Gizmodo Review - Page 2

bkdtv · 03-24-2010, 10:03 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by gweempose

Look at the bright side, guys. If you were looking to sell your Series 3 on eBay, its value just went up 20%.

Better sell it in the next 56 minutes then.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Unseen Llama

Ben,

Can you ask Nilay about any difference in the speed of transferring shows to the computer?

All the charts and graphs you could want coming in 56 minutes.

falcon26 · 03-24-2010, 10:03 PM

Wow even in that review it pretty much says the series 4 has nothing really that advanced over the series 3.

innocentfreak · 03-24-2010, 10:04 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by bdraw

Yep and he sums it up pretty nicely (not as good as Nilay obviously

"All in all, TiVo Premiere looks incomplete. It seems more like a platform for a future set of offerings TiVo hopes one day to have, rather than a way to deliver new content right now."

Obviously. I personally can't wait until monday's podcast to hear the discussion, but since you didn't get yours yet it may not be as colorful as I would hope.

Oh well it didn't cost me to upgrade and until I have a HD set I will be stuck on the old UI anyway. This may convince me to wait on the upgrade anyway if the UI isn't fully finished by this summer when the new large Panasonic Plasmas come out.

Of course I will be staying up for the charts and graphs to hopefully get some positive out of this.

jmpage2 · 03-24-2010, 10:16 PM

This is just really, really disappointing. We knew that TiVo aimed low, but finding out that they aimed low and hit lower is just a huge sock in the gut for a device that commands a premium price and made the mistake of offering the world (Inventing the DVR was just a Warmup!).

Way to go TiVo. Looks like it might be a Moxi for me, at least they appear interested in innovating.

Unseen Llama · 03-24-2010, 10:16 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by bkdtv

Better sell it in the next 56 minutes then.

All the charts and graphs you could want coming in 56 minutes.

Excellent! I'm a visual person. :-)

TWinbrook46636 · 03-24-2010, 10:18 PM

The most troubling thing is that it sounds like the new interface will not be completed for a long time. I think a lot of people expected things to be ironed out within a month or so of it shipping. From watching those videos it really seems like it will be several months, maybe even a year or more. There is a LOT of work to be done. The HD portions of the interface are slow and glitchy and it's not even available yet for season passes, listings grids, online content menus, etc. Bottom line is they released it way before it was ready.

falcon26 · 03-24-2010, 10:28 PM

Wait you can't have a season pass on the new tivo's???

patatrox · 03-24-2010, 10:29 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by falcon26

Wait you can't have a season pass on the new tivo's???

You absolutely can.

hoyty · 03-24-2010, 10:33 PM

The new interface is slower in those videos than the TiVo Search is on my Series 3? I am not joking I see no lag in the pictures popping up at the top bar in the TiVo Search and nothing even close to what the Engadget videos showed. What gives how is it slower?

LoadStar · 03-24-2010, 10:38 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by falcon26

Wait you can't have a season pass on the new tivo's???

Not sure how you got that. If you're referring to the post above yours, you completely misread it. It just says that many areas of the UI, including the Season Pass section, have not been updated for the new TiVo interface design. The feature is still there, it just drops you back to the "TiVo Classic" interface.

I'm actually rather shocked that TiVo would allow the software to release in this state, with half (if even) of the software using the updated appearance and the other half using the classic appearance.

IMHO: They should have just "soft-launched" the Premiere. No fancy gala premiere at the Top of the Rock... just start to quietly sell the new boxes once the old HD's run out. Then, once you actually have a software that is complete, that is all running the same interface, and one that can actually use both cores without having "stability issues," THEN do a real launch as the software starts being distributed to existing owners.

Frankly, right now TiVo looks amateurish and silly, and the Premiere isn't a product I'd want to own in its current state.

LoadStar · 03-24-2010, 10:39 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by hoyty

What gives how is it slower?

Apparently there are "stability issues" with the two cores, so the software is only running on one of them right now. (As an analogy, think of a car running on only half of its cylinders.)

dbtom · 03-24-2010, 10:42 PM

I just canceled my order for the XL. I am so disappointed. I have had Tivo since 2000 and was really looking forward to a new UI. The lag in the videos is not acceptable to me.

samo · 03-24-2010, 10:42 PM

So it is slow and TiVo removed 30 sec skip hack. Does anybody know if hard drive hack will be working?

paulnelson20 · 03-24-2010, 10:46 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dbtom

I just canceled my order for the XL. I am so disappointed. I have had Tivo since 2000 and was really looking forward to a new UI. The lag in the videos is not acceptable to me.

I really don't understand a lot of people. The review (Engadget) said that it is currently only running on one of the two cores. I would at least wait until I saw what the speed was like running on both cores before I canceled my preorder. What happens if, and I mean if, they activate that second core and the majority of the lag goes away? Will you be rushing out to buy one, only to find out every place is out of stock and have to wait another month?

innocentfreak · 03-24-2010, 10:50 PM

Some people don't want to be the guinea pigs and I can fully understand that. If you aren't taking advantage of the upgrade offer and you don't need to upgrade right now, it makes some sense to hold off at least until we get some feedback from the tivocommunity users also.

dbtom · 03-24-2010, 10:53 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by paulnelson20

I really don't understand a lot of people. The review (Engadget) said that it is currently only running on one of the two cores. I would at least wait until I saw what the speed was like running on both cores before I canceled my preorder. What happens if, and I mean if, they activate that second core and the majority of the lag goes away? Will you be rushing out to buy one, only to find out every place is out of stock and have to wait another month?

The Premiere will probably ship in the next week or so. They are not going to activate the other core in that period. Maybe they will never activate it. Why take the chance? With these reviews I seriously doubt that every store will be out of stock.

My perspective is probably different since I already have 2 TivoHDs and only two HDTVs. So one of the TivoHDs was going to go to an old tube TV. There is nothing new to the Premiere except the UI. If that is not fully baked I will just wait.

paulnelson20 · 03-24-2010, 11:00 PM

I fully understand the argument of people not wanting to be "guinea pigs." But, in all the years I have been buying products, the word "pre-order" always turned the light bulbs on in my head and I knew that there may be issues and that I ultimately was going to be a guinea pig. Why even preorder if at the first sign of problems you are going to cancel, or why pre-order when you barely know anything about the product (not the buyers fault in this case, but TiVo's for not putting this kind of important info out there). Why not wait until you have the info to make an informed decision and not buy and then pray that everything will be hunky-dory.

nrc · 03-24-2010, 11:03 PM

Frankly the thing that surprises me is that TiVo would send it out in this state to reviewers and not realize that they would be pilloried for it.

bkdtv · 03-24-2010, 11:05 PM

I am running a few minutes late, but here's something to hold you over...

A shot of the current TiVo HD...

Now the TiVo Premiere, same tests run from the same tuned channels...

And here's a Youtube video showing side-by-side downloads from a TiVoHD and Premiere.

paulnelson20 · 03-24-2010, 11:07 PM

Holy hell, at least they got one thing right!

innocentfreak · 03-24-2010, 11:08 PM

I think it might be in part due to TiVo having a pretty good track record of not releasing things until they are finished. I doubt most people thought TiVo would release a half finished UI.

It is also probably due to the hype and the general excitement of TiVo finally releasing something new.

I know I go back and forth. Some days I am really excited about the new Premiere. Then there are those days where my finger hovers over the cancel button and they aren't even costing me money to upgrade.

innocentfreak · 03-24-2010, 11:09 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by bkdtv

And here's a Youtube video showing side-by-side downloads from a TiVoHD and Premiere.

Your video is marked private.

ckelly33 · 03-24-2010, 11:10 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by bkdtv

I am running a few minutes late, but here's something to hold you over...And here's a Youtube video showing side-by-side downloads from a TiVoHD and Premiere.

The video is marked as private....

SafariKC · 03-24-2010, 11:10 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by nrc

Frankly the thing that surprises me is that TiVo would send it out in this state to reviewers and not realize that they would be pilloried for it.

This is exactly why I canceled. I'm a very bleading edge kinda guy. But this just smells of TiVo rushing. If they cared to prove it was awesome and the next best thing they wouldn't have done the big event -- and blame all the slowness on the slow Internet at the time, and then turn around and hand out review models to back up thier story that are just slow.

Let's be real for a moment here, so far all TiVo has shown is that the took the old TiVo search beta and made it the home page in flash. Everything else behind it today it just the series3 experience.

The future is probably bright, and once they prove it a little bit better than this I'll probably revisit.

Kablemodem · 03-24-2010, 11:18 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by samo

TiVo removed 30 sec skip hack.

I skimmed through the review quickly, so I missed that. Where did it say that?

innocentfreak · 03-24-2010, 11:21 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by samo

So it is slow and TiVo removed 30 sec skip hack. Does anybody know if hard drive hack will be working?

They didn't remove the hack. It is still there and works. They just added a 30 second scan option.

from the FAQ

Quote:

# What is the new "30 second scan" feature?

On past TiVos, users had to enter a special remote sequence to enable the 30 second skip function.

The new "30 second scan" is enabled by default on the ADVANCE (-->|) button. This feature is very similar to the 30 second "slip" on DirecTV's HR24 DVR. It doesn't jump 30 seconds; instead, it fast forwards through a 30 second interval in one second (i.e. 30x speed). Pressing the ADVANCE multiple times in a row queues added time. If you hit the button four times in a row, the Premiere fast forwards through 120 seconds in four seconds. You can interrupt this at any time by pressing PLAY.

This new feature is essentially a more advertiser-friendly version of 30sec skip that allows viewers to see a little of the commercials they are skipping. For those that prefer the traditional 30 second skip, that behavior still available by entering a remote sequence.

paulnelson20 · 03-24-2010, 11:21 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kablemodem

I skimmed through the review quickly, so I missed that. Where did it say that?

In the Engadget review under "On demand, commercial skipping, and moving video around"

It says, "instead, there's a 30-second "scan" that moves forward in about a second by default. It's not as quick as the skip, but it's effective, and we're sure it's keeping advertisers happy, so we'll accept it as a fine compromise between the functionality users want and the demands of content providers."

jmpage2 · 03-24-2010, 11:31 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by paulnelson20

I really don't understand a lot of people. The review (Engadget) said that it is currently only running on one of the two cores. I would at least wait until I saw what the speed was like running on both cores before I canceled my preorder. What happens if, and I mean if, they activate that second core and the majority of the lag goes away? Will you be rushing out to buy one, only to find out every place is out of stock and have to wait another month?

What is there not to understand? This is the ONLY product that TiVo will be selling and they are launching it in a 1/2 baked state. Basically if you buy it today you are paying a price premium for a product that may or may not ever live up to its full potential.

Things are only compounded by the huge fanfare and fuss that TiVo made of this product launch.

Again, this is the only product that TiVo currently produces. Compare this to Apple's launch of the iPhone, which Apple put a lot of resources into but it was only one of an entire stable of products that they produce. The iPhone came out and floored everyone. When the product shipped it actually worked and the bug fixes were pretty minor. The entire user interface was "done".

With the state of this TiVo Premier launch TiVo should be paying us since we are basically going to be beta testing this thing. They should be paying us to use this box so that they don't lose us as customer to cable company DVRs or Moxi.

This would be funny if it wasn't so miserable.

jmpage2 · 03-24-2010, 11:33 PM

If we all cancel our pre-orders and don't buy this product in this state it will send a very stern message to TiVo (the message obviously being, get your *bleeping* **** together).

If they can't sell the box they will be forced to reduce the price or risk going out of business. Their entire future as a company literally hinges on the success of this platform.

bkdtv · 03-24-2010, 11:41 PM

Rather than make you wait for the last page or two...here's my incomplete review.

http://mysite.verizon.net/~fiosdvr/prem_review_01.pdf