Factory-renewed 40-hour Series2 are 39 Hours

lessd · 03-21-2006, 02:14 PM

I just got in 3 of the TiVo Factory-renewed 40-hour Series2, set them up and the record time was 39 hours!! What up with that. The units came with 7.0 software with a mfg date of Feb 6 2006. They looked new, not like a re-pack jobs.

The units were all updated to 7.2.2 by TiVo software but still had 39 hours of record time. I have an older 40 unit that was also updated to V7.2.2 by TiVo so I will list the record times each TiVo gives

Older TiVo:___________ Best 11:51 good 18:44 Medium 24:23 Basic 40:35
Factory-renewed 40-h_ Best 11:25 Good 18:02 Medium 23:37 Basic 39:02

I know this is not much of a problem but the TiVo are advertised as 40 hour units

Has anybody else seen this ?

Les

xnevergiveinx · 03-21-2006, 02:24 PM

who cares...1 hour at basic quality, big whoop

i bought a refurb recently, lifetimed it...then dropped in a 300 gig hard drive.
i couldn't deal with only being limited to 40 hours of basic

OldTownTreadles · 03-21-2006, 03:21 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by lessd

I just got in 3 of the TiVo Factory-renewed 40-hour Series2, set them up and the record time was 39 hours!!
I know this is not much of a problem but the TiVo are advertised as 40 hour units

Has anybody else seen this ?

Les

Haven't noticed it on a Tivo, but I have noticed that some hard drives that I bought (like an 80 gig for an older computer I had) showed as having 79 gig capacity. Maybe it's a difference between actual capacity and formatted capacity?

lessd · 03-21-2006, 03:38 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by xnevergiveinx

who cares...1 hour at basic quality, big whoop

i bought a refurb recently, lifetimed it...then dropped in a 300 gig hard drive.
i couldn't deal with only being limited to 40 hours of basic

This is for some friends who are not going to upgrade and will see under system Information recording time of 39 hours, it just they thought they bought a 40 hour TiVo. (it doesn't matter what they can record, it what they see that I will have to explain). I don't know what TiVo did to caused this.

Les

dstoffa · 03-21-2006, 03:38 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by OldTownTreadles

Haven't noticed it on a Tivo, but I have noticed that some hard drives that I bought (like an 80 gig for an older computer I had) showed as having 79 gig capacity. Maybe it's a difference between actual capacity and formatted capacity?

Useable versus total.

1024 byte Kbtyes versus 1000 byte kbytes.

Rounding.

Different vedors.

Plenty of ways to see the discrepancy.

mrjam2jab · 03-21-2006, 05:06 PM

1 gig to the Tivo software....this is probably the easiest explanation to give them...

lajohn27 · 03-21-2006, 07:20 PM

Tell them they bought a 39 hour TIVO.

Actually, I noticed my Humax actually has an 89 hour capacity. Clearly I stole on of your hours... and eight of someone else's.

J

ThreeSoFar · 03-21-2006, 07:23 PM

I just got one of those with the lifetime going away. My last TiVo lifetime ever (*sniff*).

Never noticed the original drive times. Never even booted the 40 hour drive. Swapped it for a 250G Samsung from newegg.com the same day I got it.

TiVoJerry · 03-22-2006, 01:50 PM

To answer xnevergiveinx, we care. We appreciate the followup suggestions, but when we say "40", that is the absolute minimum that we require for the basic recording quality.

lessd, please send me a PM with the 15-digit TSNs of these units, along with contact information for you, and we will investigate this discrepancy further.

Thank you for bringing this to our attention.

Sirshagg · 03-22-2006, 02:01 PM

I bought two brand new 40 hour units and both reports as having 39 hours.

Personally, for 1 hour at the lowest quality I don't care. But it still isn't right. If the box states 40 hours, it should be 40 hours.

I'm just waiting to find a good deal on a big HD to throw in them.

TiVoJerry · 03-22-2006, 02:18 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sirshagg

I bought two brand new 40 hour units and both reports as having 39 hours.

Personally, for 1 hour at the lowest quality I don't care. But it still isn't right. If the box states 40 hours, it should be 40 hours.

I'm just waiting to find a good deal on a big HD to throw in them.

We agree that it isn't right. Please send me a PM with the 15-digit TSNs and we'll look at it.

c3 · 03-22-2006, 02:26 PM

TiVoJerry, I don't think there is anything special about these particular units. Apparently, they're all like that, refurbished or brand new. Potential sources:

1. Hard drive is slightly smaller, although I think the probability is very small.
2. Factory 7.2.0 version partitions the drive differently, yielding slightly less user space. This is a very likely cause.

Sirshagg · 03-22-2006, 02:52 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by c3

TiVoJerry, I don't think there is anything special about these particular units. Apparently, they're all like that, refurbished or brand new. Potential sources:

1. Hard drive is slightly smaller, although I think the probability is very small.
2. Factory 7.2.0 version partitions the drive differently, yielding slightly less user space. This is a very likely cause.

What he said.

dtreese · 03-22-2006, 03:05 PM

See, a lot of companies out there would think this is a complaint not worthy of addressing, or they would jargon up some technobabble at you that would leave you thinking you owed them more money. TiVo, though, is willing to fix something that really shouldn't need fixing (esp. if you're just going to plop a new drive in, anyway). TiVo rox.

jlb · 03-22-2006, 03:26 PM

Or maybe there are bad sectors on the drive, which have been "locked/protected/etc" by the system, thus only "39 hours" of available record time.

The whole discrepancy is even worse when you start talking iPods. My 30Gb iPod Photo only has a little over 27Gb of available space after the system files and "byte rounding" is taken into account.

It's great that TiVoJerry is willing to help the OP out, but 1 hour......really.........I just don't see that as a concern. And how many of the average Joes who buy a "40 hour TiVO" are really going to know what screen to look at to find out what their "actual" recording time is.

Sirshagg · 03-22-2006, 04:12 PM

TivoJerry is doing the right thing. Someone at Tivo should look into it. Unlike Apple and ipod they are not selling a 40gb Tivo they are selling a 40hour Tivo. It should be capable of recording 40 hours not 39.

As I have already stated - I don't care about the hour. However, if nobody says something how are they supposed to know about it.

That's all

Blurayfan · 03-22-2006, 04:32 PM

I've seen this before in my DirecTiVos. It came down to the hard drive was a slightly smaller Western Digital drive. All Maxtor drives used in most of the DVRs I owned were about 1 to 3GB bigger than the Western Digital DVRs. I'm very pleased with the way TiVoJerry is offering to help the OP most CE suppliers would not care.

bmgoodman · 03-22-2006, 05:05 PM

My Dockers-free Tivo (540) was supposed to be a 40-hour also, but it showed up as 39 hours as well. Doesn't matter now as it is magically much bigger.

But I do think somebody could well complain about being sold a 39 hour vs. 40 hour model.

ZeoTiVo · 03-22-2006, 05:18 PM

I have never seen TiVos give consistent number of hours reports. EG I have seen and read of the same type 540 with the same OS give differetn hours. I have seen TiVos report more hours after an OS upgrade was installed. Most likely why an FSI is a hard problem as well.

Sirshagg · 03-22-2006, 05:18 PM

Ok, when did this Dockers free Tivo thing happen? I could really start liking Dockers.

dtreese · 03-22-2006, 06:44 PM

It was a while back. I think the offer ended in October last year.

uTivo · 03-22-2006, 09:36 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dstoffa

Useable versus total.

1024 byte Kbtyes versus 1000 byte kbytes.

Rounding.

Different vedors.

Plenty of ways to see the discrepancy.

Every hard drive / mass storage manufacturer has a footnote next to the size of the drive explaining that 1 GB is 10^9 (one billion, for the non sci types) bytes & something to the effect that "formatted capacity will be lower". So, they should call it a "marketing GB." When formatted by the file system, a GB is 1024^3 bytes since RAM is in sizes that are powers of 2. You don't lose any space (other than overhead needed by the file system), it's just how it's reported by the OS/file system.

Why do they have this disclaimer? Well, something called a class action lawsuit sort of obligated them to include it.

Tivo sells their DVRs based on maximum recording time at Basic Quality. To my knowledge, an 1 hour is still 60 minutes (unless you are NIST)

. Selling a DVR as 40hrs but actually having 39hrs would be a class action lawyer's dream. Kudos to Tivo for taking corrective action on what appears to be a few isolated units. The last think I want is my sub fees going to some fat class action lawyer, because all the consumer would get would be a free month of service.

c3 · 03-23-2006, 03:08 AM

Just pulled the factory 7.2 drive and compared it with the factory 5.3 drive. Hard drive and partitions are exactly the same.

jlb · 03-23-2006, 08:04 AM

Don't forget, they also market them as "up to 40 hours"..........But yes, TiVoJerry is doing the right thing.

mgarthe · 03-23-2006, 08:22 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jlb

And how many of the average Joes who buy a "40 hour TiVO" are really going to know what screen to look at to find out what their "actual" recording time is.

Well, I consider myself an average Joe in this instance. This is my first TiVo that I have had for about 2 weeks. After setting it up I immediately saw it was 39 hours. I didn't plan to say anything since I am new to this forum and didn't want to come in complaining about 1 hour on my first couple posts. But...since another poster has mentioned it...

I am still not complaining, just wanted to add I have the same situation here. 40 hr series 2 refurbished.

Michelle

Sirshagg · 03-23-2006, 09:01 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mgarthe

Well, I consider myself an average Joe in this instance. This is my first TiVo that I have had for about 2 weeks. After setting it up I immediately saw it was 39 hours. I didn't plan to say anything since I am new to this forum and didn't want to come in complaining about 1 hour on my first couple posts. But...since another poster has mentioned it...

I am still not complaining, just wanted to add I have the same situation here. 40 hr series 2 refurbished.

Michelle

Average JOE?

lessd · 03-23-2006, 09:41 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by bmgoodman

My Dockers-free Tivo (540) was supposed to be a 40-hour also, but it showed up as 39 hours as well. Doesn't matter now as it is magically much bigger.

But I do think somebody could well complain about being sold a 39 hour vs. 40 hour model.

First of all I am not complaining like I am mad but just because most people (including me ) would upgrade the units does not mean that TiVo should sell 40 hour units that reads 39 hours. I have done a little work investigating the problem and its not the hard drive size that they using, its their new software load. On a older 40 TiVo the mfstool backup size with 7.2.2 software is 1406 KB, with the new software load updated to 7.2.2 the mfstool backup size is 1804 KB. The partitions on both disks are exactly the same size and use the same names. (using pdisk -L /dev/hdx) but the older one gives 40:35 h the newer one gives 39:02 h. of record time when used in a TiVo.
My conclusion is the problem is not hardware (disk size) or the 1024 problem but the new software load that is being used. If they want to fix it great if not I will not stop recomending TiVo because of this.

So you people should stop saying it does not matter because in the retail world it does. (Would you feel good if you found out that the 40 gallons of gas you just got for your car (and paid for) was only 39 gallons. The fact that I would eat the few bucks and go on with my life still does not make it right.

lajohn27 · 03-23-2006, 10:04 AM

Ok.. so it's tied to the most recent software update.. so what do you want - the ability to recover deleted shows.. or the extra hour of disk space?

J

lessd · 03-23-2006, 10:10 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by lajohn27

Ok.. so it's tied to the most recent software update.. so what do you want - the ability to recover deleted shows.. or the extra hour of disk space?

J

That not the problem as I have two 40g drives both with 7.2.2 software on them, both have the delete box and one gives 40:35h the other gives 39:03h on the same TiVo unit!! (oh both drives are the same size down to the last bite)

This is a TiVo software load problem on new units its not from extra features in the software.

Les

pdhenry · 03-23-2006, 10:10 AM

My 80-hour TiVo says (last time I checked) "up to 81 hours."

Maybe I got one of your hours?