# Tivo Premiere XL: Disappointed



## dbates (May 18, 2002)

I have been a Tivo subscriber since the Series 2, so when they came out with the Series 4 I immediately pre-ordered. After using it for about a week I can honestly say that I feel that I have made a terrible mistake. I cannot believe that Tivo has let this buggy half-baked "HD interface" represent it as the future of the product. It is incredibly slow and it freezes all the time so that I have to unplug it and then plug it back in. Not only that but the interface design itself is terrible and jerky and completely lacks finesse. For the first time since the dawn of the DVR I am considering returning this and going with Windows Media Center. I think the Tivo folks have given up.


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## falcon26 (Mar 17, 2010)

I totally agree with you. If my company released a product this buggy would wouldn't have very many customers left....


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## jmX (May 7, 2004)

Welcome to the age of patching. Now that everybody knows their devices will be on the network, nobody cares about releasing a buggy product anymore. Just patch it later right?

This same issue has really shown its face in the video game console world this generation, altho not to the same extent as this Tivo release.

For whatever its worth, I blame the companies, not the programmers. The programmers most certainly knew about these bugs.


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## innocentfreak (Aug 25, 2001)

I still remember the days when console fanboys would say how much better the consoles were than PCs because console games didn't need to be patched, even though in truth they couldn't be. Now that they can almost everything seems to ship with a day one patch.


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## nrc (Nov 17, 1999)

If you're unhappy with the Premiere you should take advantage of the 30 day return policy. It's the best way to let TiVo know about your dissatisfaction.


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## sbq (Feb 6, 2010)

I just had my M-Card installed a few hours ago, and so far I haven't seen any bugs in the UI at all. It is faster than my 6 year old S2 it just replaced, and it's still indexing.


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## brianric (Aug 29, 2002)

sbq said:


> I just had my M-Card installed a few hours ago, and so far I haven't seen any bugs in the UI at all. It is faster than my 6 year old S2 it just replaced, and it's still indexing.


Give it a couple days.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

brianric said:


> Give it a couple days.


And it will still be just as fast or faster.


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## dcorbin (Mar 31, 2002)

It is very slow and "flashy" in terms of interface. That is, when I change menus screens, my screen frequently flashes gray (lost signal?) first before going to the screen in question. It does however operate MUCH faster in general than my Old DirecTV (Series 1).


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## BlackBetty (Nov 6, 2004)

aaronwt said:


> And it will still be just as fast or faster.


+1


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## cranbers (Apr 2, 2010)

Sounds like my initial thought post lmao..... Glad to see it's not just me or I'm nuts. Thought it was mine at first.


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## crxssi (Apr 5, 2010)

falcon26 said:


> I totally agree with you. If my company released a product this buggy would wouldn't have very many customers left....


And it is far more than an issue with being buggy. TiVo still hasn't fixed the problems with the older HD's! We have been waiting over a year for many bugs, and still no resolution. So what do they do? Release a new box that is buggy, has only a few new features, and STILL has no option to save your settings/ratings/passes to a flash key so you don't spend an eternity trying to re-enter everything every time your box fails!


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

crxssi said:


> And it is far more than an issue with being buggy. TiVo still hasn't fixed the problems with the older HD's! We have been waiting over a year for many bugs, and still no resolution. So what do they do? Release a new box that is buggy, has only a few new features, and STILL has no option to save your settings/ratings/passes to a flash key so you don't spend an eternity trying to re-enter everything every time your box fails!


Box fails? With my Premiers that puts me over thirty TiVos in the last nine years. I've never had a TiVo fail.


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## xboard07 (Dec 16, 2007)

aaronwt said:


> Box fails? With my Premiers that puts me over thirty TiVos in the last nine years. I've never had a TiVo fail.


that's great


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## bkdtv (Jan 9, 2003)

crxssi said:


> And it is far more than an issue with being buggy. TiVo still hasn't fixed the problems with the older HD's! We have been waiting over a year for many bugs, and still no resolution.


TiVo just addressed several outstanding issues in the 11.0g update.

The analog recording bug is still a serious problem on the TivoHD. TiVo is still working on it, but it is unclear when it will be fixed.

The TiVo Premiere offers better analog channel quality than the TivoHD and does not exhibit any of the same problems with analog channels. TiVo used new hardware for analog support in the Premiere so it would avoid that problem.


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## crxssi (Apr 5, 2010)

aaronwt said:


> Box fails? With my Premiers that puts me over thirty TiVos in the last nine years. I've never had a TiVo fail.


Well good for you. In the last 10+ years, I have had two fail. And I upgraded 3 times. That means I had to waste countless hours re-entering data 5 times and STILL lost all my ratings.


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## dcorbin (Mar 31, 2002)

crxssi said:


> And it is far more than an issue with being buggy. TiVo still hasn't fixed the problems with the older HD's! We have been waiting over a year for many bugs, and still no resolution. So what do they do? Release a new box that is buggy, has only a few new features, and STILL has no option to save your settings/ratings/passes to a flash key so you don't spend an eternity trying to re-enter everything every time your box fails!


Forget the flash key, it should be backed up to your online account, and it should be automatic.


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## crxssi (Apr 5, 2010)

bkdtv said:


> TiVo just addressed several outstanding issues in the 11.0g update.
> 
> The analog recording bug is still a serious problem on the TivoHD. TiVo is still working on it, but it is unclear when it will be fixed.
> 
> The TiVo Premiere offers better analog channel quality than the TivoHD and does not exhibit any of the same problems with analog channels. TiVo used new hardware for analog support in the Premiere so it would avoid that problem.


Unfortunately none of those are the bugs that have been annoying me for over a year- 1) Group is empty (when it is not), 2) Cablecard lockout messages, 3) Corrupted/noisey display until TV reselects input again. They did fix ONE of them- the spontaneous rebooting.


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## bkdtv (Jan 9, 2003)

crxssi said:


> Unfortunately none of those are the bugs that have been annoying me for over a year- 1) Group is empty (when it is not), 2) Cablecard lockout messages, 3) Corrupted/noisey display until TV reselects input again. They did fix ONE of them- the spontaneous rebooting.


I am not familiar with the first problem..

The third problem would be an issue with the way your particular TV handles resolution switching or HDCP sync; to minimize that, set your TiVo to use fixed 720p or fixed 1080i. If you have the Premiere, only check one resolution (plus 1080p24 if available) under Video Output settings.


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## RoyK (Oct 22, 2004)

bkdtv said:


> I am not familiar with the first problem..


Happens to me all the time. I have several programs in a group. I use the clear button to delete one or a few (but not all) of them. The window clears and says the group is no longer needed.

Exit the group and reenter and the files I didn't delete are there.

Makes me shake my head every time.


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## Terbor (Jan 26, 2009)

RoyK said:


> Happens to me all the time. I have several programs in a group. I use the clear button to delete one or a few (but not all) of them. The window clears and says the group is no longer needed.
> 
> Exit the group and reenter and the files I didn't delete are there.
> 
> Makes me shake my head every time.


That's been happening to me with my TiVoHD. It's definitely not a new thing.


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## donnoh (Mar 7, 2008)

RoyK said:


> Happens to me all the time. I have several programs in a group. I use the clear button to delete one or a few (but not all) of them. The window clears and says the group is no longer needed.
> 
> Exit the group and reenter and the files I didn't delete are there.
> 
> Makes me shake my head every time.


You don't need to exit the group and come back, just wait a few seconds and it'll re-populate.


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