2 things my vintage cable DVR wins over TIVO

teewow · 10-12-2010, 09:10 AM

Just got my Tivo Premiere box yesterday. This is my first Tivo. Waiting on Comcast guy to come by later today with the Cablecard.

Anyways ... Tivo has impressive features ... but two things that I am baffled about ... when comparing the Tivo to the old awful Scientific Atlanta box.

- Tivo has no display in the front. It would be convenient to show which channel its tuned to (or show a clock). I see myself hitting INFO often when surfing channels. Tivo could have done one better and sported a dot-matrix display showing the name of the show (similar to AV devices that display MP3 tags).

- Tivo does not power off ! This is plain stupid. If I am not watching anything, what's the point in buffering the stream. Its not like I am going to want to review that very channel when I return. On my SA box the hard drive spins down when box is powered off. It spins back up 120 seconds before a scheduled recording. In this era of green ... it makes logical sense.

Now the good stuff. I am using HD menus and everything is fairly quick. Tivo box did an mandatory update to 14.5 version when I first booted it up. No delays when changing menus. Now ... that could be because I currently have only analog and clear QAM digital channels ... perhaps once I install the cablecard things will get slow (can anyone verify this?).

Overall I am happy with the Tivo. What I do now is put both tuners on a dead channel and then put the system on standby. Not very convenient.

uf20wop · 10-12-2010, 09:25 AM

if you have a harmony remote they have a function called "power toggle" that will put the box in standby mode when you turn everything off.

this turns off the lcd on the front of the box and turns off the outputs

shows will still record though

ncted · 10-12-2010, 10:31 AM

Very few DVRs out there have an actual power saving mode like you describe. Was your SA box running SARA or Passport? I know SARA can do it, and Passport might be able to, but Tivos and satellite DVRs don't do this. That said, I agree, it is stupid to waste energy in this fashion. On the other hand, modern DVRs might do too much housekeeping when not recording to make this impossible. Perhaps a small SSD drive to store metadata and other, non-recording data and only keep recordings on the big traditional hard disks?

Ted

slowbiscuit · 10-12-2010, 11:33 AM

- who cares? Get a wall clock and most channels have annoying logos so you ALWAYS know what channel you're tuned to.

- your cable DVR doesn't power off either by itself either, so I don't see how this is different than standby other than the awkward nav to get to it and that the Tivo drive doesn't spin down. Does it really matter? The Premieres don't use a lot of power anyway.

ZeoTiVo · 10-12-2010, 11:34 AM

and yet other people like the live buffer and even want it expanded to an hour or 2 hours. So the green function would have to be a toggle - adding in more complexity and maintenance. The amount of energy saved by powering down the hard drive would not equal the savings of one bulb changed to flourescent or the unplugging of a few power chargers like cell phones. You may already do those things so for you it would be an additional savings but for many, there is mnuch they can do to go green.

and in another thread we have had a debate on features and I keep pointing out how it would not sell more TiVo subs and this feature falls squarely in the domain of it would not sell more TiVo DVRs and thus be a direct drain on TiVo bottom line nad pull resources from other features that could sell more TiVo DVRs.

so sure TiVo could be good to mother earth and spend the bucks to save some energy, but since TiVo is not making a profit they simply do not have the means for such largess.

as for the channel info - soon enough you will be watching recorded shows anyway and not be so worried about what channel you are on.

I would like a clock though, currently I have one cable box still hooked up mainly since it has an easy to see LCD that is kept accurate by cable company.

oosik77 · 10-12-2010, 11:35 AM

Why would you power off a device that needs to be able to record your seasons passes? If it's off it cannot record what you want it to.

I think if you are like most of us you will find you will watch very little live TV so no display on the front is really no big deal.

My 2 cents.....

smbaker · 10-12-2010, 11:45 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by teewow

Now ... that could be because I currently have only analog and clear QAM digital channels ... perhaps once I install the cablecard things will get slow (can anyone verify this?).

Just had my cablecards installed yesterday after putting up with analog-only over the weekend.... no difference whatsoever.

Either the HDUI issues have been exaggerated by some, or they've been fixed before you and I got our Tivos. So far the interface has been working fine (albeit embarrassingly incomplete). HDUI itself I have mixed feelings about... The discovery bar is rather useless except for displaying advertisements to me that I don't want to see anyway. If you take away that, then the HDUI doesn't present a whole lot more information than the SDUI did. The HD Pandora interface though is quite nice looking.

teewow · 10-12-2010, 12:06 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by oosik77

If it's off it cannot record what you want it to.
My 2 cents.....

No cents. Read my original post (turning off is different from pulling the power plug).

teewow · 10-12-2010, 12:07 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by smbaker

Just had my cablecards installed yesterday after putting up with analog-only over the weekend.... no difference whatsoever.

Good to know. I shall verify in a few hours //

NYHeel · 10-12-2010, 12:14 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by teewow

No cents. Read my original post (turning off is different from pulling the power plug).

It's probably worse for the hard drive to start and stop like that. Plus I'm always recording stuff anyway and I like having the buffer on when I turn on my TV. I have a season pass of sportscenter with keep at most 1, so my tivo is almost always recording something. But still, I really don't think that's a big deal at all. The power savings would likely be very small.

Agree with you about the clock thing though. It's just nice to have a clock on the face of the box. Don't care about the channel but I would love a clock.

teewow · 10-12-2010, 12:23 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by NYHeel

It's probably worse for the hard drive to start and stop like that. Plus I'm always recording stuff anyway and I like having the buffer on when I turn on my TV. I have a season pass of sportscenter with keep at most 1, so my tivo is almost always recording something.

Sure. I understand. If and when they offer this feature to stop buffering in standby mode. I will turn off the Tivo ... and you will choose not to. Both of us would be happy

jterwelp · 10-12-2010, 12:33 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by teewow

What I do now is put both tuners on a dead channel and then put the system on standby. Not very convenient.

Assuming you're performing these steps in an effort to save power, you needn't bother. I just took the following measurements with my Kill A Watt meter:
1. Switch both tuners to dead channels = 0 watt savings
2. Put Premiere into standby mode = 1 watt savings

AlexFL · 10-12-2010, 12:38 PM

IMHO:
-Clock Display? I find it useless. As someone mentioned before, get a wall-clock or something similar that can keep you posted on what time it is. One of my Tivo's is located in my home theater room which obviously needs to be as dark as possible to provide a better watching experience when watching movies. Having a clock blasting the time or something else would be completely annoying. In my opinion entertainment boxes are meant to be clean in design, Tivo Premiere boxes accomplish that.

-Power off Tivo? Really? First of all, the functionality of tuning the active buffers to dead channels is just plain odd. It would be like taking the tires off your car everytime you park it in order to get more mileage from them. I love the fact that the buffers are running all the time. When I get home I may turn the TV on and realize that I would've liked to watch the show playing at that moment from the beginning. With the buffer being active I can do exactly that. If your concern is power consumption, be aware that Tivo Premiere's consume very little energy in comparison to other DVR's. The fact is that these units were meant to stay on 24/7. Studies have also showed that constant powering on/off of hard drives leads to problems with these devices and in order to make your Tivo last as long as possible is best to keep it running all the time. In comparison, you wouldn't want to constantly turn on and off your computer throughout the day, would you?

teewow · 10-12-2010, 12:42 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jterwelp

Assuming you're performing these steps in an effort to save power, you needn't bother. I just took the following measurements with my Kill A Watt meter:
1. Switch both tuners to dead channels = 0 watt savings
2. Put Premiere into standby mode = 1 watt savings

That sounds odd ... a typical hard drive consumes about 8-10 watts (operating) and 3-5 watts (idle). see e.g.

http://www.seagate.com/docs/pdf/data...da_7200_12.pdf

aaronwt · 10-12-2010, 01:02 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by teewow

That sounds odd ... a typical hard drive consumes about 8-10 watts (operating) and 3-5 watts (idle). see e.g.

http://www.seagate.com/docs/pdf/data...da_7200_12.pdf

The TiVo is stil buffering even on a dead channel isn't it? It's just a blank screen so there are less resources used.

But still. Even with the SA STB, that thing draws around 35 to 40 watts constantly, whether you've hit the power button or not.
The Non DVR STB is just as bad. Drawing around the same amount of watts as the DVR SA box. At least this is the case on the SA boxes that Comcast uses in my area.

teewow · 10-12-2010, 01:06 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by AlexFL

It would be like taking the tires off your car everytime you park

Bad analogy. It would be like turnoff off the ignition everytime you park.

Quote:

Originally Posted by AlexFL

When I get home I may turn the TV on and realize that I would've liked to watch the show playing at that moment from the beginning. With the buffer being active I can do exactly that.

Hmm. Really? Since buffering only starts from the time you switched to the channel ... how is your TIVO able to buffer from the beginning of a show ?

Quote:

Originally Posted by AlexFL

In comparison, you wouldn't want to constantly turn on and off your computer throughout the day, would you?

I do that to my laptop all the time. The hard drives are subjected to on/off cycles several times a day. I suspect lot of laptop users have a similar schedule.

What I am saying is ... offer the option to turn off the buffering. You may decide to leave your laptop on all the time ... but the standby feature is there for those who prefer no to.

teewow · 10-12-2010, 01:17 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by aaronwt

The TiVo is stil buffering even on a dead channel isn't it?

No its not. Put it on a dead channel and you will see that the buffer pointer never moves (i.e. no green colored buffer segment)

Quote:

Originally Posted by aaronwt

But still. Even with the SA STB, that thing draws around 35 to 40 watts constantly

Where did you get that figure from ? Its more like 15-30 watts when recording (more horsepower for HD channels). Its 2 watts when in stand by mode (with hard drive spun down).

Stormspace · 10-12-2010, 01:37 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by teewow

No its not. Put it on a dead channel and you will see that the buffer pointer never moves (i.e. no green colored buffer segment)

Where did you get that figure from ? Its more like 15-30 watts when recording (more horsepower for HD channels). Its 2 watts when in stand by mode (with hard drive spun down).

It's still buffering, its just not keeping anything in the buffer. I'm like others, I think that once you have been using it a while channels and time won't mean as much as they did before. We have a clock in the den and the only thing I use it for is to check how late it is before going to bed or if we have to be somewhere else by a certain time. I haven't watched a clock for a TV show in years. (And it's an analog clock with no light to ruin the room)

aaronwt · 10-12-2010, 02:23 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by teewow

No its not. Put it on a dead channel and you will see that the buffer pointer never moves (i.e. no green colored buffer segment)

Where did you get that figure from ? Its more like 15-30 watts when recording (more horsepower for HD channels). Its 2 watts when in stand by mode (with hard drive spun down).

Not with the kill a watt meter on my brothers and parents boxes

teewow · 10-12-2010, 02:27 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by aaronwt

Not with the kill a watt meter on my brothers and parents boxes

You need to kill your kill-a-watt.

# As an ENERGY STAR compliant DVR, how many watts does the TiVo Premiere consume?

With early software, the TiVo Premiere dissipates 23 watts in standby and 26 watts while recording.

The System Information screen reports an internal temperature of 30-31C in room where the ambient temperature is 21-22C.

From url:
http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb...d.php?t=444083

aaronwt · 10-12-2010, 03:13 PM

I'm talking about the Comcast SA boxes.
All my premiers use 23 to 25watts.

Jets · 10-12-2010, 03:25 PM

The only thing I miss from the sa dvr is the indicator in the guide of shows you have set to record.
TiVo guide doesn't indicate that a program is already set to record.

ZeoTiVo · 10-12-2010, 03:38 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by NYHeel

It's probably worse for the hard drive to start and stop like that.

Nope - life of the hard drive has nothing to do with this. On average hard drives will last just as long in either scenario

smbaker · 10-12-2010, 03:45 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by aaronwt

All my premiers use 23 to 25watts.

Slightly OT, but does anyone have a handy comparison of Tivo energy consumption by model? I'm curious about how much more energy efficient the Premiere is than my previous THD units. I can tell the the THD is physically warmer than the Premiere.

As far as the topic at hand, I'm in favor of 1) Tivo having a standby mode, and 2) Standby mode turning off live buffering. It seems a very easy intuitive obvious feature. Even if it doesn't save much energy consumption, it'll satisfy those who are concerned about it. Why not just do it?

aaronwt · 10-12-2010, 03:58 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by smbaker

Slightly OT, but does anyone have a handy comparison of Tivo energy consumption by model? I'm curious about how much more energy efficient the Premiere is than my previous THD units. I can tell the the THD is physically warmer than the Premiere.

As far as the topic at hand, I'm in favor of 1) Tivo having a standby mode, and 2) Standby mode turning off live buffering. It seems a very easy intuitive obvious feature. Even if it doesn't save much energy consumption, it'll satisfy those who are concerned about it. Why not just do it?

The TiVoHD/S3 boxes I had were drawing around 35 watts.

As far as the drive spinning down, the TiVo also is updating content on a regular basis. isn't all this content stored on the hard drive? Guide data, season passess etc.

smbaker · 10-12-2010, 04:05 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by aaronwt

As far as the drive spinning down, the TiVo also is updating content on a regular basis. isn't all this content stored on the hard drive? Guide data, season passess etc.

Guide data should only need to be updated when the daily call is made (Flashback: memories of waking up 2am to hard drive noise from the S1 every morning). Anything else that it's doing like sitting around waiting for a season pass to start ought to be able to be cached.

It just seems like such a simple feature that there's no good reason not to implement it. Doing so will make everyone happy. Those who don't want it need not use it.

All one has to do is stop buffering. If the disk subsystem is properly designed and there is no data to be written, then spindown can happen automatically after a pre-determined period of inactivity.

aaronwt · 10-12-2010, 04:09 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by smbaker

Guide data should only need to be updated when the daily call is made (Flashback: memories of waking up 2am to hard drive noise from the S1 every morning). Anything else that it's doing like sitting around waiting for a season pass to start ought to be able to be cached.

It just seems like such a simple feature that there's no good reason not to implement it. Doing so will make everyone happy. Those who don't want it need not use it.

All one has to do is stop buffering. If the disk subsystem is properly designed and there is no data to be written, then spindown can happen automatically after a pre-determined period of inactivity.

Guide data should be updated regularly since changes can be made to the Tv schedule at any time. I don't know if it's 4 times an hour or once. But it does check at least the TiVo servers on a regular basis. For instance a recording scheduled from my cell phone will show up in the To Do list within an hour.

By the TiVo checking the guide data on a regular basis, it is less likely to miss recordings when things change. This is one reason why the number of missed recordings from my TiVos over almost an entire decade is only in the single digits.

there have been times when the Tv schedule has changed in the late morning and the tiVo had adjusted it's recording, to do list, according to the change for that evening.

drevilkep · 10-12-2010, 04:35 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by teewow

You need to kill your kill-a-watt.

# As an ENERGY STAR compliant DVR, how many watts does the TiVo Premiere consume?

With early software, the TiVo Premiere dissipates 23 watts in standby and 26 watts while recording.

The System Information screen reports an internal temperature of 30-31C in room where the ambient temperature is 21-22C.

From url:
http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb...d.php?t=444083

The Scientific Atlanta cable boxes consume almost the same amount of energy whether they are on or "off". I measured the difference with a Kill-a-watt and it barely registered 1 watt; the same as a TiVo in standby. I agree with you on the clock. You just get used to looking at the dvr for the time.

smbaker · 10-12-2010, 05:32 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by aaronwt

Guide data should be updated regularly since changes can be made to the Tv schedule at any time. I don't know if it's 4 times an hour or once. But it does check at least the TiVo servers on a regular basis. For instance a recording scheduled from my cell phone will show up in the To Do list within an hour.

My premiere claims it's last service connection was "Tuesday Oct 12th 5:40am" and next scheduled is "Wednesday Oct 13th 8:40am".

Even if it is checking more often, those checks can still be done from cached data. Data only needs to be written if and when it changes. Agaiin, the spin-down ought to be automatic if the disk subsystem is designed properly.

steve614 · 10-12-2010, 05:59 PM

That's for the daily connection.

If you look at the bottom of the system info screen, you'll see what is called VCM connection. That connection happens much more frequently. On my TivoHD, there is only a 1 hour 10 minute span between 'last connected' and 'next scheduled'.