This is a rant, plain and simple. I'm annoyed and I want to complain about it. If that's not your thing, kindly move along.
I've been a TiVo user since at least series 2. I remember getting my first one back in the very early 2000s and I adored it. I've had at least three more since then. Then I got this Bolt. I immediately hated the menus compared to the old ones, and I still do two years later. It's harder to get to what I want than it ever was in the past - nothing's easy. There also isn't as much helpful stuff as there used to be - like clips of new fall programming with the option to create a season pass for the ones you liked. That was awesome the couple of years they did it.
But the worst was when my original Bolt died on me last month. I lost tons of shows that my family had recorded and saved, some of which aren't currently streaming anywhere. TiVo customer service advised me that my Bolt only came with a 90-day warranty. What?? When I expressed my extreme frustration with that policy, they agreed to swap my broken one for a refurbished one, which I appreciated. However, the refurb has introduced a host of new issues, none of which is a show-stopper on its own, but together they have managed to make me do what no other issue ever has in over 15 years - they've made me hate my TiVo. For example, I can no longer thumbs-down TiVo suggestions. If there's a way to do it, it's so buried as to be worthless, because I've tried everything remotely obvious. So it just goes ahead and records a ton of stuff I'll never watch. Whatever.
Another niggling problem is that the TiVo Amazon Streaming app is inconsistent about remembering my position in shows I'm watching. On one show, it will remember where I left off and let me pick up from there, consistently, every single time, regardless of what I may have done since the last time I watched it. But on other shows, it makes me start the episode over from the beginning every time without fail. I have an Amazon Fire Stick, which I rarely use because I have access to the same apps on my TiVo, but it doesn't seem to have this problem. Having to write down that I'm 18 minutes and 33 seconds into a show and fast-forward to it the next time seems positively barbaric. Even VHS let me pick up where I left off.
Worse, though, is that the TiVo now goes to "sleep" on me when I'm not using it. Waking it up isn't hard, but it doesn't retain the last half-hour of programming on the "live" channel that it's tuned to. Actually, I think it does - the green bar is there for a moment. It just immediately deletes it and leaves me "caught up" on the current show. This is aggravating to say the least.
But the thing that's annoying me the most is that it cannot seem to find the list of "all" streaming services or remember which ones I've marked as "favorites". This actually just started recently - a few weeks after installing the refurb unit. It will take a while to "load" the list, then either land me on a black/blank screen or it will tell me I don't have any favorites marked. Sometimes if I move back-and-forth between "All" and "Favorites" and "Video" enough I can find what I'm looking for (usually Netflix or Amazon streaming), sometimes rebooting the TiVo helps, but sometimes it doesn't. It's another minor irritant that combines to leave me pretty annoyed.
So there's my rant. I hate this damn thing. I'm seriously considering ditching cable and my TiVo and switching to a Roku. I seriously never thought I wouldn't love my TiVo - all the years of following the development of new features. All those surveys I used to happily take. All the many, many thousands of hours of TV and movies I've watched on them. The excitement at each new model I bought. I was happy. But nothing lasts forever, I suppose. Jeers, TiVo - you had it and you blew it.
I've been a TiVo user since at least series 2. I remember getting my first one back in the very early 2000s and I adored it. I've had at least three more since then. Then I got this Bolt. I immediately hated the menus compared to the old ones, and I still do two years later. It's harder to get to what I want than it ever was in the past - nothing's easy. There also isn't as much helpful stuff as there used to be - like clips of new fall programming with the option to create a season pass for the ones you liked. That was awesome the couple of years they did it.
But the worst was when my original Bolt died on me last month. I lost tons of shows that my family had recorded and saved, some of which aren't currently streaming anywhere. TiVo customer service advised me that my Bolt only came with a 90-day warranty. What?? When I expressed my extreme frustration with that policy, they agreed to swap my broken one for a refurbished one, which I appreciated. However, the refurb has introduced a host of new issues, none of which is a show-stopper on its own, but together they have managed to make me do what no other issue ever has in over 15 years - they've made me hate my TiVo. For example, I can no longer thumbs-down TiVo suggestions. If there's a way to do it, it's so buried as to be worthless, because I've tried everything remotely obvious. So it just goes ahead and records a ton of stuff I'll never watch. Whatever.
Another niggling problem is that the TiVo Amazon Streaming app is inconsistent about remembering my position in shows I'm watching. On one show, it will remember where I left off and let me pick up from there, consistently, every single time, regardless of what I may have done since the last time I watched it. But on other shows, it makes me start the episode over from the beginning every time without fail. I have an Amazon Fire Stick, which I rarely use because I have access to the same apps on my TiVo, but it doesn't seem to have this problem. Having to write down that I'm 18 minutes and 33 seconds into a show and fast-forward to it the next time seems positively barbaric. Even VHS let me pick up where I left off.
Worse, though, is that the TiVo now goes to "sleep" on me when I'm not using it. Waking it up isn't hard, but it doesn't retain the last half-hour of programming on the "live" channel that it's tuned to. Actually, I think it does - the green bar is there for a moment. It just immediately deletes it and leaves me "caught up" on the current show. This is aggravating to say the least.
But the thing that's annoying me the most is that it cannot seem to find the list of "all" streaming services or remember which ones I've marked as "favorites". This actually just started recently - a few weeks after installing the refurb unit. It will take a while to "load" the list, then either land me on a black/blank screen or it will tell me I don't have any favorites marked. Sometimes if I move back-and-forth between "All" and "Favorites" and "Video" enough I can find what I'm looking for (usually Netflix or Amazon streaming), sometimes rebooting the TiVo helps, but sometimes it doesn't. It's another minor irritant that combines to leave me pretty annoyed.
So there's my rant. I hate this damn thing. I'm seriously considering ditching cable and my TiVo and switching to a Roku. I seriously never thought I wouldn't love my TiVo - all the years of following the development of new features. All those surveys I used to happily take. All the many, many thousands of hours of TV and movies I've watched on them. The excitement at each new model I bought. I was happy. But nothing lasts forever, I suppose. Jeers, TiVo - you had it and you blew it.