TiVo HD: do TiVo people even use their products on HD sets? [Text View]

hankre

03-04-2008, 10:27 PM

JTYoung1

03-04-2008, 10:54 PM

I don't have any of those problems that you speak of, but I guess you just had to create an account so you can complain.

Langree

03-04-2008, 10:59 PM

Have not seen 1 or 2 at all, how are you hooked up to your tv and what brand/model is your tv.

as for 3.. meh

ciper

03-04-2008, 11:06 PM

I have a 4:3 HDTV (imagine that) so when I watch content in 1080i a large portion of my screen is blank. If the Tivo was outputing the signal incorrectly it would be painfully obvious to me more than anyone else

Oh yeah I also bought the paper service manual for my set and adjusted the overscan and geometry myself... I REDUCED overscan area and yet still do not see the data at the top of the image.

Both of these lead me to believe your set is misconfigured.

orangeboy

03-04-2008, 11:16 PM

Both of these lead me to believe your set is misconfigured.

Oh boy! How embarrassing for the OP! :D

Stephen Tu

03-04-2008, 11:22 PM

They largely stem from not understanding that HD sets do not overscan, so you cannot get away with sloppiness on the borders

Most HD sets DO overscan. Overscan can be disabled on a lot of newer fixed pixel sets, but if you did statistics on all HD models, surely the majority overscan by default. If you don't like seeing the CC data, you should be able to take your set out of the "dot-by-dot" mode.

Bsteenson

03-05-2008, 02:37 AM

I use the Aspect button regularly:

1) When watching SD programs to decide if I want them in the original 4:3 ratio or zoomed to fill the HD screen.

2) When watching letterboxed SD programs to fill the screen.

3) When watching the HD TiVo on an SD TV (I have the second set of outputs going to an analog TV in another room).

Without the Aspect button I wouldn't have any of these options.

Bsteenson

03-05-2008, 02:40 AM

The aspect mode button in HD should just be disabled, as it doesn't do anything ...

How would "be disabled" be different from "doesn't do anything"? :rolleyes:

BS

RonDawg

03-05-2008, 03:57 AM

I have a 4:3 HDTV (imagine that) so when I watch content in 1080i a large portion of my screen is blank. If the Tivo was outputing the signal incorrectly it would be painfully obvious to me more than anyone else.

I too have a 4:3 HD CRT and I agree with you, I am not noticing any sort of artifacts at the edges of the letterboxed picture from my TiVoHD.

In addition, my Sony is getting a true anamorphic signal from the TiVoHD as it recognizes any incoming widescreen flag and adds the required letterboxes as necessary. Any artifacts as described by the OP would definitely show up here.

And anybody who thinks Windows Vista is "better" than anything, whether a regular PC or a DVR, is dreaming. I put up with what is easily the worst piece of software ever released by Microsoft for nearly a year before "downgrading" (in reality, upgrading) to XP Pro.

maharg18

03-05-2008, 05:57 AM

Never noticed either 1 or 2, and I've got a S3 and TivoHD hooked up to a Panasonic plasma and a Westinghouse LCD respectively. I agree with the others,sounds like a display issue to me.

9300170

03-05-2008, 06:08 AM

I also get the CC data on the one analog channel that I pick up.

I also think that Tivo could use the 'smart stretch" feature, but I just use the one in my tvs instead.

ewilts

03-05-2008, 06:42 AM

So far except for the cablecard support, my Vista media center is far more powerful than the TiVo HD.
What you haven't yet realized yet, but soon will after you return your TiVo HD, is that without CableCARD support, the non-local HD channels will disappear. So will the rest of the digital channels. The simulcast analog/digital channels will go from digital to analog, reducing their quality (significantly in some cases). You'll be running to your cable company begging for a cable box or deciding that the TiVo was the right answer after all.

.../Ed

ah30k

03-05-2008, 06:44 AM

I've never seen #1 or #2 on either my widescreen CRT or my widescreen DLP.

As for #3, my aspect button works just fine for any content that is broadcast in 4:3 and watched on 16:9. If the broadcast is already 16:9 then it does nothing, but what would you want it to do in that case?

brettatk

03-05-2008, 07:13 AM

I've never seen #1 or #2 either. Also when I've used my aspect button it's worked fine.

Moebius

03-05-2008, 07:37 AM

I've seen #1 on my cableco dvr, but never on the TiVo.

BiloxiGeek

03-05-2008, 07:49 AM

How would "be disabled" be different from "doesn't do anything"? :rolleyes:

BS

Because the Peanut remote would be sent a disable signal that keeps you from even pressing the button. An actuator from inside would push out to keep the button from being pressed or a retractable shield would cover the button kind of like the Bat Mobile's shields in that one movie.

[/sarcasm]

MickeS

03-05-2008, 08:33 AM

I see #1 only on SD channels, not on HD and analog. But it is different from TV to TV I think, a TV that has no overscan (like the OPs and mine) will show that. Not much TiVo can do about it. Personally it doesn't bug me.

Never noticed #2.

#3 was a bit annoying to me at first. I think TiVo disabled the aspect ratio on HD in order to simplify things, but I'm not sure it was the right decision. The SA8300HD I used had better zoom options - one stretch mode and two zoom modes, no matter if it was on HD, SD or analog. It was more useful in some cases.

acvthree

03-05-2008, 09:04 AM

2 sounds like you have a slight centering problem on your TV on that particular input. This is common.

I had that on my Samsung on the HDMI input. I went into the Samsung service menu and centered the screen, it was only a few pixels, on that input. All fixed.

Al

Dancar

03-05-2008, 09:16 AM

1 and 2 can be corrected by configuring the TV correctly. As for 3, why would anyone change the aspect ratio for a 16:9 HD image on a 16:9 TV? This button is only for changing the option for 4:3 programming (although why anyone wants to watch stretch-mode still escapes me).

MichaelK

03-05-2008, 09:41 AM

I think some cable channels on some systems get that mess on the edges- so being a cablecard device tivo just passes on what it gets. My neighbor gets it all the time with SD on his cable company DVR, I see it rarely on my tivo s3's (in fact almost never).

Sorry for my ignorance but is it even possible to mess with the HD signal to zoom or stretch it- I know I can't with my tv either so maybe there's an issue of re-encoding or something needed.

As for the OP's comment-
my Vista media center is far more powerful than the TiVo HD

I can completely understand what he is saying. I assume it's like palm vs windows mobile phones. I used various palm OS based treo's for around 4-5 years and just recently moved to a windows mobile pda/phone. I would say that palm is like tivo in that they really make a nice UI, simple, easy to use and it just works. BUT at the cost of that it is not as advanced- not as configurable, not as fancy, can't do as many things. But windows OS gives you all that at the expense of being simple, easy to use, and just works. It is really cool that my new phone can watch youtube videos, has speach recognition (not voice dial tags but actually can understand my speach so I can dial any one of the hundreds of names in my contact list, so i can launch any program by voice, so i can use live search like a voice activated google/google maps). I can hack it to all hell with registry settings. HOWEVER with all that- still the thing is buggy as hell, the fancy features just don’t work regularly, it's missing BASIC items like a simple keyguard, it requires nightly resets to remain stable, it's bloated as hell and required more memory and resources, it requires TONS of tweaking to get it to act like you want, etc ,etc.

So they are 2 completely different attempts at the same thing and vastly different. To me, being a gadget freak and enjoying the challange of setting up and tweaking my new toys to act exactly like I want, I could go either way. But tell ya what- I wont buy a windows OS phone for my business partner or any of my employess- I wont even show them what my phone can do because I want to just be able to but them a palm OS treo, set it up to work with MS exchange and then let them just use it without needing to give them a lesson, have them read a 200 page manual, or call me all the friggin time asking me how to reset it, reload software, adjust settings, etc, etc.

I assume vista media center vs tivo is the same sort of thing.

So I dont want tivo messing with the tivo boxes to make them more vista like. I want to be able to just hand the remote to my wife, kids, guests and have it JUST WORK.

Tivo is supposedly working with Nero on a PC based solution- which I assume will be an add on to vista media center so you can get the best of both worlds- all the power and complexity of vista you want with tivo's simple easy to use UI. But until the jury is out on and if it just works that I'm not ditching my tivo boxes for nothing.

lessd

03-05-2008, 09:44 AM

(although why anyone wants to watch stretch-mode still escapes me).

Are you kidding let some of the TV screen that you paid good money for not have any picture on it, no way as many people want every pixel they paid for used all the time, even if that means distortion. (I agree with you but most of my friends stretch out a 4:3 picture to fill the 16:9 screen)

jmoak

03-05-2008, 10:30 AM

Where'd you go, hankre?
:confused:

btw, I never see the Vertical Blanking Interval "dots", the UI is full screen and my aspect mode button works as advertised.

JerseyRU

03-05-2008, 10:33 AM

I see #1, but mostly when an HD channel plays non-HD content like a commercial. I see this a lot on National Geographic HD.

I don't mind it, I see it as a side effect of having an awesome TV.

jlib

03-05-2008, 11:50 AM

Everyone has pretty much wrapped this up neatly so I just want to add that you will always see the vertical blanking garbage on SD content on a (fixed) pixel perfect display. If you don't see it, you don't have 1-to-1 perfect mapping of pixels. You will never see it on HD content save for the SD commercials mentioned above. Every pixel perfect display has a "normal" or overscan emulation mode. That is what it is for. I use TiVo native mode and do not want the TiVo manipulating the signals. I suppose the TiVo could add a couple percentage points overscan to SD output but then you get the additive effect on many displays that do it too. It is too complicated of an issue for the typical TiVo user and would be too expensive to implement in a way satisfying to all. I do think the displays that have that feature should put this overscan emulation mode as a remote button, though. It would be annoying to go into the display menu each time to change it. It any case it is a display issue not a TiVo one.

Generally, users who go out of their way to get a 1080P pixel perfect display would be knowledgeable about such issues in the first place. If if bugs them, as we go through the transition to HD while most content is still SD, then they are perfect candidates for an external video processor. My DVDO VP50 senses SD input and automatically adds 1.7% overscan to the output. It passes HD without adding that. There is no particular reason the display couldn't do this other than cost. If it bugs you then just pay up. ;)

DaveDFW

03-05-2008, 11:54 AM

Vertical Blanking Interval is visible on all analog channels! This is the line of static you see at the top of the screen that contains stuff like CC data. As a result only the Zoom mode is usable on analog channels. This of course results in cropping of the display, which isn't always desirable. (this is in 1080i full mode)

I can duplicate this, but only if I set my S3 to output a 480i source at 1080i, and have my display set to 1:1 pixel mapping. That stuff we're seeing is intended to be hidden on overscsanning displays.

Since I prefer the 1:1 mapping on my display, I don't let my S3 send a 480i source at an HD resolution. "Hybrid" works the best for me, letting Tivo deinterlace to 480p, but that format tells the TV that the source expects a small amount of overscan.

I had a Tivo HD which did not show this extra garbage at the top of the frame with the same combination of settings, so there appears to be a small difference in how the S3 and HD handle 480i video.

The UI stops a few pixels from the end of the screen (bring up show info and you can see that the UI is supposed to look like it's coming from the left)

I can't duplicate this, so I can't comment.

The aspect mode button in HD should just be disabled, as it doesn't do anything and just leads the user to believe it's useless.

Well, pressing the aspect button does cycle through the three options, but none of the options actually will change the display. If Tivo disabled the button, they'd start getting support calls about the remote not working. I think the way they handled this situation works fine.

The only HD-related complaint I have about the S3/HD has been covered here before--that we only get ugly SD menus. :)

TTYL
David

sathead

03-05-2008, 12:05 PM

Couple things I noticed after hooking up my TiVo HD:
Vertical Blanking Interval is visible on all analog channels!
Don't watch analog channels!
I've had my TiVoHD since January, and haven't even tuned in an analog channel yet- and I don't intend to. When I get some time... I'm going to remove all the analog channels from my lineup- permanently!
You bought a TiVoHD- watch HD!!

Dancar

03-05-2008, 02:07 PM

Are you kidding let some of the TV screen that you paid good money for not have any picture on it, no way as many people want every pixel they paid for used all the time, even if that means distortion. (I agree with you but most of my friends stretch out a 4:3 picture to fill the 16:9 screen)

Well, if you're concerned about pixels you paid for being unused, you could set the pillowbox setting in the TiVo to show grey bars on the side of SD programming rather than black.

You could even take it a step further and crank up the backlight setting on you TV, making all black areas of the image grey, then sit back and enjoy your Hi Definition TV, knowing that every pixel you paid for is utilized at all times. ;)

Dancar

03-05-2008, 02:20 PM

Hey, I did think of a legit use for the Aspect button when watching HD content.

Occasionally on an HD channel I've seen 16:9 content reduced & letterboxed to fit on a 4:3 screen. A zoom mode would enlarge it to fill the screen (although the PQ would be less than HD). The Tivo zoom mode won't work in this scenario, but the TV Zoom does, so that's what I do.

What I hate though is when an HD cable channel shows something in 4:3 letterbox, and then they stretch it to the width of their 16:9 signal!!!

The only way I found to correct this is to use the TV's "Normal" mode, which compresses 16:8 images to 4:3, undoing the stretch distortion. This puts a big black frame around the image, but at least it's not like watching a show through a funhouse mirror.

Don't watch analog channels!
I've had my TiVoHD since January, and haven't even tuned in an analog channel yet- and I don't intend to. When I get some time... I'm going to remove all the analog channels from my lineup- permanently!
You bought a TiVoHD- watch HD!!

I can do this once Comedy Channel switches to HD. I need my Jon Stewart!

aindik

03-05-2008, 03:14 PM

How would "be disabled" be different from "doesn't do anything"? :rolleyes:

BS

"Disabled" would mean that it doesn't change the internal setting and doesn't show any visible feedback on the screen that you're pressing it. "Doesn't do anything" simply means it doesn't change the aspect ratio display (which is what it does now - cycle through the three options without visibly changing anything about the picture, but still changing the setting).

dorian

03-05-2008, 03:52 PM

........ So far except for the cablecard support, my Vista media center is far more powerful than the TiVo HD.....

I will probably return my TiVo HD after using TiVo for over 7 years, as this product is unusable for me.

-n.

Vista good.... Tivo bad.... I have to confess, I never thought I would hear someone say that Tivo was worse than Vista. I think you stand alone.

vman41

03-05-2008, 03:57 PM

Everyone has pretty much wrapped this up neatly so I just want to add that you will always see the vertical blanking garbage on SD content on a (fixed) pixel perfect display.

Since by definition, signal in the vertical blanking interval should not be visible, it would seem the TiVo is doing something wrong. It may not be line 25 itself that is showing but an artifact of the separation filter.

My TV does overscan, I only see the garbage line if I use the fine position controls to move the picture all the way down. The garbage is more easily seen on programs transferred to the PC.

wrecklass

03-05-2008, 05:19 PM

Are you kidding let some of the TV screen that you paid good money for not have any picture on it, no way as many people want every pixel they paid for used all the time, even if that means distortion. (I agree with you but most of my friends stretch out a 4:3 picture to fill the 16:9 screen)
Well, it isn't really a matter of using every pixel that I paid for. It is a matter of having a bigger picture that can be seen easier at the distance that I am sitting.

And as for distortion, the human brain is really quite amazing. After awhile I stop noticing the stretching of most SD images on my wide screen.

ah30k

03-05-2008, 05:37 PM

And as for distortion, the human brain is really quite amazing. After awhile I stop noticing the stretching of most SD images on my wide screen.And your spouse seems skinnier!

hankre

03-05-2008, 07:48 PM

Hi all.

Great to see such impassioned debate. A couple points I'd like to make:

1. I have a 1080P display without any overscan capability. For people with native res panels, I would be so bold as to say that scaling a native res signal by 3-4% makes zero sense. If you have a display that has 1920x1080 resolution, you are taking a hit in quality by asking the display to resample for overscan. It's not a huge hit, but people in that market expect the best image quality. This is an issue that has been brought up many times on AVSForums. In fact, for channels like ABC this crops the ABC HD logo on the bottom right so I think the studios don't expect overscan either. Overscan is a holdover from analog tv days and is tied to the construction of CRT's, and has no place on a digital panel. As for SDTV- it makes no sense for me to change my tv's overscan mode when I change a channel, and there's no way to effectively program a macro to automatically do this for me via the universal remote. Tell me again why you think seeing this VBI data is useful? Since the data is already encoded, it is trivial for the hardware to crop out this flickering line. The point that someone made about TiVo doing exactly what they're supposed to be doing by displaying the data verbatim is a poor one, as first of all, the MPEG encoding smears out any useful data from that line, and secondly, it's not really part of the video signal. TiVo should know better.

2. Fair points regarding the aspect mode button, but i wouldn't say disable it completely but just pop up a message saying that the aspect mode button is not valid on HD channels.

3. without cablecards, I lose cable HD. However I have a rooftop antenna for OTA HD, which is superior in quality. I also have dual tuners and have no issues with multistream recording.

4. My tv is adjusted perfectly by the way, and it would be a challenge for me to have an off center display given a digital signal via HDMI.

My point is really this- TiVo needs to make sure the experience is great. Simple things like the VBI flickering will appear broken to people who are not hardcore tivo fans, and saying that it's working properly is doing a disservice to the people tivo is trying to reach. Telling people to stop watching SD or enable a mode on the tv that compromises quality in HD mode is not acceptable or even understandable to the novice user that TiVo needs to reach and retain. While all of your admiration is certainly heartwarming to the TiVo team, in order for them to remain viable they really need to be at the forefront of user experience here.

hankre

03-05-2008, 07:53 PM

Since by definition, signal in the vertical blanking interval should not be visible, it would seem the TiVo is doing something wrong. It may not be line 25 itself that is showing but an artifact of the separation filter.

My TV does overscan, I only see the garbage line if I use the fine position controls to move the picture all the way down. The garbage is more easily seen on programs transferred to the PC.

Thank you! My point exactly. TiVo already encodes the CC data in the transport stream and the VBI data is useless anyway due to the lossy compression. Even for the 1080P sets that have an overscan mode, it's not really a good experience to have image quality obsessed users to have to switch modes on the tv when they watch SD content. TiVo built features like aspect ratio control so that you don't have to futz with the tv settings. This also makes TiVoToGo recordings look broken, as users don't understand the vagaries of NTSC broadcast standards (and shouldn't have to).

-n.

moyekj

03-05-2008, 08:08 PM

bizzy

03-05-2008, 09:40 PM

What I hate though is when an HD cable channel shows something in 4:3 letterbox, and then they stretch it to the width of their 16:9 signal!!!

The only way I found to correct this is to use the TV's "Normal" mode, which compresses 16:8 images to 4:3, undoing the stretch distortion. This puts a big black frame around the image, but at least it's not like watching a show through a funhouse mirror.

My wife decided we were going to watch something on A&E HD last night. They stretch! It looked terrible. I had to tell the tivo to drop down to 480p, and put my TV into 4:3 mode before it was watchable. I don't know how their engineers can sleep at night.

bkdtv

03-05-2008, 09:50 PM

My wife decided we were going to watch something on A&E HD last night. They stretch! It looked terrible. I had to tell the tivo to drop down to 480p, and put my TV into 4:3 mode before it was watchable. I don't know how their engineers can sleep at night.What engineers? :D

rainwater

03-05-2008, 09:53 PM

2. Fair points regarding the aspect mode button, but i wouldn't say disable it completely but just pop up a message saying that the aspect mode button is not valid on HD channels.

It is valid on HD channels if you are viewing on a 4:3 set. It may not have any visible effect in every single case, but it does in many cases.

hankre

03-05-2008, 10:05 PM

I have the same problem on my 1080p Westinghouse for selected programming (usually SD programming on HD channels). I have to resort to using Zoom mode on the Westy to get rid of the noise, but this kills about 5% off the edges which is a little too much. That said it's not a deal breaker to me and my cable company's DVR (Motorola DCH3416) had the same problem, so it's not like I have a real alternative.

Right. I just hope that TiVo fixes it- I really want TiVo to win and only want to provide some constructive criticism. This is one of those things that is totally invisible to some and makes the box look broken to others.

mattack

03-05-2008, 10:12 PM

Vertical Blanking Interval is visible on all analog channels! This is the line of static you see at the top of the screen that contains stuff like CC data.

I see it on digital channels, when they're showing 4:3 stuff. I'm not even watching on a HD set, and I'm currently only seeing this when manually changing to a HD channel or the very rare time I do a manual recording (since no QAM support without cablecards).

HPD

03-05-2008, 10:24 PM

Right. I just hope that TiVo fixes it- I really want TiVo to win and only want to provide some constructive criticism. This is one of those things that is totally invisible to some and makes the box look broken to others.

In 11 months, when analog goes dark, the problem will cease.

ciper

03-05-2008, 10:31 PM

In 11 months, when analog goes dark, the problem will cease.
Cable will still broadcast analog. SD is often digital.

kb7oeb

03-06-2008, 12:05 AM

The aspect button should be updated to allow zooming when watching an HD channel. If you tell the tivo the tv is 4:3 you are then able to zoom HD channels. Not much use for the crop option but zoom allows you to stretch 4:3 content on 16:9 channels.

jlib

03-06-2008, 11:56 AM

Since by definition, signal in the vertical blanking interval should not be visible, it would seem the TiVo is doing something wrong... You will see it on OTA SD reception even if the TiVO is not involved so it is not a TiVo issue. It is a display issue, an NTSC relic from the CRT era.
1. I have a 1080P display without any overscan capability. For people with native res panels, I would be so bold as to say that scaling a native res signal by 3-4% makes zero sense. If you have a display that has 1920x1080 resolution, you are taking a hit in quality by asking the display to resample for overscan. It's not a huge hit, but people in that market expect the best image quality... An SD signal scaled to 1080 is not going to be distinguishable from a scaled SD signal with 2% overscan (save for any visible cropping of the scene). I would not object to TiVo adding an overscan setting but it needs to be a discrete remote button setting not a system setting. Since TiVo is offering to scale the signal and not just offering native pass through perhaps that does imply responsibility for the final result and they should offer that option. But really, emulating overscan is functionality that belongs on the display, directly selectable via remote.

JWThiers

03-06-2008, 12:32 PM

I will probably return my TiVo HD after using TiVo for over 7 years, as this product is unusable for me.

-n.

If 1 scan line showing the VBI makes it "COMPLETELY UNUSABLE" I think your standards are a bit high.

blacknoi

03-06-2008, 12:52 PM

I notice #1 and 2 using "just scan" (pixel for pixel) on my Samsung 32" LCD tv.

If I change it to just 16:9, the overscan stuff at the top of the channels (CC info etc) is no longer visable. But I do lose quite a bit IMO of the edges when I'm not using Just Scan, so I live with the noise at the top of the screen during SD broadcasts.

hankre

03-06-2008, 04:37 PM

If 1 scan line showing the VBI makes it "COMPLETELY UNUSABLE" I think your standards are a bit high.

Early adopters (and particularly users of this forum) will put up with a little more than the average user to be bleeding edge. If you don't know what's going on, it looks like a problem. My TV is a Westinghouse with no overscan options and limited display stretch modes. Adjusting overscan options on a per channel basis is pretty annoying for an avoidable issue like this one. My wife, who isn't technical in any way, asked me why the screen flickered like that, and there really wasn't a good answer. If you're already scaling the image in hybrid mode, cutting out the VBI is not going to have any negative impact. There's no reason not to do it, and it should not be hard to do. It affects a significant minority of users and fixing the issue does not make the experience worse for anyone.

MickeS

03-06-2008, 05:17 PM

Early adopters (and particularly users of this forum) will put up with a little more than the average user to be bleeding edge. If you don't know what's going on, it looks like a problem. My TV is a Westinghouse with no overscan options and limited display stretch modes. Adjusting overscan options on a per channel basis is pretty annoying for an avoidable issue like this one. My wife, who isn't technical in any way, asked me why the screen flickered like that, and there really wasn't a good answer. If you're already scaling the image in hybrid mode, cutting out the VBI is not going to have any negative impact. There's no reason not to do it, and it should not be hard to do. It affects a significant minority of users and fixing the issue does not make the experience worse for anyone.

I have a Westinghouse too but maybe not the same model. When you input an HD signal in the HDMI input, you can turn on the overscan by pressing the "Wide" (I think, I have a universal remote) button (They call this the "Fill" mode). This cuts the edges off by around 5% on each side.

aindik

03-06-2008, 05:28 PM

I have a Westinghouse too but maybe not the same model. When you input an HD signal in the HDMI input, you can turn on the overscan by pressing the "Wide" (I think, I have a universal remote) button (They call this the "Fill" mode). This cuts the edges off by around 5% on each side.

That overscans way more than just the VBI.

Joybob

03-06-2008, 06:38 PM

Switch to Hybrid or Native mode.

lrhorer

03-06-2008, 06:46 PM

Couple things I noticed after hooking up my TiVo HD:

Vertical Blanking Interval is visible on all analog channels! This is the line of static you see at the top of the screen that contains stuff like CC data. As a result only the Zoom mode is usable on analog channels. This of course results in cropping of the display, which isn't always desirable. (this is in 1080i full mode)
This is display dependant, not source dependant. The TiVo should pass all the elements of the picture including the VBI, which includes but is not limited to CC data, time data, guide data, VIR, etc. Failure to do so will result in the loss of those services on the receiver. The TV Guide would not work on my livingroom television, for example, if it didn't. My livingroom television simply crops the VBI, leaving no raster at the top of the picture. The projector in my theater has a variable setting based upon the input resolution to crop or not crop the last few lines of the VBI, and number of lines to crop.

The UI stops a few pixels from the end of the screen (bring up show info and you can see that the UI is supposed to look like it's coming from the left)
I'm not even certain I know what you mean. I certainly have never noticed any issues with the menus, not that extremely minor issues with the menu display is something to notice, let alone about which to complain.

The aspect mode button in HD should just be disabled, as it doesn't do anything and just leads the user to believe it's useless.
Oh, how horrible!! Have you called the U.S. Attorney General? John Wayne Gacy was one thing, but releasing a product with a button that does nothing in certain circumstances is utterly unthinkable. The executives at TiVo and their entire programming staff should be publicly drawn and quartered.:rolleyes:

Get real.

Besides, I like the fact the button does nothng with 1080 HD content. Hitting the <Aspect> button is a quick and painless way of checking the program resolution. Especially with our local PBS station, sometimes it hard to tell.

These problems are so basic that I wonder if tivo even understands HDTV. They largely stem from not understanding that HD sets do not overscan, so you cannot get away with sloppiness on the borders.
It seems to me your understanding of the overall picture (no pun intended) is the one which is flawed, not the engineers at TiVo.

The aspect ratio button is also quite limited, as it doesn't have a smartstretch feature like media center.
Is it possible to have a negative level of concern over an issue? Not only don't I care in the least, but I avoid watching any SD content at all, so the point is not only of no concern, it's moot.

So far except for the cablecard support, my Vista media center is far more powerful than the TiVo HD.
So it's unimportant that your DVR alternative can't pick up any CATV based digital content, and before very long won't be able to record anything at all except OTA, but having a button which doesn't do much on the remote is reason to dump the TiVo?

I will probably return my TiVo HD after using TiVo for over 7 years, as this product is unusable for me.
The product has three of what you yourself describe as "little mistakes", and it's unusable?

aindik

03-06-2008, 06:51 PM

Switch to Hybrid or Native mode.

Hybrid and Native don't work with this Westinghouse TV. The Westinghouse TV has two display modes: Standard and Fill. "Standard" displays 480 material in a 480 window, and displays 720 and 1080 material the way it is received, without overscan. "Fill" displays 480 material stretched to fit the screen, and displays 720 and 1080 material with overscan (i.e., some of the picture is missing).

Because the TiVo in Hybrid and Native modes doesn't actually just send the 480 4:3 signal it recorded, but instead send a 16:9 signal expecting the TV to stretch it out, my TV in Standard mode will display 480 material incorrectly (pillarboxes inside pillarboxes) and in Fill mode will display 720 and 1080 material incorrectly (overscanned). Because I can't leave my TV in a single display mode and display 480, 720 and 1080 material correctly in hybrid or native, I can't use hybrid or native.

I switch between 720p fixed (for 480 and 720 material) and 1080i fixed (for 1080 material), because that's what looks best on my 1366X768 set. It's a significant PITA because there's no "Format" button on the remote.

lrhorer

03-06-2008, 06:56 PM

Cable will still broadcast analog. SD is often digital.
Unlikely, at least for very long. Although they are by no means required to eliminate analog programs, it's an excellent excuse to do so, and I find it very unlikely most CATV systems won't take advantage of the ability to broadcast an additional 70 or more digital streams, representing hundreds of channels. Even with DSV, it pushes out their need to reduce the number of home per node out by many, many years. I'll bet yout that within 6 months of the OTA stations throwing the big red switch on analog, most CATV operators will, as well.

JWThiers

03-06-2008, 08:45 PM

Early adopters (and particularly users of this forum) will put up with a little more than the average user to be bleeding edge. If you don't know what's going on, it looks like a problem. My TV is a Westinghouse with no overscan options and limited display stretch modes. Adjusting overscan options on a per channel basis is pretty annoying for an avoidable issue like this one. My wife, who isn't technical in any way, asked me why the screen flickered like that, and there really wasn't a good answer. If you're already scaling the image in hybrid mode, cutting out the VBI is not going to have any negative impact. There's no reason not to do it, and it should not be hard to do. It affects a significant minority of users and fixing the issue does not make the experience worse for anyone.

My point was what you are complaining about what seems like an annoyance rather than "This is completely unusable". You yourself called them something like "MINOR Problems" or something like that. Thats almost like saying a car is completely unusable because it is blue instead of red or because it has a dent in the fender.

ciper

03-06-2008, 09:39 PM

Unlikely, at least for very long. Although they are by no means required to eliminate analog programs, it's an excellent excuse to do so, and I find it very unlikely most CATV systems won't take advantage of the ability to broadcast an additional 70 or more digital streams, representing hundreds of channels. Even with DSV, it pushes out their need to reduce the number of home per node out by many, many years. I'll bet yout that within 6 months of the OTA stations throwing the big red switch on analog, most CATV operators will, as well.

Except the downside are the large number of customers who dont have cable boxes currently. Combine that with the requirement for all new cable boxes use cable cards so they will need to purchase a big chunk of new hardware just to support them. Its extremely common for a house with a cable box to have 1 or more additional sets using the analog version of the signal.

I have a thread on the forum regarding my Astound install. The long story short is that they havnt even started digital simulcast yet.

My point is that analog cable wont go away for a long time. In fact I believe there will be MORE users of analog cable once the OTA analog is dropped.

MickeS

03-06-2008, 09:52 PM

That overscans way more than just the VBI.

It's a little more, but I think it works OK. :)

jlib

03-06-2008, 09:59 PM

Because the TiVo in Hybrid and Native modes doesn't actually just send the 480 4:3 signal it recorded, but instead send a 16:9 signal expecting the TV to stretch it out, my TV in Standard mode will display 480 material incorrectly (pillarboxes inside pillarboxes) and in Fill mode will display 720 and 1080 material incorrectly (overscanned). Because I can't leave my TV in a single display mode and display 480, 720 and 1080 material correctly in hybrid or native, I can't use hybrid or native.

I switch between 720p fixed (for 480 and 720 material) and 1080i fixed (for 1080 material), because that's what looks best on my 1366X768 set.Did you try "Smart Screen" mode on the TiVO? That should fix your problem. Smart Screen works well with native as long as you prefer to view SD as it was intended (4:3). Your display probably has a better scaler than the TiVO anyway (especially since it will have to rescale any scaled 720 or 1080 input from the TiVo to its native 768 vertical resolution). The less layers of scaling you inflict on the signal the better.

mattack

03-06-2008, 09:59 PM

My point was what you are complaining about what seems like an annoyance rather than "This is completely unusable". You yourself called them something like "MINOR Problems" or something like that. Thats almost like saying a car is completely unusable because it is blue instead of red or because it has a dent in the fender.

I think you're minimizing the complaint. Have you actually seen the issue in question?
It's like the top edge of the picture is static. It's all flickering.

mattack

03-06-2008, 10:00 PM

This is display dependant, not source dependant. The TiVo should pass all the elements of the picture including the VBI, which includes but is not limited to CC data, time data, guide data, VIR, etc. Failure to do so will result in the loss of those services on the receiver.

No, that makes no sense.

On my 4:3 TV, the 4:3 screen is *inset* on the TV. The VBI is being shown around 1/3 of the way down the screen.. not where the VBI actually is. That isn't actually being used for CC in this case. The digital captions are.

jlib

03-06-2008, 10:07 PM

No, that makes no sense.

On my 4:3 TV, the 4:3 screen is *inset* on the TV. The VBI is being shown around 1/3 of the way down the screen...OK, that really makes no sense. Can you elaborate why the image is inset?

aindik

03-06-2008, 10:09 PM

Did you try "Smart Screen" mode on the TiVO? That should fix your problem. Smart Screen works well with native as long as you prefer to view SD as it was intended (4:3). Your display probably has a better scaler than the TiVO anyway (especially since it will have to rescale any scaled 720 or 1080 input from the TiVo to its native 768 vertical resolution). The less layers of scaling you inflict on the signal the better.

I did. That worked except for two problems.

1) My TV doesn't have a zoom function. If I want to zoom on a letterboxed 4:3 picture, I need to use the TiVo's zoom, which I can't do when the TiVo thinks my screen is 4:3.

2) SD stuff actually looks better after the TiVo converts it to 720p and then my set converts it to 768p than it does coming out at its native 480i or at 480p. My set is just that cheap that the TiVo's conversion is better. :) OTOH, 1080i content looks much better when my set converts 1080i to 768p than when the TiVo converts to 720p and my set converts that to 768p.

So, I have to use a "fixed" setting so my SD looks better and so I can zoom. But I can't use 720p fixed because 1080i stuff doesn't look as good, and I can't use 1080i fixed because 720p stuff doesn't look as good. So, I have to switch back and forth. Which is why it would be nice to be able to do so without getting up or drilling five deep into the menus.

At least it's better than the Comcast DVR it replaced. I actually had to shut the box off to change the output resolution on that one.

Dennis Wilkinson

03-06-2008, 11:16 PM

1. I have a 1080P display without any overscan capability. For people with native res panels, I would be so bold as to say that scaling a native res signal by 3-4% makes zero sense. If you have a display that has 1920x1080 resolution, you are taking a hit in quality by asking the display to resample for overscan. It's not a huge hit, but people in that market expect the best image quality. This is an issue that has been brought up many times on AVSForums. In fact, for channels like ABC this crops the ABC HD logo on the bottom right so I think the studios don't expect overscan either. Overscan is a holdover from analog tv days and is tied to the construction of CRT's, and has no place on a digital panel. As for SDTV- it makes no sense for me to change my tv's overscan mode when I change a channel, and there's no way to effectively program a macro to automatically do this for me via the universal remote. Tell me again why you think seeing this VBI data is useful? Since the data is already encoded, it is trivial for the hardware to crop out this flickering line. The point that someone made about TiVo doing exactly what they're supposed to be doing by displaying the data verbatim is a poor one, as first of all, the MPEG encoding smears out any useful data from that line, and secondly, it's not really part of the video signal. TiVo should know better.

You're certain that its TiVo actually making the call as to what the clean aperture is for your video? You mention that you have CableCARDs, as do I. In my case, I have no analog channels (all my SD channels are mapped by the card to digital versions of those channels) and all MPEG encoding, including aperture selection, happens before transmission. I know that on some but not all of those channels I get a 480-line aperture beginning at line 21 (if I view the file transferred via TTG, anyway: my HD RPTV does overscan 1080i at about 3% -- remember that not all HD displays are fixed panels and broadcasters are still supposed to account for safe action and safe title areas to some degree even with HD material.)

JWThiers

03-07-2008, 06:40 AM

I think you're minimizing the complaint. Have you actually seen the issue in question?
It's like the top edge of the picture is static. It's all flickering.

Yup I've seen it, it doesn't really bother me. But when the OP describes it as
little mistakes
and
It's not a huge hit
Also say
I will probably return my TiVo HD after using TiVo for over 7 years, as this product is unusable for me.
I gotta wonder if his expectations are just a bit high Hence my reply and I still stand by it
My point was what you are complaining about what seems like an annoyance rather than "This is completely unusable". You yourself called them something like "MINOR Problems" or something like that. Thats almost like saying a car is completely unusable because it is blue instead of red or because it has a dent in the fender.

jtown

03-07-2008, 01:17 PM

Couple things I noticed after hooking up my TiVo HD:

Vertical Blanking Interval is visible on all analog channels! This is the line of static you see at the top of the screen that contains stuff like CC data. As a result only the Zoom mode is usable on analog channels. This of course results in cropping of the display, which isn't always desirable. (this is in 1080i full mode)
The UI stops a few pixels from the end of the screen (bring up show info and you can see that the UI is supposed to look like it's coming from the left)
The aspect mode button in HD should just be disabled, as it doesn't do anything and just leads the user to believe it's useless.

Geez, if you're going to complain, at least complain about legitimate issues. :rolleyes:

1) If you don't like it, change the overscan setting on your TV. I don't recommend doing this, though, as it will mess up the 1:1 pixel mapping that makes LCD/Plasma/DLP so awesomely perfect for HD. (Well, for HD formats that match the native resolution of your display.) I suggest you just get over it. That's what I did. Took about 3.9 minutes.

2) Huh? I have no idea what you're talking about. If you're going to complain about the UI, complain about the fact that it's rendered in SD then stretched/scaled to HD aspect ratio/resolution. That would be a legitimate complaint about the UI.

If you really want to complain about misaligned material, take a close look at the framing of the various HD channels. NBC used to have a white line down the left side in my area. Might still be there and my brain is filtering it out. One of the movie channels used to be a few pixels down and to the left. I think it was ESPN that used to be shifted a few pixels down. Obviously, even the people who configure these feeds for a living screw up from time to time. Probably have their displays set to overscan and don't even realize they're off center. For all I know, they're still off center. I got over it and haven't looked that closely in a while.

3) Again: Huh? Do you really not understand why the aspect ratio button has no effect when viewing HD material? It's really confusing you? I find the aspect ratio button to be very handy now that so many SD channels are broadcasting 16:9 material. And I'm glad I don't have to adjust from zoom to panel when switching from letterboxed SD to an HD program. But I'm glad the button still works in HD mode because sometimes I remember to set it back to panel and I do it right then so I don't forget and switch to a 4:3 SD show while in zoom mode then wonder why their heads are chopped off. I just wish the tivo could auto-sense 16:9 and 4:3 SD material and switch on its own.