Switching things up.. so long, Tivo

1822 Views 12 Replies 7 Participants Last post by KungFuCow, Oct 10, 2011

KungFuCow

Discussion Starter · Oct 7, 2011

This isnt really a Tivo rant. If anything its more of a picture of the dismal condition Tivo has been left in thanks to cable companys.

Its no secret Im fed up with Tivo. Half baked solutions that sort of worked sometimes and the only updates being more revenue generating apps installed without fixing any of the others and lets not even start talking about the HDUI. But.. Ive dealt with it just because I loved my Tivo.

Alas.. Ive had enough and its not entirely Tivos fault. I moved in with my now wife back in Feb. When I lived alone, my Tivo and Moxi were rock solid on TWC, even with the cable cards and tuning adapters. I had everything running on a small UPS and the setup just worked.

Fast forward to Feb and its been nothing but a nightmare. Tuning adapter after tuning adapter being replaced, cable cards being replaced, tech call after tech call and finally after staring at "Just a few minutes more" for two hours the other night after trying to reboot the Tivo to fix a "You are not authorized for this channel" message, I decided that was it, TWC (And Tivo by association) is history.

Got up with a friend from high school that now manages a large Dish reseller and got her to hook me up with Dish. I signed up with her at noon yesterday and at 4 oclock ON THE DOT (They were scheduled for 4), the installers showed up and went to work.

Will I like it more than Tivo? Probably not. But like I told the guy from Time Warner yesterday when I was begging him to bring me out a whole house DVR and install it so I could at least have SOME TV until we could figure out why the Tivo stuff wouldn't work, "Whether or not there is going to be a picture on my TV when I turn it on should not be a stress issue for me. It should just work." Sadly, it rarely did. Ive rebooted that damn Tivo more times than I can count and the Moxi hasnt worked for months. Oh.. our digital phone has also been on the fritz for about 3 months as well.

I can see why Tivo is suffering. If your stuff works, its easy to look at people having issues and go "Wow, I just dont see how these people cant get this stuff to work" but after what I went through, makes perfect sense now.

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smbaker

· #2 · Oct 7, 2011

KungFuCow said:
I can see why Tivo is suffering. If your stuff works, its easy to look at people having issues and go "Wow, I just dont see how these people cant get this stuff to work" but after what I went through, makes perfect sense now.

The cablecard mess may be out of Tivo's control, but they could be using this time to make their DVR the best DVR that it can be. Unfortunately, they aren't. We've had almost 2 years with no progress on the HDUI, no progress on the second core. Amazon prime support still isn't there. There are some SDUI features that aren't available in HDUI yet. The platform remains somewhat unstable with low quality internet. Neither of my Premieres can reliably boot if the bluetooth remote dongle is installed. Streaming was there for a couple weeks and then disappeared. My iPad remote can't reliably detect that my Premieres are Premieres.

If Tivo could spare some developer cycles to fix the above, then maybe people would be willing to put a bit of extra effort into dealing with cable headaches if the DVR was truly superior.

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KungFuCow

Discussion Starter · #3 · Oct 7, 2011

smbaker said:
The cablecard mess may be out of Tivo's control, but they could be using this time to make their DVR the best DVR that it can be. Unfortunately, they aren't. We've had almost 2 years with no progress on the HDUI, no progress on the second core. Amazon prime support still isn't there. There are some SDUI features that aren't available in HDUI yet. The platform remains somewhat unstable with low quality internet. Neither of my Premieres can reliably boot if the bluetooth remote dongle is installed. Streaming was there for a couple weeks and then disappeared. My iPad remote can't reliably detect that my Premieres are Premieres.

If Tivo could spare some developer cycles to fix the above, then maybe people would be willing to put a bit of extra effort into dealing with cable headaches if the DVR was truly superior.

Well........

What I went through was above and beyond what ANYONE should have to go through to watch TV. When I tell you I had multiple visits about this, Im talking double digits. Ive had technicians at the house cutting drops, replacing drops, putting in splitters, taking them out, adding house amps, taking house amps off and the whole time, every tech that shows up bad mouths the one that was there before them.

Ive had tech ops supervisors at the house working on this stuff, Ive had people at the executive level involved. Tivo has been involved as well.

Ive spent the last 6 months trying to resolve this issue and I finally have just had enough. TWC doesnt follow through on anything they say they are going to do even down to a return phone call. They are the worst company on the planet to deal with and its no wonder their customer service ratings are in the toilet.

I really dont know that at this point much of anything on Tivo's part would have made much of a difference unless there is something specifically in the software that would have had a positive impact on my issue. Doesnt matter how awesome the DVR is if it never works.

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mr.unnatural

· #4 · Oct 8, 2011

That really sucks. It sounds like your issues are mainly TWC's fault, but I understand where you're coming from. It doesn't matter if the DVR is any good or not if it doesn't have an input signal it can work with. I had Dish for a short time about a decade ago and their DVRs at the time were still a bit funky. The good news is that their current DVRs are supposed to be quite good.

Makes you long for the good old days when all we had were a few local channels and a set of rabbit ears with tin foil wrapped around them.

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davezatz

· #5 · Oct 8, 2011

KungFuCow said:
Tuning adapter after tuning adapter being replaced, cable cards being replaced, tech call after tech call and finally after staring at "Just a few minutes more" for two hours the other night after trying to reboot the Tivo to fix a "You are not authorized for this channel" message, I decided that was it, TWC (And Tivo by association) is history.

Yeah, I had a similar experience with Cox Communications. And to add to your list of complaints, my regularly blown recordings due to tuning adapter failures led to an increase in Amazon VOD costs to compensate. Fortunately, I moved to FiOS territory and it's been smooth sailing since. However, I did go from two subbed TiVos to just one when we moved. The FiOS DVR experience is solid, with added benefits of channel search and OnDemand. Their mobile experience is better functionally too even if it's uglier.

Ive had tech ops supervisors at the house working on this stuff, Ive had people at the executive level involved. Tivo has been involved as well.

Again, me too. I should have filed a FCC complaint at the time. Ah well.

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dlfl

· #6 · Oct 8, 2011

davezatz said:
.......... Fortunately, I moved to FiOS territory and it's been smooth sailing since. However, I did go from two subbed TiVos to just one when we moved. The FiOS DVR experience is solid ......

I think it's important to distinguish between Verizon FIOS and Frontier FIOS based on numerous posts in this forum. I believe you must be on the "good" FIOS (Verizon) whereas Frontier isn't so great.

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aaronwt

· #7 · Oct 8, 2011

Yes the "good" FiOS works great with the Premiere. It's still the best thing in my area after 4+ years with FiOS.

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unitron

· #8 · Oct 9, 2011

KungFuCow said:
This isnt really a Tivo rant. If anything its more of a picture of the dismal condition Tivo has been left in thanks to cable companys.

Its no secret Im fed up with Tivo. Half baked solutions that sort of worked sometimes and the only updates being more revenue generating apps installed without fixing any of the others and lets not even start talking about the HDUI. But.. Ive dealt with it just because I loved my Tivo.

Alas.. Ive had enough and its not entirely Tivos fault. I moved in with my now wife back in Feb. When I lived alone, my Tivo and Moxi were rock solid on TWC, even with the cable cards and tuning adapters. I had everything running on a small UPS and the setup just worked.

Fast forward to Feb and its been nothing but a nightmare. Tuning adapter after tuning adapter being replaced, cable cards being replaced, tech call after tech call and finally after staring at "Just a few minutes more" for two hours the other night after trying to reboot the Tivo to fix a "You are not authorized for this channel" message, I decided that was it, TWC (And Tivo by association) is history.

Got up with a friend from high school that now manages a large Dish reseller and got her to hook me up with Dish. I signed up with her at noon yesterday and at 4 oclock ON THE DOT (They were scheduled for 4), the installers showed up and went to work.

Will I like it more than Tivo? Probably not. But like I told the guy from Time Warner yesterday when I was begging him to bring me out a whole house DVR and install it so I could at least have SOME TV until we could figure out why the Tivo stuff wouldn't work, "Whether or not there is going to be a picture on my TV when I turn it on should not be a stress issue for me. It should just work." Sadly, it rarely did. Ive rebooted that damn Tivo more times than I can count and the Moxi hasnt worked for months. Oh.. our digital phone has also been on the fritz for about 3 months as well.

I can see why Tivo is suffering. If your stuff works, its easy to look at people having issues and go "Wow, I just dont see how these people cant get this stuff to work" but after what I went through, makes perfect sense now.

So you can actually call Time-Warner and get something other than a busy signal? Must be nice.

What kind of TiVos did you give up and what did you do with them?

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KungFuCow

Discussion Starter · #9 · Oct 9, 2011

unitron said:
So you can actually call Time-Warner and get something other than a busy signal? Must be nice.

What kind of TiVos did you give up and what did you do with them?

I have a Premiere and a Moxi. The Premiere is paid for through next July. I put them on CL but havent had any bites.

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unitron

· #10 · Oct 9, 2011

KungFuCow said:
I have a Premiere and a Moxi. The Premiere is paid for through next July. I put them on CL but havent had any bites.

OK, now I see the ad. It didn't have TiVo in the title, so I scanned past it.

(the Raleigh Craigslist has a much better selection and prices than the one down here, even after I pay shipping)

Is that the asking price for each or both?

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KungFuCow

Discussion Starter · #11 · Oct 9, 2011

unitron said:
OK, now I see the ad. It didn't have TiVo in the title, so I scanned past it.

(the Raleigh Craigslist has a much better selection and prices than the one down here, even after I pay shipping)

Is that the asking price for each or both?

Both and the slide remote and network adapter.

I think thats a pretty insane deal. Im surprised no one has snatched it up. Hell, the Moxi alone at that price is a decent deal.

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unitron

· #12 · Oct 10, 2011

KungFuCow said:
Both and the slide remote and network adapter.

I think thats a pretty insane deal. Im surprised no one has snatched it up. Hell, the Moxi alone at that price is a decent deal.

You've limited your potential customer base to those who wantnd have the disposable income for both a Premiere and a Moxi, and patient enough to open up every posting with something generic about DVRs in the title.

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KungFuCow

Discussion Starter · #13 · Oct 10, 2011

unitron said:
You've limited your potential customer base to those who wantnd have the disposable income for both a Premiere and a Moxi, and patient enough to open up every posting with something generic about DVRs in the title.

Maybe so but I really dont care if I sell the stuff and dealing with people on CL is a nightmare usually so hopefully this only gets me serious buyers.

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