TTG & MRV, Is TiVo ignoring non-TCF Users?

[Adam1115]

Is TiVo planning on cluing in their S3 users that they can now user MRV and TTG? Since you have to log in and enable it, users that aren't on here are going to have no clue that it's available to them.

I talked to 2 people today that were thrilled about it! They had no idea though...

[bkdtv]

TivoPony posted that they would enable it for everyone -- eliminating the need to enable it online -- in the near future.

[Adam1115]

I read what he said to mean new activations...

[bicker]

They'll very likely send a message around sometime in November, when the roll-out was originally planned. It makes a lot of sense to let people find it slowly, at first, to give CSRs a chance to catch up with supporting the new service, before announcing it to everyone.

[sinanju]

I would expect TiVo to start calling attention to it with a PTCM once the few people who know about it have had a chance to try it out and TiVo gets a sense of its impact on support is known.

For example, how many are going to call in and complain to TiVo that all of their recordings are copy protected?

[TexasGrillChef]

I would expect TiVo to start calling attention to it with a PTCM once the few people who know about it have had a chance to try it out and TiVo gets a sense of its impact on support is known.

For example, how many are going to call in and complain to TiVo that all of their recordings are copy protected?

They'll very likely send a message around sometime in November, when the roll-out was originally planned. It makes a lot of sense to let people find it slowly, at first, to give CSRs a chance to catch up with supporting the new service, before announcing it to everyone.

Uhh....... isn't that what the BETA Testers are suppose to be doing for us?

TGC

[bdraw]

They contacted the press in advanced so we could have our stories ready to go live at 8:30am this morning.

[greg_burns]

Uhh....... isn't that what the BETA Testers are suppose to be doing for us?

TGC


Beta testers are not suppose to call tech support.

Isn't that one of those Fight Club rules? :p

[TiVoPony]

Is TiVo planning on cluing in their S3 users that they can now user MRV and TTG? Since you have to log in and enable it, users that aren't on here are going to have no clue that it's available to them.

I talked to 2 people today that were thrilled about it! They had no idea though...

Yes, we do plan to let everyone know it's available. Likely sometime next week.

Pony

[sinanju]

Uhh....... isn't that what the BETA Testers are suppose to be doing for us?

TGC


Beta testers are going to be a bit more clueful about why their content is copy protected, if it is... many will find out from other testers. There's no way to know if Ma 'n' Pa Sixpack are going to call in until the feature is released.

After all, we're not talking about a bug in this case... we're talking about folks who should be calling their cable provider calling TiVo instead.

[sammydee]

Is TiVo planning on cluing in their S3 users that they can now user MRV and TTG? Since you have to log in and enable it, users that aren't on here are going to have no clue that it's available to them.


I read here that I had to log on to enable the new services, so I logged on. They were already enabled on both my HDs.

SO, I think this problem is no more. :)

[TiVoJerry]

The real reason is because we think TCF members deserve to know these things first! You're special...and not just in a "little yellow school bus" kind of way. :p :D

[HDTiVo]

After all, we're not talking about a bug in this case... we're talking about folks who should be calling their cable provider calling TiVo instead.

The real reason is because we think TCF members deserve to know these things first! You're special...and not just in a "little yellow school bus" kind of way.

Hey Jerry,

A big issue is going to come up repeatedly related to the question of copy flag settings, whether they really have to be what they are set at and whether they are set in error.

TiVo mentioned a couple months ago the formation of a group to target issues between TiVo users and cable co. (esp. CableARD).

What is the status of the formation of this group? Could this group be involved in these issues too? Might TiVo advocate for its users with cable cos. and content providers to use less copy flag restrictions?

Thanks.

[sonysony]

I have 8 series 3 TiVos, and have everything set up, but am experiencing some problems on MRV. All my TiVos show up as "DVR" on each Tivo's now playing list. Very difficult to figure out which one is which. Also I have activated transfers, and have set up the names long ago. With 7 activated to transfer, I should be seeing 6 listed on each tivo's now playing, but I'm seeing 7. Does anybody know what's going on??

[jrm01]

I have 8 series 3 TiVos, and have everything set up, but am experiencing some problems on MRV. All my TiVos show up as "DVR" on each Tivo's now playing list. Very difficult to figure out which one is which. Also I have activated transfers, and have set up the names long ago. With 7 activated to transfer, I should be seeing 6 listed on each tivo's now playing, but I'm seeing 7. Does anybody know what's going on??
My guess is that when you wake up tomorrow this will be fixed. It took several hours and several connections before my names showed up for two of my boxes, still waiting for the third.

Eight TiVos!!! :cool: :cool: :cool: :cool: :cool: :cool: :cool: :cool:

[TexasGrillChef]

Beta testers are not suppose to call tech support.

Isn't that one of those Fight Club rules? :p

I meant... aren't the Beta testers the ones that are suppoe to tell them if everything is Kosher or not?

TGC

[bicker]

Uhh....... isn't that what the BETA Testers are suppose to be doing for us?No. Beta testers test the functionality. Typically, beta testers have a dedicated support infrastructure -- they do NOT report their concerns through standard customer service.

This is Best Practice.

Another example of this can be seen with Comcast, right now. They recently completed an acceptance test (which is actually a test AFTER a beta test) of their TiVo service. Now, they're starting a staged roll-out, a few head-ends at a time, to real customers. This allows CSRs to come up to speed supporting the new service.

[pkscout]

I meant... aren't the Beta testers the ones that are suppoe to tell them if everything is Kosher or not?

That is true to a point. But beta testers are almost always not representative of the normal population. Beta folks were selected at least partially because they are reasonably good at troubleshooting and documenting issues.

So beta testers will give you a good sense of what issues might crop up, but not how the average user might respond to them.

[aaronwt]

My guess is that when you wake up tomorrow this will be fixed. It took several hours and several connections before my names showed up for two of my boxes, still waiting for the third.

Eight TiVos!!! :cool: :cool: :cool: :cool: :cool: :cool: :cool: :cool:


Mine is still showing the same thing this morning, DVR for each box instead of it's name. I just tried changing the names to see if that does anything. I'll check it again tonight.

[Arcady]

You need to reboot them.

[Graymalkin]

My three TiVo HDs finally retrieved their names this morning. Then I restarted each one so that the others could see it.

Naturally, you need to log into TiVo.com and enable each one to allow transfers.

[vstone]

You need to reboot them.
Rebooting doesn't always fix this.

[TiVoJerry]

Hey Jerry,

A big issue is going to come up repeatedly related to the question of copy flag settings, whether they really have to be what they are set at and whether they are set in error.

TiVo mentioned a couple months ago the formation of a group to target issues between TiVo users and cable co. (esp. CableARD).

What is the status of the formation of this group? Could this group be involved in these issues too? Might TiVo advocate for its users with cable cos. and content providers to use less copy flag restrictions?

Thanks.

The "group" you are referring to is a small collection of people at the corporate level who communicate with cable providers to help them troubleshoot systemwide problems with CableCARDs. While those communication paths could be used to discuss copy-protection that has been applied unlawfully against local broadcast channels, I'm not sure it would be practical or effective to try and convince providers that they're being too aggressive at protecting content that they have the right to protect, if they so wish. I'm not saying I agree with them if they're being overprotective, or just plain lazy ("here, put this same setting on all of our channels"), just that they own that option.

I'm not saying we won't ever try to contact them in some cases, but we don't have any actual power to tell them they need to lower their shields. Of course, we'll continue to monitor reports of this nature and possibly contact providers to let them know what they can do to remedy the situation, but that decision ultimately lies with them. Most providers have more of a responsibility to their paying customers than to us, so calls from all affected customers would be the best advice I could give.

We'll try to do what we can we can, but we don't have the manpower to handle a large volume of reports, especially during the already hectic holiday period.

[sinanju]

While those communication paths could be used to discuss copy-protection that has been applied unlawfully against local broadcast channels, I'm not sure it would be practical or effective to try and convince providers that they're being too aggressive at protecting content that they have the right to protect, if they so wish.

Actually, there are a number of non-broadcast channels that very specifically don't want protection and that was where I found leverage with Comcast in my own situation.

Using Cable in the Classroom as the example (http://www.ciconline.org/home), I pointed out that many of the channels Comcast had locked down were broadcasting content specifically intended to be copied under certain circumstances. I pointed out that, with digital television, VCRs are going the way of the dinosaur and that it was far more likely that a teacher would be bringing a DVD than a VHS tape to the classroom to run something they recorded from, say, Discovery Channel.

Comcast was not entitled to protect that content -- It's not their content and the content provider very specifically wants it available for teachers to copy and bring to class. As I've related before, Comcast (at least in my neighborhood) quickly came to the decision to turn off protection on any channel that didn't specifically request it. The only one in the Digital Classic lineup that is now protected is one with a documented protection policy, Encore Movieplex.

[HDTiVo]

The "group" you are referring to is a small collection of people at the corporate level who communicate with cable providers to help them troubleshoot systemwide problems with CableCARDs. While those communication paths could be used to discuss copy-protection that has been applied unlawfully against local broadcast channels, I'm not sure it would be practical or effective to try and convince providers that they're being too aggressive at protecting content that they have the right to protect, if they so wish. I'm not saying I agree with them if they're being overprotective, or just plain lazy ("here, put this same setting on all of our channels"), just that they own that option.

I'm not saying we won't ever try to contact them in some cases, but we don't have any actual power to tell them they need to lower their shields. Of course, we'll continue to monitor reports of this nature and possibly contact providers to let them know what they can do to remedy the situation, but that decision ultimately lies with them. Most providers have more of a responsibility to their paying customers than to us, so calls from all affected customers would be the best advice I could give.

We'll try to do what we can we can, but we don't have the manpower to handle a large volume of reports, especially during the already hectic holiday period.

I think that is a very good approach. I would not think it possible to deal with individual, case by case, complaints from subscribers.

However, gathering a knowledge base within the "group" (what's it called?) on a system by system wide basis so as to know what should be and who has the rights to decide, and then using that when a problem comes up in a particular system to advocate for remedying it is valuable for the TiVo sub base. Adding TiVo's name to individual cable customer voices would make a dent.

What's their phone number? :eek:

[HDTiVo]

Comcast (at least in my neighborhood) quickly came to the decision to turn off protection on any channel that didn't specifically request it.
So it may not take much effort to make a significant dent after all. :up:

Another defeat for defeatism. :cool:

[bicker]

That is true to a point. But beta testers are almost always not representative of the normal population. Beta folks were selected at least partially because they are reasonably good at troubleshooting and documenting issues.And willing to encounter bugs that make their service either difficult or impossible to enjoy, without complaining. That really skews the nature of the population of folks willing to do field-based beta testing.

[bicker]

Comcast was not entitled to protect that contentIf you read over the regulations posted earlier, it is clear that cable systems are allowed to protect anything other than broadcast programming. They don't have to, but they can if they wish. If protection, itself, becomes too much of a burden (some shows yes, some shows no) expect the cable systems to just protect the entire channel, as is their right.

[sinanju]

If you read over the regulations posted earlier, it is clear that cable systems are allowed to protect anything other than broadcast programming. They don't have to, but they can if they wish. If protection, itself, becomes too much of a burden (some shows yes, some shows no) expect the cable systems to just protect the entire channel, as is their right.

The license that programmers like Discovery Channel apply to CiC content specifically grants the viewer the right to copy for classroom use. I don't see how Comcast gets to decide that the license is void.

[HDTiVo]

The license that programmers like Discovery Channel apply to CiC content specifically grants the viewer the right to copy for classroom use. I don't see how Comcast gets to decide that the license is void.
They don't, for cases like that. You are right. You are also right not to just accept whatever you are handed as if it must be correct and impossible to get changed.

[bicker]

The CIC license doesn't trump the service providers right to apply copy protection. They're comparable in stature. Also, regardless of the digital copy protection we're talking about, the CIC license will allow you to record that programming by playing it and using analog video outputs to effect the copy.