it is now, when it kicks into Live TV, the sound starts blaring out of my receiver.

Tivo should stay on that menu screen, and not record/buffer live television while it is on that screen. By auto-switching to Live TV, the hard drive is undergoing unnecessary wear and tear from constantly recording a channel I'm not watching.

The only possible reason I can think of why the menu would time out would be to prevent screen burn-in. But in that case, just make it a menu option so anyone with a burnable screen that is paranoid can keep the Live TV switching.

[TydalForce]

Matt,

I won't argue that an option would be a good idea. Sometimes I hit the TiVo menu just to get off the video for a bit.

But a suggestion for you that might work out; put your machine in Standby. (TiVo -> Messages and Settings -> Standby). cuts off the video/audio outputs entirely and suspends the buffer

[chedlin]

The current menu doesn't do anything to stop live tv recording either.

The excess wear on the HD shouldn't be too bad, hard drives in TiVos seem to live a long time.

The blaring audio when you walk away is the most annoying, but as a Plasma owner...

[missiontortilla]

Could possibly starting and stopping the hard drives could cause more wear than constantly keeping the drive spinning?

I like that the buffer is always going, if I am bored and randomly go to live TV and I like the show, its nice to be able to rewind and see it from the beginning.

I do agree though that its wrong to jump back to live TV. It should jump to a screen saver.

[matt8268]

The drive will continue to spin, just not write constantly.

I have used standby...my beefs are that it's buried in a submenu, and when in standby Tivo's LCD turns off, so I can't see the time or what shows are recording. Plus I heard it still buffers in standby mode, though I'm not sure if that's true or not.

[Leo_N]

The problem with stopping the buffering when in menu is that almost no one would want that. And actually I think that would cause an uproar of complaints.

And yes, even in standby the TiVo is still buffering, the only thing Standby does is shut off the outputs.

If you do like standby and want to access it easily you can buy a Harmony remote, I am pretty sure I have seen posts saying that there is a Standby button available. I have a Harmony 890 but don't have it setup for any of my TiVos, so I can't confirm this or not.

[eddyj]

The only possible reason I can think of why the menu would time out would be to prevent screen burn-in. But in that case, just make it a menu option so anyone with a burnable screen that is paranoid can keep the Live TV switching.
No need to be paranoid. If you don't believe it can happen, come to my house and I will show you it does.

But I agree that it should be an option.

[mportuesi]

If you do like standby and want to access it easily you can buy a Harmony remote, I am pretty sure I have seen posts saying that there is a Standby button available.

Yes. Any Harmony remote can give you the Standby button. I have a 520 and an 880 and they both offer it.

By default, the Harmony will send a Standby command to the Tivo when you switch away to another activity, or hit the power down button. I had to dig into the Harmony website to find the checkbox that would turn this undesirable behavior off. (Standby also turns off the front-panel display on the Series 3).

[SANdood]

The Harmony code I found is actually "PowerToggle" - it toggles into StandBy and back out. Thus, you really need a macro to turn off "TiVo; PowerToggle" and another to turn on "TiVo" (since the system always powers on with the TiVo button.

Seems we might want to make a slightly different request of TiVo:

1) Implement a discrete Enter Standby IR command that works whether or not currently in Standby

2) Provide an option to leave the front display ON while in Standby

With a Pronto, I don't really need #1, but it would make it easier on Harmony users (since they can't easily program macros).

[mportuesi]

With a Pronto, I don't really need #1, but it would make it easier on Harmony users (since they can't easily program macros).

Harmony has an explicit checkbox in the web setup that tells it not to send the standby command. I think it's available in the Harmony screens for the Tivo device itself, rather than the activities which use it. I've forgotten, now that I have things set up for me.

[jlib]

[Standby] cuts off the video/audio outputs entirely and suspends the buffer...I heard it still buffers in standby mode, though I'm not sure if that's true or not....And yes, even in standby the TiVo is still buffering, the only thing Standby does is shut off the outputs....I have a RAID array with LED indicators as my S3 boot drive and I can verify that it does indeed constantly record whether in Standby or not. This may not be true of previous TiVo models but the S3 constantly records.