TiVo Fall 2007 Update Apparently Breaks TivoToGo/Toast on the Mac

[saberman]

>Why does a company with 451 full time employees need 19 vice presidents?

Someone has to make the coffee since the function has been reclassified as non-administrative.

[TiVo Kid 2003]

Originally Posted by Phantom Gremlin

Why does a company with 451 full time employees need 19 vice presidents?

At the risk of re-spinning a classic punchline.... 1 to do the work, and 18 to watch him (or her).

[minckster]

So TiVo is going to keep on hiring vice presidents until they find that one who actually does work?

[HaroldBuck]

Originally Posted by bobconlon

So are most people able to still transfer the files to their computer?
Mine won't even do that. It simply says it is waiting to transfer the files and stalls out there.

Hi, just joined. I'm working through this thread, so I don't know if this has been answered already, but this happens to me. I have to restart TiVo, then I can transfer a few more shows. Eventually it chokes again and I need to restart again. Very frustrating, but at least I can transfer stuff.

I'm experience the synch issues that other people are having, plus many of the other issues. Since the Toast 8.0.3 update, I've been able to burn DVDs again, but I've been having issues with the DVDs being garbled partway through (in addition to the synch issues). They told me not to do anything on the computer while burning (I usually burn overnight), to update my DVD burner firmware (there is no update AFAICT), and to install the QuickTime update. I burned a DVD for my kids after that update that seems to be working, although I still have the synch issue.


-Harold
Mac OS 10.5.1
2.16 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo iMac
2 GB Ram
Toast 8.0.3
TiVo Series 2 DVR

[Sparkylulu]

I'm going to reply here because I am just frustrated.
I STILL have the sync problems. I guess I should be grateful for the encoder problem to have been fixed but still...
What I loved about Toast and Tivo was the ability to record and then transfer to my ipod or burn the disc. This comes in especially handy when recording programs for my one year old to watch on long plane trips. But now it's just a useless piece of software.
When is someone going to address this problem and fix it?

[HaroldBuck]

From Roxio Tech Support on 12-5:

We have also received feedback through beta testing that a limited number of TiVo users are still experiencing audio and video synchronization issues. We are continuing to work on a resolution for this problem and will provide more information as it becomes available.

[SnakeEyes]

Can files ran through TiVoDecode be played back properly in Quicktime with the right codecs? I have an HD recording of Leno, the video is fine but there is no audio. I wanted to edit the video in QT.

[shulcslt]

Originally Posted by HaroldBuck

From Roxio Tech Support on 12-5:

That's the same thing they've been saying almost since day one of this whole issue - word for word.

[benvon]

Adding another voice to the choir...

... A/V sync problems when exporting for iPod
... already contacted Roxio
... very frustrated
... significant backlog of shows waiting to be transcoded to the iPod
... bleh
... never buying Roxio again

[Sluggo042]

Originally Posted by benvon

Adding another voice to the choir...

... never buying Roxio again

That presumes that the whole snafu is Roxio's fault. It looks to me like this is more likely caused by something Tivo did with the Fall 2007 Update. I'm not entirely absolving Roxio - they could be far more open about what's going on than they have been to date, a serious shortcoming. However, if Tivo made some change to their encoding without informing Roxio beforehand, then Roxio might well get blamed for something they had no hand in causing. And if they made no change, then Roxio's software shouldn't have stopped working. So I tend to believe that Tivo is the originator of this problem, even if we are forced by the situation to wait for Roxio to fix it.

Doug G.

[TiVo Kid 2003]

Originally Posted by Sluggo042

That presumes that the whole snafu is Roxio's fault. It looks to me like this is more likely caused by something Tivo did with the Fall 2007 Update. I'm not entirely absolving Roxio - they could be far more open about what's going on than they have been to date, a serious shortcoming. However, if Tivo made some change to their encoding without informing Roxio beforehand, then Roxio might well get blamed for something they had no hand in causing. And if they made no change, then Roxio's software shouldn't have stopped working. So I tend to believe that Tivo is the originator of this problem, even if we are forced by the situation to wait for Roxio to fix it.

Doug G.

I completely agree, since I'm having similar problems without Roxio (in spite of this thread's title.)

For the love of all that is holy, can someone from Roxio (or TiVo) please point the finger? Like no one from those companies participates on this forum...

WE DON'T CARE who is to blame, just fix the damn thing!!!

[Sluggo042]

Originally Posted by TiVo Kid 2003

I completely agree, since I'm having similar problems without Roxio (in spite of this thread's title.)

For the love of all that is holy, can someone from Roxio (or TiVo) please point the finger? Like no one from those companies participates on this forum...

WE DON'T CARE who is to blame, just fix the damn thing!!!

Amen, brother!

(The thread's title is my fault. It was appropriate when this whole problem started with the encoding-freeze problem caused by the mishandled metadata. It was only after Roxio fixed that problem that the current sync problem became apparent. I've thought about starting a thread with 'Audio Sync' in the title, but everyone suffering from the problem seems to end up here, so it seems to be working for the moment.)

Doug G.

[benvon]

Originally Posted by Sluggo042

Amen, brother!

(The thread's title is my fault. It was appropriate when this whole problem started with the encoding-freeze problem caused by the mishandled metadata. It was only after Roxio fixed that problem that the current sync problem became apparent. I've thought about starting a thread with 'Audio Sync' in the title, but everyone suffering from the problem seems to end up here, so it seems to be working for the moment.)

Doug G.

You are right about it not necessarily being Roxio's fault. But taking a month to fix one problem only to introduce (or completely miss) another problem does not strike me as something that a quality software engineering house would do. What were they doing with that first month? It's now been more than two months and we've heard precious little from this "professional" software company.

I don't care whos fault it is. Roxio took my money in return for providing a particular functionality. So far, in the 4 months since I've given Roxio my money, I've had less than 2 months of real functionality!

That's what I'm upset about. That's Roxio's fault.

[Sluggo042]

Originally Posted by benvon

You are right about it not necessarily being Roxio's fault. But taking a month to fix one problem only to introduce (or completely miss) another problem does not strike me as something that a quality software engineering house would do. What were they doing with that first month? It's now been more than two months and we've heard precious little from this "professional" software company.

I don't care whos fault it is. Roxio took my money in return for providing a particular functionality. So far, in the 4 months since I've given Roxio my money, I've had less than 2 months of real functionality!

That's what I'm upset about. That's Roxio's fault.

I don't want to let Roxio entirely off the hook. But I also think they're in a tough position. They've got a partner (Tivo) who does stuff that breaks their software without warning. They're limited in how obnoxious they can be to that partner while still maintaining the relationship. Worse, the thing that Tivo broke, whatever it is that's causing the audio sync problem, appears NOT to be universal - there are people here reporting that they're not having the problem. This may explain why Roxio missed the bug when they released the first fix - it's not showing up on all machines. And if that's true, it suggests that testing the second fix is not trivial, as there will be a lot of cases to be tested to make sure they don't break something else, or again leave some subset of users unfixed. Given all of that, I don't think that a couple of months is entirely unjustified.

On the other hand, and where I do fault Roxio, is their policy of being so close-mouthed about what the hell is going on. Yeah, we have one official statement about "a few users" seeing a problem back when the first fix was released, but nothing since that I'm aware of. There's no official statement about a timeframe for a fix, or even that any such fix is forthcoming. This to a userbase that put up with Tivo stringing Mac users along for a couple of years, promising TivoToGo functionality long before they actually got around to providing it. It's no wonder most of us find this silence policy so frustrating - we've been trained by Tivo to be distrustful that we're going to get any support for these features at all!

I do think that Roxio's policy of not keeping paying users updated on the progress of the fix is extremely stupid, earning them black eyes they could have just as easily avoided with an update or two. In the absence of information, all we users can do is to keep bringing up the problem in open forums until such time as we actually learn publically what's going on.

Still, it could be worse - at least we expect Roxio to do something about the problem. Based on their history, no one seems to have any such expectation of Tivo. Roxio's getting thrashed over this issue in part because we have higher expectations from them.

Doug G.

[Sparkylulu]

Well, there has been precedent set, right? Wasn't there a guy named Paratox or Patatox who was a rep from Roxio and was updating us with the progress?
I don't blame Roxio per se. Nor can I blame Tivo. All I can say is the former offer an answer for Mac users to be able to use Tivo Desktop. In addition, since the PC version is free, they made it so you had to buy a third party app to be able to run the program. That would suck if they didn't give us so much extra power with the ability to burn and offload to ipod easily.
But, with Direct Show Dump and various other conversion programs I would be able to do the same thing with my PC. Except that my ipod is Mac and I am a total macuser now.
So, what is my option?
Money has exchanged hands. So, Roxio needs to keep up their end of the bargain or offer something in return. At the very least, they need to respond when a user opens a "ticket". (who still uses that anyway?)
I have opened tickets and received no response. That's just kooky.
I suggest we keep responding to this post to keep it up front and hope that the powers that be at Tivo and Roxio decide to do something about the mess and inconvenience they have caused.

[Sluggo042]

Originally Posted by Sparkylulu

Well, there has been precedent set, right? Wasn't there a guy named Paratox or Patatox who was a rep from Roxio and was updating us with the progress?

Patatrox, yes. Though he, and Roxio as a whole have gone eerily quiet over the last few weeks.

At the very least, they need to respond when a user opens a "ticket". (who still uses that anyway?)

I have opened tickets and received no response. That's just kooky.

The 'ticket' system seems like a rational way to track and bring some accountability to customer complants. Tivo doesn't even offer that much, giving no written way I've been able to find of communicating bugs to them. So, I'm rather glad that Roxio offers that method of contact. Even though they seem to have decided at some point in the last few weeks to collectively ignore anyone asking about the audio sync bug. Kooky would be my kindest characterization of the silence.

I suggest we keep responding to this post to keep it up front and hope that the powers that be at Tivo and Roxio decide to do something about the mess and inconvenience they have caused.

Exactly my strategy.

Doug G.

[TiVo Kid 2003]

It's about time someone posts this story over at Consumerist.com -- "TiVo's TiVoToGo feature works beautifully - except when it doesn't"

(To TiVo): Oh, have I got your attention now? (Anyone remember that scene w/ Alec Baldwin in Glengarry Glen Ross?)

[wdave]

Originally Posted by Sluggo042

I don't want to let Roxio entirely off the hook. But I also think they're in a tough position. They've got a partner (Tivo) who does stuff that breaks their software without warning.

Wait, I gotta stop you there. I feel like a broken record in this thread. As I previously pointed out:

There are tools that haven't changed in months (Tivo Decoder, VisualHub/iSquint) that can translate the Tivo files just fine. These apps worked before the Fall Update, and they continue to work after the Fall Update. If Tivo broke something substantial, then why do those apps still work fine? Maybe Roxio isn't following the spec in some way, and therefore got hit with some change in the Fall Update that was perfectly "legal" for Tivo to make.

Since there are other tools that can convert just fine (and they're even free!), then Roxio has no excuse.

[javabird]

I had trouble with audio sync using Tivo Decoder after the fall update, which I've posted in several forums, and others have posted similar problems. So I wouldn't say they "still work fine." I haven't used Visual Hub, though, as I won't pay for a program that won't let me try it first (it only allows a short clip, which isn't a sufficient test since the sync problems show up after 1 hr.).

[wdave]

Originally Posted by javabird

I haven't used Visual Hub, though, as I won't pay for a program that won't let me try it first (it only allows a short clip, which isn't a sufficient test since the sync problems show up after 1 hr.).

Use iSquint, the little sister to VisualHub. It's free and will do iPod/iPhone/AppleTV conversions. That's what I'm using in the interim.

[Sluggo042]

Originally Posted by wdave

Wait, I gotta stop you there. I feel like a broken record in this thread. As I previously pointed out:

. . .

Since there are other tools that can convert just fine (and they're even free!), then Roxio has no excuse.

I'm probably sounding like a broken record too, but part of that is by design - I'm trying to keep the thread up front in the hope that it adds some push to Roxio completing a fix. I'm also grasping at straws in case someone can come up with some temporary work around, so I try to restate things a lot to keep the thought ball rolling.

Question: Some people report they're not seeing the audio sync problem using Toast/Popcorn. Postulate for a moment that the problem is variable, and depends upon one's installation and configuration. Due to some magic mojo setting that has yet go be discovered, some people's setups will suffer from the bug, and some will not. If this were the case, then one would see, or not see, the audio sync problem independent of the tools used to perform conversions. In other words, perhaps you're not seeing the audio sync problem because you have a "blessed" configuration, not because you're using different tools. So, the question is, did you see the audio sync problem using the Toast tool, or have you only ever used the Tivo Decode/iSquirt toolset? Because there's a chance that its working for you because you lucked out having a setup that doesn't suffer from this problem.

From your post, it seems that you're doing Tivo conversions for use on an iPod, whereas my primary goal is to burn to DVD. From things others have said, I suspect one may get different results when encoding for these different end uses. Perhaps when going for the DVD encoding, which I presume has higher video quality than for an iPod, the problem gets worse. Also, the problem is reported to be worse on longer programs - are you only encoding half-hour sitcoms, or are you getting good results on two hour movies as well?

Finally, I've tried loading the tivodecode program, and haven't been able to make heads or tails of how to get that up and running on a Mac. The version with a GUI wrapper, TivoDecode Manager, doesn't work for me, it won't start encoding. I will admit that I've not spent a lot of time trying to get them to work yet, but I've not found them to be workable solutions yet. I'd gladly listen to any tips on how to get them to work, but so far, they're not a trival alternative for me.

Doug G.

[TiVo Kid 2003]

Chiming in here.... I see the problem only on 1 of my 2 TiVos (of course it's the bargain-basement Humax model).... and even then, it's only on about 10% of the videos. So I totally believe that it is only a subset of the users who ever see this problem. And even then, only a subset of the time.

wdave -- I'll actually turn around what you said a couple posts back. I'd never seen the problem until the fall update, I saw the problem immediately after the update, and my video programs (VideoReDo, Windows Media Player, etc. ) -- none of which changed -- all suddenly couldn't play some of the downloaded files.

One other thing -- VideoRedo has an error threshold that can be configured. It is very forgiving of audio sync errors & tries to repair them as best as possible. But when the number is excessive it just marks the file as "bad". So it could depend on how many errors are in the file, and how forgiving the program is.

Anyway, I suspect that Roxio would love to finger the guilty but they (for some reason) must tread lightly in this case.

We'll probably never be able to finger the culprit -- TiVo is not in the habit of creating release notes for their updates. It'll probably just be fixed -- hopefully -- at some point in a future update and that will be that.

[Sluggo042]

Originally Posted by TiVo Kid 2003

Chiming in here.... I see the problem only on 1 of my 2 TiVos (of course it's the bargain-basement Humax model)....

At the risk of asking something we may have covered before, is there a difference between how these two Tivos are connected to your computer? Is one hard-wired, and one connected wirelessly?

My single Tivo is connected wirelessly, and I see the audio sync problem on just about everything I encode, though the degree of the delay varies.

[TiVo Kid 2003]

Originally Posted by Sluggo042

At the risk of asking something we may have covered before, is there a difference between how these two Tivos are connected to your computer? Is one hard-wired, and one connected wirelessly?

My single Tivo is connected wirelessly, and I see the audio sync problem on just about everything I encode, though the degree of the delay varies.

They're actually both wired connections. My router is set up for WPA2 encryption and 2 years ago (when I got the 2nd TiVo, the Humax) only WEP was supported on TiVos... not good enough for me.... so they're both wired. I think now other encryption modes are supported w/ certain adapters but that ship has sailed for me.

My (very crude) theory is that is has to do with the processing power on the box. The Humax has a weaker CPU (hence the lower price), so I tried something: tuning the Humax to an empty channel (reducing the load since there is nothing to record in the 30-minute buffer), and making sure nothing was being played back during transfer (also reducing load on the CPU). So far no problems with files transfered under these conditions (about 20 files -- so I'd expect 1 or 2 of the files to be corrupted).

I'm the first to say that lack of observing the problem is not the same as knowing that this helps/fixes it, it's all empirical evidence. Correlation vs. causation.... And anyway, I'm not sure if it makes sense about reducing the CPU load & file errors. If I was writing the transcoder (or the transfer protocol), I would design it so that it wouldn't fail based on CPU load, it would just take longer (this is actually the kind of thing I do for a living.)

[walterwatts]

Using Roxio's included Tivo Transfer.app with Toast 8 (8.0.3), the transferred .tivo file plays fine (ie. no audio sync problem) when I play it with the Roxio Tivo file player.

It's encoding (to either DVD OR iPod) that gives me the audio sync headache (audio at least 3 to 4 seconds behind the video).

Walter

[Sluggo042]

Originally Posted by walterwatts

Using Roxio's included Tivo Transfer.app with Toast 8 (8.0.3), the transferred .tivo file plays fine (ie. no audio sync problem) when I play it with the Roxio Tivo file player.

It's encoding (to either DVD OR iPod) that gives me the audio sync headache (audio at least 3 to 4 seconds behind the video).

Walter

Hi Walter, welcome over to this side of the conversation - I'm kinda curious if they're going to boot my butt after they get back from Xmas for what I said over on the Roxio side of things in that last post.

Yes, that seems to be what those who are suffering from the problem are observing. The files work fine as far as the Roxio Video Player is concerned, but gain some variable audio offset in the encoding process. 3-4 seconds is about the worst I've heard of so far - my files tend to run about a second or so out of whack. But it doesn't take a whole lot of drift to make the thing look like a damn Japanese monster movie.

Doug G.

[Sluggo042]

Originally Posted by TiVo Kid 2003

They're actually both wired connections. My (very crude) theory is that is has to do with the processing power on the box. . . So far no problems with files transfered under these conditions (about 20 files -- so I'd expect 1 or 2 of the files to be corrupted).

Hey TiVo Kid,

I've been running some experiments to see what I could come up with given your theory. I took a two hour program, made sure the TiVo was tuned to a satellite music channel (no video, so presumed low processing burden), then transferred it to my computer, and encoded it. Then I repeated the transfer while the TiVo was recording a program at Best quality (presumed high processing burden), encoded it, then compared it to the first trial. I basically got the same result on both of them, though I must admit that for once, I got pretty good copies of the program with minimal audio offset.

This doesn't mean your theory is necessarily invalid, as my hardware is a regulation Tivo box, and may have more computing power than your Humax. But i thought I'd throw the data point out there.

One other thing I've noticed - I've still got the original TivoTransfer program (v.1.0.1) around, and I think I accidentally used it for the transferring in the experiment I described. When I fed the transferred file into the newer 8.0.3 versio of Toast, I got little or no audio delay. I'm not entirely sure what's happening here, but there might be a possible temporary work around here that works better than the most recent TivoTransfer program - presuming one doesn't mind the garbled metadata in the older TivoTransfer window.

Doug G.

[walterwatts]

Hey Doug.

I got another response from Roxio support, but I haven't tried it yet. I thought I'd run it by you and see what you thought.
-----------------------------------------
A Roxio Agent has responded to your ticket!

Thank you for contacting Roxio Technical Support

You will need to enable Tivo Export mode to use the additional formats.

Make sure Toast and it's other apps are closed. In the terminal window, copy and paste

this:

defaults write com.roxio.Toast 'tivo export mode' -integer 1

Restart Toast, export a video using h.264 format with all of the same settings as the iPod

format except change the fps to 24.

Thanks for contacting Roxio Customer Care. Let us know if you need further assistance on

this issue by clicking the Update button.

Regards,

Roxio Technical Support
http://support.roxio.com
-------------------------------------
While that might help the iPod encoding, how would it affect DVD burning? Am I missing something. I'll try it and see.

Also, I've only tried encoding with an Intel Mac mini 1.83GHz, 1GB RAM, Intel Core Duo.

I also have a 24 inch iMac (early 2007) Intel Core 2 Duo, 2.16GHz, 2GB RAM, nVidia GEForce 7600 GT/256MB. I'll probably install Toast on that too and try it, but was hoping to flog the mini with all the mundane things like I normally do ie. Tivo Desktop, etc.

I'll let you know how it goes.

Walter

[Sluggo042]

Originally Posted by walterwatts

I got another response from Roxio support, but I haven't tried it yet. I thought I'd run it by you and see what you thought.

<snip> -----------------------------------------

defaults write com.roxio.Toast 'tivo export mode' -integer 1

<snip> -----------------------------------------

I'll let you know how it goes.

Walter

1) Well, I think I've seen that setting before somewhere, and I think I remember trying it, but I can't remember the context. As I recall, it didn't achieve anything.

2) Roxio Support is real good at tossing out random suggested fixes. In my experience so far, none of them have actually related to the problem at hand. When I called them on this (politely), they stopped talking to me. In communication to someone higher up, they admitted that the Support folk work from a script that has no special information about our specific problem. So, (a) I'm not suprised they've got all kinds of suggestions for you, and (b) I'm not expecting said suggestions to do anything for you. Still, your mileage may vary, and I doubt it will hurt anything. I'll be curious as to your results.

3) As you note, it looks like that suggestion is shaped towards iPod transfer, and not DVD burning.

Doug G.

[fredric100]

Hey - I've been checking this thread for months hoping Roxio or TiVo would address these issues by now. Their inaction is inexcusable. I'm super peeved.

I've probably trashed over 30 blank DVDs trying to burn a TTG transfer with good audio since the Fall update, testing various workarounds and fixes.

I feel like MAILING all my useless DVDs, one by one, to the CEOs of Roxio and TiVo, as an expression of disgust. Would anyone else be up for a mail-in campaign like this to try to draw some well-deserved attention to this problem?