[BigJimOutlaw]

TiVo Rolling Out Skippable Pre-Roll Ads for Retail DVRs | Light Reading

Wow. Was not expecting this. We look hosed. No concessions on pricing, just ads. Skip *might* be OK if the load in/out wasn't so sluggish. Wondering if Bolt is just phase 1 or if Roamio doesn't have enough horsepower.

"This is part of our ongoing commitment to bring our users the best media discovery experience possible."

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAhahaha... hahaha.... hahahaha.... ha... hmm.

As we all know by now, Toyota and Keurig are MEDIA companies ripe for discovery. They're overflowing with media content. Thanks Tivo!

I'll file this "best experience possible" right along side their never-ending "smartbar" recommendations for the Kardashians and childrens' shows. What legends.

Anyway, we should all just call and ask it be deactivated. They seem to be obliging. We shouldn't have to do it, but it's better than routinely "discovering" the "media" of k-cups.

 

[arglebargle2]

I'll protest, I'll email, but I won't start screaming that I'm dumping TiVo for an alternative, when in reality, no better alternative has shown up over 20 years.

As someone who just switched over from fios, the tivo experience isn't better than what fios offers now. Maybe I should try to watch all my recordings and downgrade to TE3 or something. (I've only seen TE4, never used TE3)

Autoskip is VERY VERY nice, but there are bad things about tivo that fios did better. I was ok with that prior to these ads, because tivo was good enough and I'd eventually save money on the box rentals.

But now that tivo is altering my recordings to stick their own commercials in, that tips the scale heavily in favor of fios.

And you mention dumping tivo for an alternative, thats kind of what pisses me off. I signed up just 2 months ago. I'm stuck now with an inferior dvr that I now feel I wouldn't have bought/paid too much for.

So now I'm going to stew, and hope that there is an opt out that becomes available. I kind of expect ebay values to stagnate or go down (who is going to spend $$ for a dvr that inserts ads?) . But in a month or so if the ads are still there I'll have to see how much its going to cost me to switch back.

 

[markjrenna]

I have 2 TiVo's. The moment I see this... they have LOST my money. F off TiVo!

I will say this, regardless of how many people have seen it so far, the moment I see an ad before a show I recorded plays is the moment I immediately stop using and recommending Tivo. The service has already gone downhill enough, and at the point they put ads in the beginning, that's the tipping point for me to switch to X1.

We had and still endure crap guide data from Rovi. Now this! I have 2 TiVo's. The moment I see this... they have LOST my money. CANCEL!

 

[MrDell]

Called Tivo technical support 877-367-8486, they told me that they would disable the ads. But it could take up to 72 hours to be complete. I told them that I pay for Tivo to be able to skip ads and should not have ads before my recordings. They also stated that I could can skip there ads, and I said that is completely unacceptable. Support was very polite and apologetic and told me that they will fix it.

Thanks for posting this phone number.. we should keep reposting this number and continue to call because hopefully they will finally get the message that this nonsense is unacceptable.

 

[WVZR1]

I'm 'rural' and in an Xfinity 'only' market, since the VOD was going away I seized the opportunity to use an older Premier and the 'summer sale' to be rid of a Premier. Resale for it in an Xfinity market I assumed would be 'less than' very little. I do NOT regret that. I'm certainly NOT happy about the TE4/21* on the Bolt but mine being still in the wrapper I'll certainly opt for a return/refund. I wouldn't think that's going to be an issue. I was told 'Pre-Roll' ads could be turned off and to connect the Bolt and move on. I ain't - I'll wait for several days and see how this shakes out.

My Roamio 3TB and TE3 should likely do me well into the future. I was offered an XG1V4 in my Xfinity package for 2 years N/C and I took that. It's worked well in my setup. Roamio is in another room with a Mini and the XG1V4 in the main viewing area. Regardless of what some say Xfinity on my 64" PN64F8500 1080P PLASMA w/17K hours for 'broadcast TV/most streaming' does extremely well.

I did buy a Mini VOX and it's rolled back to TE3 (wonder if that will stick) I can't use VOX and some remote features don't seem to work well but so long as it will do 4K streaming on it's own I'm OK with that. I used it for a few days and actually with the 1080P I returned to the A9300 Mini.

I 'listen' to TV often during the day and walking past the receiver and a 'single' button push has the XG1V4 on the news.

If TE3 on the Roamio gets forced the 'ads' it certainly might change my mind!

 

[mrizzo80]

I love TiVo, but I experimented with a Firestick 4K in the spring because most of my viewing was via OTT sources and my Roamio Plus was so slow with them (other than memory-pinned Netflix). A couple months later I canceled linear TV service. I don’t see going back to TiVo with this and the areas they appear to be choosing to focus on (TiVo Plus).

There’s no equivalent for 1P on Fire TV and there isn’t really even a way to keep a central list of everything you are watching, but the overall benefits outweigh those drawbacks (of which I considered must-haves just 6 months ago).

I may experiment with an Apple TV at some point, but I’ve become so used to using hands-free Alexa for content watching, trick play, etc. I never would have guessed that.

 

[ilovedvrs]

MORONS! I had a Tivo since day 1 in 1999 to STOP ads. If you add ads, then goodbye.
I hardly watch my OTA content anyway, and already have a FIRE recast as a backup plan.

SAY NO TO ADS

TiVo confirms its customers will soon see ads before DVR recordings

 

[exdishguy]

Not only is the pre-roll completely misguided so is the implementation of it. You can't really tell if the ad will really load or not - sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn't. So if you try to skip the pre-roll ad and there isn't one loaded up, then with SKIP enabled you'll blow right past actual commercials. I did this with Stephen Colbert Show - I saw the blue spinning circle, hit the skip button thinking I was skipping the pre-roll, and the next thing I knew I was half way through the entire show after my button presses skipped actual commercials! Talk about "intuitive" user interfaces...Tivo seems committed to add more and more clicks and time to this Hydra interface. Pre-rolls are the very worst of the worst to date.

 

[PSU_Sudzi]

I've been thinking that this is not really happening, that it's a TiVo beta experiment that got loose, that people are yelling that the sky is falling.

This no longer is "amusing."

Hey, look on the bright side, we both got quoted in the LightReading article!

 

[Charles R]

I created a case via logging into TiVo - MySupport. That's all the "hellfire" I'll raise and they know it's from an actual TiVo user... their one and only warning.

 

[wombat94]

I've been a TiVO customer since the early DirecTiVO days. Since I switched to FiOS in 2007 I have used nothing but Tivos but this is the end for my time with Tivo. I've been one to deliberately pay the monthly fee instead of lifetime because I was giving the company ongoing revenue and still saving money vs. Fios DVRs. I've still been extremely happy with my Roamio Pro and 4K Minis.

Since seeing the post here yesterday, I decided to check the current state of alternatives. I went to Channels DVR and their Apple TV app. I had planned initially on keeping the cablecard, but found that Channels has implemented a DVR solution with cable or OTT providers TVEverywhere streams.

I downloaded and installed everything (1 month trial and then $8/month or $80/year).

I am truly impressed. Responsive, easy to set up and maintain, some features are lacking from Tivo but some I already like better.

The best part for me is that I compared my current OnePass list and found that between TVEverywhere streams and OTA, I can get 19 of the 21 channels that contain all of our season passes - and the other two (HBO and History channel) have their own dedicated apps that can stream all of their content. So not only can I eliminate the Tivo monthly fee, I can also return the cablecard to Verizon for further savings. I go from $21/month total to $6.66

It may not work for everyone, but the landscape is changing and it is worth checking out alternatives.

I probably would have stuck with Tivo just from inertia for at least another 18 months until it was time to evaluate my Fios subscription again. Now I'm planning to pick up an OTA HDHomerun and move forward right away.

It's been a good run with Tivo, but for me at least, it is time to move on.

 

[bradolson]

If Tivo customers accept this now, Tivo will have carte blanche to insert ads at every commercial break at some point. Accept one, and you’re saying more is OK too. And if video ads are fine, then ads in the guide are fine too. Slippery slope.

 

[Thunderclap]

I’ll reserve judgement until I see how it works on my system. If it ends up being intrusive and not easy to skip, I can always move over to my HDHomeRun + Plex backup. It works really well and can remove the commercials completely after the recording is finished.

I understand TiVo needs to make money, but I spent nearly $1k to have a premium box with lifetime service to avoid ads. If they’re going to force them on me then I don’t see the advantage of paying a premium for a TiVo anymore.

 

[V7Goose]

Called Tivo technical support 877-367-8486, they told me that they would disable the ads. But it could take up to 72 hours to be complete. I told them that I pay for Tivo to be able to skip ads and should not have ads before my recordings. They also stated that I could can skip there ads, and I said that is completely unacceptable. Support was very polite and apologetic and told me that they will fix it.

If it wasn't for TiVo Support's LONG HISTORY of telling lies to customers just to get them off the phone, this joke would almost be totally beyond believing.

 

[zexel]

It's hit at least three users who have reported just in this thread (andyf, edwinyeun, and V7Goose). And how exactly does TiVo's tweet not match what those users are reporting?

I am also seeing this on my Bolt.

 

[zexel]

i wonder if this is only cable TiVos? I use my Bolt strictly for OTA and I have seen no ads. Granted right now I am only recording one show a week plus the late news every night but I have watched every recording and no ads

I use my bolt for OTA only and am getting the BSC and the ads. This sucks!

 

[sd2528]

The user experience is so good but with Hydra and this... they really are making it hard to see a future where I'm still using TiVo. It's a shame. Most people didn't completely cut the cord and have both cable and a streaming service or two. They should be killing it but they just keep getting less and less right.

 

[dslunceford]

The idea that a preroll ad would be in any way acceptable, even your wishy-washy "maybe", as a tradeoff is moronic. They are relying on weak minded fools to say "well I'm avoiding a lot of ads with the Tivo, so I guess one little one won't kill me".

Dude, it's a device to help you enjoy TV better. No need to say *my opinion* is moronic or that I'm some sort of weak minded fool. That's just rude.

 

[KevTech]

I would say to downgrade to TE3 while you still can as I have heard that downgrading might soon be disabled (perhaps when Edge is released?).
Because of the software differences between TE3 and TE4 it may be that Tivo is unable to insert ads on TE3.
I downgraded yesterday but at first the downgrade sequence would not work.
I started to think downgrading was disabled so I restarted the Tivo then was able to downgrade.

 

[SafariKC]

Last straw.

I switched to @getchannels and @HDHomeRun_US because of this. It’s a much better experience. Simple UI, better remote viewing experience, fast apps (I use Apple TV), and keeps the parts of DVR I love. TiVo stopped being a better experience many years ago but I refused to notice. Channels rocks!

So sad to leave but also relieved to know my thought that there was no viable options for me was not true.