How long to adjust to Tivo?

[ShoutingMan]

It still feels weird to not have a "stop" button -- a person should "stop" a playback if they're done watching for a while. Pausing and walking away for five hours feels odd. Like leaving kids alone in the house without a babysitter.

And not having a "power" button! I have trouble falling asleep at night, wondering what Tivo is thinking about all alone, but still on, while TV and Receiver are off.

Couldn't they put dummy "stop" and "power" buttons on the remote -- something to press and feel better for it, but not actually do anything? This is a tough adjustment :)

[magnus]

Put it into standby, that doesn't do anything but kill the display to the TV... but maybe it would make you feel better. :)

[DrWho453]

It still feels weird to not have a "stop" button -- a person should "stop" a playback if they're done watching for a while. Pausing and walking away for five hours feels odd. Like leaving kids alone in the house without a babysitter.

Well, if your watching a pre-recorded show then the stop button would be to either go to live tv or one of the tivo menus. Then when you ready to continue, go back to the recording and press play and it will start where you left off. The only exception is that if you are on the last 5 minutes and try to exit then it will ask if you want to keep or delete the recording and if you go back to the recording it will start from the beginning again.


And not having a "power" button! I have trouble falling asleep at night, wondering what Tivo is thinking about all alone, but still on, while TV and Receiver are off.

Couldn't they put dummy "stop" and "power" buttons on the remote -- something to press and feel better for it, but not actually do anything? This is a tough adjustment :)

I had the same issue when I first got my Tivo, where is the power button? :) If it makes you feel any better you could put the Tivo in standby mode. Standby will turn off the leds, video output and audio output but will continue to record live and scheduled programs. I don't use standby though since there is really no need too.

[MickeS]

Well, if your watching a pre-recorded show then the stop button would be to either go to live tv or one of the tivo menus. Then when you ready to continue, go back to the recording and press play and it will start where you left off. The only exception is that if you are on the last 5 minutes and try to exit then it will ask if you want to keep or delete the recording and if you go back to the recording it will start from the beginning again.

If you pause the show instead of exit when it's at the end of the show, it will not ask you about the keep or delete. I have made it a habit to always pause instead of exiting because of this.

To the OP: It felt weird to me too to pause instead of stopping, because I was used to a VCR, where you can't do that. There is no harm in pausing the TiVo and leaving it like that.

[ZeoTiVo]

I have a habit of hitting the TiVo button before I hit the power button to turn off the TV. No real reason I do it every time. osmetimes though it takes me out of show that is playing. Since I will get "resume playing" when I go back to that show I am not one to leave it paused.

I for one welcome the TiVo overlord who never tires in his vigilant quest to bring media goodness to my kingdom. Long may he be powered up :up:

[AlexK777]

Well, you have to think of it in terms of what the technology is doing. On a VCR and a DVD, when you pause, the unit keeps spinning. With a VCR, the head spins. On a DVD, the disk spins. That's why you can't keep those things paused for very long.

On a Tivo, pause just means "remember this location" Nothing is moving. In terms of what is going on, pause on a Tivo IS the equivalent of stop on DVD or VCR.

[RonDawg]

Well, you have to think of it in terms of what the technology is doing. On a VCR and a DVD, when you pause, the unit keeps spinning. With a VCR, the head spins. On a DVD, the disk spins. That's why you can't keep those things paused for very long.

On a Tivo, pause just means "remember this location" Nothing is moving. In terms of what is going on, pause on a Tivo IS the equivalent of stop on DVD or VCR.

Actually, on a TiVo the hard drive is always spinning, because it is always buffering live TV whether or not you're watching it.

It does no more damage to leave a DVD player on "pause" than it does to actually play it for the same amount of time. The only damage it would cause is to a CRT or plasma TV with the burn-in from the constant static image.

A VCR is very different, to leave such a thing on pause would literally eat a hole in the tape after a while. That's why most if not all VCR's "unpause" themselves after a certain short time period.

[Derek Nickel]

I got my first TiVo in 1999 and it took less than a day to "get it". My first though was WOW! My second though was "It's about bloody time somebody came out with a hard disk recorder." Of course it took a couple of days to get enough shows recorded to actually use it to it's fullest.

Don't stress out about the lack of a power button. Remember that the TiVo is always on and recording something - you requested show or live TV.

TiVo isn't a VCR. A stop button is a VCR hold over. In fact, my PS3's Bu-ray remote has a STOP button (place in the middle of the other navigation buttons) and it is a real PITA. Be thankful that TiVo has no STOP button.

------------------------------
Have you hugged your TiVo today?

[MickeS]

I've left my DVD player on "Pause" for days... didn't seem to hurt it.

I assigned the "TiVo button" from the TiVo remote to the "STOP" button on my universal remote. That might be a good compromise for the OP. :)

[mattack]

It still feels weird to not have a "stop" button -- a person should "stop" a playback if they're done watching for a while.

So just hit 'left' or tivo.

(Argh, no offense -- but people feeling like you are apparently why they DID put a STOP button on the Comcast/Tivo remote.)

[fallingwater]

This is a tough adjustment :)

More seriously:

There actually are quite a few DVR's that have been available at one time or another; some from Cable and Satellite providers, others from electronics mfrs. EVERY ONE OF THEM WORKS DIFFERENTLY!

One from a major mfr. uses the Select button as the command to go back to the previous channel watched. Not necessarily catastrophic, but this particular DVR has a 1.5 hour recording buffer which can be turned into a permanent recording as long as the channel isn't changed. (Once you're aware of the trap and a few other shortcomings, it's a neat DVR.)

A DVR, even the most simple, is a far cry from a VCR. The technology isn't just different but far better.

TiVo, while not perfect, has remote commands which in general are easy and intuitive to use. 'Standby' does have one real function on older TiVo's. It allows a single tuner TiVo to record while a viewer watches something else. Otherwise though, why have an 'off' (or stop) button which does nothing?

TiVo has many features far beyond a DVR. If you don't need them, realize that offering extras (and being a conduit for ads) is likely the only way that TiVo, the last standalone DVR mfr., can survive. It's really easy to ignore whatever you don't want or need.

So enjoy the way TiVo works!

[mattack]

I've left my DVD player on "Pause" for days... didn't seem to hurt it.
that actually leaves the drive spinning and the laser on... Definitely not good.

[JYoung]

I've left my DVD player on "Pause" for days... didn't seem to hurt it.

I assigned the "TiVo button" from the TiVo remote to the "STOP" button on my universal remote. That might be a good compromise for the OP. :)

that actually leaves the drive spinning and the laser on... Definitely not good.

I believe that most DVD players will automatically go from "Pause" to "Stop" in 15 minutes or so.

[dianebrat]

TiVo isn't a VCR. A stop button is a VCR hold over. In fact, my PS3's Bu-ray remote has a STOP button (place in the middle of the other navigation buttons) and it is a real PITA. Be thankful that TiVo has no STOP button.

Exactly.. it's not "a better VCR" it's "a better way to watch TV" and you can't stop TV ;-)

[fallingwater]

Other DVRs did and do have 'off' buttons, although they really go into a low power 'standby' state.

ReplayTV actually has a user settable option reached through its mystical sounding Clawfoot Portal to enable or disable disk spindown. If disk spindown is disabled, ReplayTV in 'standby' doesn't record but some users complained about HDD noise when spinning down and up in quiet rooms!

TVGOS powered devices with or w/o HDD's must go into 'standby' to refresh guide data.

There's honest debate about whether HDD's spinning 24/7 perform better or worse than if switched on only when needed. Of the many DVRs I've used over the years, only 3 suffered HDD problems:

(1) A ReplayTV with an original 320GB almost full HDD has a 'bad spot' (sector?) which screws up new recordings. I routinely leave it 'off'.
(2) Another ReplayTV w/an upgraded 320GB HDD failed within a year; original 40GB HDD reinstalled, it now works fine.
(3) A Pioneer DVR-810H Tivo powered DVD recorder w/80GB HDD failed after a couple of years and was sold as-is.

A number of first generation DVR's in the stable including RTV2003 and grandfather eligible TiVo PTV300 have whiny HDD's which nontheless still work flawlessly.

[MickeS]

The SA8300HD from Cox that I used for a while had an on/off button. I usually turned it off when I was done watching, but that meant IIRC that there was no buffer being recorded. It still recorded scheduled shows.

Since I use the Suggestions a lot on my TiVo, I wouldn't turn it off, but I guess some users might want to do it, and skip the buffering. Personally, I use the buffer too though, and wouldn't want to miss out on that functionality (I rarely used the SA8300HD because it sucked, so wasn't a big loss there)
I think TiVo made the right choice in not including a power button, but for some it might have been a good thing to have.

[fallingwater]

TiVo's recording buffer is so short that little is gained from it except when a user just happens to catch something of interest that has just started.

Most other DVR recording buffers are at least 1.5 hrs. long. ReplayTV's can be much longer, but can't be turned into an instant permanent recording unless re-recorded on another DVR. (A somewhat convoluted procedure actually exists from which ReplayTV can re-record from its own buffer on the fly.)

One shortcoming of being unable to map QAM channels on S3 TiVos w/o CC's is that the capability of going back into the recording buffer more than a few minutes is lost w/o guide data.

Some DVR's can easily turn their longer recording buffers into permanent recordings.

[wdave]

The STOP button on my universal remote is programmed as the 'Tivo' button. Makes perfect sense to me.

[classicsat]

My Stop is programmed to Slow. I makes sense, insofar as Slow needs programmed somewhere, and Stop would not be programmed anyhow. I am use to pausing to Lefting out.

[scandia101]

TiVo's recording buffer is so short that little is gained from it except when a user just happens to catch something of interest that has just started.

But that tiny little buffer that there's nothing to gain from allows me to answer the phone or door, get a snack, make a meal, take a bathroom break, let the dog out, take the dog for a walk around the block, etc, etc without missing anything. So I'd say that it's pretty damn useful as it is. I don't see the point of the buffer being to go back in time and watch what I've already missed. I see it as a means to not miss what's yet to come. The ability to go back a few seconds to answer questions 'what did she do?' 'what did that sign say?' 'what did I just see?' etc, is just a bonus.

[etz]

the tiny buffer is immensely useful when actually sitting on the couch watching live TV. But I agree that the buffer is not very useful when the TiVo is in standby, television is turned off, and I'm asleep. There's always the chance I'll turn on the tube and see something interesting, and I can go back 30 minutes to (hopefully) the beginning. I don't think this has ever happened in the last 3+ years I've owned my TiVo.

[fallingwater]

TiVo's li'l buffer has become more useful ever since it could be incorporated into a permanent recording at Best Quality. I've been able to record an entire program many times when turning on the TV and serendipitously running across something interesting. And now with dual tuners, separate buffers are especially useful.

In general though I find TiVo's 1/2 hour buffer too short a leash for 'walking the dog'! With 1.5 hrs. I never need to think about the buffer.

Of course all DVR's require viewer compromises of one type or another. Forum posters who watch everything timeshifted have commented in the past that they have no need of a recording buffer at all.

[JaneiR36]

Before TiVo I was using a POS DVD recorder that would frequently lose audio during recordings. When I started using TiVo, I would use the pause button as with the DVD recorder, but after a few hours it would un-pause the DVR and switch over to live TV, losing my place in the show. I just had to get used to using the left or TiVo button, which I quickly found out was superior, because whereas pause marks just one program, Tivo / Left can mark your exact location on multiple programs so you can resume watching when you come back. I'm not sure if the way pause works was changed, seeing as I've had multiple software updates since I bought my unit just three months ago, but that was my experience.