# How much "live" TV do you watch?



## blindlemon (May 12, 2002)

In response to this thread I thought it would be interesting to compare the results of the Ofcom survey with the experiences of TiVo users.

Edit: FWIW I have emailed Mark Bunting of Ofcom and Prof. Barwise who did the original survey and pointed them to this poll so they can see the difference that having a true PVR makes - *so please vote!*


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## dirtypacman (Feb 3, 2004)

US chiming in:

I watch 25% live TV and thats only sports programs... everything I watch is Tivo'd.
And I never stop for an ad.


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## terryeden (Nov 2, 2002)

Apart from Doctor Who - because I don't want to see it a second late - everything goes through the TiVo.

I tried watching adverts during the last episode of House and they were so..... insultingly dumb that I just pressed pause and twiddled my thumbs for 5 minutes. Musch more interesting.


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## iankb (Oct 9, 2000)

It's that endless stream of daytime ads that try and get you to consolidate your debts, or sue your employer for slipping up on that water that you accidentally split, that really drive me up the wall. They tend to appear within the suggestions that my TiVo decides to record from Hallmark, etc, when it gets bored.


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## SeanC (Dec 30, 2003)

Before I had HD I only watched recorded material. Now that I do have HD each night I decide what I want to watch live so I can enjoy what I paid for. Eventually I'll have an HD DVR, soon hopefully.


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## cwaring (Feb 12, 2002)

terryeden said:


> Apart from Doctor Who - because I don't want to see it a second late - everything goes through the TiVo.


SO glad it's not just me that does that


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## yostmatt (Apr 6, 2005)

Live TV? is that like stuff that is not in the Now Playing List.


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## Ian_m (Jan 9, 2001)

Does live TV still exist ?

Last time I saw it was sometime before Nov 2000 when my TiVo arrived.


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## sloan (Feb 13, 2003)

Non sports. 99% is tivo'ed. I almost never flip channels.

Actually, channel flipping has been replaced with
"Search by Title". Sometimes when I'm bored, I pick a letter of the alphabet, and go thru that letter on the "Search by Title".

I have some generic WishLists in place too. Like "history of", "nazi*", "mustang", etc etc.. and I will look thru them.

Some some reason I like 'former child star' stories. It seems like Opie Taylor is the only one that made it thru unscaffed.

With Sports, I usually wait about 45 minutes to an hour to start watching.
Then .. I usually "catch up to live" somewhere in the 4th quarter, and I watch live from there. Well, I actually will hit "pause", go watch another show for 3 minutes, and then come back to the game.

Others find this very annoying. I find it wonderfully blissful.

SuperBowl is of course "live".


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## Tivo_noob (Jan 28, 2006)

I'm ashamed to admit that i'm not making the most of my Tivo, i've had it for 3 months now and just haven't got used to not watching everything live, don't get me wrong i love Tivo but i think 32 years of watching Live tv is going to take longer than 3 months to stop


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## cwaring (Feb 12, 2002)

Well I'm 37 and I 'got it' immediately. I think you're just not trying hard enough


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## Raisltin Majere (Mar 13, 2004)

The wife doesn't "get it" so any time I watch telly with her, it's live.

When I watch telly on my own, I watch por- ,er recorded stuff  

(apart from Dr Who, of course)


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## Tivo_noob (Jan 28, 2006)

cwaring said:


> Well I'm 37 and I 'got it' immediately. I think you're just not trying hard enough


Maybe you _older_ people have nothing better to do


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## cwaring (Feb 12, 2002)

Someone's heading for a slap


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## davisa (Feb 19, 2002)

terryeden said:


> Apart from Doctor Who - because I don't want to see it a second late - everything goes through the TiVo.


Snap!


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## Uncle Briggs (Sep 11, 2004)

Sporting events and news are about the only programs I watch live. I skip 90% of the ads.


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## katman (Jun 4, 2002)

I watch 50/50 and the recorded programs are a mix of TiVo and SKY+

The most frustrating thing is that when you watch something recorded you sometimes see a trailer for a program that is on in three days time, only to find out you are watching a 5 day old recording so you have missed the chance of recording it.

Equally frustrating is when you are watching Live TV and you try to fast forward through the adverts !!!

I tried using TiVo's suggestions when I first got it but I discovered one major flaw 

Although sold as a PVR (PERSONAL Video Recorder), due to the simplicity of operation it is in fact a FVR (FAMILY Video Recorder) and the kind of programs I like didnt get a look in as certain other occupants of the household had already contaminated TiVo with the idea that is should use all available disc space to record Soaps and Cartoons


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## B33K34 (Feb 9, 2003)

i don't even watch news live - far better to record it and then skip past the 'human interest' filler and pick up the real news. I'm not a sport watcher either and we stream tivo to the kitchen TV meaning live tv really is very close to nil


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## ericd121 (Dec 12, 2002)

Football - Live (when it's live)
Morning News - Near Live (using the buffer)
Ads - One occasionally catches my eye and I go back to check it out.

This is a good thing, or I'd have missed the ad for the *Hanso Foundation*
and wouldn't have phoned their freephone number 0800 66 66 40

[Hint] 
Unless you want to have the plot of a certain programme spoilt, 
DO NOT google Hanso Foundation! 
(You can safely follow the link above).

Sometimes, a little mystery is fun; relax, enjoy it, allow the story to unfold.


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## cyril (Sep 5, 2001)

I think this should be posted on the 'PVR' section of avforums -as only a few TiVo users are there - they are mainly Toppy. Digifusion, Humax DVR users.

There should be a big difference.


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## rwtomkins (Jul 14, 2003)

I never watch live TV and I always skip all the ads. However, the surprising truth about all this, according to BARB research published today, is:

http://www.barb.co.uk/news.cfm?fullstory=true&newsid=138&flag=news

It shows that only 13.8 per cent of all viewing on Sky+ is time shifted, even including chase playing (pressing the pause button for a couple of minutes, then resuming play). Only 8 per cent of Sky+ users time-shift more than half their viewing.

Perhaps they're still trying to figure out how to use their machines...


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## iankb (Oct 9, 2000)

I think that a lot of Sky+ users simply got it as an advanced digibox, and not because they wanted a DVR. However, I suspect the main reason is that the EPG is far too cumbersome to use, and they don't trust it to record everything.

The main advantage of the TiVo is its ability to schedule a significant volume of recordings from Season Passes and Wishlist, so less manual intervention is required. I have a cheap Freeview DVR as a backup and to handle clashes and, although it has a better EPG than Sky, it is still too much work to schedule when compared to the TiVo.


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## cwaring (Feb 12, 2002)

The Telewest TVDrive has the same problem. In fact, it's even worse as you have to know when the programme is on to be able to schedule it using the EPG. The quicker they add my requested "search by title" function, the better


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## sanderton (Jan 4, 2002)

Sport and news live, everything else recorded. I watch must see TV like The Apprentice or Dr Who I often watch timeslipped, ie, a few mins out of phase while its still recorded, juts because of kids etc interfereing with sitting down at exactly 8pm or whatver. Sometimes even sport all watch a few mins out so I can FF though half time!


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## Uncle Briggs (Sep 11, 2004)

cwaring said:


> Well I'm 37 and I 'got it' immediately. I think you're just not trying hard enough


After replacing 4 VCR's with 3 TiVo's it didn't take me long to "get It". Programming the VCR's and making sure there was enough tape in them was a full time job. Now life is much easier with TiVo.


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## arturus (Feb 11, 2002)

Never watch live TV! Can't see the point, my 300gb hd and a large wishlist / season pass means TiVo always has something to watch. Tend to watch longer programmes over a couple of evenings too if time is short.


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## irrelevant (Mar 19, 2002)

don't watch sport and get news off news.bbc.co.uk..

Only thing tha tgets watched live is normally Dr Who.. but tonight the kid was on the phone so we sat down late to start watching it delayed, off the recording, and blow me down it was some dance show. Forwarded on 30 mins to find it, and realised it wasn't going to get it all. So I tried extending the recording on the fly using the standard tivo options, so we didn't miss any, and the damn tivo rebooted (5+ mins to reboot because of cachecard..) So that killed the chance of watching it at all.

All down to some football match or other that they decided was more important than scheduling...

so now I have a very unhappy family, no Doctor Who, and I'm hoping desperately that I can get it tomorrow off wherever it's repeated (bbc3?).


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## cwaring (Feb 12, 2002)

irrelevant said:


> so now I have a very unhappy family, no Doctor Who, and I'm hoping desperately that I can get it tomorrow off wherever it's repeated (bbc3?).


Yep. 7:15pm, with the "Confidential" right after it; which I'll be recording 'cos BBC3 delayed it by 25 mins so they could show it after the delayed "Who". Bloody football


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## Nebulous (Nov 28, 2005)

I never watch live TV. The closest to live is pausing the morning news while I make breakfast / sandwiches etc. Then I can skip through the sports drivel and any lame stories while I eat.


irrelevant said:


> ... no Doctor Who, ...


Yeh, and I missed the end of Doctor Who too. Apparently there was a program, which overran, about a load of grown men running around a field arguing over a bag of air!!


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## biker (Jan 8, 2001)

I don't watch live too often . Mostly watch record stuff.


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## ericd121 (Dec 12, 2002)

irrelevant said:


> Dr Who...wasn't going to get it all...
> All down to some football match or other that they decided was more important than scheduling...


Someone else made the point that when ITV show live football, they always follow it with a crap programme
(well, they have so many to choose from...  ) or a repeat.

The BBC were asking for trouble following live football with another live programme;
a sitcom repeat could have easier been replaced by a 5 minute cartoon and the night would have been back on schedule.


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## B33K34 (Feb 9, 2003)

Balls - can you confirm Saturday's Rise of the Cybermen episode on BBC1 won't have worked? I can pick up Friday's BBC3 repeat if need be.


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## cwaring (Feb 12, 2002)

Confirmed.


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## kitschcamp (May 18, 2001)

Tsk! That was an open goal... the response should have been

Affirmitive!


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## cwaring (Feb 12, 2002)

I am _not_ a tin dog!


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## Bakdraft (Dec 21, 2002)

There seems to be an option mising fromthe poll.

I mainly watch ' time shifted ' live TV. That is to say it is not recorded, but running about 20 mins behind.

e.g. If the Grand Prix is on, I start watching it 20mins after it starts, that way I get as closetolive as I can but can still skip allthe ads....

To me this is the real benefit of pausing live TV....

Dave


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## TiVo_Lad (Oct 25, 2002)

terryeden said:


> I tried watching adverts during the last episode of House and they were so..... insultingly dumb that I just pressed pause and twiddled my thumbs for 5 minutes. Musch more interesting.


If I'm watching a commercial channel live and a prog comes along that I want to watch, I'll often pause it, go make a cup of tea and then come back so that I'm lagged. I can then skip through the adverts and end up watching the last bit live


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## Ian_m (Jan 9, 2001)

TiVo_Lad said:


> If I'm watching a commercial channel live and a prog comes along that I want to watch, I'll often pause it, go make a cup of tea and then come back so that I'm lagged. I can then skip through the adverts and end up watching the last bit live


Problem with this is I find, is you get half way through your delayed recording before TiVo wants to change channel to record something you do want to keep. Issue is you can't mess around checking if the current programme is repeated and/or the upcoming recorded programme is repeated without loosing your live buffer.


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## cwaring (Feb 12, 2002)

Ian_m said:


> Problem with this is I find, is you get half way through your delayed recording before TiVo wants to change channel to record something you do want to keep. Issue is you can't mess around checking if the current programme is repeated and/or the upcoming recorded programme is repeated without loosing your live buffer.


Don't forget that you can pause a 'watching live' show while you do other stuff veia the EPG and the come back to where you left off. I think  (Assuming it does change channels in the meantime, of course 

It's actually been a couple of months since I actually last used mine


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## simon (Oct 7, 2002)

TiVo_Lad said:


> If I'm watching a commercial channel live and a prog comes along that I want to watch, I'll often pause it, go make a cup of tea and then come back so that I'm lagged. I can then skip through the adverts and end up watching the last bit live


Yip, if I am watching anything "live" I do almost the same. I would go to Now Playing and pick something I needed to watch, like BBC Click or something that is only 20 minutes or so.

Watch that, then pop back to live tv, and watch the rest.

Then only possible annoyance is if tivo decides that changing channel would be a good idea, so if I do end up watching something "live" I hit the record button to check for possible conflicts, and decide which I want more

Simon


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## simon (Oct 7, 2002)

Ian_m said:


> Problem with this is I find, is you get half way through your delayed recording before TiVo wants to change channel to record something you do want to keep. Issue is you can't mess around checking if the current programme is repeated and/or the upcoming recorded programme is repeated without loosing your live buffer.


Yip, thats why recording anything "live" is a must, just as you start.

There is nothing worse than popping out, and comping back to discover TiVo has changed channel.

The absolute worst thing is if you have been watching almost live (like 20 mins behind) and press the record button, but the next program has started, then you lose the last 20 mins of the program!

Simon


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## Bakdraft (Dec 21, 2002)

Ian_m said:


> Problem with this is I find, is you get half way through your delayed recording before TiVo wants to change channel to record something you do want to keep. Issue is you can't mess around checking if the current programme is repeated and/or the upcoming recorded programme is repeated without loosing your live buffer.


This is only somewhat true... if you are watching say 20 mins behind and Tivo changes channels to record something... you can carry on watching the 20mins you have until you see the effect...

so if you are watching say corry street 7:30 - 8:00 and eastenders is being recorded at 08:00 and you are 20 mins behind and it is now 8:00 and Tivo changes and records you will still get to see the end of Corry...


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