# Switched from Fios...Disappointed



## TXDocu888 (Jan 25, 2015)

Just switched to Grande Cable Tivo from Verizon Fios. I'm really disappointed in the UI and the remote. 

The UI is mostly awful. You have to click click click through too many menus to do anything. For example: quickly turn on closed captioning. Info, click down, click, click, on, Really? Fios remote: one button: click, its on. Click, it's off. 

Then there's the program guide. Yikes. Terrible! Hard to read. Where's the color coding, blue for movies, green for sports, etc? Color helps the programs you seek to stand out. With Tivo I have to read each title, and if the program is 30 min it's truncated....blech.

To back out of Tivo Central back to your program, you press "Zoom"?? Really? On what planet does "zoom" equal "back" ??? 

I've read for years about how Tivo was supposed to be so awesome. Frankly I'm not impressed. It's not user friendly or efficient. I'll be keeping it though because Grande is cheaper than Fios. 

I need to find an online guide--might try Titan TV's guide.


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## atmuscarella (Oct 11, 2005)

What TiVo did you rent from them?


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## jrtroo (Feb 4, 2008)

You just need to get your new muscle memory going. Once you figure it out, you'll cool down.


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## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

TXDocu888 said:


> Just switched to Grande Cable Tivo from Verizon Fios. I'm really disappointed in the UI and the remote.
> 
> The UI is mostly awful. You have to click click click through too many menus to do anything. For example: quickly turn on closed captioning. Info, click down, click, click, on, Really? Fios remote: one button: click, its on. Click, it's off.
> 
> ...


A) You're on a TiVo forum. Most people here love TiVo.

B) They love TiVo for good reason. TiVo is far superior to everything else out there. However, you missed the best combination of all, which is FIOS with TiVo. Short of Google Fiber (which I honestly don't know much about their DVR and interface), FIOS and TiVo is pretty much the ultimate TV experience in the US today.

There is a learning curve for every box out there, I've over the years learned iGuide and TiVo pretty well, along with other content providers, like Netflix, etc. TiVo can be somewhat click heavy, but it's definitely not Nokia click heavy, and with the haxe-based update on the Premieres, even they are performing quite well now.

It sounds like you're using the grid guide, not the regular guide (or whatever you call it?). Every other box on the planet with a grid guide truncates the same way, that's the nature of grid guides, TiVo's just looks better than the garbage on iGuide.

Who cares about color coding? That's just extra ugliness. If your cable provider is semi-competent, the channels are grouped by topic anyway. It's different by provider, but on Comcast, the 1000's are local, 1100's are news, 1600's are sports, 1900's are premiums, and I forgot several categories of cable channels in there as well.

There is a reason Grande is cheaper. I'm not familiar with them in particular, but in general, cable can't deliver the same reliability, picture quality, and channel lineup that FIOS can with FIOS's fiber technology, and resulting extra bandwidth over what cable systems have.


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## bradleys (Oct 31, 2007)

I cannot stand color coding in the grids - I absolutely hate it!

If you dislike tivo as much as you say, just change back... Tivo can't make everyone happy - and shouldn't try.


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## LoadStar (Jul 24, 2001)

TXDocu888 said:


> Just switched to Grande Cable Tivo from Verizon Fios. I'm really disappointed in the UI and the remote.
> 
> The UI is mostly awful. You have to click click click through too many menus to do anything. For example: quickly turn on closed captioning. Info, click down, click, click, on, Really? Fios remote: one button: click, its on. Click, it's off.
> 
> ...


Well, some thoughts, not necessarily in the same order as yours:

1) I agree with you a bit about the zoom button. It's definitely not intuitive. However, I have a feeling TiVo felt that they couldn't come up with another single word that defined that function. I'll bet they considered and eliminated "exit," since they felt you weren't "exiting" TiVo Central, since it is always running - you are actually "entering" Live TV, or a program playback, or whatever.

2) Regarding the guide, TiVo has historically considered it a bit of an afterthought. The classic "TiVo guide" isn't even a grid guide. As a matter of fact, many long time TiVo users (myself not among them) won't even use the guide - because they don't watch live TV. They time shift everything (or nearly so), and find programs to watch either by using suggestions, or by searching from TiVo Central. That might give some background. That said, I think TiVo probably feels that color coding the guide just adds visual clutter without conveying useful information, especially if they don't also add a guide to what each color means to the UI. They likely believe that the same idea, finding programs that fall into certain categories, is something that is better accomplished by using "Find TV, Movies & Videos" from within TiVo Central.

3) I think every UI has to decide certain functions to present front and center, and some that have to fall to the background. For me, I think TiVo has on the whole struck the right balance, with some exceptions. (For example, Settings & Messages is a bit of a confusing mess, made worse with the switching back and forth between SD and HD UIs.) I've never used the FIOS devices, so I don't know how TiVo compares. I've got Time Warner, and I know that TiVo is a damn sight better than anything they've got. I think that the same holds true when TiVo is compared to most cable company provided DVRs.


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## trip1eX (Apr 2, 2005)

Meh just a typical i just switched to Tivo type of complaints. You'll get over it.

You'll figure out you can look at just movies or sports etc from the guide if you want. You can change the guide layout.

You can show just the channels you want in the guide which I think is one of the better features compared to cable boxes. ...

If you rented a Tivo you might have got a Premiere and not the newest Roamio which is better.


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## trip1eX (Apr 2, 2005)

Meh just a typical i just switched to Tivo type of complaints. You'll get over it.

You'll figure out you can look at just movies or sports etc if you want. You can change the guide layout.

You can show just the channels you want in the guide which I think is one of the better features compared to cable boxes.


If you rented a Tivo you might have got a Premiere and not the newest Roamio which is better.


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## wmcbrine (Aug 2, 2003)

Closed caption toggling is messed up, yes. (It was even worse at one point!) It's an extreme outlier, though, not really a representative example of TiVo UI issues. It's partly a relic of the TiVo's UI having been originally designed at a time when caption decoding was the responsibility of the TV, so it's an afterthought.

Note that there _are_ discrete CC on/off codes, which you can use with a programmable remote (or with a software remote, like the one in my sig) to make toggling captions a one-button affair.



TXDocu888 said:


> With Tivo I have to read each title, and if the program is 30 min it's truncated....blech.


As others have noted, it sounds like you're using the Grid Guide.










You should know that this mode is basically only there to appease DirecTV -- and later, cable companies -- by making the TiVo work more like a typical set-top box. But the mode that TiVo really wants you to use -- the one that's the default on a TiVo that you don't get through the cable company -- is the TiVo Live Guide, a two-column display with the channels and their current programs on the left, and a list of the full day's programs for your one selected channel on the right.










Try it out by pressing A, and toggling the last line of the options. It's much more legible.

As far as looking for a specific program, though -- instead of just for whatever's on right now -- you should generally be using Search, rather than either mode of the Guide.



> _To back out of Tivo Central back to your program, you press "Zoom"?? Really? On what planet does "zoom" equal "back" ???_


This is a weird historical artifact. Zoom does _not_ equal "back"; rather, you're _"zooming"_ into the preview window. See, there was a time when the preview window didn't exist, and the TiVo Central menu included a "Watch Live TV" option.










You can turn off the preview window even now, which makes this work a bit more like it did originally, and makes the logic clearer: Basically, it's TiVo Central that's considered the base level, not Live TV. (The exception is, if you leave the TiVo in the menus for too long, it reverts to Live TV to avoid burn-in.)

After introducing the preview window, TiVo removed the "Watch Live TV" menu option, since there were two other ways to reach Live TV -- "Zoom" and the Live TV button -- but doing so subtly obscured the logic of the menus, IMHO.

The choice of the "Zoom" button itself is a case of repurposing an existing button, rather than adding yet another button to the remote. (The original function of the "Zoom" button, which still applies when in non-menu mode, is to toggle between the video adjustment modes -- Zoom, Panel, and Full -- for video sources that don't fit the screen's aspect ratio.)


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

One thing I've discovered is that people are really resistant to change when it comes to UIs. We recently released a new version of VideoReDo with a completely redesigned UI and we've gotten more petty complaints about it then we've ever got about anything else. And it's mostly stupid stuff like people don't like the colors, or the icons, or that a button is slightly bigger/smaller then in previous versions. It's really opened my eyes about how resistant to change people are.


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## Grakthis (Oct 4, 2006)

Dan203 said:


> One thing I've discovered is that people are really resistant to change when it comes to UIs. We recently released a new version of VideoReDo with a completely redesigned UI and we've gotten more petty complaints about it then we've ever got about anything else. And it's mostly stupid stuff like people don't like the colors, or the icons, or that a button is slightly bigger/smaller then in previous versions. It's really opened my eyes about how resistant to change people are.


Used to see this a ton in UI's in manufacturing.

"I can't do this the way I used to do it!"

"yes, but this new way is way faster and better"

"yeah, but it's not the old way!"

Really, dude? You'd rather type on a command line, than point and click, even if the command line takes twice as long, just because that's what you're used to?

We'd usually have to get a manager to tell them to suck it up and learn the new system, because if they had their way, they would bypass the new system and go back to doing it the old way.


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## ncted (May 13, 2007)

Grakthis said:


> Used to see this a ton in UI's in manufacturing.
> 
> "I can't do this the way I used to do it!"
> 
> ...


Text interfaces are typically much faster than the GUIs that replace them, plus you can create macros and make automation much easier. GUIs are easier for new users to understand, so the learning curve is shallower, but over time, CLIs are going to save you time in almost any application. I could work much faster in Lotus 1-2-3 for instance than in Excel because my hands never had to leave the keyboard. In earlier versions of Excel, they had Lotus compatibility, so it wasn't a big deal, but now that is gone, and I am slogging along with the rest of the world, giving myself carpal tunnel with Excel.

This is also true of touch-screen interfaces. They might be easy, but they are not fast.


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## trip1eX (Apr 2, 2005)

TXDocu888 said:


> You have to click click click through too many menus (in the UI) to do anything.


I agree here. There are some things are more steps than they should be.

Recording a show from the guide in the Mini is 3 steps when it could easily be just one.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

ncted said:


> Text interfaces are typically much faster than the GUIs that replace them, plus you can create macros and make automation much easier. GUIs are easier for new users to understand, so the learning curve is shallower, but over time, CLIs are going to save you time in almost any application. I could work much faster in Lotus 1-2-3 for instance than in Excel because my hands never had to leave the keyboard. In earlier versions of Excel, they had Lotus compatibility, so it wasn't a big deal, but now that is gone, and I am slogging along with the rest of the world, giving myself carpal tunnel with Excel.
> 
> This is also true of touch-screen interfaces. They might be easy, but they are not fast.


Our software is UI based, there is no CLI. Some of the complaints we've gotten are just stupid. For example in the old version we had buttons with text that read "Sel. Start" and "Sel. End". They were fine in English but in some of the translations the buttons were to short to hold the text so it got truncated. In the new version we replace them with icons with tool tips. The icons we used are the same icons used for that feature in pretty much every other video editing app on the market. We've gotten dozens of complaints about those two buttons no longer having text, even though they are the same size and in the same location as the old ones.

Another complaint we got... In the old version there was a Save button along the bottom of the UI. In the new version we added a few more buttons for frequently used features, which previously required using the menu, but they wouldn't all fit on the bottom so we added a tool bar down the side instead. (kinda like Win8 charms) We got untold complaints because people had to move their mouse a little further to click the button. So many in fact I added a hidden option to add a Save button back to the bottom. But to avoid localization issues I made it an icon only button. Now I get complaints that it doesn't have text. 

Anyway now I'm just ranting. But if people would just give it a chance they'd likely get use to the new UI and never even notice the changes. (I have using it for the last year in debug) But instead they just b*tch about it immediately because they don't like change.


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## Grakthis (Oct 4, 2006)

ncted said:


> Text interfaces are typically much faster than the GUIs that replace them,


Not a true generalization. Even if it is sometimes true, especailly when the text interface is well designed, saying this as though it's generally true is showing an incredible lack of experience with the industrial world.

The text based systems often require a half-dozen commands to execute something that a GUI can do by filling in 3 fields and hitting submit. This is because, on the back-end, the GUI is doing the half-dozen commands that you used to have to type in. Including some calculations that you no longer have to do manually.

I think what you mean is "a well designed text interface" but the truth is legacy text interfaces are not well designed.


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## ncted (May 13, 2007)

Grakthis said:


> Not a true generalization. Even if it is sometimes true, especailly when the text interface is well designed, saying this as though it's generally true is showing an incredible lack of experience with the industrial world.
> 
> The text based systems often require a half-dozen commands to execute something that a GUI can do by filling in 3 fields and hitting submit. This is because, on the back-end, the GUI is doing the half-dozen commands that you used to have to type in. Including some calculations that you no longer have to do manually.
> 
> I think what you mean is "a well designed text interface" but the truth is legacy text interfaces are not well designed.


So, you're argument is that text-based interfaces are slower than GUIs because all txt interfaces are poorly designed? That is a software design argument, not a human interface argument. In your example, it is just as easy to create a text-based interface which accepts three fields of input as it is in a GUI.

I've participated in 2 interface design studies: one at Duke University Hospital and one at C-MAC Manufacturing. In both cases, moving from a text console interface to a modern Windows GUI for data entry and retrieval tasks for things like patient records (Duke) and Bill of Materials (C-MAC) resulted in significantly longer times to complete the tasks in the GUI, even several months after the transition. This was despite hardware and network upgrades to support the new software. We found in both instances that long-time users of the old systems took no longer to get up to maximum speed on the new software than people who had never used the old software. The GUI simply took longer to use because people had to take their hand off the keyboard to use the mouse.

The world has GUI (and touch), and it is necessary for many applications, but faster it ain't. Add in that so many applications are Java (or php, ruby, etc. on the web) underneath, and it is easy to see why computing really hasn't sped up much when it comes to how long it takes people to complete their jobs, despite so many improvements in computing hardware and network performance. I realize I am a dinosaur, and I am happily so -- it is why I am a Unix admin. You can believe what you want, but you're not going to convince me that GUIs are faster than text interfaces for text-related tasks.

Back on-topic. I think Tivo's interface is one of the best out there. Dish's is a close second. Dish's use of contextual menus would be an improvement I wouldn't mind seeing on Tivo's interface (i.e. no reason to bring up a different screen to do something, just do it in a menu on the current screen. That way you don't have to left arrow when you're done).


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## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

LoadStar said:


> 1) I agree with you a bit about the zoom button. It's definitely not intuitive. However, I have a feeling TiVo felt that they couldn't come up with another single word that defined that function. I'll bet they considered and eliminated "exit," since they felt you weren't "exiting" TiVo Central, since it is always running - you are actually "entering" Live TV, or a program playback, or whatever.


It is a bit oddly named, but once you know what it does, it doesn't really matter.



> 2) Regarding the guide, TiVo has historically considered it a bit of an afterthought. The classic "TiVo guide" isn't even a grid guide. As a matter of fact, many long time TiVo users (myself not among them) won't even use the guide - because they don't watch live TV. They time shift everything (or nearly so), and find programs to watch either by using suggestions, or by searching from TiVo Central. That might give some background. That said, I think TiVo probably feels that color coding the guide just adds visual clutter without conveying useful information, especially if they don't also add a guide to what each color means to the UI. They likely believe that the same idea, finding programs that fall into certain categories, is something that is better accomplished by using "Find TV, Movies & Videos" from within TiVo Central.


Yeah, colors would be absolutely horrible. It would junk up the UI so much, and there's already more than enough going on in that UI. You have to use the guide sometimes, like if there's a massive blizzard, and you're in the bullseye of it, and you want to record the local newscasts from various channels to see their forecasts, or to grab basketball games. Ok, serious Connecticut bias on both points there, but there are times when guides are necessary. The Live Guide is decent, I actually find the iPad guide to be the best, since I can swipe and flick through it quickly and find what I'm looking for.



> 3) I think every UI has to decide certain functions to present front and center, and some that have to fall to the background. For me, I think TiVo has on the whole struck the right balance, with some exceptions.


Yeah, if you look at a Comcast box, it is a cable box that also has a DVR function. TiVo is a DVR that also has a cable box function. The X1 shifts that paradigm by putting DVR, Live TV, and VOD all on an equal footing, which is a new concept. It's not as well executed as TiVo, but it is interesting in the sense that it tries to pull everything together in a unified UI/UX.



wmcbrine said:


> You should know that this mode is basically only there to appease DirecTV -- and later, cable companies -- by making the TiVo work more like a typical set-top box. But the mode that TiVo really wants you to use -- the one that's the default on a TiVo that you don't get through the cable company -- is the TiVo Live Guide, a two-column display with the channels and their current programs on the left, and a list of the full day's programs for your one selected channel on the right.


Yeah, Live Guide is a lot better than the grid guide. I used to try and use the grid guide, and finally I realized that the Live Guide is a lot better and easier to use. Once you learn the shortcuts to jump day to day, you can mash your way through it pretty quickly. I do this for finding basketball games that I want to record (I know from my team's website when they are playing).


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## mattack (Apr 9, 2001)

TXDocu888 said:


> Just switched to Grande Cable Tivo from Verizon Fios. I'm really disappointed in the UI and the remote.
> 
> The UI is mostly awful. You have to click click click through too many menus to do anything. For example: quickly turn on closed captioning. Info, click down, click, click, on, Really? Fios remote: one button: click, its on. Click, it's off.


That's funny, it used to be WAY more steps. Now it's a "reasonably small" amount of steps, IMHO.. (I mostly just leave CC on, but turn it off sometimes if they're blocking something I want to see..)

But even on my DVD player (toshiba XS32), with a captions button, it's *still* a few steps, either from the DVD menus, or while playing a recording.. (it's something like hit caption button, arrow around to English 1, then go down to on/off and switch to on..)


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## wmcbrine (Aug 2, 2003)

Bigg said:


> I do this for finding basketball games that I want to record (I know from my team's website when they are playing).


That's a job for an auto-recording wishlist.  For example, UNC Men's Basketball:

Keyword: NORTH CAROLINA
Title Keyword: COLLEGE BASKETBALL, -WOMENS

This catches everything except TBD tournament games. (It also grabs some extras, like NC State games, which can be trimmed from the To Do list. (I can't do a "-NORTH CAROLINA STATE", since UNC plays against them sometimes.))


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## ej42137 (Feb 16, 2014)

Dan203 said:


> One thing I've discovered is that people are really resistant to change when it comes to UIs. We recently released a new version of VideoReDo with a completely redesigned UI and we've gotten more petty complaints about it then we've ever got about anything else. And it's mostly stupid stuff like people don't like the colors, or the icons, or that a button is slightly bigger/smaller then in previous versions. It's really opened my eyes about how resistant to change people are.


Nobody is going to tell you if it's better, if they like it they're just going to use it. By the way, I am using the new version, I like it. Thank you!


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## mr.unnatural (Feb 2, 2006)

Dan203 said:


> Anyway now I'm just ranting. But if people would just give it a chance they'd likely get use to the new UI and never even notice the changes. (I have using it for the last year in debug) But instead they just b*tch about it immediately because they don't like change.


I recently upgraded my ancient copy of VideoReDo Plus to the current H.264 TVSuite. I couldn't help but notice that my familiar interface had been changed and one or two of the commands that used to be at my fingertips were located elsewhere. After using it a few times I just got used to the new layout and had no problems with it. The functions were all still there and not all that hard to locate. It wasn't anything drastic like going from Windows 7 to Windows 8 where you can no longer find anything without a roadmap or have to search for things that you used to be able to find straight away.


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## emkorial (Jan 7, 2009)

> Some of the complaints we've gotten are just stupid.


I have to say, this is my #1 pet peeve from developers: Telling users they are stupid because they don't see the "obvious" improvements they've put in new versions

It comes off as arrogant, condescending, and rude. Users are not privileged to use the software you make. You are privileged that users use it.


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## jrtroo (Feb 4, 2008)

Some complaints ARE stupid.

On topic- do you think we scared off the OP from ever coming back to this thread?


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## Grakthis (Oct 4, 2006)

ncted said:


> So, you're argument is that text-based interfaces are slower than GUIs because all txt interfaces are poorly designed?


No, that's not what I said. Try again. Maybe this time you'll actually read my post before responding to it.


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## Grakthis (Oct 4, 2006)

emkorial said:


> I have to say, this is my #1 pet peeve from developers: Telling users they are stupid because they don't see the "obvious" improvements they've put in new versions
> 
> It comes off as arrogant, condescending, and rude. Users are not privileged to use the software you make. You are privileged that users use it.


No one tells the users they are stupid. To their faces. We talk about your behind your back, because you're probably too stupid to understand what we're making fun of you for anyways.


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## slowbiscuit (Sep 19, 2006)

Bigg said:


> Yeah, Live Guide is a lot better than the grid guide. I used to try and use the grid guide, and finally I realized that the Live Guide is a lot better and easier to use. Once you learn the shortcuts to jump day to day, you can mash your way through it pretty quickly. I do this for finding basketball games that I want to record (I know from my team's website when they are playing).


Totally disagree, but this is obviously a to each their own pref.


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## ncted (May 13, 2007)

Grakthis said:


> No, that's not what I said. Try again. Maybe this time you'll actually read my post before responding to it.


Well, I had to infer your meaning from this:

"I think what you mean is "a well designed text interface" but the truth is legacy text interfaces are not well designed. "

So, what exactly did you mean by "legacy" versus "well designed?" Was legacy just referring to Lotus as I mentioned it in my post, or is it some larger set of interfaces?

I took your comment to mean that all or most text interfaces not in wide use (i.e. legacy) are not well designed. To which, I would continue to disagree. If you meant something else, please elaborate.


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## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

wmcbrine said:


> That's a job for an auto-recording wishlist.  For example, UNC Men's Basketball:
> 
> Keyword: NORTH CAROLINA
> Title Keyword: COLLEGE BASKETBALL, -WOMENS
> ...


That's a good idea. I should try that and see how well it works. Can you force only new episodes to record? Many of our games are repeated once or twice the next day.


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## wmcbrine (Aug 2, 2003)

Bigg said:


> Can you force only new episodes to record? Many of our games are repeated once or twice the next day.


Games repeated the next day will already not be recorded, under the 28-day rule. The only concern would be ESPN Classic. But yes, you can select "New only".


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

Grakthis said:


> No one tells the users they are stupid. To their faces. We talk about your behind your back, because you're probably too stupid to understand what we're making fun of you for anyways.


LOL

What's funny is quite a few of the people who have complained have sent me screen shots showing things they don't like which clearly show they are using the "classic" theme even in Windows 7. Nothing shows your inflexibility to change like using a theme in Windows 7 to make it look like Windows 95.


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## Jonathan_S (Oct 23, 2001)

ncted said:


> So, you're argument is that text-based interfaces are slower than GUIs because all txt interfaces are poorly designed? That is a software design argument, not a human interface argument. In your example, it is just as easy to create a text-based interface which accepts three fields of input as it is in a GUI.


Um, no. He was relating a _specific_ instance where one of his users objected to moving to a (simpler - better designed) GUI and would prefer to stick with a (harder, more manual, slower) text interface because it's what they knew.

He wasn't making any generalized statements about all GUI or all text interfaces -- he was relating one specific anecdote.


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## HarperVision (May 14, 2007)

wmcbrine said:


> That's a job for an auto-recording wishlist.
> 
> For example, UNC Men's Basketball:
> 
> ...


I'm assuming you meant to put "MENS" instead of "WOMENS" in the keyword section of the WL since your example was for recording "UNC *Men's* Basketball, or did I miss something?


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## jrtroo (Feb 4, 2008)

Not necessarily. If the data failed to put mens in the description, you would not want that as a requirement. But, if it says womens, he knows it is not wanted.


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## HarperVision (May 14, 2007)

jrtroo said:


> Not necessarily. If the data failed to put mens in the description, you would not want that as a requirement. But, if it says womens, he knows it is not wanted.


Huh??? He put WOMENS in the wish list so if it doesn't specifically say that, it won't record, even if it says Men's in the description, which is what I understand he DOES want, no?


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## jrtroo (Feb 4, 2008)

If he put mens in as a requirement, and the guide data did not say mens, then it would not be recorded. Pulling out womens avoids that as an issue, but would record a womens with similarly bad data. In other words, it is more conservative of incomplete guide data but could pick up an extra game.


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## Jonathan_S (Oct 23, 2001)

HarperVision said:


> Huh??? He put WOMENS in the wish list so if it doesn't specifically say that, it won't record, even if it says Men's in the description, which is what I understand he DOES want, no?


Notice the minus sign in front of WOMENS. That's how you tell a wishlist to match things that *don't* include the following keyword.
So instead of building a wishlist that said, in effect, "record everything that says MENS" he instead built one that said, in effect "record everything unless it says WOMENS"

That minus is a very powerful wishlist tool. As is the other one, using parenthesis to match at least one, but potentially many, of the items in parenthesis.

You could even build a combo that said, as a contrived example, record any movie from 2020 that has Steve Carell along with Anne Hathaway and/or Amy Adams and/or Tina Fey; but not if Jane Krakowski is also in it.
Movie Year: 2020
Actor: Carell, Steve * (Hathaway, Anne) * (Adams, Amy) * (Fey, Tina) * -Krakowski, Jane

Or as a slightly more practical example, a wishlist that records everything that Charlie Sheen is credited in, except for the series Two and a Half Men
Actor: Sheen, Charlie 
Title Keyword: -"Two and a Half Men"


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## unitron (Apr 28, 2006)

I'm guessing that using a hyphen in this case is expecting it to be interpreted as a minus sign, which in many search query strings means "exclude any results that contain what follows the minus sign".

Which is why he wanted to include -NC State, so that the North Carolina in it would be ignored, because he wants Carolina games, but not State games, only the fact that they play each other a time or two each year would mean including that exclusion would exclude a big rivalry matchup.


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## NYHeel (Oct 7, 2003)

I'll just add that clearly wmcbrine has good taste in college basketball teams.


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## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

wmcbrine said:


> Games repeated the next day will already not be recorded, under the 28-day rule. The only concern would be ESPN Classic. But yes, you can select "New only".


Ok, that makes sense.



NYHeel said:


> I'll just add that clearly wmcbrine has good taste in college basketball teams.


Except for excluding the women though. My Connecticut bias is showing through.


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## HarperVision (May 14, 2007)

Jonathan_S said:


> Notice the minus sign in front of WOMENS. That's how you tell a wishlist to match things that don't include the following keyword. So instead of building a wishlist that said, in effect, "record everything that says MENS" he instead built one that said, in effect "record everything unless it says WOMENS" That minus is a very powerful wishlist tool. As is the other one, using parenthesis to match at least one, but potentially many, of the items in parenthesis. You could even build a combo that said, as a contrived example, record any movie from 2020 that has Steve Carell along with Anne Hathaway and/or Amy Adams and/or Tina Fey; but not if Jane Krakowski is also in it. Movie Year: 2020 Actor: Carell, Steve * (Hathaway, Anne) * (Adams, Amy) * (Fey, Tina) * -Krakowski, Jane Or as a slightly more practical example, a wishlist that records everything that Charlie Sheen is credited in, except for the series Two and a Half Men Actor: Sheen, Charlie Title Keyword: -"Two and a Half Men"


Oh duh. I was just seeing that as a dash separating his keywords, not a minus sign. Thanks for clarifying that!


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## Grakthis (Oct 4, 2006)

ncted said:


> Well, I had to infer your meaning from this:
> 
> "I think what you mean is "a well designed text interface" but the truth is legacy text interfaces are not well designed. "
> 
> ...


First, my post was in the context of UI's in automation/manufacturing, so they may not universally apply. I put this context in my post.

Second, legacy doesn't mean "not in wide use." It means "old", essentially. Old interfaces weren't designed well, because they faced the limitations of the older technologies involved. Often, they are hacked into newer systems with a bunch of backdoors and ridiculous batch style commands to try to execute things they were never meant to execute. Like, have you ever tried to setup a text interface based TCP/IP session to transmit data into an ERP system's webservice portal? It's a disaster. Tying to send JSON without helper classes is a total catastrophe.

You COULD build a new text interface with modern hooks and protocols, but you face the learning curve issues you describe for new users. A solid GUI can be built to give you the best of both worlds by enabling keyboard navigation via shortcuts (I had a co-worker who basically never took his hands off the keyboard while working in windows... it was bonkers). And just as importantly, a GUI provides user friendliness for corner cases. Like, hey, I put this data in wrong, I need to know how to fix it, oh look, my GUI points out what data was wrong, what needs to be fixed, and maintains all the other data I tried to submit at the same time without making me re-type it.

Legacy text systems suck. They just do. You can replace them with newer text systems, but why? Only the advanced users will benefit from them, and hourly guys usually don't get that advanced.


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## Grakthis (Oct 4, 2006)

Dan203 said:


> LOL
> 
> What's funny is quite a few of the people who have complained have sent me screen shots showing things they don't like which clearly show they are using the "classic" theme even in Windows 7. Nothing shows your inflexibility to change like using a theme in Windows 7 to make it look like Windows 95.


"No, it needs to support IE8 because that's the newest version I can install on my PC." - literally a thing I've been told by a customer.


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## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

wmcbrine said:


> Games repeated the next day will already not be recorded, under the 28-day rule. The only concern would be ESPN Classic. But yes, you can select "New only".


Unfortunately, it doesn't work very well for auto-record, because it picks up Central Connecticut basketball, and a few other things as well. I might be able to go in and play around with it to exclude certain words for it to work right with auto-record, but just having it there, even if half of the stuff in there isn't stuff I want, makes it so much easier to record the games that I am looking for.


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## TXDocu888 (Jan 25, 2015)

jrtroo said:


> Some complaints ARE stupid.
> 
> On topic- do you think we scared off the OP from ever coming back to this thread?


No, you didn't scare me off.

I've been reading the replies, and what I see now is that TIVO really is geared toward people who record programs to play later....not so much for live viewing. But I'm pretty much the opposite when it comes to TV. I don't even really watch that much TV--and when I do, I only record a handful of movies or documentaries for later viewing. I watch a lot of live news (local, CNN, etc). So when I do have a few minutes to scroll the guide and look for things to record, it's hard on TIVO. I don't "search by name" or whatever, because I don't know what I'm searching for.

Also, I hate to burst ya'lls bubble, but FIOS and the cable companies DO allow you to only display the channels that you get on your guide. They're called "Favorite Channels", and as a matter of fact you can set up not only one set, but TWO different sets of Favorite Channels. So maybe I want to just see what's on documentary channels, and my spouse wants to only see sports channels--we could do that on Verizon FIOS's box. And they've had that for years and years. The live guide would display 3 sets of guides: All Channels, Favorites 1, and Favorites 2.

Well in the meantime I'm stuck with this Tivo (it's a "Premier Q" or a "Q"). I agree that showing the guide where it shows everything coming up on one channel beats the version where its a full panel of channels. It's less efficient for scanning what's on a bunch of channels but oh well. And unfortunately Grande does not do a good job of grouping channels: HBO is spread out between the 300's and the 900's. Annoying.

I hate to whine, but OK I will--even the vaunted TIVO remote sucks for me. All the buttons I use are at the top (guide, select, the arrows, "Zoom"). I'm female, so if I grasp the remote around the middle, I can't reach those buttons. And the remote buttons aren't lit, so in the dark, useless.

This whole TIVO worship is idiotic. I'm just shocked that it's so inferior, in my view, to what the cable companies have now. Like I said, I guess it's geared toward people who only watch from recordings.

One last request: can someone please tell me how to set the dang thing so that when I turn the TV on, I get live TV, and not that stupid TIVO screen?????


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## larrs (May 2, 2005)

TXDocu888 said:


> Just switched to Grande Cable Tivo from Verizon Fios. I'm really disappointed in the UI and the remote.
> 
> The UI is mostly awful. You have to click click click through too many menus to do anything. For example: quickly turn on closed captioning. Info, click down, click, click, on, Really? Fios remote: one button: click, its on. Click, it's off.
> 
> ...


Potato, Potahtoe...

I hated and I mean HATED the FiOs box I tried. I thought it was completely un-user friendly.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

TXDocu888 said:


> This whole TIVO worship is idiotic. I'm just shocked that it's so inferior, in my view, to what the cable companies have now. Like I said, I guess it's geared toward people who only watch from recordings.


If you used it as intended it wouldn't be inferior. You realize DVR stands for Digital Video *Recorder* right? If all you do is watch live TV why not just get a regular cable box instead?

Your gripes about the guide and the complexity of turning on CC are valid, but everything else you seem to dislike about it is what makes it a superior DVR. The fact that you don't use those features is why you don't understand the "TiVo worship". If you actually used it as a DVR you'd appreciate the differences.


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## Arcady (Oct 14, 2004)

TXDocu888 said:


> One last request: can someone please tell me how to set the dang thing so that when I turn the TV on, I get live TV, and not that stupid TIVO screen?????


I'll skip the rest of your rant, but the answer to this last question is that when you turn on the TV, the TiVo should be displaying Live TV (except on a Mini.) Are you pressing the TiVo button? What TiVo screen are you talking about?


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## TXDocu888 (Jan 25, 2015)

You're right--when I hit the "TV Power" button for the TV connected to the Mini, then the "TIVO" screen comes up first. On my main TV it does come on to live TV.


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## mahermusic (Mar 12, 2003)

Bigg said:


> However, you missed the best combination of all, which is FIOS with TiVo. but in general, cable can't deliver the same reliability, picture quality, and channel lineup that FIOS can with FIOS's fiber technology, and resulting extra bandwidth over what cable systems have.


STRONGLY disagree.

In our neighborhood, Cable beats fios hands down. As soon as our contracts were up, we all went back to cable because of:
1) HD Picture quality (many had pixelation, we, personally had constant sound issues, and
2) PRICE!!! fios couldn't match our cable providers pricing.

Sorry, but it's Cable and TiVo ALL THE WAY.


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## jcthorne (Jan 28, 2002)

TXDocu888 said:


> This whole TIVO worship is idiotic. I'm just shocked that it's so inferior, in my view, to what the cable companies have now. Like I said, I guess it's geared toward people who only watch from recordings.


Did it ever occur to you that long term use of a Tivo is what caused the paradigm shift in viewing habits for Tivo users? IE the reason the 'recording centric' UI works so well is that using a Tivo will lead to actually USING the DVR rather than watching live tv which sounds so archaic to most everyone here?

You are complaining about a UI that does not work for an outdated mode of using the medium. Other than sports, very few Tivo owners bother with live tv and all the commercials and wasted time that come with it.


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## jcthorne (Jan 28, 2002)

TXDocu888 said:


> You're right--when I hit the "TV Power" button for the TV connected to the Mini, then the "TIVO" screen comes up first. On my main TV it does come on to live TV.


As designed. The mini does not ask to borrow a tuner from the main tivo box until the user asks to watch live tv. Most tivo owners don't head to live tv as the first task. The mini does not have a tuner to start on so why grab one and possibly interrupt a recording on the tivo box.


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## LoadStar (Jul 24, 2001)

TXDocu888 said:


> You're right--when I hit the "TV Power" button for the TV connected to the Mini, then the "TIVO" screen comes up first. On my main TV it does come on to live TV.


That's by design. The TiVo Mini has to "borrow" a tuner from the "parent" TiVo, then returns that tuner back to the parent TiVo when back at the TiVo Central screen. Because of that, the TiVo Mini defaults back to the TiVo Central screen when not in use for a period of time so it doesn't permanently monopolize a tuner even when not being used.

It also emphasizes the design philosophy that has TiVo Central as the... well... center of TiVo operations. Live TV is just one more "application" inside TiVo Central, on parity with recorded TV, as well as "over-the-top" applications like Hulu, Netflix, Amazon Prime, etc.


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## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

mahermusic said:


> STRONGLY disagree.
> 
> In our neighborhood, Cable beats fios hands down. As soon as our contracts were up, we all went back to cable because of:
> 1) HD Picture quality (many had pixelation, we, personally had constant sound issues, and
> ...


What cable company do you have? TWC/BHN hates TiVo and makes TiVo users lives miserable, Comcast's PQ is horrible compared to FIOS, and they have fewer channels, and Cox is just a giant mess. RCN has a crappy channel lineup, although they're super cheap. Who else is Verizon competing against?

Sounds like something was wrong with your FIOS setup. You should have gotten that fixed.

Of course cable providers in FIOS areas have to offer more aggressive pricing than Verizon, because they know they are selling an inferior service, and everyone else knows it too.



jcthorne said:


> Did it ever occur to you that long term use of a Tivo is what caused the paradigm shift in viewing habits for Tivo users? IE the reason the 'recording centric' UI works so well is that using a Tivo will lead to actually USING the DVR rather than watching live tv which sounds so archaic to most everyone here?
> 
> You are complaining about a UI that does not work for an outdated mode of using the medium. Other than sports, very few Tivo owners bother with live tv and all the commercials and wasted time that come with it.


Yup. That's exactly it. Even if I'm dying to see something that's on at 9PM, I'll wait until 9:13 or after, and zap the commercials. I rarely do that anymore, I just let it do it's thing, and when I want to watch TV, it's ready for me.

I have been watching a ton of live TV recently, but only because of sports. I wouldn't dream of watching anything else live. I've really never watched anything live my whole life. TiVo just replaced the giant stack of VHS tapes that we had up until 2004.



LoadStar said:


> It also emphasizes the design philosophy that has TiVo Central as the... well... center of TiVo operations. Live TV is just one more "application" inside TiVo Central, on parity with recorded TV, as well as "over-the-top" applications like Hulu, Netflix, Amazon Prime, etc.


Exactly. Cable companies sell cable boxes with a DVR. TiVo sells a DVR with a cable box.


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## mahermusic (Mar 12, 2003)

Bigg said:


> What cable company do you have? TWC/BHN hates TiVo and makes TiVo users lives miserable, Comcast's PQ is horrible compared to FIOS, and they have fewer channels, and Cox is just a giant mess. RCN has a crappy channel lineup, although they're super cheap. Who else is Verizon competing against?
> 
> Sounds like something was wrong with your FIOS setup. You should have gotten that fixed.
> 
> Of course cable providers in FIOS areas have to offer more aggressive pricing than Verizon, because they know they are selling an inferior service, and everyone else knows it too.


Everyone here HAD Fios, and we've all gone back to Comcast. Comcast's picture quality was FAR superior to what fios had. I also had a recurring sound issue with fios, so, on my block, I had the Double Whammy.

Lastly... fios was JUST SO MUCH MORE EXPENSIVE!!! Every little thing...cable cards, digital adapters for the upstairs TVs... burping while watching a movie...they charge you for things Comcast gives for free.

Honestly... great for you if fios worked for you... but a no-brainer for all of us to stay with Comcast. I, personally, couldn't be happier... (and I can HEAR all of my shows, now!)


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## CinciDVR (May 24, 2014)

TXDocu888 said:


> Also, I hate to burst ya'lls bubble, but FIOS and the cable companies DO allow you to only display the channels that you get on your guide. They're called "Favorite Channels", and as a matter of fact you can set up not only one set, but TWO different sets of Favorite Channels. So maybe I want to just see what's on documentary channels, and my spouse wants to only see sports channels--we could do that on Verizon FIOS's box. And they've had that for years and years. The live guide would display 3 sets of guides: All Channels, Favorites 1, and Favorites 2.


Besides allowing you to limit the guide to just the channels that you receive in your cable package, Tivo also allows you to set Favorites. So the live guide can show you all the channels that you receive, or it can be limited to just the channels that you have marked as favorite. Additionally, the Tivo allows the guide to be limited to showing just a certain category, like Movies, or Sports, and this can be applied to all channels, or just your favorites. Just press the "A" button while viewing the guide to see these options.


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## ncted (May 13, 2007)

TXDocu888 said:


> Also, I hate to burst ya'lls bubble, but FIOS and the cable companies DO allow you to only display the channels that you get on your guide. They're called "Favorite Channels", and as a matter of fact you can set up not only one set, but TWO different sets of Favorite Channels. So maybe I want to just see what's on documentary channels, and my spouse wants to only see sports channels--we could do that on Verizon FIOS's box. And they've had that for years and years. The live guide would display 3 sets of guides: All Channels, Favorites 1, and Favorites 2.


Some do, and some do not. The craptastic TimeWarnerCable Navigator interface does not allow a custom guide view, or didn't the last time I checked. Many others do not. If FIOS does, then good!


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

jcthorne said:


> Did it ever occur to you that long term use of a Tivo is what caused the paradigm shift in viewing habits for Tivo users? IE the reason the 'recording centric' UI works so well is that using a Tivo will lead to actually USING the DVR rather than watching live tv which sounds so archaic to most everyone here?
> 
> You are complaining about a UI that does not work for an outdated mode of using the medium. Other than sports, very few Tivo owners bother with live tv and all the commercials and wasted time that come with it.


And some of us don't think even sports is worth watching live. I know I certainly don't because some sports are the worst offenders of excessive commercials. I don't want to sit through the commercials of a regular TV program and I certainly don't want to sit through even more commercials that some some sports have during a game. Me watching live gives me no benefit except wasting my valuable time.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

Bigg said:


> What cable company do you have? TWC/BHN hates TiVo and makes TiVo users lives miserable, Comcast's PQ is horrible compared to FIOS, and they have fewer channels, and Cox is just a giant mess. RCN has a crappy channel lineup, although they're super cheap. Who else is Verizon competing against?
> 
> Sounds like something was wrong with your FIOS setup. You should have gotten that fixed.
> 
> ...................


To be fair, cable from the same company can be different in different areas. I live in the Washington DC are. So Maryland, DC, and Virginia are areas that people travel through every day. Comcast in my area of Virginia is total crap. Pixelation and every bit starved. While Comcast in the Maryland area of DC is a huge difference. The picture quality is much, much better.

Now FiOS in MD and VA looks the same from what I've seen. In the past FiOS used to always have superior quality but during the past year FiOS has been cramming more and more channels in. They used to never put more than two HD channels per QAM. But now FiOS is using more channels per QAm than in the past. And even though some are using H.264, the overall picture quality has suffered for some of those channels.

Now I think the quality is still better than what Comcast provides in VA and MD. And FIOS is still a night and day difference better from what I've seen in VA. But many channels on FiOS are now much closer to the quality that Comcast offers in the MD area of DC.


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## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

mahermusic said:


> Everyone here HAD Fios, and we've all gone back to Comcast. Comcast's picture quality was FAR superior to what fios had. I also had a recurring sound issue with fios, so, on my block, I had the Double Whammy.
> 
> Lastly... fios was JUST SO MUCH MORE EXPENSIVE!!! Every little thing...cable cards, digital adapters for the upstairs TVs... burping while watching a movie...they charge you for things Comcast gives for free.
> 
> Honestly... great for you if fios worked for you... but a no-brainer for all of us to stay with Comcast. I, personally, couldn't be happier... (and I can HEAR all of my shows, now!)


And what area are you in? I simply don't believe that FIOS has come down anywhere as far as Comcast's awful over-compression.

You only need one CableCard with a Roamio/Mini setup. Yes, a superior service is going to be more expensive. Comcast is in the weird position of being a low-end competitor in FIOS markets and a high-end competitor in the U-Verse markets.

I live about 15 minutes from a FIOS area (Connecticut only has one town with FIOS, at the other end of the state), I have Comcast, but I've seen FIOS, and man is it amazing. Mostly on the TV side of things. Either one is probably fine for internet. If Verizon decides to get off their duffs and throw the switch on gigabit internet at a reasonable price, then FIOS will own on the internet end again.



aaronwt said:


> To be fair, cable from the same company can be different in different areas. I live in the Washington DC are. So Maryland, DC, and Virginia are areas that people travel through every day. Comcast in my area of Virginia is total crap. Pixelation and every bit starved. While Comcast in the Maryland area of DC is a huge difference. The picture quality is much, much better.


Don't they compress regionally? And they have to compress the snot out of their channels everywhere.



> Now FiOS in MD and VA looks the same from what I've seen. In the past FiOS used to always have superior quality but during the past year FiOS has been cramming more and more channels in. They used to never put more than two HD channels per QAM. But now FiOS is using more channels per QAm than in the past. And even though some are using H.264, the overall picture quality has suffered for some of those channels.


Yeah, I know they are tri-muxing, I was surprised when that first happened, but I've heard it a number of times since. Aren't a lot of the big channels still bi-muxed?



> Now I think the quality is still better than what Comcast provides in VA and MD. And FIOS is still a night and day difference better from what I've seen in VA. But many channels on FiOS are now much closer to the quality that Comcast offers in the MD area of DC.


That's unfortunate. They need to really get rolling with H.264 to get the picture quality up.


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## mr.unnatural (Feb 2, 2006)

mahermusic said:


> Everyone here HAD Fios, and we've all gone back to Comcast. Comcast's picture quality was FAR superior to what fios had. I also had a recurring sound issue with fios, so, on my block, I had the Double Whammy.
> 
> Lastly... fios was JUST SO MUCH MORE EXPENSIVE!!! Every little thing...cable cards, digital adapters for the upstairs TVs... burping while watching a movie...they charge you for things Comcast gives for free.
> 
> Honestly... great for you if fios worked for you... but a no-brainer for all of us to stay with Comcast. I, personally, couldn't be happier... (and I can HEAR all of my shows, now!)


Your experience with FIOS is more the exception than the rule. I switched from Comcast to FIOS years ago and would never even think of switching back. Comcast raped me for wideband internet because I didn't want their TV service (I was with DirecTV after dropping Comcast as my TV provider). FIOS internet is the best available anywhere. If you've had a different experience then it sounds like Verizon just doesn't have their act together in your region.

My TV reception has been exemplary, as has my experience with their service department. My FIOS went out over the weekend due to a defective battery backup unit (the ONT wasn't getting any power). I called and made a service appointment for Sunday between 8AM and 8PM with no fixed time. The tech arrived at 8:15AM and had me back up and running in about 15 minutes. I've been on FIOS for over 7 years and this is the first time I ever lost service. Comcast used to go out anytime the weather got bad. Same with DirecTV in heavy rain or snow.

Last time I checked package prices between Comcast and Verizon in my area they were pretty even. Verizon offers all of the channels I like to watch in HD. I'm not sure that Comcast does. The only equipment I rent from Verizon is two cablecards.


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## nrc (Nov 17, 1999)

TXDocu888 said:


> I hate to whine, but OK I will--even the vaunted TIVO remote sucks for me. All the buttons I use are at the top (guide, select, the arrows, "Zoom"). I'm female, so if I grasp the remote around the middle, I can't reach those buttons. And the remote buttons aren't lit, so in the dark, useless.


You might consider getting the TiVo slide remote. It's backlit and a little more compact top to bottom.

http://www.engadget.com/2010/08/24/tivo-slide-remote-review/



> This whole TIVO worship is idiotic. I'm just shocked that it's so inferior, in my view, to what the cable companies have now. Like I said, I guess it's geared toward people who only watch from recordings.


If it were inferior then we wouldn't be worshiping it, now would we? Once you acquire third level time-shifter status the secrets of TiVo shall be revealed to you.


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## Series3Sub (Mar 14, 2010)

The OP has legitimate gripes. No DVR is perfect, but compared to other DVR's TiVo has really stuck to its now over simplified clicking down to several layers of menus since 1999 while other DVR's offer faster ways of accessing otherwise deeply layered menus.

This is really a case of a consumer simply preferring the UI and access to TiVo's. In that respect it is TiVo's weakest point. However, along with a few other TiVo quirks (as there are Verizon or Dish or DirecTV quirks) TiVo is a solid DVR that beats every Cable co DVR out there, and TiVo UI is even superior to Cable co. OK, Hopper and Genie may (obviously a subjective view) be, overall, better than TiVo, but Verizon FiOS is not a cable co, so I suppose Verizon's DVR (and I do think there UI is pretty good since the last update, so I could understand some preferring it to TiVo) has a few things over TiVo in the UI area.

The only thing that does irk me is that even on the Roamio (this happens on S4 equipment, as well), when I press Zoom to move from the picture in guide to the full video, it always goes to GRAY and the sound stops and this is a really show stopping event. Why can't TiVo get that right. Dish, DirecTV and others have a seamless quick and non-interrupting experience when they switch to Picture in Guide to full video. As good as a product as TiVo is, why can't the engineers at Alviso get this right? My guests are in shock and say they would never get a DVR that did that. It's a bad calling card for TiVo, and is the ONLY embarrassing thing about it.

So, yeah, the Hopper guide dumps all over TiVo and Genie, and the OP makes fair points about Verizon vs. TiVo UI and access to menus/features but at this point, I would prefer the elimination of the GRAY screen and sound of momentary death when Zooming from guide to full video.

Admitting a DVR's weak points does not mean it is a bad product. TiVo, overall still is better than MOST DVR's out there.


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## Arcady (Oct 14, 2004)

Goes gray when going from guide to full screen? I haven't seen this. Do you have multiple resolutions checked in your video settings? I only keep 1080p turned on. I can't go look at the Roamio now, but maybe your picture is changing from 720p to 1080i or something?


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

Series3Sub said:


> ..........................
> The only thing that does irk me is that even on the Roamio (this happens on S4 equipment, as well), when I press Zoom to move from the picture in guide to the full video, it always goes to GRAY and the sound stops and this is a really show stopping event. Why can't TiVo get that right. Dish, DirecTV and others have a seamless quick and non-interrupting experience when they switch to Picture in Guide to full video. ..............


I have never seen a gray screen on my Roamio Pro or Roamio Basic when doing this. That is not normal behavior. When I go from the guide with the video in the corner to full screen video, it is seamless for me. No interruption in audio or video.


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## tatergator1 (Mar 27, 2008)

aaronwt said:


> I have never seen a gray screen on my Roamio Pro or Roamio Basic when doing this. That is not normal behavior. When I go from the guide with the video in the corner to full screen video, it is seamless for me. No interruption in audio or video.


I've not seen it either, but I know the screen does go black briefly when switching. Perhaps this has to do with the letterbox color options in the Tivo settings. Perhaps Series3Sub has it set to gray, where I think most people stick to black as default.


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## mr.unnatural (Feb 2, 2006)

Series3Sub said:


> The only thing that does irk me is that even on the Roamio (this happens on S4 equipment, as well), when I press Zoom to move from the picture in guide to the full video, it always goes to GRAY and the sound stops and this is a really show stopping event.


I've never seen that on a Tivo, but then I haven't owned one since I sold my last S3. The problem you're describing sounds very much like an EDID issue between the Tivo and your TV. Since you indicated it occurs with S4 equipment I'd wager that is the root problem you're dealing with.

Have you tried the Tivo on a different HDTV? If it works on a different TV then you're got an incompatibility issue with your current TV set.

Are you running the output of the Tivo through an A/V receiver or preamp/processor via HDMI? If so, it definitely sounds like an EDID issue. Try connecting the Tivo directly to the TV and see if the problem persists.

This happens a lot with HTPCs when running the HDMI output through an external switcher, preamp/processor, or A/V receiver instead of going straight to the TV. The handshake between components gets disrupted temporarily until it reestablishes itself. Using the zoom function may be causing this to happen. In other words, the problem may not be with the Tivo but rather the equipment you're using it with.


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## Diana Collins (Aug 21, 2002)

It doesn't happen between the guide and live TV, just between TiVo Central (or any place the HD menus show a small video window) and full screen TV. It seems almost like the menu system is running in a different process, and to return to Live TV it needs to switch the video to the foreground process which causes the momentary glitch. It is a small thing, but it has made me use "jump back" many times to catch dialogue that was blanked out.


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## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

Series3Sub said:


> This is really a case of a consumer simply preferring the UI and access to TiVo's. In that respect it is TiVo's weakest point. However, along with a few other TiVo quirks (as there are Verizon or Dish or DirecTV quirks) TiVo is a solid DVR that beats every Cable co DVR out there, and TiVo UI is even superior to Cable co. OK, Hopper and Genie may (obviously a subjective view) be, overall, better than TiVo, but Verizon FiOS is not a cable co, so I suppose Verizon's DVR (and I do think there UI is pretty good since the last update, so I could understand some preferring it to TiVo) has a few things over TiVo in the UI area.


I generally agree with what you're saying, but you have to throw Comcast X1 in there with Genie and Hopper. I have only used X1, and it's a decent knock-off of TiVo, but it's definitely not TiVo.

Also, Verizon basically is a cable company, since they use QAM and their older Moto boxes were basically cable company boxes modified so that they could get VOD over IP.


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## Grakthis (Oct 4, 2006)

mr.unnatural said:


> Your experience with FIOS is more the exception than the rule. I switched from Comcast to FIOS years ago and would never even think of switching back. Comcast raped me for wideband internet because I didn't want their TV service (I was with DirecTV after dropping Comcast as my TV provider). FIOS internet is the best available anywhere. If you've had a different experience then it sounds like Verizon just doesn't have their act together in your region.
> 
> My TV reception has been exemplary, as has my experience with their service department. My FIOS went out over the weekend due to a defective battery backup unit (the ONT wasn't getting any power). I called and made a service appointment for Sunday between 8AM and 8PM with no fixed time. The tech arrived at 8:15AM and had me back up and running in about 15 minutes. I've been on FIOS for over 7 years and this is the first time I ever lost service. Comcast used to go out anytime the weather got bad. Same with DirecTV in heavy rain or snow.
> 
> Last time I checked package prices between Comcast and Verizon in my area they were pretty even. Verizon offers all of the channels I like to watch in HD. I'm not sure that Comcast does. The only equipment I rent from Verizon is two cablecards.


I don't have Comcast.. but I haven't had cable go out in 10 years. Power goes out before cable does. That's so weird that you had cable go out that often.


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## mr.unnatural (Feb 2, 2006)

Grakthis said:


> I don't have Comcast.. but I haven't had cable go out in 10 years. Power goes out before cable does. That's so weird that you had cable go out that often.


Not weird at all. It all depends on how they install the infrastructure. Newer systems install their lines underground. Comcast has theirs strung up on the light poles in my area, but underground in the neighborhoods. If there is any disruption of the trunk lines due to bad weather (branches falling, cars hitting poles, ice storms snapping lines, etc.), the cable goes out. FIOS has all of their lines buried so it doesn't suffer from the same problems. If the cable trunk lines in your area are buried then chances are you won't have many outages either.


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## jrtroo (Feb 4, 2008)

Well, and the cable can go out with nobody home and without notice. The power blips or goes out and clocks need resetting, shows record partials, appliances turn off, ect.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

When I had Comcast, it was just as reliable as FIOS. It would never go out during power outages. So I could continue watching TV or recording content whenever the power went out.

But my brother, that lives a few miles away, his Comcast cable went out every time the power goes out. I last had Comcast in 2009 to get access to a few channels that FiOS didn't have at the time. But six years later and Comcast is still the same way at my brothers location. Always losing a signal when the power goes out.


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## Diana Collins (Aug 21, 2002)

mr.unnatural said:


> ...FIOS has all of their lines buried so it doesn't suffer from the same problems...


Maybe some places, but here in NE New Jersey they are on poles. I remember when they came through here 9 years ago. They moved the POTS lines down the pole about a foot and strung the fiber where the POTS used to be. The fiber runs from the pole to my house and down the side to the ONT.

The fiber seems more resilient. A couple years ago a tree went down in a storm and was actually being held up by the fiber cable on my block. We never lost service. When Hurricane Sandy hit here, and power was out for 8 days, Cablevision was out from day 1, but FiOS kept working (we had a generator).


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## trip1eX (Apr 2, 2005)

Series3Sub said:


> The OP has legitimate gripes. No DVR is perfect, but compared to other DVR's TiVo has really stuck to its now over simplified clicking down to several layers of menus since 1999 while other DVR's offer faster ways of accessing otherwise deeply layered menus.
> 
> This is really a case of a consumer simply preferring the UI and access to TiVo's. In that respect it is TiVo's weakest point. However, along with a few other TiVo quirks (as there are Verizon or Dish or DirecTV quirks) TiVo is a solid DVR that beats every Cable co DVR out there, and TiVo UI is even superior to Cable co. OK, Hopper and Genie may (obviously a subjective view) be, overall, better than TiVo, but Verizon FiOS is not a cable co, so I suppose Verizon's DVR (and I do think there UI is pretty good since the last update, so I could understand some preferring it to TiVo) has a few things over TiVo in the UI area.
> 
> ...


I don't agree the OP's gripes are legitimate unless you asterisk them by mentioning the OP is renting a last-gen Tivo and the OP just got the Tivo and hasn't owned one long enough to adjust to it.

That's why i view the OP's complaints as mostly complaints about the process of change (to an older model Tivo on top of it.)

Also the OP later mentions to mostly watching live TV. So lost is almost any advantage Tivo would have over a plain 'ole cable box. IF I watched mostly live tv I would own a regular cable box.


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## trip1eX (Apr 2, 2005)

I had Comcast and FIOS in Boston and, as excited as i was to switch to FIOS, I didn't notice a difference. Same product to me.


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## mr.unnatural (Feb 2, 2006)

Diana Collins said:


> Maybe some places, but here in NE New Jersey they are on poles.


I meant to imply that they're buried in my area. I have no idea how they're configured elsewhere. In any case, areas that do have buried cables or fiber optic lines are less likely to suffer outages than those with exposed lines strung on poles.


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## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

mr.unnatural said:


> Not weird at all. It all depends on how they install the infrastructure. Newer systems install their lines underground. Comcast has theirs strung up on the light poles in my area, but underground in the neighborhoods. If there is any disruption of the trunk lines due to bad weather (branches falling, cars hitting poles, ice storms snapping lines, etc.), the cable goes out. FIOS has all of their lines buried so it doesn't suffer from the same problems. If the cable trunk lines in your area are buried then chances are you won't have many outages either.


In the Northeast, cable and FIOS follow wherever the electric lines are. If they are above, so are cable and FIOS. Where they go underground (newer subdivisions and most larger condo complexes), so do the cable and FIOS. In older areas where everything in aerial, there is a crapload of FIOS up on the poles.



trip1eX said:


> I had Comcast and FIOS in Boston and, as excited as i was to switch to FIOS, I didn't notice a difference. Same product to me.


Metro Boston? Boston proper doesn't have FIOS. FIOS has better picture quality, and more channels.


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## trip1eX (Apr 2, 2005)

Bigg said:


> Metro Boston? Boston proper doesn't have FIOS. FIOS has better picture quality, and more channels.


boston area. Reading to be more precise. picture quality was the same difference. channel lineup was the same difference.


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## Grakthis (Oct 4, 2006)

mr.unnatural said:


> Not weird at all. It all depends on how they install the infrastructure. Newer systems install their lines underground. Comcast has theirs strung up on the light poles in my area, but underground in the neighborhoods. If there is any disruption of the trunk lines due to bad weather (branches falling, cars hitting poles, ice storms snapping lines, etc.), the cable goes out. FIOS has all of their lines buried so it doesn't suffer from the same problems. If the cable trunk lines in your area are buried then chances are you won't have many outages either.


So, I grew up in a neighborhood with the lines underground in our subdivision, and it went out periodically during storms.

For the last 15 years I've lived in a neighborhood with the lines strung on poles, and it never goes out unless power is out too.

In the case of my old house, it was because cable came straight off a major pole to my house, but power was on a circuit with the whole block, so even when my line was up, the circuit could go down.

I think maybe it has more to do with the lines further upstream than the ones in the actual neighborhood? Not sure.


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## epstewart (Mar 1, 2003)

TXDocu888 said:


> Just switched to Grande Cable Tivo from Verizon Fios. I'm really disappointed in the UI and the remote.


I use Verizon FiOS with a TiVo Roamio Plus and love it!

TXDocu888, is your box a TiVo T6, basically a TiVo Roamio. Does it have the standard Roamio remote?

What keeps you with Grande Cable? Why not buy your own Roamio and switch back to Verizon?


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## mr.unnatural (Feb 2, 2006)

Grakthis said:


> So, I grew up in a neighborhood with the lines underground in our subdivision, and it went out periodically during storms.
> 
> For the last 15 years I've lived in a neighborhood with the lines strung on poles, and it never goes out unless power is out too.
> 
> ...


At some point in the signal path you've probably got lines strung on poles. If they're maintained and don't have trees with large branches overhead and they're not prone to getting hit by stray motor vehicles then chances are you won't lose the signal on a regular basis. There are too many mitigating circumstances to pinpoint what causes one system to thrive while others are more sporadic. If the lines are buried right from the source to your doorstep then chances are you won't have any problems or they'll be minimized at the very least.


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## Grakthis (Oct 4, 2006)

mr.unnatural said:


> At some point in the signal path you've probably got lines strung on poles. If they're maintained and don't have trees with large branches overhead and they're not prone to getting hit by stray motor vehicles then chances are you won't lose the signal on a regular basis. There are too many mitigating circumstances to pinpoint what causes one system to thrive while others are more sporadic. If the lines are buried right from the source to your doorstep then chances are you won't have any problems or they'll be minimized at the very least.


I agree. I don't think my situation is standard, but I did think that outages were less frequent now than then used to be when I was a kid. Purely anecdotally, I haven't heard someone complain about their cable being out in years. And when I was a kid, it would go out with every tornado warning, it seemed like.


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## mr.unnatural (Feb 2, 2006)

Grakthis said:


> I agree. I don't think my situation is standard, but I did think that outages were less frequent now than then used to be when I was a kid. Purely anecdotally, I haven't heard someone complain about their cable being out in years. And when I was a kid, it would go out with every tornado warning, it seemed like.


That's probably because most cable providers have upgraded their infrastructure and now use fiber for the main trunk lines and then switch to copper for the residential drops. At least Comcast has in my area, but I suspect most other providers are going down the same path to stay competitive. You don't keep customers happy if they can't get a TV signal 24/7.


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## epstewart (Mar 1, 2003)

Grakthis said:


> I agree. I don't think my situation is standard, but I did think that outages were less frequent now than then used to be when I was a kid. Purely anecdotally, I haven't heard someone complain about their cable being out in years. And when I was a kid, it would go out with every tornado warning, it seemed like.


I wonder why the O.P. doesn't go back to FiOS (and buy a Roamio). I've had FiOS for a couple of years. No outages. I was with Comcast before that. Outages were problematic.


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## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

trip1eX said:


> boston area. Reading to be more precise. picture quality was the same difference. channel lineup was the same difference.


Really? You couldn't tell the difference? Not sure if that's bad for FIOS or good for Comcast. Down here in CT, Comcast compresses the snot out of a lot of stuff. They don't compete with FIOS here though, FIOS competes with Cox in RI and Cablevision in the one area of CT that they are in.


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