n00b's Initial Impressions of TiVo HD

[dagware]

I just got my first TiVo (a TiVo HD), after having used various other DVR's in the past. There's a ton of things I like about the TiVo, but I'm not going to mention them here because it would just be preaching to the choir. Instead, I'd like to post some of the things that I'm not thrilled about. Hopefully somebody will tell me I've missed something somewhere.

1) This first issue will probably become moot once I get cable card(s) installed in two weeks. But until I do: You can't re-map QAM channels to guide channels? I'm extremely surprised by that. As an example, my cable provider (Time Warner) provides the basic cable channels in analog on channels 2 through 98. They provide the digital versions in the clear on channels like 101-35 or whatever. They also provide the local HD channels in the clear also. Why doesn't TiVo allow me to map these channels to the guide info? IMO, this is a no-brainer. Should be easy to implement. No excuse for not having it.

2) The navigation features for watching recorded programs are kind of sparse. For instance, there's no way to jump to a particular time period in the recording? My ancient ReplayTV had that. And how about a "Restart from beginning" option? Yes I know, I can press skip-to-end twice, except not when you have the 30-second skip enabled. Again IMO, there's no excuse for not having these.

3) This isn't actually a gripe, because I really didn't expect it, but I'll mention it anyway. I wish they would include built-in PIP (actually, I'd prefer side-by-side images, but the term PIP is easier to type). They've got two tuners, so it's really just a matter of some software tricks to accomplish this. How cool would that be? OK, maybe not totally necessary since you can record programs, but I'd still love to have two baseball games on at the same time.

I'll probably come up with more after using it some more, but this is enough for now. I'm actually quite surprised by these issues (#1 and 2). I would have thought that software as mature as TiVo's would have addressed these a long time ago. I mean, let's face it -- if TiVo doesn't have the absolute best software possible, how can they possibly stand up against the cable companies' DVRs?

Dan

[ZeoTiVo]

1. is a feature many would use, indeed I would get great benefit from it - but not all cable operators follow the QAm standards completely nd he FCC has shown a distinct unwillingness to enforce any standards. That leaves TiVo with a support hassle. Basically it leaves cable operators happy as they get to replace the box charge with at least cable card charges and then some can add on digital outlet fees.
* yes- cable cards will let you pick the digital channels up and map everything as the particular cable company tells to be mapped.

2. I have never really wanted much in the way of navigation, but then I never used a replay directly. Since the TiVo will keep track of nay show you left off watching in the middle then it has he easy resume play. I use only FF and no 30 sec skip so I do hit skip to end twice if I want to start over. For thoe with 30 sec on - then start FF or RW and then hit skip to tick and it will go the next tick mark so you can still move around pretty easy.

3. Many do not want PIP becuae it has a great ability to spoiler things that are being recorded. The idea of having two games on split screen is pretty cool but how does TiVo handle audio on that - that adds into the complexity of keeping all customers happy.

[thisisnotadrill]

how does TiVo handle audio on that

give you the choice of either listening to one or the other, or have the left screen's audio played through the left speaker and right screen's audio through the right speaker?

It would be a cool feature to have for football (or even now during the olympics) but I can see why they wouldn't bother.

[dagware]

The idea of having two games on split screen is pretty cool but how does TiVo handle audio on that - that adds into the complexity of keeping all customers happy.

PIP audio is the easiest part of it. Handle it the same way all TVs that do PIP or P&P do it, which is one of three possible ways (any of them are fine with me):

1) Let the user pick which audio they want.

or

2) If doing side-my side images, the one on the left (or right) always provides the audio. If you want audio from the other, swap the pictures.

or

3) If doing true PIP, then the one that is providing the big picture provides the audio. Again, if you want audio from the other, swap images.

Again, no big deal to me because I didn't expect it. But if *I* were trying to market TiVo against cable company DVRs, I'd try and provide anything and everything I could to entice people to spend their money on the TiVo.

Sadly, I had to search around to find a store that had a TiVo HD in stock, and I live in Orange County, CA which has tons of every kind of store you'd want. And when I called the cable company and ordered cable cards, the lady told me she's worked there 1 1/2 years and I'm about only the 6th person she's spoken with that had a TiVo. Of course she could have been lying, but honestly I don't think so -- she just didn't seem the type.

My point is, TiVo may be losing the battle, and that's too bad because I obviously like the TiVo or I wouldn't have bought it. They really should do everything they can to win this war. Or VHS wins over Beta again, if you know what I mean.

Dan

[astrohip]

#1 has been answered. And when you get your cable cards, will be a non-issue.

#2--never been an issue for me. I have 2 TiVos and 1 cable DVR (SA8300HD). I find the S3 *much* easier to navigate. The skip-to-tick handles 99% of all "find a particular spot" problems, and the "jump to end to end" handles the other 1%. To be honest, I'm a heavy, heavy TV watcher, and in all my years, I can hardly recall ever wanting to "restart from beginning" a show. However, YMMV.

#3--I agree. Never have understood why they don't just go ahead and add PIP. The have the tuners, and the programming can't be that hard. I'm guessing it goes against the "concept & culture" of what a TiVo is about. Nonetheless, there are occasions when it simply would be handy. Sports especially, but other times as well.

Come back in a few weeks after you have been using it a while; I'm curious to see what your likes & dislikes have evolved to.

[jrm01]

To me, PIP is a must have feature for a TV. It allows you to watch two games at the same time, swapping back and forth as action dictates. However, on a DVR I would find it useless. I watch two games at the same time virtually every NFL football Sunday, but I would never want to do it with PIP. Just start watching one, then pause, swap tuners and watch the other. Back and forth, never miss a minute. I would never want to do it any other way.

[MickeS]

To me, PIP is a must have feature for a TV. It allows you to watch two games at the same time, swapping back and forth as action dictates. However, on a DVR I would find it useless. I watch two games at the same time virtually every NFL football Sunday, but I would never want to do it with PIP. Just start watching one, then pause, swap tuners and watch the other. Back and forth, never miss a minute. I would never want to do it any other way.

Exactly. And TiVo is made for watching recordings, not for watching live TV.

They might have to reconsider if they want to reach a wider audience that will buy TiVo but not really use it.

[MickeS]

I just got my first TiVo (a TiVo HD), after having used various other DVR's in the past. There's a ton of things I like about the TiVo, but I'm not going to mention them here because it would just be preaching to the choir. Instead, I'd like to post some of the things that I'm not thrilled about. Hopefully somebody will tell me I've missed something somewhere.

1) This first issue will probably become moot once I get cable card(s) installed in two weeks. But until I do: You can't re-map QAM channels to guide channels? I'm extremely surprised by that. As an example, my cable provider (Time Warner) provides the basic cable channels in analog on channels 2 through 98. They provide the digital versions in the clear on channels like 101-35 or whatever. They also provide the local HD channels in the clear also. Why doesn't TiVo allow me to map these channels to the guide info? IMO, this is a no-brainer. Should be easy to implement. No excuse for not having it.

2) The navigation features for watching recorded programs are kind of sparse. For instance, there's no way to jump to a particular time period in the recording? My ancient ReplayTV had that. And how about a "Restart from beginning" option? Yes I know, I can press skip-to-end twice, except not when you have the 30-second skip enabled. Again IMO, there's no excuse for not having these.

3) This isn't actually a gripe, because I really didn't expect it, but I'll mention it anyway. I wish they would include built-in PIP (actually, I'd prefer side-by-side images, but the term PIP is easier to type). They've got two tuners, so it's really just a matter of some software tricks to accomplish this. How cool would that be? OK, maybe not totally necessary since you can record programs, but I'd still love to have two baseball games on at the same time.

I'll probably come up with more after using it some more, but this is enough for now. I'm actually quite surprised by these issues (#1 and 2). I would have thought that software as mature as TiVo's would have addressed these a long time ago. I mean, let's face it -- if TiVo doesn't have the absolute best software possible, how can they possibly stand up against the cable companies' DVRs?

Dan

1. Agree completely. It should be in there.
2. I have never had the need to do this. The navigation works perfectly as it is for me.
3. Would be useless for me.

[lrhorer]

#3--I agree. Never have understood why they don't just go ahead and add PIP.
My Mitsubishi has PIP, and I find it to be a tremendous annoyance. I never want to use it, but before I had the S3 I had to use the TV remote, and fairly frequently I would accidentally hit one of the PIP buttons instead of something else. Then it was a hassle trying to get rid of it. I hated it, and I am ecstatic my TiVo's don't have this horrendous feature into which to accidentally fall. I vote, "absolutely not!"

[ZeoTiVo]

PIP audio is the easiest part of it. Handle it the same way all TVs that do PIP or P&P do it, which is one of three possible ways (any of them are fine with me):
I guess I was not clear enough. The TiVo is reading the video and audio streams seperately and then putting them together to play backa recording. At the same time The TiVo may be recording two shows, which mean indexing the audio for later playback and using TTG copying another to a PC which also requires muxing the sound into the video to get a single file to the PC.

In other words audio becomes a big CPU processing overhead issue and switching back and forth on two audio streams in real time due to PIP or side by side would put some real strain on the CPU and lead to a lot of tweaking the program hassles.
It is far more than just some lines of code for if - then logic.

[moyekj]

For item 2) I suspect only ReplayTV users can really appreciate the flexibility of being able to jump to an exact point in a show or arbitrarily any number of minutes backwards or forwards (not to mention skip whole commercial blocks automatically of course).

NOTE: I know that it is physically possible and easy to implement flexible navigation in the Tivos. Since the 9.4 software and the discovery that Video Streaming of mpeg2/mpeg4/h.264 is now possible via HME (http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=401163) I have implemented a crude streaming video server in Java that has the flexibility to arbitrarily jump around the stream (with the restriction that you can't jump beyond the buffer) with my Tivos while streaming video. I will probably be looking at implementing ReplayTV way of doing things, such as 1,5,-> to jump 15 minutes ahead, etc.
But I digress. The point is, Tivo has the ability to implement these things but have chosen the safe road in not upsetting advertisers with any potentially contentious features such as this item 2.

[mattack]

2) The navigation features for watching recorded programs are kind of sparse. For instance, there's no way to jump to a particular time period in the recording?

Can you give a specific example of when you would use this?

I mean, I like the idea, but my DVD player supports this, but I don't think I've ever used it.. I just skip around the chapters to find what I want the few times I've searched for something on a DVD.

There are LOTS of things I wish Tivo had(*), but I do also like the idea of keeping it simple.

(*) Free space indicator, QAM remapping, cooperative scheduling are all things I would pay a one time fee for, even though I paid lifetime on my Tivos.

[lrhorer]

For item 2) I suspect only ReplayTV users can really appreciate the flexibility of being able to jump to an exact point in a show or arbitrarily any number of minutes backwards or forwards
I apreciate how it would be flexible. I just can't see I would ever use it. I almost never have any reason to skip a specific number of minutes forward or backwards within a program.

(not to mention skip whole commercial blocks automatically of course).
Now that's different. Since one can never know how long a commercial may be, skipping a specific number of minutes is really not very helpful in blowing past commercials, though.

[lrhorer]

Can you give a specific example of when you would use this?
I can think of some scenarios, but none of them very common.

I mean, I like the idea, but my DVD player supports this, but I don't think I've ever used it.. I just skip around the chapters to find what I want the few times I've searched for something on a DVD.
Yeah, that's the point. I can't see myself wanting to do it very often.

There are LOTS of things I wish Tivo had(*), but I do also like the idea of keeping it simple.
That, too.

(*) Free space indicator, QAM remapping, cooperative scheduling are all things I would pay a one time fee for, even though I paid lifetime on my Tivos.
No, I definitely have no need of any of those. I would like to be able to delete shows on a remote TiVo, though, and of course the creeps who came up with copy protection and forced it on TiVo should eat $#!% and die.

[dagware]

I apreciate how it would be flexible. I just can't see I would ever use it. I almost never have any reason to skip a specific number of minutes forward or backwards within a program.

The most common reason I would use this is when watching a sporting event. Let me give you a specific example:

Let's say I've recorded a golf tournament, and the recording starts at 10:00. I start watching the recording, and they say that the leaders won't tee off until 11:35, and for whatever reason that's the only thing I care about. I'd like to advance the program to the 95 minute mark. I can FF, but that's slower. I can't use the FF + Skip button because I've got the 30-second skip feature enabled.

I admit that it's not a huge deal. But as I said earlier, why not have all the navigation options available that anyone might want? It's just software -- it's not like I'm asking for new buttons on the remote or anything.

Dan

PS: Just ordered a 1TB hard drive. Woo hoo!

[JWThiers]

The most common reason I would use this is when watching a sporting event. Let me give you a specific example:

Let's say I've recorded a golf tournament, and the recording starts at 10:00. I start watching the recording, and they say that the leaders won't tee off until 11:35, and for whatever reason that's the only thing I care about. I'd like to advance the program to the 95 minute mark. I can FF, but that's slower. I can't use the FF + Skip button because I've got the 30-second skip feature enabled.

I admit that it's not a huge deal. But as I said earlier, why not have all the navigation options available that anyone might want? It's just software -- it's not like I'm asking for new buttons on the remote or anything.

Dan

PS: Just ordered a 1TB hard drive. Woo hoo!

On my THD when with the 30 sec skip enabled (I'm 90% sure I'll double check when I get home from work) on a recorded show if you press FF then hit the skip button it goes to the next tic.

[JWThiers]

Confirmed. On stuff that is recording and already recorded, with 30 sec skip enabled, if you are FF and press the skip button you go fwd 1 tic mark, If you are rewinding and press skip you go back 1 tic mark. If you are not recording (live buffer only) and are in the middle and FF skip takes you to the end, if you are rewinding you go to the begining.

[lrhorer]

The most common reason I would use this is when watching a sporting event. Let me give you a specific example:

Let's say I've recorded a golf tournament,
Well, I never watch sports, and - no offense - even if I did I certainly wouldn't watch golf.

I admit that it's not a huge deal. But as I said earlier, why not have all the navigation options available that anyone might want? It's just software -- it's not like I'm asking for new buttons on the remote or anything.
Unless you are asking the feature to show up under one of the existing drop-down menus (like ->, maybe), then actually, yeah you are.

PS: Just ordered a 1TB hard drive. Woo hoo!
You do know that if you have a THD, or an S3 with an upgraded internal drive, you are going to have to add that drive manually, don't you?

[aaronwt]

Does the TiVoHD have two video decoders? Without two video decoders you can't have PiP.

[thisisnotadrill]

yes, tivoHD has dual tuners.

[slowbiscuit]

Unless you are asking the feature to show up under one of the existing drop-down menus (like ->, maybe), then actually, yeah you are.

No, he's not. It could be as simple as pressing '90' and 'skip' (forward or back) to skip 90 minutes forward or back into a recording. That's the way Replays do it, and it's the way Tivos should do it.

And your comment about sports is entirely irrelevant to the point. You may not want the feature, but it is a very useful one to have.

[dagware]

You do know that if you have a THD, or an S3 with an upgraded internal drive, you are going to have to add that drive manually, don't you?

I'm not sure what you're saying, but I plan on replacing my stock internal drive with this new drive. I'm going to use InstantCake.

Dan

[dagware]

Confirmed. On stuff that is recording and already recorded, with 30 sec skip enabled, if you are FF and press the skip button you go fwd 1 tic mark, If you are rewinding and press skip you go back 1 tic mark. If you are not recording (live buffer only) and are in the middle and FF skip takes you to the end, if you are rewinding you go to the begining.

This doesn't work for me, but I'm beginning to suspect that it's an issue with my Harmony One remote. I did a little searching, and it's possible I need to "learn" the commands from the real remote -- apparently the Harmony database of remote commands doesn't always have the "best" versions of the commands. I'll play around some and see what I can figure out.

Edit: This does too work for me. I'm not sure why I thought it didn't work. This will really help skipping around in sporting events. Thanks for making me try it again!!

Dan

[esjones]

Does TiVo HD provide the games that are on my S2 DT (Especially Same Game)?

Earl

[rocko]

Does TiVo HD provide the games that are on my S2 DT (Especially Same Game)?

Earl

:confused:

Perhaps you can be more specific about this question and start a new thread ?

[demon]

Does the TiVoHD have two video decoders? Without two video decoders you can't have PiP.
yes, tivoHD has dual tuners.

He said *decoders*, not *tuners*. Yes, the TiVo HD has two tuners, but AFAIK it has only one stream decoding engine, which would make picture-in-picture pretty much impossible.

[aaronwt]

I would rarely use PiP but two video decoders would be nice when recording a title to disc so you could watch something else while it was outputting content to a DVD burner(or VCR if people still use them)

[lrhorer]

I'm not sure what you're saying, but I plan on replacing my stock internal drive with this new drive. I'm going to use InstantCake.
That is a manual upgrade, which is great, as long as you understand the ramifications, which it seems you do. Both the stock S3 and the stock THD allow the user to automatically upgrade with an external drive, meaning the user does not have to take the drive out of the TiVo and mount it in an external PC. Once you have performed an internal upgrade such as the one you are planning, adding an external drive of any sort can only be done by an additional manual drive upgrade. It's not difficult or overly time consuming, but it is required once the TiVo has something other than its original drive inside.

[lrhorer]

No, he's not. It could be as simple as pressing '90' and 'skip' (forward or back) to skip 90 minutes forward or back into a recording. That's the way Replays do it, and it's the way Tivos should do it.
Yeah, actually I was thinking of something else, which in fact doesn't apply, so my statement was largely incorrect. There is,however, one drawback to the approach you suggest, and that is pressing "90" will take one to channel 90, unless one presses the FF (or whatever) key rather quickly. TiVo might have to extend the delay prior to changing channels based upon a keypress a bit, but I admit it could be practical.

And your comment about sports is entirely irrelevant to the point.
No, it wasn't. Dagware said his most common reason for using it was related to a sporting event. I pointed out that particular scenario was not one I would encounter. This fact is undoubtedly one reason the feature is of less use to me than Dagwood, which is 100% relevant.

You may not want the feature, but it is a very useful one to have.
By definition, a feature is only useful if one uses it. Otherwise, it is by definition useless. As with any feature of any device, some people will find the feature in question useful to varying degrees, from not at all to completely indispensable. I personally find this feature to be of very limited usefulness, albeit perhaps not completely useless. As I already said, I can imagine myself using it once in a great while, just not very often. I suspect like many bells and whistles of this sort, in the event of actually being wantful of the feature, I would probably not even remember it exists until too late. Others might find themselves using it daily, but I find it difficult to imagine how. Certainly I consider recent features like h.264 support, Tuning Adapter support, and the addition of boolean expressions in wishlist searches to be vastly more important than the ability to jump 8 minutes into the program, rather than 15.

It is always difficult to accurately extract emotions from a post in a forum like this, but it seems like you are upset at my previous post. If my honest assessment of how important this feature would be to me offends you, then I'm sorry you're offended, but I'm not going to retract or modify my opinion of the feature based solely on how much you like it.

[steve614]

If Tivo were to put in every feature that all owners request, then I'd have to spend $1000+ on a box, of which I'd only use 1/4 of those features.

I would have no use for jumping to a specific time, but I would use PIP for channel surfing.
Another user might be just the opposite.
A third might want something as useless as a FSI (;))
Point is, everyone has different ideas as to what they want in a DVR and how they would use one.
Tivo has to try to find a 'happy medium' of features that they think most users would use so they can keep the price of the box down.

[slowbiscuit]

It is always difficult to accurately extract emotions from a post in a forum like this, but it seems like you are upset at my previous post. If my honest assessment of how important this feature would be to me offends you, then I'm sorry you're offended, but I'm not going to retract or modify my opinion of the feature based solely on how much you like it.

Um, ok. You have WAY too much time on your hands, dude.

[ZeoTiVo]

I would have no use for jumping to a specific time, but I would use PIP for channel surfing.
Another user might be just the opposite.
A third might want something as useless as a FSI (;))
Point is, everyone has different ideas as to what they want in a DVR and how they would use one.

and I would have no use for any of the three :D
seriously - aside from having 2 games on the screen at the same time I see no use for any of this myself. Even the 2 game scenario would likely be used by me once or twice a year - but then I am not trying to watch all the teams in a given sport and just have my favorite teams

PS - given say a 2 hour show I could be at any point in the show quickly by hitting FF twice, then skip to tick proper number of times, then play or pause at the right time. Is it as simple as 90 and skip? No. But then is it that much harder than 90 skip? No again. Would pressing 90 and waiting 2 seconds to see if I pressed skip and then chnaging the channel make me happy? No again.
Also if I stop playing a show and come back later it is bookmarked at the point I left off.

[rckstrang]

The questions the OP are asking he never would have asked if he started out with a TiVo. However if he went from TiVo to a cable DVR I'm sure he'd have all kinds of questions along with many disappointments.

[slowbiscuit]

Exactly, just like us former ReplayTV users trying the TivoHD for the first time. Lots of frustration because of nice features that we took for granted on the Replays, like cooperative scheduling and auto-commercial skip.

[rckstrang]

Exactly, just like us former ReplayTV users trying the TivoHD for the first time. Lots of frustration because of nice features that we took for granted on the Replays, like cooperative scheduling and auto-commercial skip.

I understand auto-commercial skip. What was cooperative scheduling?

[steve614]

Cooperative scheduling is (for instance) being able to schedule a recording on a remote Tivo. Not just on the Tivo you're using.

[moyekj]

I understand auto-commercial skip. What was cooperative scheduling? When you have more than 1 ReplayTV on the network and you try and schedule a show that conflicts you get a warning that there is a conflict and an opportunity to schedule on another ReplayTV. You can also schedule recordings on other ReplayTVs intentionally from any other ReplayTV. This was also extended to 3rd party applications to allow instant real time scheduling over the internet. The feature wasn't fully baked and had some holes (like you can't remove scheduled shows on remote ReplayTVs), but it was a very good start in the right direction of fully cooperative scheduling.
There are several advanced features that ReplayTV has that most Tivo users don't know about, some of which have come up in this thread.

[dagware]

If Tivo were to put in every feature that all owners request, then I'd have to spend $1000+ on a box, of which I'd only use 1/4 of those features.

Yes it's true that they can't implement *every* requested feature. However, if the requested features require only relatively minor changes to the software, then the cost is minuscule, and assuming the new features are organized correctly so as not to clutter the interface, there's no reason *not* to implement them.

Let me explain:

TiVo is still releasing software updates. This means they are still actively involved in making changes to the software, which also means they already have planned cycles for testing and deploying new releases. This being true, the cost of adding new features to the software is relatively inexpensive.

Trust me, I'm a developer and I know what I'm talking about. Assuming the requested features are just additions, and not complete re-writes, the "expensive" part of making software changes is the testing and deployment part, not the actual coding part. They're already paying developers to make changes. Just add some new "to do" items to their plates.

I'll repeat what I said at the start: If TiVo wants to compete with cable company DVRs, the more features they provide, the better chance they'll have. In other words, when someone asks "Why should I pay that much for a TiVo when I can rent a DVR from my cable company for cheap?", the more features you can show them, the better.

Dan

PS: Got my 1TB hard drive installed with no problems, and got my M-card installed with no problem -- relatively speaking. It took the tech 1 1/2 hours, because the dispatchers couldn't get things configured correctly. It turns out they had specified there were two cards, not one, so they couldn't get the single M-card working. But once the tech got in touch with a manager who actually knew his butt from a hole in the ground, everything worked fine. All in all, it went pretty smoothly.