No HD UI with Premiere ?

[noah82]

Resolution - 1080i (only box that is checked)
Video Aspect Ratio - 16:9 Widescreen, Smartscreen NOT enabled. Should I enable it?

[Unseen Llama]

Originally Posted by TiVoPony

You should have the UI. If you're not seeing it, drop me a private message with your TSN (don't post your TSN in the thread!).

Thanks,
Pony

I've sent you my TSN as well. Having the same issue of not seeing the new HD UI.

[gothaggis]

Originally Posted by greensky

gothaggis, is the UI any faster than what they showed in the Gizmodo/Engadget reveiws?

no - it's the same as in the reviews. it really doesn't make any sense why it is slow.....coming from a programming background (and have had experience with flash) - it looks like they refresh the menu text on every new menu load...just doesn't make very much sense to me.

of course, in my personal opinion, they should have used c++ instead of flash, much less overhead.

[TiVoPony]

Originally Posted by TiVoPony

Also, if you could let us know what you've set for your screen resolution, and whether you're using the 'smartscreen' setting under the video/tv aspect ratio menu that'll help.

Pony

Thanks, we have a couple of datapoints now and are investigating. I'll let you know if we need more information.

Pony

[vansmack]

Originally Posted by TiVoPony

Thanks, we have a couple of datapoints now and are investigating. I'll let you know if we need more information.

Pony

Thanks for looking into this. I forgot to include my screen reslution - 1080i.

[TiVoPony]

Problem found, resolution going in place. The conservative side of me says you should check back later tonight, but the optimistic side of me says you might be fine in about an hour.

It was a small number of units that hadn't been put into the appropriate grouping on the service to receive the new HDUI. Once this is corrected you should see choosing HDUI as an option after making a service connection (it may take two connections, depending on what else the box is doing). You'll know you're good to go if you see a 'Choose TiVo Menus' item under the Displays screen within Settings.

Thanks to everyone for forwarding your information so quickly!

Pony

[Unseen Llama]

Originally Posted by TiVoPony

Problem found, resolution going in place. The conservative side of me says you should check back later tonight, but the optimistic side of me says you might be fine in about an hour.

It was a small number of units that hadn't been put into the appropriate grouping on the service to receive the new HD UI. Once this is corrected you should see HDUI as an option after making a service connection (it may take two connections, depending on what else the box is doing). You'll know you're good to go if you see a 'Choose TiVo Menus' item under the Displays screen within Settings.

Thanks to everyone for forwarding your information so quickly!

Pony

Already fixed! Thank you!

[innocentfreak]

Glad to hear you guys got your HD UI.

[Unseen Llama]

Originally Posted by innocentfreak

Glad to hear you guys got your HD UI.

Thanks for everyones help here! I was banging my head against the wall trying to figure out what was wrong. Glad the problem was found so that future Premier owners won't run into it.

[tomm1079]

now thats service......gotta appreciate the help Pony puts in here.

[noah82]

My HD menu was just enabled too...thanks so much for your quick response!!!

[ilkevinli]

Thanks Pony ! Mine is now fixed also.

[vansmack]

Mine too a reoot, but it's working now - thanks Pony!

[jbdecker]

Mine's working too. Definitely not as slow as the reviews but I do see a lot of room for improvement.

The UI does look great but it feels like a skin. Once you dig deeper you continuously run into old menu's that make the screen flash each time they refresh.

[jbdecker]

Originally Posted by gothaggis

no - it's the same as in the reviews. it really doesn't make any sense why it is slow.....coming from a programming background (and have had experience with flash) - it looks like they refresh the menu text on every new menu load...just doesn't make very much sense to me.

of course, in my personal opinion, they should have used c++ instead of flash, much less overhead.

It is kinda funny since lately all the tech news for the last month has been about working around flash, and improving things with HTML5 since the iPad won't support it. When TiVo announced the whole UI was flash based I thought I was back in 1996.

[brasscat]

Originally Posted by jbdecker

It is kinda funny since lately all the tech news for the last month has been about working around flash, and improving things with HTML5 since the iPad won't support it. When TiVo announced the whole UI was flash based I thought I was back in 1996.

I think the consensus is Flash has become too widespread as a proprietary multimedia delivery method inside web browsers, and since the code is black-box maintained by Adobe the community can't improve on it, or bug fix it when issues arrive. Apple states the Flash engine for Mac is buggy and the primary cause for browser crashes -- and that Adobe is slow to correct the problem... which is the main reason for the Jobs push-away from Flash to the new HTML5 option.

Flash on the TiVo box is running native, not as a embedded browser module, and is inherently more stable. In TiVo's case, where they are building essentially a multimedia viewer, it makes sense over supporting a codebase of propriety C objects (which they admit was difficult to support over time).

We'll see how they do with incremental updates in the months to come. Updates to the previous TiVo models were rare. It would be great if this new TiVo was faster with updates, especially in finishing out the UI, adding performance improvements, and enabling that second core.

[gweempose]

Originally Posted by brasscat

It would be great if this new TiVo was faster with updates, especially in finishing out the UI, adding performance improvements, and enabling that second core.

Am I the only one that thinks it is unlikely they will ever enable the second core? Granted, I am not privy to any technical knowledge relating to the matter, but my gut just tells me that it will never happen.

[orangeboy]

Originally Posted by gweempose

Am I the only one that thinks it is unlikely they will ever enable the second core? Granted, I am not privy to any technical knowledge relating to the matter, but my gut just tells me that it will never happen.

Has it been confirmed by TiVo that the second core is not being used? I would think it unlikely that they'd knowingly not write the software to take advantage of it. If so, why choose that processor? To start from scratch (re)writing software to take advantage of it at some later time?

[rainwater]

Originally Posted by gweempose

Am I the only one that thinks it is unlikely they will ever enable the second core?

Unfortunately, that article discussing the use of the CPU cores sounds way off base. It is almost impossible to think that both cores aren't being used at the operating system level. I think the article may be referring to the use of the UI layer to take advantage of both cores more effectively. Right now they are most likely relying on the OS to make all those decisions.

[Dark Helmet]

Originally Posted by gweempose

Am I the only one that thinks it is unlikely they will ever enable the second core? Granted, I am not privy to any technical knowledge relating to the matter, but my gut just tells me that it will never happen.

I am confident that both cores will be used eventually (I think rainwater has it right; it sounds like the UI isn't multithreaded, probably the OS can make use of both cores, but that's just a guess).

I remember back when the S3 came out, and there were lots of people who were sure we would never see TiVoToGo and MRV working, the eSATA port enabled ... and while it took a while, now we all take those things for granted. I'm sure most everyone has forgotten all of the moaning and wailing back from when the S3 first came out!

[ilh]

I'll bet both cores are being used by the kernel (OS), and that it is simply that threading in the UI application is not yet enabled. I wonder if this contributes to the very good transfer speeds since one core is generally idle and able to handle transfers.

[gweempose]

Originally Posted by ilh

I wonder if this contributes to the very good transfer speeds since one core is generally idle and able to handle transfers?

So you are suggesting that if they get the UI to utilize both cores, it could negatively impact transfer speeds? That would suck.

[ilh]

Not necessarily. Hopefully the CPU isn't too intimately involved in the ethernet traffic. Is the CPU involved in any encryption/decryption on such transfers? I can't remember where that happens on a TiVo and on which end of a transfer.

[brasscat]

Originally Posted by rainwater

Unfortunately, that article discussing the use of the CPU cores sounds way off base. It is almost impossible to think that both cores aren't being used at the operating system level. I think the article may be referring to the use of the UI layer to take advantage of both cores more effectively. Right now they are most likely relying on the OS to make all those decisions.

I agree the second core is probably being used at the os/hardware level.

I learned about the "inactive" second core from an interview with the TiVo guys at the announcement - -where some TiVo PR guy mentioned that the "second core is currently turned off due to stability issues" and that it would eventually be turned on with later updates.

To me this implies they expect a performance increase once they tune the software to parallel process against that second core.

[sghrush]

Originally Posted by TiVoPony

Problem found, resolution going in place. The conservative side of me says you should check back later tonight, but the optimistic side of me says you might be fine in about an hour.

It was a small number of units that hadn't been put into the appropriate grouping on the service to receive the new HDUI. Once this is corrected you should see choosing HDUI as an option after making a service connection (it may take two connections, depending on what else the box is doing). You'll know you're good to go if you see a 'Choose TiVo Menus' item under the Displays screen within Settings.

Thanks to everyone for forwarding your information so quickly!

Pony

I completed the service update for my Tivo Premiere but it states HD UI is turned off. Hopefully TivoPony's magical powers can fix it.

[RoyK]

Originally Posted by brasscat

I agree the second core is probably being used at the os/hardware level.

I learned about the "inactive" second core from an interview with the TiVo guys at the announcement - -where some TiVo PR guy mentioned that the "second core is currently turned off due to stability issues" and that it would eventually be turned on with later updates.

....

Yup. Just like the capability to do 2 tuners on one M-Card on the S3 was to eventually be turned on with later updates. Oh, ... wait a minute...

[TiVoPony]

Originally Posted by RoyK

Yup. Just like the capability to do 2 tuners on one M-Card on the S3 was to eventually be turned on with later updates. Oh, ... wait a minute...

Actually Roy, that was never promised, and I posted that while technically feasible, it was not likely to happen - it involved big changes that could destabilize things.

If you're going to ding us, ding us for things we actually promised.

Pony

[TiVoPony]

Originally Posted by orangeboy

Has it been confirmed by TiVo that the second core is not being used? I would think it unlikely that they'd knowingly not write the software to take advantage of it. If so, why choose that processor? To start from scratch (re)writing software to take advantage of it at some later time?

Yes, the second core is not currently enabled. The software can take advantage of it, but it's not ready to release yet. Still, due to the architecture of that chip you don't get double the performance by enabling the second core, there are too many shared resources on the chip between the two cores. You do see a boost however.

Cheers,
Pony

[orangeboy]

Originally Posted by TiVoPony

Yes, the second core is not currently enabled. The software can take advantage of it, but it's not ready to release yet. Still, due to the architecture of that chip you don't get double the performance by enabling the second core, there are too many shared resources on the chip between the two cores. You do see a boost however.

Cheers,
Pony

Thanks Pony for clearing that up for me! I just didn't make sense to me to have the software written to not take advantage of the dual core, and then spend the time and resources to write software that would. I'm glad to hear that it was "done right" the first time, and now it's just a matter of tweaking it to TiVo's (and hopefully the user's) satisfaction.

[lessd]

Originally Posted by TiVoPony

Actually Roy, that was never promised, and I posted that while technically feasible, it was not likely to happen - it involved big changes that could destabilize things.

If you're going to ding us, ding us for things we actually promised.

Pony

So from you explanation it would fair for us to assume that at this point the use of a single M cable card in the Series 3 648 will never happen, I don't have a problem with that because, as you pointed out it, was never promised, just hinted at. I do love the Series 3(s) for many reasons and fixing them so i could use one M card would save me only $1.50/month for each Series 3.