I think you're on the wrong side of the debate when no one here seems to agree with you. The TiVo button exits out of whatever you are in and brings you to TiVo Central as you said, that's the main screen of the TiVo. You may be under the misconception that "live TV" is or should be the main screen/view, but that would be incorrect.
I disagree.The point you are missing here is that TiVo is a DVR first, a cable box second, and everything else (streaming, VOD) third. Everything is DVR-centric. Older Motorola and Scientific Atlanta DVRs were cable boxes first and DVRs second, since they were leased out by MSOs. Comcast's X1 tries to equally be everything, cable box, DVR, VOD, streaming, etc. Therefore, it makes sense for TiVo, and for any true DVR-centric device, to have a DVR-centric interface, hence TiVo Central as the centerpiece of the box, with Live TV as a secondary part of the UX.
Latest update:
Nice dodge but you failed to address the specific scenarios I brought up. And while you can choose to think of TiVo Central as "the centerpiece of the box," no one uses a TiVo or any other DVR so that they can while away the hours hanging out in the menu system. The actual content they want to watch -- live and recorded TV -- is the reason a DVR exists and that's the main place that users spend their time.
Ahhhhhh! Children, avert your eyes! Its a menu! A MENU!
That's not a dodge at all. It's about what TiVo fundamentally IS. TiVo fundamentally IS a DVR, hence it makes perfect sense to have the TiVo button bring you back to TiVo Central. It can pause Live TV, but that's not what it's meant to do. It's meant to have recordings scheduled in advance, and then play them back. If you're planning on watching a live event, you schedule it to record as well, both for the menu functionality, as well as having a full game/event length buffer as well as blocking a tuner out in a busy tuner environment (at least back in the day when tuners were busy). TiVo Central is the launch point for recordings and scheduling recordings, and therefore it's the logical center point of the TiVo Experience.
I'm just saying that there should be a consistent way to exit out of menus and apps and back to whatever TV you were watching before you went into TiVo Central. Because many times viewers will go into it, or some subset of it, like the channel grid guide, after starting to watch something else. Which is why virtually every other DVR on the planet has an Exit button (and/or a Back button that takes you back one step at a time).
Well, I finally got the ads yesterday. I checked the fast forward and it brought me to my show right away with no trouble. Not a big deal,but certainly not what I would choose, but I figure I could live with it. Later, I went to check my signal strength, and when I went to the next channel, the TiVo bolt shut down and restarted. I tried again a couple of times with the same results. I had read that maybe I could opt out of the pre rolled ads if there was some trouble it was causing and I figured this was too much of a coincidence to think it was anything else, so I called. Sadly, the TiVo dude said they could not remove the ads. He had me jump through a few hoops (change from a power strip to a wall outlet, restart the TIVO) and when these didn't work, he said they could replace the box. I thought that was a little drastic and I didn't want to go through the hassle and take a chance by switching when I was pretty sure there must be a better way. I hope to find some answers here after doing a search for this problem, and hope that it isn't related to the pre-rolled ads that can't be removed.
Uh-oh. Did he say why? How long have you had the Bolt? How long have you been a TiVo customer? It's worth trying again to opt out. Maybe it was just that rep. Don't even mention the technical problem. Even if the two issues are connected, Tier 1 support will never understand so I say don't mention it, just try try and try again until they let you opt out! Or "sidegrade" to TE3; that's where we live here.
Others have posted about the restart problem after getting the ads. It's related.
Time to call again, or a few times (I'd space them a day apart, so that I could legitimately state that I gave the system a chance) and play that game we all love so well, CSR roulette.
Seriously? Any and every feature that was meticulously designed into the system is by definition what it was "meant" to do. Claiming otherwise is just silly.
As drastic as it is, I'm rolling back tonight. Opted out of pre-rolls (and it seemed to work), but I got the 21.something.6 update today with the T+ ads injected into the guide. This, combined with weird performance issues (slow scrolling of the guide, inability to use clear to delete more than 3 things in a go without causing a UI crash) has me going back.
I've also done the email thing twice and gotten the same response. I gave a very explicit explanation of where I wanted to have the ads removed, and twice a totally useless response of, "I think you're talking about Tivo+ and there's nothing we can do." The customer service email reps can't read the English language apparently. When my subscription renewal comes up next year, a cable company DVR may be in my future. I just don't like how TiVo has done this at all.
We got the bolt 3 or 4 months ago. Been a TIVO customer for close to five years now I think. There was a bit of a communication problem with the guy and when he asked when I installed the pre-rolled ads, I told him, I didn't install them, you guys did. He threw me for a loop when he seemed so quick to want to replace the bolt with another one. The signal strength check can always be done with my other TiVo, so I didn't think it would be worth all the trouble. I may just try again and see if I do better with another rep., but the funny thing is after I talked to this guy (who said the ads couldn't be taken out) the ads have dropped down considerably. Out of the 10 shows we recorded in the last couple of days, only two of them started with an ad. Could just be a coincidence but when it kicked in the first day, every show had an ad. (the same one-a keurig)
More likely they have an ad limit with their advertiser.
Time for CSR Roulette! Good luck with the next one. More and more of them should know what you're talking about at this point. As for ad frequency, that may be a weekly or monthly thing and will increase again at some point.
