# An open letter from an 11-year TiVo customer: The Premiere is the final straw.



## agitprop (Oct 28, 2003)

I bought my first TiVo 11 years ago, and I loved it. Since then, I have bought something like 9 of them. I have even encouraged family, friends, employees, and co-workers to buy tens of them. But. . .

. . .after a year of using it, I can say categorically that the Premiere is an absolutely dreadful, further step back from the wonderful consumer experience that we enjoyed with the first TiVo generation. Others have spoken eloquently to the Premiere's failures; I won't bother to repeat the laundry list here.

However, what I would like to say is that TiVo the company is the most shockingly tone-deaf technology producer today. TiVo has not rolled out a significant improvement to my experience since the dual-tuner, and I am frankly stunned that they have the balls to release marketing-product update after marketing-product update to the service--while not updating and/or fixing the core service's issues. In fact, the core service is slower, harder to use, and definitely less fun than on that first TiVo I bought many years ago. 

So, I am done. As soon as this Premiere is dead, I will be jumping ship to something--anything--else. I also have cable DVRs; I know they are bad, but they are getting better--which is something I can't say about the TiVo service. And, even though the cable companies are appallingly bad at customer service, I have found in the past year that TiVo's customer service is just as bad. I frankly don't see any indication that TiVo cares about my business or about honoring either the implicit or explicit commitments that TiVo's management has made to Premiere customers over the past year. Why reward them with more business?

Finally, I should say that I have loved dealing with Weaknees. They have been nothing but awesome. God help TiVo, if Weaknees ever decides to walk away and focus on another technology. . .


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## TheWGP (Oct 26, 2007)

Some will probably say "good riddance, don't let the door hit you on the way out" - I'd like to apologize in advance for those folks. Insular fanboyism and vitriol has been part of this forum's response to challenges in Tivo products & service.

I'd also like to say it's always sad to see another customer go, especially one with as long a tenure as you (joined the forum in 2003, nice!) but the choice for what works best in your household is yours to make. That said, the Tivo Premiere works well for my household - well enough that we purchased an additional Premiere XL, though we would not have done so without a shockingly good deal presenting itself. Future potential users reading this thread would be wise to note that times change, situations change, and your household needs are what are most important.

Your comments regarding Tivo's tone-deafness are preaching to the choir... we all hope posts such as this one attract some attention somewhere, in the aggregate, and Tivo starts to realize ignoring customers completely and not finishing software they start does not pay in the long run.

Finally, Weaknees does rock - I haven't had them replace my drive, I do those myself, but have corresponded about other things and they're one of the nice things about this community IMO. Glad to hear you had a good experience there.


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## vurbano (Apr 20, 2004)

My 3 premieres work better than any box I have owned. I am especially impressed by the fast file transfer, free PC software(try that with cable or satellite) and the Ipad app is the bomb. And some threads here indicate they are working on streaming. I guess he's going to Cable for one of their stellar locked down inventions? Or satellite so he can miss 5 minutes of the superbowl from cloud cover? 

And weaknees? I guess you like paying a lot more than its worth. I made that mistake as a rookie but for a veteren to continue it boggles my mind. It can all be done yourself a lot cheaper.



Of course the OP has only made 2 posts in his 8 years. Very strange.

good luck


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## SugarBowl (Jan 5, 2007)

With the Ipad, iPhone apps, and multi dvr streaming, the premier has turned the corner in my mind.


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## ncbill (Sep 1, 2007)

My Premiere rebooted quite a few times initially but has settled down.

Since I got it for $60 from woot and managed to add lifetime for $199 I can't complain too much.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

ncbill said:


> My Premiere rebooted quite a few times initially but has settled down.
> 
> Since I got it for $60 from woot and managed to add lifetime for $199 I can't complain too much.


That was a sweet deal. Much better than the $500 it cost for my launch units with lifetime.(that was after my Fatwallet rebate)


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## jrtroo (Feb 4, 2008)

All issues this poster (cross-poster) has aside- I find these kinds of posts somewhat fishy. How many times are we seeing someone slam tivo with their first post ever, even though they have joined years and years ago (and always previously loved their units and have gobs and gobs of them)? Often these have no details as to the true problem, which _could_ have a resolution.

Who would even remember their login or have bothered to become a member?

Puzzling behavior at best.


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## lessd (Jan 23, 2005)

jrtroo said:


> All issues this poster (cross-poster) has aside- I find these kinds of posts somewhat fishy. How many times are we seeing someone slam tivo with their first post ever, even though they have joined years and years ago (and always previously loved their units and have gobs and gobs of them)? Often these have no details as to the true problem, which _could_ have a resolution.
> 
> Who would even remember their login or have bothered to become a member?
> 
> Puzzling behavior at best.


I agree with jrtroo, and how is the information that somebody (you) are leaving TiVo useful to anybody on this form, I doubt there has every been a product made and sold that did not disappoint somebody at some time.


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## TheWGP (Oct 26, 2007)

jrtroo said:


> All issues this poster (cross-poster) has aside- I find these kinds of posts somewhat fishy. How many times are we seeing someone slam tivo with their first post ever, even though they have joined years and years ago (and always previously loved their units and have gobs and gobs of them)? Often these have no details as to the true problem, which _could_ have a resolution.
> 
> Who would even remember their login or have bothered to become a member?
> 
> Puzzling behavior at best.


I don't really find it puzzling - I did that myself. I joined in 2007, lurked even before that. Posted three times in 2007, a handful in 2008, then nothing at all until July 2010 - and maybe a post every couple of months until the beginning of 2011, when I decided to become a bit more active.

I've had Tivos that entire time - but I've only posted much here for approximately six months. Doesn't mean the entire time I've owned Tivos just became irrelevant - it just means I chose to do other things than talk about them.

Also, people who are happy with products generally don't seek out forums. I was once active in forums (and on AVSforum) in topics about my 7.1 setup and various TV's - but have had no reason to visit in quite awhile. Doesn't mean I've changed my opinion on those units, or that my opinion is any less relevant.

What's more, this forum has actually done very well (compared to many places) at getting people to search - many real-world end-users come here searching for some information, find it, and then leave. That's what I've done, even before I had a membership. Some places are deluged with the same repetitive simple questions daily - TC doesn't have that, for the most part, at least not to the same degree, which I'm thankful for!

Anyway, I guess I don't find it particularly "suspicious" that he didn't post. And if he's like most end-users, his login and password are probably the same he uses for other websites, or one of a handful - or even worse, it's written down - so remembering them might not be an issue. It's just a forum, after all, not your bank login or something! 

Oh yeah, and not to brag, but I still want to find anyone who didn't win some contest that got a better deal than I did: Premiere XL + lifetime for $241 total. Even cheaper than my Woot+199 regular unit.


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## crxssi (Apr 5, 2010)

SugarBowl said:


> With the Ipad, iPhone apps, and multi dvr streaming, the premier has turned the corner in my mind.


Speaking for myself. I don't any any "I"stuff, and have only one DVR. Plus the multi DVR streaming is *not* available yet... it is a hack/secret and neither stable (based on people's postings) nor supported.

I want a rock solid, fast, and feature-full Premiere. In the 1+ year I have owned the Premiere, I have had to completely replace it once, reboot it dozens of times, frozen boots due to slide remote or TA, been frozen for 1 to 20 min many times waiting for control to return during unexplained lockups, forced to endure many hours on the phone with the cable company trying to resolve repeated cable card and tuning adapter issues, and stuck with the old SDUI to get acceptable usability and performance.

Not that much has changed for me over the year, it is even LESS stable than before the last few updates, performance has improved only slightly, and they added some useless features (to me) like Hulu+ and I-stuff. It did not live up to my expectations, at all.

It is still better than my cable company's DVR, but not by a lot. Perhaps other cable companies' boxes are much worse. And many people are perfectly happy with the Premiere- Kudos to them. I still have hopes for TiVo, but I can *certainly* understand and sympathize with the original poster's disgust.


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## smbaker (May 24, 2003)

I misread the title as ".. from an 11-year old Tivo customer". 

/sigh, I was expecting to find something interesting or at least unusual.

While I am one to point on the Premiere's faults often enough, I find a post such as the OP's to not be very useful. It lacks any significant detail as to what these show-stopping issues are with the Premiere that are so onerous that he wishes to abandon the product. Is he upset about the HDUI incompleteness? stablity/reboots? what? Without detail, it just reads like a useless rant. 

Specifics would have made this useful.


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## agitprop (Oct 28, 2003)

Thanks crxssi. You and I seem to have experienced many of the same issues.

First off, it is very entertaining to discover that I might somehow have planned this back in 2003 and just waited for the right moment to stick it to TiVo. For those of you who are eager to see a conspiracy, let me try to assure you that I have been through the full TiVo era, from the very first series, to a DirecTV box for a while, to several cable Series II boxes, to several Series 3 boxes. I have loved some boxes and liked some others. That said, I despise the Premiere XL with a passion, and I am disgusted with the TiVo company's failures over the past few years.

For all of you who genuinely wonder what the Premiere issues are, just read your own forum. I won't bother with a full recitation, but. . . The Premiere has a terrible and SLOW user-interface, tons of added "features" that are just revenue-bumps for TiVo, and the company is either unresponsive (at best) or outright unwilling (at worst) to be honest with us about the true horizon to fix the product. They have effectively walked away from significant product engineering improvement on the core service (i.e., time-shifted TV) and spent that effort on rolling out loads of features that duplicate features on your computer/DVD player/Xbox/PS3/AppleTV/you name it. Some of you may like that stuff--hell, I like a few of the options--but, I am not saying that stuff is bad. . . I am saying that regularly rolling out new revenue-generating features when you are not honoring your product commitment on your flagship box and service is not fair pool.

Furthermore, my Premiere XL has been a mess. It didn't talk to my other Series 3 boxes for months--and, when it did, it was glacial (over an .11n network). It rejected an external hard drive. It murdered several internal hard-drives. When I tried to talk to TiVo about it, I was bounced between people, hung up on, and just generally ignored. Not to mention, setting up the box was a nightmare when it first came out--there was little or no info about cable systems and cards, and TiVo was of zero help in ameliorating the issue. They did not seem to have done any legwork to assure positive consumer setup experience.

Also, tangentially, I bought Roxio's Toast 10, specifically for the TiVo app. After a couple of months, the software updated and KILLED the TiVo app completely for all customers using that software iteration. No explanation. No refund. Now, you can make the case that that was Roxio's fault, but I wouldn't have even known about the app without TiVo marketing it to me via their website. In isolation, I wouldn't care, but this is about a series of bad experiences with TiVo.

Finally, the TiVo system is needlessly opaque for 2011. There is absolutely no transparency about what is going on during startup, shutdown, and when there are problems. When the system shuts down suddenly or encounters an issue, it gives you close to zero info on what happened. You can't buy a third-party media hard drive, install it, and have the system format it for you. You can't attach a standard USB external drive. You can't run any consumer-friendly utilities. You are flying completely blind if anything goes wrong.

Whew, it is exhausting to go over this stuff, and it is frankly depressing to look back over the experience.



crxssi said:


> Speaking for myself. I don't any any "I"stuff, and have only one DVR. Plus the multi DVR streaming is *not* available yet... it is a hack/secret and neither stable (based on people's postings) nor supported.
> 
> I want a rock solid, fast, and feature-full Premiere. In the 1+ year I have owned the Premiere, I have had to completely replace it once, reboot it dozens of times, frozen boots due to slide remote or TA, been frozen for 1 to 20 min many times waiting for control to return during unexplained lockups, forced to endure many hours on the phone with the cable company trying to resolve repeated cable card and tuning adapter issues, and stuck with the old SDUI to get acceptable usability and performance.
> 
> ...


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## KungFuCow (May 6, 2004)

You cant deal with these people with blind Tivo fanboi love. Im with you, dude. The Premiere leaves a lot to be desired.


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## smbaker (May 24, 2003)

agitprop said:


> It murdered several internal hard-drives. When I tried to talk to TiVo about it, I was bounced between people, hung up on, and just generally ignored.


You lost several internal hard drives within approximately one year of ownership? I'd be upset too. That kind of failure rate is quite unusual. Over my 12 years of ownership, I lose a harddrive no sooner than 3 years. My two Premieres haven't had any failures yet, nor any hint of failure.

That was a good list of gripes and certainly satisfies my request.

The biggest thing I wish Tivo would do is to let the community know what's going on -- what new features are being planned, timeframes, acknowledge known bugs, etc.


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## crxssi (Apr 5, 2010)

agitprop said:


> When I tried to talk to TiVo about it, I was bounced between people, hung up on, and just generally ignored.


Although I am not happy with the Premiere, my experience with TiVo customer support has been nothing but glowingly positive. I am quick to get someone. They are exceedingly nice and pleasant. They speak English. They have access to answers for most of my issues (except the design flaws and bugs, of course). They seem to geniunely care about me. They spend whatever time they need to make sure everything is covered.

I talk to LOTS of support departments and customer services centers from LOTS of different companies. I would rate TiVo Customer Service an A+. Perhaps some of their POLICIES they are required to follow is a B.


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## agitprop (Oct 28, 2003)

Puzzling? You are like a slow-adult version of Sherlock Holmes.

I signed up for the community ages ago, when I was upgrading a drive in an earlier model and needed some insight from more experienced hands.



jrtroo said:


> All issues this poster (cross-poster) has aside- I find these kinds of posts somewhat fishy. How many times are we seeing someone slam tivo with their first post ever, even though they have joined years and years ago (and always previously loved their units and have gobs and gobs of them)? Often these have no details as to the true problem, which _could_ have a resolution.
> 
> Who would even remember their login or have bothered to become a member?
> 
> Puzzling behavior at best.


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## slowbiscuit (Sep 19, 2006)

smbaker said:


> The biggest thing I wish Tivo would do is to let the community know what's going on -- what new features are being planned, timeframes, acknowledge known bugs, etc.


This is by far the #1 failing of Tivo - be upfront and honest with your customers and keep them in the loop with what's going on.

Tivo, for whatever reason, just doesn't want to engage its customers in any meaningful manner. Yeah I can hear it now from the fanboys, it's because we're so negative and they don't want to take the heat. That excuse is a load of crap, IMO. You either care about what your customers think and then respond, or you don't. Pretty obvious which way they want to go given the state of the Premiere.


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## smbaker (May 24, 2003)

slowbiscuit said:


> Tivo, for whatever reason, just doesn't want to engage its customers in any meaningful manner.


On the other hand, I wonder how such a conversation with a customer would go?

Customer: "I just bought Premiere. When will the HDUI be completed?"

Tivo: "A year, maybe a year and a half, maybe two years. Finishing the product isn't really important to us now that you bought it, and we have other work to do for our big corporate partners."

Customer: "What about the second core?"

Tivo: "Ummmm......"

Although communication is a primary fault, there seems to be little desire to "get the product right". They seem to stop after they get it barely beyond the point where it is sellable. It goes hand-in-hand. If you aren't prepared to do the work to have the right answers, you might as well not communicate.


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## BigHat (Jan 25, 2004)

Well, bought my first TIVO back in 1999 and while I wish things were better, I'm generally very happy with them. Lots of Weaknees upgrades too.

If you don't like the TIVO model please feel free to leave. For those that deem me a fan boy that's fine. I pay very little attention to TIVO good or bad. For me they just work. I've come here from time-to-time over the years to ask a question or two, but typically it's how to deal with a cable company's (FIOS mostly) support.

So regarding my two Premieres, I wish I could use the HD menu scheme but it's awkward and slow. As the SD version works great though it's hard to get incensed about that.


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## iceturkee (May 26, 2005)

it took me contacting a consumer affairs reporter i know to resolve the lack of customer service i was getting.


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## jrtroo (Feb 4, 2008)

I appreciate the OP coming back and actually expressing the items he had problems with. The initial post lacked so much detail that putting into the bucket of so many others who post and never show up again was a natural instinct. 

Each of the gripes are legit, and it seems to me that in the same way individuals can report no problems are are unusually unlucky. Hard to say if these were shipping, power quality, home connectivity or other problems. But if the op had come here earlier and asked for help, I'm sure the board would have done would it could.

However, I call BS on the personal attack on my response. I was open for a response, as this was one of probably 20 or more "I'm outta here" emails without detail and purpose. From the beginning I showed your gripes could be legit, never said otherwise. 

Time to ignore this thread. I would have been willing to listen and respond, but I don't need this.


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## agitprop (Oct 28, 2003)

I feel terrible for offending you. Your input was so helpful. Please forgive me for hurting your feelings.



jrtroo said:


> I appreciate the OP coming back and actually expressing the items he had problems with. The initial post lacked so much detail that putting into the bucket of so many others who post and never show up again was a natural instinct.
> 
> Each of the gripes are legit, and it seems to me that in the same way individuals can report no problems are are unusually unlucky. Hard to say if these were shipping, power quality, home connectivity or other problems. But if the op had come here earlier and asked for help, I'm sure the board would have done would it could.
> 
> ...


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## slowbiscuit (Sep 19, 2006)

BigHat said:


> If you don't like the TIVO model please feel free to leave. For those that deem me a fan boy that's fine.
> 
> So regarding my two Premieres, I wish I could use the HD menu scheme but it's awkward and slow.


LOL, typical fanboy response - "yeah it has problems but who cares? I love them and if you don't, GTFO!!!".


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## vurbano (Apr 20, 2004)

iceturkee said:


> it took me contacting a consumer affairs reporter i know to resolve the lack of customer service i was getting.


Why am I not surprised. I guess I will see a post from Bob next .


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## vurbano (Apr 20, 2004)

slowbiscuit said:


> LOL, typical fanboy response - "yeah it has problems but who cares? I love them and if you don't, GTFO!!!".


It is as appropriate as posting a goodbye complaint thread and then refusing to leave. I am sorry the OP is unhappy but that's life. Hope he has a nice one. When he gets a new DVR home with copying and streaming I hope he lets us all know about it. But for now? I see these threads all the time with users leaving one sat or cable service and then they just stick around to bicker. Really childish. I think if you have made your mind up to leave then say your peace and leave. The rest is really unproductive fighting.


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## chrispitude (Apr 23, 2005)

OP is not alone.

I've been a TiVo fan since the beginning, encouraged many others to buy, bought each new successive model (most with lifetime service). With the HD and Premiere, the performance of the interface has gotten worse, and the reliability has gotten worse. TiVo's "development" these days is a series of half-baked checkbox features, each of which is its own exercise in frustration. My smartphone has a better YouTube player and a faster Pandora client. Core functionality like conflict resolution and season pass ordering has seen no development at all, except for the introduction of some basic clipping handling.

I plan to build a test PC and see how the PC-based solutions are coming along. It's time to explore alternatives. I don't know that I'll find anything better than the Premiere, but TiVo's lack of commitment to truly improving the day-to-day customer experience has spurred me to spend the time and dollars to find out.


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## vurbano (Apr 20, 2004)

chrispitude said:


> OP is not alone.
> 
> I've been a TiVo fan since the beginning, encouraged many others to buy, bought each new successive model (most with lifetime service). With the HD and Premiere, the performance of the interface has gotten worse, and the reliability has gotten worse. TiVo's "development" these days is a series of half-baked checkbox features, each of which is its own exercise in frustration. My smartphone has a better YouTube player and a faster Pandora client. Core functionality like conflict resolution and season pass ordering has seen no development at all, except for the introduction of some basic clipping handling.
> 
> I plan to build a test PC and see how the PC-based solutions are coming along. It's time to explore alternatives. I don't know that I'll find anything better than the Premiere, but TiVo's lack of commitment to truly improving the day-to-day customer experience has spurred me to spend the time and dollars to find out.


http://www.cetoncorp.com/

You will need one of these above and Xbox360's for the other rooms with remotes.


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## chrispitude (Apr 23, 2005)

vurbano said:


> http://www.cetoncorp.com/
> 
> You will need one of these above and Xbox360's for the other rooms with remotes.


Thanks vurbano.

A friend of a friend has a quad-tuner Ceton setup, and he raves about it. As a first step, I've been meaning to invite myself over and learn more about his setup.


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## yoheidiho (Mar 31, 2011)

The Ceton tuner rocks! Especially since you can now share tuners among multiple PCs. Also, Hauppauge is taking orders starting tomorrow on the WinTV-DCR-2650, a daul-tuner USB cablecard STB for just $129. The WinTV-DCR-2650 is a collaboration between Hauppauge and Silicon Dust and it sounds like a deal.


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## BigHat (Jan 25, 2004)

slowbiscuit said:


> LOL, typical fanboy response - "yeah it has problems but who cares? I love them and if you don't, GTFO!!!".


Wow, lots of ****** nozzles around here. Get a life, it's a DVR, not the holy grail. Not asking anyone to GTFO so you have no point.


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## slowbiscuit (Sep 19, 2006)

BigHat said:


> *If you don't like the TIVO model please feel free to leave.*


Ummm....


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## KungFuCow (May 6, 2004)

BigHat said:


> Wow, lots of ****** nozzles around here. Get a life, it's a DVR, not the holy grail. Not asking anyone to GTFO so you have no point.


Youre so gangster. You should be proud.


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## elwaylite (Apr 23, 2006)

I only use mine for Amazon VOD and OTA recording, both it does perfectly. Sucks it does not perform the way some need, but it does me a great service.


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## atmuscarella (Oct 11, 2005)

I guess I might just as well add my 2 cents in. 

First I find these type of threads useless for anything other than amusement. 

There is one group who say the Premiere is a piece of sh** and another group who say the Premiere is great and the best thing since sliced bread. 

Overall we know both statements are bull sh**. 

If anyone actually has a Premiere that truly is a piece of sh**, it is defective. If anyone doesn't think the Premiere has really problems they must be living under a rock. 

The problem of course is while I like a good rant myself, ranting does little to improve ones problems and if a rant goes bad the thread can really become less than worthless. 

Thanks,


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## jmatero (Apr 9, 2003)

The very best thing any long-term TiVo customer can do to make the Premier acceptable is use the SD menus. When you do, you essentially have the TiVo you know and love. I did that 24 hours after getting mine and have to say it's been pretty reliable.


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## crxssi (Apr 5, 2010)

jmatero said:


> The very best thing any long-term TiVo customer can do to make the Premier acceptable is use the SD menus. When you do, you essentially have the TiVo you know and love.


Or you have essentially the same TiVo HD box you just upgraded from, with more storage and faster network, but less reliable and more buggy, and you are out a lot of money...


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## slowbiscuit (Sep 19, 2006)

Yep, which is why I think that unless you need faster transfer speeds right now, I don't think the Premiere is worth the $200+ premium over an HD. This is what annoyed most of us at release - there was nothing compelling about the Premiere over the older boxes, and more bugs/unfinished junk to deal with. It's gotten better, but still not $200+ better to me.

But that might change if the underground gets full remote control of the Premiere working soon.


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## atmuscarella (Oct 11, 2005)

crxssi said:


> Or you have essentially the same TiVo HD box you just upgraded from, with more storage and faster network, but less reliable and more buggy, and you are out a lot of money...





slowbiscuit said:


> Yep, which is why I think that unless you need faster transfer speeds right now, I don't think the Premiere is worth the $200+ premium over an HD. This is what annoyed most of us at release - there was nothing compelling about the Premiere over the older boxes, and more bugs/unfinished junk to deal with. It's gotten better, but still not $200+ better to me.
> 
> But that might change if the underground gets full remote control of the Premiere working soon.


I think it is good for new people to understand these posts.

Many people replaced perfectly good Series 3 HD, TiVo HD, & TiVo HD XL units with Premieres because TiVo's Marketing led one to believe that the Premiere was a "revolutionary" versus an "evolutionary" upgrade.

Many people (including me) do think the Premiere is better than the former HD units but I believe no one believes it was a "revolutionary" upgrade. Some people think the Premiere was enough of an upgrade to justify replacing older HD TiVos and other do not (including me).

So couple unmet expectations with TiVo's slow rate of improving/correcting the Premiere's bugs and what you get is allot of unhappy Premiere owners.

That all said I think most people will find that the Premiere is a significantly better DVR versus the other consumer appliance DVR options available.

Thanks,


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## lessd (Jan 23, 2005)

crxssi said:


> Or you have essentially the same TiVo HD box you just upgraded from, with more storage and faster network, but less reliable and more buggy, and you are out a lot of money...


I replaced 4 TiVo-Series 3s with 4 TPs and MADE money as I got the TP at the $99 price on 11/13 and got a good price on Lifetime, than TiVo took Lifetime away as I was ready to sell my upgraded TiVo-Series3s Lifetime units so I netted more money for the 4 TiVo Series 3s that the cost of the 4 TPs including the upgraded the hard drive. I do use the SDUI and have almost no problems and get super fast MRV using the N adapters. I and my family are happy with the upgrade, and think we got some things that matter to us in this upgrade.


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## pdhenry (Feb 28, 2005)

agitprop said:


> TiVo has not rolled out a significant improvement to my experience since the dual-tuner


Do you not have HD?


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## crxssi (Apr 5, 2010)

lessd said:


> I replaced 4 TiVo-Series 3s with 4 TPs and MADE money as I got the TP at the $99 price on 11/13 and got a good price on Lifetime, than TiVo took Lifetime away as I was ready to sell my upgraded TiVo-Series3s Lifetime units so I netted more money for the 4 TiVo Series 3s that the cost of the 4 TPs including the upgraded the hard drive.


I can pretty confidently say that most people didn't have such options. I, for one, paid nearly full price for my Premiere and got only the "normal" discount to move my lifetime from the HD to the Premiere. It was many hundreds of dollars.


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## Joe01880 (Feb 8, 2009)

TheWGP said:


> Some will probably say "good riddance, don't let the door hit you on the way out" - I'd like to apologize in advance for those folks. Insular fanboyism


Since the quote above was so kind as to apologize in advance for me let me say to the OP..

Good riddance, dont let the door hit you on your way out!

If that makes me a TiVo fanboy i wear the badge proudly


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## jmatero (Apr 9, 2003)

crxssi said:


> Or you have essentially the same TiVo HD box you just upgraded from, with more storage and faster network, but less reliable and more buggy, and you are out a lot of money...


Well, THAT I agree with. I replaced my perfect S3 for a Premier based on the new features... And my S3 NEVER crashed.


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## jfh3 (Apr 15, 2004)

atmuscarella said:


> I think it is good for new people to understand these posts.
> 
> Many people replaced perfectly good Series 3 HD, TiVo HD, & TiVo HD XL units with Premieres because TiVo's Marketing led one to believe that the Premiere was a "revolutionary" versus an "evolutionary" upgrade.
> 
> ...


Well said.

I about as big as a Tivo fan as there is, but the Premiere has been a significant disappointment for the very reasons you state.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

crxssi said:


> I can pretty confidently say that most people didn't have such options. I, for one, paid nearly full price for my Premiere and got only the "normal" discount to move my lifetime from the HD to the Premiere. It was many hundreds of dollars.


I paid launch prices on my Premieres but they did give us some discounts. After selling my old boxes my out of pocket cost was minimal. So for me it was more than worth it to get the newer Premieres. I don't recall them advertising it as revolutionary. Or if they did there was nothing that ever made me think that. So far my Premieres have been as rock solid as any TiVo I've owned over the last ten years. My main complaint is that I can't stand seeing the SD menus since I only have my boxes set for the HDUI. That is the one thing I am disappointed about with the Premiere.


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## crxssi (Apr 5, 2010)

aaronwt said:


> I paid launch prices on my Premieres but they did give us some discounts. After selling my old boxes my out of pocket cost was minimal. So for me it was more than worth it to get the newer Premieres.


You are one of the lucky ones. Once moving my lifetime from the HD to the Premiere, my old HD with no service had almost no value. I kept it as a backup unit. Good thing I did, too, since the Premiere failed totally within 3 months and I would have been left with no TV at all for a week while I waited for TiVo to send me another unit.



> I don't recall them advertising it as revolutionary. Or if they did there was nothing that ever made me think that.


OMG- it was all over their site. All over print. People here have mentioned it numerous times. Here is their old press release: http://pr.tivo.com/easyir/customrel...ersion=live&prid=592646&releasejsp=custom_150

"Why Premiere Is Revolutionary:"



> So far my Premieres have been as rock solid as any TiVo I've owned over the last ten years. My main complaint is that I can't stand seeing the SD menus since I only have my boxes set for the HDUI. That is the one thing I am disappointed about with the Premiere.


Like I said, you are one of the lucky ones.


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## innocentfreak (Aug 25, 2001)

crxssi said:


> You are one of the lucky ones. Once moving my lifetime from the HD to the Premiere, my old HD with no service had almost no value. I kept it as a backup unit. Good thing I did, too, since the Premiere failed totally within 3 months and I would have been left with no TV at all for a week while I waited for TiVo to send me another unit.


Boxes without service have never held any value. When the Premiere launched you could buy the TiVo HDs for $99 at retail.


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## smbaker (May 24, 2003)

crxssi said:


> OMG- it was all over their site. All over print. People here have mentioned it numerous times. Here is their old press release: http://pr.tivo.com/easyir/customrel...ersion=live&prid=592646&releasejsp=custom_150


Even though it's legal boilerplate, I found the following disclaimer on that page to be somewhat humorous given the way the product turned out.



> ... Forward-looking statements generally can be identified by the use of forward-looking terminology such as, "believe," "expect," "may," "will," "intend," "estimate," "continue," or similar expressions or the negative of those terms or expressions. Such statements involve risks and uncertainties, which could cause actual results to vary materially from those expressed in or indicated by the forward-looking statements. Factors that may cause actual results to differ materially include *delays in development*, competitive service offerings and lack of market acceptance, as well as the other potential factors described under "Risk Factors" in the Company's public reports filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including the Company's Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended January 31, 2009, Quarterly reports on Form 10-Q since then, and Current Reports on Form 8-K. The Company cautions you *not to place undue reliance on forward-looking statements*, which reflect an analysis only and speak only as of the date hereof. TiVo *disclaims any obligation to update these forward-looking statements*.


I particularly like this statement:


> Premiere is built on multi-core architecture that greatly facilitates future development of third party provided applications.


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## JoeTaxpayer (Dec 23, 2008)

agitprop said:


> Also, tangentially, I bought Roxio's Toast 10, specifically for the TiVo app. After a couple of months, the software updated and KILLED the TiVo app completely for all customers using that software iteration. No explanation. No refund. Now, you can make the case that that was Roxio's fault, but I wouldn't have even known about the app without TiVo marketing it to me via their website. In isolation, I wouldn't care, but this is about a series of bad experiences with TiVo.


I was disappointed to find that the TiVo Transfer within Toast 10 didn't see my premiere. A bit of googling and I was sent back to the Roxio site which had an update. The updated Toast seems to be working fine.


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