Tivo's downward spiral

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Where do the "reinterpretations" of the specific meaning of this come from?

 

What reinterpretations are you talking about? I thought that Pony's statement was pretty straightforward. M-Card on the S3 is hard. Harder than we thought it would be. There's a not-insignificant chance that we can spend a lot of time and money on this and not be able to implement it.

That said, I wouldn't be surprised we never see M-card on the S3 - I'm cool with that, as the cost of 2 S-cards isn't that much, and I'd rather see Tivo spend their scarce time and effort on projects that are more likely to work and would benefit more subscribers than just the S3 userbase.

 

I understood that and I think Pony made that comment a while back. However if you haven't noticed (and I'm sure you have) There seems to be some forum members who don't appreciate having an employee who is permitted to share info in this forum. So no matter what Pony says it's either "not clear" or "secretive". It seems nothing ever makes these people happy.

I would love to see a forum somewhere on the web where either a Motorola or S.A. rep comes in and talks to people. And I'm not talking about a certain "beta tester" in another forum. It just doesn't happen. I wouldn't have found out about the desk top update without Pony's announcement.

Some areas are already offering only "M" cards. Are those people just SOL? It was my understanding for sometime now that M cards would work with the S3, if they don't then TiVo needs to fix this. You can't just market a product that some people paid 900.00 and a year and a half later say "gee, we didn't know it was going to be this tough."

On the other hand maybe the cable companies shouldn't carry just "M" cards alone. But if S cards are not being manufactured anymore, and I'm not saying the ther arn't, that could be a big problem.

 

"M" cards work with the S3. You just need two!

 

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You see that's where I get confused. I read here in the "FAQ" that two M cards work but then I read that they don't, at least that's how I interpreted Pony's comment. Maybe I misunderstood what he meant. If that case put me in the "not clear" crowd I mentioned. I still say however that I appreciate anytime Pony comes in and says something.

Clearly I understand that M cards cannot be used for two way communication on either the S3 or TiVo HD. I know that 2 S cards work on the TiVo HD because I have one and a S3.

So maybe I just don't understand what the heck everyone is expecting.

And I believe I have seen you post before that two M cards work. But I know someone who is having problems with 2 M cards in the S3.

Is there anyone out there that has 2 M cards in their S3 that can verify they work?

 

The TiVoHD works with either 1 M Card or 2 S cards for full functionality.
The S3 requires 2 M cards or 2 S cards for the same functionality.

 

Yes, I understand that is the way it is supose to work. I have a TiVo HD with two S cards in it. My S3 has two S cards in it. Greg_Burns said that the S3 will work with 2 M cards in it. FAQ says the S3 will work with 2 M cards in it. So why you just posted something everybody else has already said I don't understand.

I am not getting the discussion about the problem Pony is talking about with the M card and the S3. I asked someone who has a TiVo S3 with two M cards to respond. Either that or someone make it clear just what the heck the problem is.

 

QAM mapping
is apparently not in the interest of Evil Cable Companies.

Losing the increased profit per household of requiring a higher service tier is unacceptable to TiVo, Inc. business partners.. At one time TiVo was 'customer friendly', lately they have become 'partner friendly' at the expense of consumers...

 

No one but TiVo knows the problem. The symptom is that S3 owners can't get by with a single M-Card.

 

The problem is that TiVo is unable/unwilling to commit the resources to make the S3 work with ONE M card like the TiVoHD can.

Exactly why its so difficult would be impossible to say unless one were an engineer intimately familiar with the inner workings of the box but there must be enough difference that it is not a simple task. Likely that was noted and designed around in the later TiVoHD.

For the S3 user the problem is that he can't rent a single M card but must rent two (at twice the cost) from the cable company.

 

I'm not sure why you seem to think that's a problem - the "risk" part of Pony's post implies that if they were to dedicate those resources, there's still a large probability of failure and that whatever needs to be worked around can't by done via software alone.

That being the case, while I would prefer to have a single M-card in my S3, I'd much rather have 2 M-cards (or 2 S-cards) and whatever those development resources are diverted to by choosing not to further pursue M-card functionality.

ldudek, don't know if this is helpful for you, but when an M-card is inserted into a device that doesn't support M-cards (such as the S3), they "fall back" into S-card mode and act exactly like an S-card, which is why 2 M-cards will work in an S3 (presumeably this means that one M- and one S-card should also work ???). The problem is getting the S3 to tell the card that "hey, I'm M-card capable" and get the card to work properly as an M-card.

 

OK now I get it. Some people want the S3, which was never designed to work with a single card to work like the TiVo HD.

I have to go along with Go Hokies! on this. I don't see the complaint. You knew when you purchased the S3 it required two cards. Now you want TiVo to somehow make the S3 do what TiVo HD can do? How do you know if the hardware is even capable of doing something like that?

And to make me even less sympathetic my TiVo HD has 2 S cards in it. My cable company apparently didn't have M cards available, but I'm not upset about it. It's just the way it is and since the TiVo HD works fine with the two S cards I say if it ain't broke don't fix it. Besides I've got plenty of other things to be upset with my cable company to even consider the M card an issue.

Also Go Hokies! thanks for the explanation on how the M card works. I know it's capable of up to 6 streams but if the hardware only allows one then that's all it puts out.

 

It isn't a problem for me. I don't have an S3 (or TiVoHD). "Problem" was referred to in ldudek's post and I was trying to explain it to him.

 

Yes, but the problem that Pony was talking about and that ldudke was asking about is different from the problem of Tivo not dedicating resources to fix the technical problem that Pony was talking about. (geez, that's confusing)

 

It also isn't a problem for me, because Comcast here only charges me for 1 of my 2 S cards.

 

That's "Comcastic!"

Bad joke, I know

 

Yeah. Thats the problem.

 

I don't think it is that they don't appreciate having an employee sharing info: I think they're just frustrated that the truth he's delivering isn't what they want to hear (read).

And to some extent, I marvel as TiVo's willingness to allow this, especially in light of how these TiVo employees are treated online, sometimes. In a way, I wonder if TiVo is well-served by allowing this (even though I'm sure we are). I've worked with about three dozen consumer-facing technology products and services companies in my career (typically as a recurring consultant or auditor, so I've gotten a really good view of each), and this sort of thing would be an anathema to most.

AFAIK, the S3 works fine with two M-cards.

Actually, yes you can, and should if the technical challenges of providing upgrades proves so completely beyond the potential benefits. A company's only obligation is to address issues whereby the product doesn't do exactly what it used to do, in the terms that the company used to describe its function. So if the S3 was billed as requiring two S-cards, and suddenly S-cards were made illegal, that would not be TiVo's "fault", and TiVo should only undertake efforts to address the issue if they predict a positive return on their investment for doing so. In the case of the S2DT, it was billed as requiring analog cable service for dual-tuner capability. TiVo is not reasonably expected to make up for the fact that any specific subscribe can no longer get analog cable service. And so on...

 

Without seeing the design documents you don't know what it was designed to do. I suspect that it was designed to work with a single M-Card but implementation problems came up that prevented it from working. They went so far as defining labeling for the unit and instructions that if you were using a single M-Card to put it in the bottom.

 

To all the TiVo complainers out there, did you actually READ THE MANUAL before you set it up? If no, go back and try that.

I'm on my 2nd TiVo (HD model) and I never had ANY issues with the first (S2). I just wanted the HD capability now. I researched it here first, then ordered it. I got it in the mail, opened it up and read the manual while I waited for the cable guy to bring my Mcard out. Showed him how to properly install and set it up (once again, thanks to the forum here) and have been running error free since then.