TiVo General TiVo Discussion Part 2 - Page 328

zekeisaszekedoes · 18-09-2011, 16:59

CONCLUSION

The Virgin Media TiVo shows enormous potential, and already has a plethora of useful features that can transform your viewing habits and minimise the annoyances of having to catch a program at a certain day and time, which certain people (myself included) are now loathe to do as we have better options available. Unfortunately, as good as the Cisco-provided hardware obviously is, clear deficiencies, inconsistencies, oversights, errors and so forth in the firmware lead to a product that veers dangerously between “polished, professional and fun to use” and “slapdash, amateurish and rage-inducing”.

Sadly it seems that VM haven’t learned lessons from their bug-ridden, practically crippled Super Hub product and are still releasing devices with customised UIs that are not beta-tested properly so suffer horribly when rolled out to customers. As a beta-tester for the Super Hub I can say with some authority the testing is neglected and leads to expensive headaches later (everything I reported on the device was ignored).

Fortunately though, the TiVo is nowhere near as bad and is usable on a day-to-day basis, even in light of VM’s advice to reboot it every three days or so. It’s just hard to escape the feeling that you’re stuck with a product that’s merely good, when it could be great, but that is somehow acceptable because the rental charge for one or more TiVos in a house is merely Â£3/month and the feeling that within six months most of the problems will be solved or mitigated.

Would I recommend one to you? Yes... just barely.

Rating: 69%

Chad · 18-09-2011, 17:33

Great review Zeke. It's a combination of bugs and lack of red button that is stopping me from upgrading to TiVo. Once the red button facility arrives and the various bugs have been ironed out I'll seriously consider making the switch.

devilincarnate · 18-09-2011, 18:01

For any one that wants to see what could be coming to us soon? Here is the pages for the new TiVo in the USA?

http://www.tivo.com/products/tivo-pr...index.html#tab

denphone · 18-09-2011, 18:03

Quote:

Originally Posted by devilincarnate

For any one that wants to see what could be coming to us soon? Here is the pages for the new TiVo in the USA?

http://www.tivo.com/products/tivo-pr...index.html#tab

Yes very interesting Devil.

Risco · 18-09-2011, 18:56

Has there been a software update ( minor ) as my TiVo seems a bit quicker?

denphone · 18-09-2011, 18:59

Quote:

Originally Posted by Risco

Has there been a software update ( minor ) as my TiVo seems a bit quicker?

No as far as l know there has been no update yet.

BenMcr · 18-09-2011, 21:41

Quote:

Originally Posted by zekeisaszekedoes

EPG bugs. If you see a special Â© style icon beside certain shows, it means it is available as a “catchup” show from BBC iPlayer, itv Player, 4oD or Virgin’s proprietary streaming service. Sadly, there’s no “press GREEN to watch this on catchup immediately” (or similar) option… you have to manually go to the Catchup menu and find that show all over again, which combined with the lack of SMS-style text entry and the overall sluggishness is irritating

If it has a 'C' next to it you should be able to watch it directly from the backwards EPG without having to search for it again by pressing 'OK' on the programme and 'Watch from Catchup on Demand'

Quote:

PiP fail. I don’t know what’s going on, but some channels won’t display in the top-right when you’re in menus etc. Other menus, VM put up an annoying TiVo promo. Hey VM, I already have the TiVo; I don’t need to be told about it over again. Also, when moving quickly between parts of the OSD, sometimes there are stutters (i.e. sound/picture pause for a second) for no good reason, even on SD channels. I often think “you can make a device that records three shows at once, but it can’t display one thumbnail sized window consistently between menus even when nothing is recording?!” Maybe it’s a case of giving the PiP window a higher priority and not using it for promos on certain menus.

The only live channnels that don't display in the PiP screen are the Sky ones. This is due to a previous commercial agreement. Good news is that Sky have now agreed to let Virgin show their channels in the mini screen. I think it will change as part of the next update

Quote:

No true 1080p mode usable at all timesNow I can forgive my ten year old games consoles - the Xbox 1 and PS2 – for not managing better than 1080i. It’s amazing they can run at that resolution at all. A newish device like this not giving 1080p at all times though? Very disappointing. Additionally the auto-detect thought my TV wasn’t capable of 720x576i. No of course, my British bought Samsung LCD TV made in 2010 can’t display a PAL format that’s been a broadcast standard for more than fifty years and is still used on the integrated Freeview DVB tuner. That must be it.

The 1080p option is hangover from the US TiVo and is designed to 'pass through' 1080p content from an external source. It's not an upscaling option. Virgin don't broadcast any 1080P content anyway, so 1080i is the highest quality option

borrissey · 18-09-2011, 23:05

When are we going to get the proper app like this one?

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/tivo/...3976?mt=8&ls=1

It looks really slick.

18-09-2011, 23:57

Quote:

Originally Posted by borrissey

When are we going to get the proper app like this one?

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/tivo/...3976?mt=8&ls=1

It looks really slick.

Very soon, for iPad.

Stephen · 19-09-2011, 09:12

Quote:

Originally Posted by borrissey

When are we going to get the proper app like this one?

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/tivo/...3976?mt=8&ls=1

It looks really slick.

Very soon. It works on iPad and iPhone/iPod touch.

denphone · 19-09-2011, 12:07

Pay Per View failure hits Virgin Media’s TiVo

http://www.seenit.co.uk/pay-per-view...-tivo/0915393/

muppetman11 · 19-09-2011, 12:52

A bit of a harsh assessment imho.

denphone · 19-09-2011, 12:58

Yes l think so as you are always going to have little problems here and there and l suspect Sky are no different to Virgin in that respect as not everything runs smoothly in life.

zekeisaszekedoes · 19-09-2011, 15:08

Quote:

Originally Posted by BenMcr

If it has a 'C' next to it you should be able to watch it directly from the backwards EPG without having to search for it again by pressing 'OK' on the programme and 'Watch from Catchup on Demand'

Perhaps, but then I still have to find the program I want in the backwards EPG after having noticed in the regular EPG that the show has a catchup icon. My contention is, perhaps the regular EPG shouldn't have the catchup icon if you can't jump to a list of previous showings available on catchup straight away, instead having to find it again either in the backwards EPG or via On Demand search.

Come to think of it there are just too many menus... for example, with Apps & Games, you press right and there's another Apps & Games submenu so you have to press right again. Why not just one menu?

Also, with my previously mentioned "some menus are HD, some are SD" thing, I tend to find that when you schedule a series link recording or similar after finding out about a show through the banner bar rather than the EPG, you stay in the HD menu with the PiP at the top right. This proves that the HD interface code exists, but yet when you do a series link via the EPG or look at planned recordings you are shunted to a blurry-looking SD menu which can't display a lot of info: you see a lot of "..." because the text can't fit. Seems like poor programming, to be honest.

I think I know why the interface is sluggish at times, especially when your series link/wish lists start growing: it's programmed in Flash, isn't it? Flash wastes massive amount of CPU power on pretty much every platform it runs on, so no wonder there are obvious problems like screen tearing or PiP stuttering when changing between menus. This whole thing could be done better in Java or Javascript: a company belonging to a member of my family has had superb results with MooTools even on underpowered embedded systems. The VM TiVo being a well-heeled fairly modern PVR design would be lightning fast, but presumably it's far too late to attempt that kind of revamp. Shame really, because it means some parts of this particular VM TiVo will always be slow.

Quote:

Originally Posted by BenMcr

The only live channnels that don't display in the PiP screen are the Sky ones. This is due to a previous commercial agreement. Good news is that Sky have now agreed to let Virgin show their channels in the mini screen. I think it will change as part of the next update.

This is a fairly minor one, I'd say, but it'll be nice to see it fixed. Must be some weird clause that means VM can display Sky channels in full-screen but not when in the menu via PiP.

Quote:

Originally Posted by BenMcr

The 1080p option is hangover from the US TiVo and is designed to 'pass through' 1080p content from an external source. It's not an upscaling option. Virgin don't broadcast any 1080P content anyway, so 1080i is the highest quality option

The VM TiVo does have a 1080p option, but only for 25hz which makes 50hz channels (i.e. most of them) drop frames... any more information on what this was originally used for in the US versions would be appreciated.

I know VM don't broadcast any 1080p content... it's either 720p or 1080i from what I can tell. MPEG-2 streams in 1920x1080p @ 50hz would be enormous, presumably it's a case of waiting until the TiVo units are transitioned to higher quality MPEG-4 H.264/AVC streams. I assume they're making plans for overlapping services in much the same way they have overlay and legacy on the broadband side. Perhaps they could have MPEG-4 streams via the integrated cable modem?

---

I'd like to see the fourth tuner activated, but not as another recorder that can be scheduled, just one that is dedicated to whatever live channel you're watching. I respect the fact that when all three current tuners are in use you can continue to watch anything that TiVo buffered for you on whatever channel you were watching before all three tuners began recording - good design there - but not being able to watch live TV without sacrificing one of the lower priority recordings is disappointing. Only a little bit though!

I'm so gripey about the TiVo because there's a lot of potential untapped and it isn't quite as finished as it should be, but thank goodness it's not the abortion that the Super Hub was. It's a much better PVR than the Humax FoxSat HDR I was considering and it's already proved it's worth, but I know it can be pushed much further.

It's my usual "I complain because I care, dammit!" stance.

Quote:

Originally Posted by borrissey

When are we going to get the proper app like this one?

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/tivo/...3976?mt=8&ls=1

It looks really slick.

Presumably the iPad/iPhone edition will be a red version of that with the VM logo on all screens.

I suppose Android users are out in the cold though. Or, laptop users who want that same interface (i.e. being able the browse the EPG and schedule recordings) without logging into the web app thingy.

BenMcr · 19-09-2011, 15:22

Quote:

Originally Posted by zekeisaszekedoes

The VM TiVo does have a 1080p option, but only for 25hz which makes 50hz channels (i.e. most of them) drop frames... any more information on what this was originally used for in the US versions would be appreciated.

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb...d.php?t=444083

Quote:

TiVo states 1080p support. Does that mean it can upconvert to 1080p?

No. The TiVo Premiere cannot upconvert 720p and 1080i signals to 1080p60. The 1080p support is limited to the native output of 1080p24 and 1080p30 content, as on DirecTV and Dish Network DVRs.

The first beneficiary of this 1080p output capability is Amazon, which already encodes all of its high-definition VOD content in 1080p24 @ 5 Mbps. Those with compatible TVs will see 1080p output on Amazon HD.

Full 1080p24 output is also useful for playback of most 1080p computer video files, such as Blu-ray backups.