# Have we lost our value to TiVo?



## Ereth (Jun 16, 2000)

Something David Bott said in a completely unrelated thread caught my eye.

He listed the visitor stats for one day. 30k unique visitors and 9k returning. Now, just assuming that's a typical day, that extrapolates out to nearly 11 million people coming here for the first time every year. Round down to 10 million for variances and it's still a LOT of people.

First, that stuns me, that so many people would be just now deciding to look into info on TiVo, but perhaps I've been drinking the Kool Aid so long it just seems normal to me that DVRs are a part of life.

But more importantly, we've been here 6 or 7 years. 10 million people a year come by to check out information on TiVo but TiVo only has 4.5 million subscribers.

Why aren't those 10 million people buying? Did we lose our status of "Raving Fans"? Are we not helping the TiVo Army grow?

I'll admit it, in the early days I used to spend time helping newbies out and read a lot more of the Forums than I do now. And when I do go there, there doesn't seem to be as much of a "welcoming" attitude as there used to be. 

I LOVE my TiVos. I am not happy with DirecTV changing directions and going to the NDS box, and HDTV has forced me into a HTPC, but I still have 3 working TiVos, and still rave about them to anybody willing to listen (though most of my friends already have one so I don't have to rave to them). 

I guess I don't really have a well-formed question here, it just surprises me that so many unique people could be coming here, to find out about a product that many of us love, and then not end up buying one. 

What do you think? Is there anything that we, as TiVo fans, can do to help those people decide to buy our favorite little gadget?


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## SparkleMotion (Feb 2, 2004)

TiVo SchmiVo. Where da girls at?


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## IndyJones1023 (Apr 1, 2002)

If those numbers are accurate, and your extrapolations, too, then I fear it's the pricing that scares peple away from buying TiVo.

Cable DVR: $5/month
TiVo DVR: $100 out of the box + $12/month


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## pcguru83 (Jan 18, 2005)

I think part of it is how easy the cable companies make it to get one of their DVR offerings. I've met many a person who says, "Oh yeah, I have TiVo" only to discover that they are referring to those sorry excuse for DVR's the cable companies try to pass off. 

I've tried explaining to those people the graces of TiVo, but it's always, "Well mine does that too!" You just can't grasp the greatness and ease of use unless you've actually used a TiVo--and that's becoming rarer and rarer these days. Years ago, TiVo was the only option (aside from ReplayTV) for a DVR. Today though, as I pointed out before, just about every cable company will provide a DVR for an extra $5-6 a month.


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## Ereth (Jun 16, 2000)

IndyJones1023 said:


> If those numbers are accurate, and your extrapolations, too, then I fear it's the pricing that scares peple away from buying TiVo.
> 
> Cable DVR: $5/month
> TiVo DVR: $100 out of the box + $12/month


Well, then, TiVos new pricing scheme where the box is effectively free with the monthly subscription should help, right?

But it will be hard to get below the Cable DVR price point. Most people seem to think that the Cable DVRs aren't worth what the monthly fee is, though, and we all know how good TiVo is.

Is it a case of people simply being unwilling to pay for the superior product when the lesser product is cheaper? It certainly wouldn't be the first time.


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## Bryanmc (Sep 5, 2000)

And as much as I love TiVo, when my in-laws were wanting an HD-DVR there's just no way to compete with $10/month from Comcast. 

I know the TiVo system is superior but when I tell them that they've got to spend $1000 on the box, then $6.95/month for the extra TiVo (they already have 2 SAs) or they could just pay $10/month for the Comcast one, it's a no brainer.


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## Gunnyman (Jul 10, 2003)

Tivo should IMHO get out of the hardware business and do what they are doing with Comcast/Motorola. make all their money licensing the DVR technnology/firmware to third parties.
They obviously lose money on the boxes.
Give specs to the cable companies saying what their software requires of the hardware to run properly and provide some tech support to end users and CSR's at the Cablecos.


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## rainwater (Sep 21, 2004)

Ereth said:


> Something David Bott said in a completely unrelated thread caught my eye.
> 
> He listed the visitor stats for one day. 30k unique visitors and 9k returning. Now, just assuming that's a typical day, that extrapolates out to nearly 11 million people coming here for the first time every year. Round down to 10 million for variances and it's still a LOT of people.


Thats not true. The unique visitors is over that time frame only. You can't extrapolate it out to 11 million a year. In fact, the 30k per day number would include many people who visit daily, weekly, or monthly so you can't infer how many that is per year without having the stats.


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## landrumdh (Oct 6, 2003)

yup the cable dvr market isn't helping any. Many of my friends love the interface, but just don't want to spend the extra cash a month.


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## davezatz (Apr 18, 2002)

Having studied my blog stats for awhile, I agree with rainwater that you can't conclusively extrapolate from those numbers. Not to mention the source stats might not be entirely accurate. The only numbers I trust as being mostly accurate are page views for a given period. (Which is most likely how he bills his advertisers, who know the other stats are unreliable.) Also if you end up here from a Google search, you may not linger - there's a lot to take in and someone may be looking for just a little nugget of info.

Having said that, I do agree TiVo pricing could be a barrier to entry for potential customers not familiar with DVRs or the TiVo brand. Most of us willingly pay a premium, but newbies and folks on the fence may not.


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## Ereth (Jun 16, 2000)

rainwater said:


> Thats not true. The unique visitors is over that time frame only. You can't extrapolate it out to 11 million a year. In fact, the 30k per day number would include many people who visit daily, weekly, or monthly so you can't infer how many that is per year without having the stats.


Only if they are clearing their cookies, but yes, there's no way to say definitively what that number is, only that it's large. Perhaps David will tell us.

Nonetheless, 30,000 people coming here for the first time on any given day is a lot of opportunity, that doesn't seem to be turning into TiVo sales.


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## jmoak (Jun 20, 2000)

Ereth said:


> 10 million people a year come by (Tivo Community) to check out information on TiVo but TiVo only has 4.5 million subscribers.
> 
> Why aren't those 10 million people buying?


The information found here on using a tivo is not as good as it once was. To the casual consumer, it can seem downright dreary.

washed out picture
What will be TiVo's Excuse This Time?
My Tivo was D.O.A
I wont buy another Tivo
Ripped Off By Tivo
TiVo 7.3/7.3.1 Slowdown News
ABC wants to kill DVR ad-skipping
Is Tivo expensive?
non-existent customer support
Too Many Problems with Tivo

...and that's just from the first few pages.

At least after four or five years we don't see "Tivo Killer!" as much anymore.


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## Ereth (Jun 16, 2000)

Sure, but you expect Support Forums to be filled with problems, right? Nobody ever goes to a Support Forum to post "my product works perfectly!", they go there because they need help. So the problems get magnified, but that's a function of all Support Forums, and users should be aware of that, right?

Is it that the Tivo Discussion forum is more negative than it used to be? Do we need to start "My TiVo Works GREAT!" threads?


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## rainwater (Sep 21, 2004)

Ereth said:


> Nonetheless, 30,000 people coming here for the first time on any given day is a lot of opportunity, that doesn't seem to be turning into TiVo sales.


There's no way to know that information. Unique visitors does not infer they are first time users. And AFAIK it has nothing to do with cookies if this information is based on the server log files.


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## davezatz (Apr 18, 2002)

Ereth said:


> Do we need to start "My TiVo Works GREAT!" threads?


Is it our responsibility to sell TiVo's? Do we get discounts or bonuses when TiVo beats revenue expectations? Should I ignore the slowdown associated with 7.3.x?


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## DougF (Mar 18, 2003)

davezatz said:


> Is it our responsibility to sell TiVo's? Do we get discounts or bonuses when TiVo beats revenue expectations? Should I ignore the slowdown associated with 7.3.x?


Of course, not. However, if TiVo goes under, as fans we all lose.

Helping promote it will benefit TiVo, but could benefit you as well. I'd expect that if their subscriber base grows, the additional revenue will help them deliver an increasingly better product.


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## DougF (Mar 18, 2003)

Ereth said:


> Well, then, TiVos new pricing scheme where the box is effectively free with the monthly subscription should help, right?
> 
> But it will be hard to get below the Cable DVR price point. Most people seem to think that the Cable DVRs aren't worth what the monthly fee is, though, and we all know how good TiVo is.
> 
> Is it a case of people simply being unwilling to pay for the superior product when the lesser product is cheaper? It certainly wouldn't be the first time.


Besides being cheaper, I would guess cable DVRs do not have one-year commitment that TiVo (I think) now has. If that's the case, you can bring the cable co. DVR home take it right back if you don't like it. If you get your TiVo home and hate it, you're stuck with it, right?

What about billing? I can tell you from my time working with long distance sales, one of the chief obstacles was the customer having to receive an additional bill. Cable company DVR users, I would assume, only get one bill.


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## davezatz (Apr 18, 2002)

DougF said:


> Of course, not. However, if TiVo goes under, as fans we all lose.


With the DTV extension and Comcast deal (I assume others in the works) plus the expansion of advertising deals TiVo is probably in pretty good shape and is in no danger of going anywhere.

Don't get me wrong - I'm (obviously) a fan of TiVo and am probably responsible for a ton of sales. However, it strikes me as absurb to censor myself here in the forum and/or pump up TiVo with "TiVo is Great!" threads out of concern for TiVo marketing. That sort proposal would defeat the usefulness of the forum for me - I value open discussion. (Not to mention, our bug reports here possibly speed up the fix process by getting the info to TiVo before CRS's have noticed a trend.)


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## ping (Oct 3, 2005)

Ereth said:


> Only if they are clearing their cookies, but yes, there's no way to say definitively what that number is, only that it's large. Perhaps David will tell us.
> 
> Nonetheless, 30,000 people coming here for the first time on any given day is a lot of opportunity, that doesn't seem to be turning into TiVo sales.


Hell, half of those are probably ybrew.


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## cwoody222 (Nov 13, 1999)

IndyJones1023 said:


> If those numbers are accurate, and your extrapolations, too, then I fear it's the pricing that scares peple away from buying TiVo.
> 
> Cable DVR: $5/month
> TiVo DVR: $100 out of the box + $12/month


My lifetime sub TiVo just died so I was left with the option of paying TiVo monthly. It was NOT something I was at all happy about doing.

People are accustomed to pay their cable company monthly.

People are not accustomed to pay their VCR/DVD company monthly.

That, compared with cable's arguably superior product (two tuners, HD recording) and cheaper price... scares LOTS of people away.

The forum is way more important to David Bott than it is to TiVo. We may even be a liability to TiVo now, what with all the complaints (me included on the Mac ToGo stuff).


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## Ereth (Jun 16, 2000)

rainwater said:


> There's no way to know that information. Unique visitors does not infer they are first time users. And AFAIK it has nothing to do with cookies if this information is based on the server log files.


I didn't say it was based on log files. David Bott, the owner of the site, said he had that information based on cookies. I didn't quiz him on it, it's his site and these numbers are how he makes his living, so I simply assume he knows what he is talking about.

There's really no point in arguing with me over whether David Bott knows how many unique visitors he gets or not.

Even if it's half or a third of that, that's 3-5 million per year, over the 7 years this forum would be 21 million.


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## davezatz (Apr 18, 2002)

cwoody222 said:


> The forum is way more important to David Bott than it is to TiVo.


Good point... and hopefully he won't clutter us up with the amount of advertising that has made AVS such as eyesore. I have to scroll just to see a listing of threads. (And why I spend so little time there these days.) Maybe it's good the TCF is less active lately.



> We may even be a liability to TiVo now, what with all the complaints (me included on the Mac ToGo stuff).


 That's why they sent that kill signal to your Lifetime unit.


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## jsmeeker (Apr 2, 2001)

cwoody222 said:


> My lifetime sub TiVo just died so I was left with the option of paying TiVo monthly. It was NOT something I was at all happy about doing.
> 
> .


Get it reparied. There is always that option.


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## Ereth (Jun 16, 2000)

DougF said:


> Besides being cheaper, I would guess cable DVRs do not have one-year commitment that TiVo (I think) now has. If that's the case, you can bring the cable co. DVR home take it right back if you don't like it. If you get your TiVo home and hate it, you're stuck with it, right?


I'm not sure about that. My friend Shane had the cable company DVR and while he didn't have the "commitment" he did have a "deal" that had a time frame, which seems suspiciously like a committment. He waited for that deal to run out change, in spite of complaining vehemently about the inadequacies of the cable company DVR for the entire year he had it.


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## TiVo Troll (Mar 23, 2006)

Ereth said:


> Something David Bott said in a completely unrelated thread caught my eye.
> 
> He listed the visitor stats for one day. 30k unique visitors and 9k returning. Now, just assuming that's a typical day, that extrapolates out to nearly 11 million people coming here for the first time every year. Round down to 10 million for variances and it's still a LOT of people.
> 
> ...


I've got doubts about there being 10 million unique visitors to these Forums over the years. But, if there were 10 million, compared with TiVo's subscriber base of 4.5 million, the proportion of subs to Forum visitors is high, not low. Most advertising doesn't come close; sales as a percentage of contacts usually are in single digits.

Of course there really is no way to determine the actual correlation between Forum visitors and TiVo sub sales.


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## Ereth (Jun 16, 2000)

davezatz said:


> With the DTV extension and Comcast deal (I assume others in the works) plus the expansion of advertising deals TiVo is probably in pretty good shape and is in no danger of going anywhere.
> 
> Don't get me wrong - I'm (obviously) a fan of TiVo and am probably responsible for a ton of sales. However, it strikes me as absurb to censor myself here in the forum and/or pump up TiVo with "TiVo is Great!" threads out of concern for TiVo marketing. That sort proposal would defeat the usefulness of the forum for me - I value open discussion. (Not to mention, our bug reports here possibly speed up the fix process by getting the info to TiVo before CRS's have noticed a trend.)


I certainly wasn't suggesting censoring, self or otherwise. I'm not suggesting anything at all. I'm simply thinking out loud here.

I'm just wondering out loud if the value TiVo had in the early days of a Forum filled with enthusiastic early adopters raving about how awesome their box is now gone because that same forum is now filled with people complaining (often about the same things that have been beaten to death).

As a huge fan of TiVo I want them to succeed. I want them to make a new box that I desperately want to buy. I want them to make new features that I can jump up and down and shout about.

And I worry that a Forum filled with naysayers and negative threads makes that harder for them. I worry that that negativity will eventually result in them not making the box that I want to buy.

It's not your responsibility to help TiVo sell more units, that's true, but I remember when we CHOSE to do so. TiVo spent a lot of time and effort evangelizing here and making this a place where the Kool-Aid would be spread around.

I guess maybe I'm just a little melancholy that the Kool-Aid isn't as effective as it used to be.


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## dswallow (Dec 3, 2000)

You have to take such numbers with a grain of salt; if you really analyzed the logs you'd likely find a significant number of those "new/first-time" visitors are hitting one page andnever coming back; they're likely related to search engine hits being clicked on (or in some cases previewed via the search engine to create a thumbnail), and it'd generally be wrong to count such as a visit, except maybe in the sense of it still being a banner presentation for an advertiser. That visit really doesn't represent an opportunity to grab a registered member.


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## Ereth (Jun 16, 2000)

dswallow said:


> You have to take such numbers with a grain of salt; if you really analyzed the logs you'd likely find a significant number of those "new/first-time" visitors are hitting one page andnever coming back; they're likely related to search engine hits being clicked on (or in some cases previewed via the search engine to create a thumbnail), and it'd generally be wrong to count such as a visit, except maybe in the sense of it still being a banner presentation for an advertiser. That visit really doesn't represent an opportunity to grab a registered member.


No, I would agree. I think Ann said we get 100 new registered members a day. Still that's a lot of people, isn't it? Are people coming here and deciding NOT to get TiVos? I would assume some portion of them are. My question really boils down to "are some of those who decide not to get TiVos doing it because of the contents of the TCF Forum?" I know for a fact that the Forum was instrumental in my own decision TO get TiVo. I was impressed with the open atmosphere, the sort of giddyness that was going on in the early days, and the way people were accepting of newcomers and went out of their way to help.

If that's still happening, then fine. I just wonder if we've simply become jaded over time and don't present that same "first impression".


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## TiVo Troll (Mar 23, 2006)

davezatz said:


> Is it our responsibility to sell TiVo's? Do we get discounts or bonuses when TiVo beats revenue expectations? Should I ignore the slowdown associated with 7.3.x?


The more these Forums discuss the various aspects of TiVo, warts and all, without sounding like gushing TiVo commercials the more useful they'll be to prospective TiVo subs.


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## Y-ASK (Aug 17, 2001)

Ereth said:


> What do you think? Is there anything that we, as TiVo fans, can do to help those people decide to buy our favorite little gadget?


Well I don't really want to re-hash all the reasons why I don't recommend Tivo to any one any more, but let's just say that it's no longer TV your way but TV Tivo's way. Tivo Corp. has totally turned me off by no longer supporting the series one with updates but yet still wants to charge the full monthly price for a series one which was suppose to include the cost of software upgrades. They've just done so many thing wrong from a customer service point of view that I wouldn't want the hassle of trying to explain to family and friends why their Tivo is suddenly slow as hell, or what the yellow stars means, or what these pop-ads are all about, or why their rebate has been denied, or why they can't get lifetime when Joe down the street has it, etc. Sorry but I've probably purchased my last Tivo and when it dies so does my business relationship with Tivo Inc.

Y-ASK


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## TiVo Troll (Mar 23, 2006)

Ereth said:


> I certainly wasn't suggesting censoring, self or otherwise. I'm not suggesting anything at all. I'm simply thinking out loud here.
> 
> I'm just wondering out loud if the value TiVo had in the early days of a Forum filled with enthusiastic early adopters raving about how awesome their box is now gone because that same forum is now filled with people complaining (often about the same things that have been beaten to death).
> 
> ...


Actually TiVo doesn't make the "ideal" DVR that I want to buy. Nobody does. I've always been confronted by the same conflict; choosing TiVo's superior reliability and stability as against other less specialized DVR's which have fewer features but are far more suitable for casual, not totally timeshifted, TV viewing. Choosing between DVR's has always been a compromise.

TiVo's founders started with a dream. It's up to them to fulfill it. No matter how much "selling" of TiVo occurs on these Forums, TiVo will succeed or fail due to the acuity of its business plans, not because of what Forum posters advocate.


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## Ereth (Jun 16, 2000)

Y-ASK said:


> Well I don't really want to re-hash all the reasons why I don't recommend Tivo to any one any more, but let's just say that it's no longer TV your way but TV Tivo's way. Tivo Corp. has totally turned me off by no longer supporting the series one with updates but yet still wants to charge the full monthly price for a series one which was suppose to include the cost of software upgrades. They've just done so many thing wrong from a customer service point of view that I wouldn't want the hassle of trying to explain to family and friends why their Tivo is suddenly slow as hell, or what the yellow stars means, or what these pop-ads are all about, or why their rebate has been denied, or why they can't get lifetime when Joe down the street has it, etc. Sorry but I've probably purchased my last Tivo and when it dies so does my business relationship with Tivo Inc.
> 
> Y-ASK


I've only had a TiVo for 6 years. What's a pop-ad? I've never heard of that. I don't want to discount your opinion, but I've never had a Tivo get slower, and anybody who can't figure out the yellow star in about 30 seconds probably isn't smart enough to operate a TV anyway.


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## Ereth (Jun 16, 2000)

TiVo Troll said:


> Actually TiVo doesn't make the "ideal" DVR that I want to buy. Nobody does. I've always been confronted by the same conflict; choosing TiVo's superior reliability and stability as against other less specialized DVR's which have fewer features but are far more suitable for casual, not totally timeshifted, TV viewing. Choosing between DVR's has always been a compromise.


That's an interesting viewpoint. What, exactly, should a DVR do for "casual, not totally timeshifted, TV viewing"? I ask not to be smartass, but because it's a concept that's alien to me. I don't watch anything when it's on. I didn't even when there was no such thing as a DVR. (I used to have 3 VCRs hooked up with a complex recording scheme to get everything. At one point I had 5 at once). And I've never understood the appeal of "Channel Surfing" (if nothing interesting is on right now, going through the channels a second time 5 minutes from now won't present any new choices, so why bother? Turn the TV off and do something else).

But I recognize that "Casual, not totally timeshifted, TV viewing" keeps coming up from people who don't really like TiVo and I've always been curious what it is that they are looking for. If you don't mind, would you explain it to me (just out of curiousity, not because I expect to agree or even think that TiVo will make a model that does what you want)?


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## jsmeeker (Apr 2, 2001)

TiVo Troll said:


> Actually TiVo doesn't make the "ideal" DVR that I want to buy. Nobody does. I've always been confronted by the same conflict; choosing TiVo's superior reliability and stability as against other less specialized DVR's which have fewer features but are far more suitable for casual, not totally timeshifted, TV viewing. Choosing between DVR's has always been a compromise.
> 
> .


Funny.. I actually have a TiVo box that is perfect for that. I don't timeshift all my TV watching. When I do, I use a TiVo that only has basic, core DVR features (reliable, predictable recording of those shows), with no other "wiz-bang" features.


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## Y-ASK (Aug 17, 2001)

Ereth said:


> I've only had a TiVo for 6 years. What's a pop-ad? I've never heard of that. I don't want to discount your opinion, but I've never had a Tivo get slower, and anybody who can't figure out the yellow star in about 30 seconds probably isn't smart enough to operate a TV anyway.


PopUp-Ad = The ad (picture) that pops-up during certain commercials that are fast forwarded through.

Tivo getting slower = http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=308201

Yellow Star = Personal Preference, there's really nothing to figure out. It's forced Ads...

It appears that pop-ads never caught on with the advertisers so that's probably why you haven't seen any. Did you not read about it here on the forum? Tivo getting slower has happened twice (one admitted to and fixed by Tivo) over the last couple of years but I'll let you do the search for that one. And lastly guess I'm just a dumbass for letting that simple yellow star bother me, oh well.... 

Y-ASK


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## rorion (Jul 26, 2006)

Y-ASK said:


> Sorry but I've probably purchased my last Tivo and when it dies so does my business relationship with Tivo Inc.
> 
> Y-ASK


This seems like a normal state of affairs for most TiVo old-timers. I first saw it with the first yellow star. Then no more updates to S1s, then banner ads, then no more lifetime etc.

Each time, some old timers complain and the rest of the TiVo community attacks. Most of the attacked leave and the community becomes more hardened. Each time TiVo does something, the threads debating it become smaller because most who complained about previous things have gone. I don't know anyone who has an old series 1 TiVo who still plans to buy more of them or still tries to convince friends to buy. Most of them were complete cheerleaders in the earlier years.


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## TiVo Troll (Mar 23, 2006)

Ereth said:


> That's an interesting viewpoint. What, exactly, should a DVR do for "casual, not totally timeshifted, TV viewing"? I ask not to be smartass, but because it's a concept that's alien to me. I don't watch anything when it's on. I didn't even when there was no such thing as a DVR. (I used to have 3 VCRs hooked up with a complex recording scheme to get everything. At one point I had 5 at once). And I've never understood the appeal of "Channel Surfing" (if nothing interesting is on right now, going through the channels a second time 5 minutes from now won't present any new choices, so why bother? Turn the TV off and do something else).
> 
> But I recognize that "Casual, not totally timeshifted, TV viewing" keeps coming up from people who don't really like TiVo and I've always been curious what it is that they are looking for. If you don't mind, would you explain it to me (just out of curiousity, not because I expect to agree or even think that TiVo will make a model that does what you want)?


(And I thought you'd never ask!)

Regarding your comment that there are "people who don't really like TiVo", I respect TiVo for doing an exhaustive job in making TiVo DVR's the most stable and reliable of all current DVR's but I don't share TiVo's apparent philosophy regarding the most "efficient" way to watch TV. It's not my way.

No matter how "efficiently" I watch TV, I can't watch all the TV programs worth watching. I don't like to continually be hyped-up ready to skip through commercials, when commercial breaks are actually often useful. Since I generally enjoy watching TV during so-called "PrimeTime" anyway, I mostly choose what to watch in realtime except when there's a schedule conflict (either program or personal) involving a particularly (to me) significant program, which then gets timeshifted.

My current favorite DVR is *LG's LRM-519* which utilizes MS's EPG. Its features which work especially well when casually watching TV are:

(1) a 1.5 hr. recording buffer which isn't dumped when changing channels;

(2) the ability to record anything contained in the recording buffer as long as the EPG still indicates that the program is ongoing. (If a program contained in the 1.5 hour buffer has ended, it can be watched but not turned into a permanent recording; if the program is still ongoing it can be turned into a permanent recording and that recording will end when the program is scheduled to end in the EPG.)

(3) It offers two flavors of grid style EPG, one of which displays listings for 4 channels on the bottom 1/3rd of the screen, the other displays 6 channels plus a brief program description on the upper portion of the screen with a small but complete PIP image of the current channel on the bottom. An info button brings up complete program info for any channel as well as recording options.

(4) It has the capability of connecting an outboard USB HD for easy extra storage in addition to its 160GB internal HD.


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## Ruth (Jul 31, 2001)

rorion said:


> I don't know anyone who has an old series 1 TiVo who still plans to buy more of them or still tries to convince friends to buy. Most of them were complete cheerleaders in the earlier years.


I suspect you are just not looking hard enough to find the longtime, satisfied TiVo customers. Becuase there are a lot of us, myself included. Remember that it's the unhappy, squeaky wheels who tend to come here and post about their problems. Maybe Ereth is on to something, and we do need to start "I've had TiVos for years and I love them!" threads. Of course those probably won't attract too much debate, since they are not very controversial. But just becuase we aren't aggressively starting threads doesn't mean we don't exist.


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## TiVo Troll (Mar 23, 2006)

jsmeeker said:


> Funny.. I actually have a TiVo box that is perfect for that. I don't timeshift all my TV watching. When I do, I use a TiVo that only has basic, core DVR features (reliable, predictable recording of those shows), with no other "wiz-bang" features.


That's how I use my Series 2's.

Season Passes provide reliable back-ups for current ongoing programs. TiVo's tiny recording buffer is completely ignored (except for "trick play" of course) and I change channels at whim. Suggestions are disabled. (I never realized that there are times that Suggestions can cause problems regarding unexpected channel changes until reading about them at this Forum.)

I never use Wishlists (but do enjoy perusing the TV listings in Sunday's paper.) I guess watching C/Net reviews and checking out the movie guide is borderline "wiz-bang" though!!!! And MRV is slick!


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## rorion (Jul 26, 2006)

Ruth said:


> I suspect you are just not looking hard enough to find the longtime, satisfied TiVo customers. Becuase there are a lot of us, myself included.


Oh I realize that they're here. This is the diehard TiVo cheerleader forum. Years ago I used to cheer here too. I just don't know anyone in real life who still feels that way. One by one (or sometimes two or three) the people I know personally have given up due to the changes.


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## jsmeeker (Apr 2, 2001)

TiVo Troll said:


> That's how I use my Series 2's.
> 
> Season Passes provide reliable back-ups for current ongoing programs. TiVo's tiny recording buffer is completely ignored (except for "trick play" of course) and I change channels at whim. Suggestions are disabled. (I never realized that there are times that Suggestions can cause problems regarding unexpected channel changes until reading about them at this Forum.)
> 
> I never use Wishlists (but do enjoy perusing the TV listings in Sunday's paper.) I guess watching C/Net reviews and checking out the movie guide is borderline "wiz-bang" though!!!! And MRV is slick!


 I do it with a series 1. When I surf, I jsut do it with the tuner in the TV and let the TiVo do whatever it wants/needs to. I use Wishlists, but only lightly.

HMO? MRV?? Sounds neat. But I've don't even have it.


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## jsmeeker (Apr 2, 2001)

rorion said:


> Oh I realize that they're here. This is the diehard TiVo cheerleader forum. Years ago I used to cheer here too. I just don't know anyone in real life who still feels that way. One by one (or sometimes two or three) the people I know personally have given up due to the changes.


I still feel that way. My TiVo has been awesome for all the years I've had it. it does EXACTLY what I expected it to do when I bought it. None of these changes have had much, if any, impact on me.


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## freediverdude (Jul 27, 2006)

Hello all,

I just wanted to post to reassure Ereth, that there are people like myself, who recently came to this forum to learn more about Tivo and possibly purchase their first one (which I just did- awaiting shipment from Tivo). I am one of those people who hadn't really thought about getting a Tivo or any other DVR up until now. I've had VCRs in the past and never really used them. Plus if I wanted to see a show badly I always just made sure I was able to watch it at the time of broadcast.

I wanted to respond by saying that I was not put off by the negative threads- they merely gave me more information on what to avoid and the pitfalls, which is the information I was looking for. This forum and community gave me tons of information in deciding which model to get (I decided on the 80 hour dual tuner bundle, so I would only have to put down $30 up front on the box and then only a 12 month commitment at $19.95, plus have the newer box instead of the one being phased out), whether or not to try the network adapter option (I decided to get one of the few network adapters that work with all series 2's off of ebay for less than half the price of the Tivo network adapter, we'll see if that works), and also whether a lot of people seemed to think it was worth it and were long time customers.

For me, the cable company DVR is not an option, as my cable is in my landlord's name, so Tivo was kind of the other choice. But I am curious as to what makes the Tivo better than the cable company DVR's. As my schedule became more "odd", where I can't really sit down in the evenings during "prime time", the more I kept thinking about maybe a Tivo. One thing I don't see too much of on here are chats about all the features of the Tivo and how they work, and why they are so much better than other services. Maybe that has been beaten to death in years past, but newbies like me are curious. Also I think maybe the typical newbie like me, who maybe isn't interested in the new S3 because they don't even have an HD television set yet, aren't all that interested in the discussion of possible street dates for that, hehe. I do know that one thing that kept me from just casually getting a Tivo for several years was the $200 or more cost of the box up front. Now that Tivo has offerings that make the box free or reduced priced, I think maybe more people might take a chance on it.

Anyway, sorry for the long post, but I just wanted to say "Hi!" and thank everybody on these boards for all of their posts, which helped me make an informed decision and feel confident that I will be happy with my new Tivo.

Thank you!
freediverdude


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## Ereth (Jun 16, 2000)

Y-ASK said:


> PopUp-Ad = The ad (picture) that pops-up during certain commercials that are fast forwarded through.
> 
> Tivo getting slower = http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=308201
> 
> ...


No, I've never seen a pop-ad. Vaguely remember some rumor mongering about it, but never saw anything concrete.

As for "forced ads", I don't see how having a menu item on your menu that you don't choose is forcing you to see an ad. Choose it, or don't. I see it as very targetted advertising. Sometimes the Yellow Star has something I'm interested in and I watch it. Other times I ignore it. Much like ads in magazines or elsewhere. I'm not one of those "no ads at any cost" type people.

I don't know anything about Tivos getting slower. I'll take your word for it. Software updates happen and sometimes things aren't perfect. DDO is slower than before the patch last week too, and they'll be issuing a new patch to fix it. That's kind of life in the computer age.

As for cheerleaders... that's kind of the animosity I'm asking about. I still love my TiVos. I haven't seen any reason NOT to like them. The things that bother you don't bother me. Everybody is different.

But somehow there seems to be an attitude that those of us who don't hate TiVo are just brainwashed cheerleaders. My Series 1 would still be turned on if I hadn't taken a lightning hit and destroyed the modem. I've got two functioning DTivos (including an HD-Tivo) and a 'night light" series 2 and I love them all. I haven't seen ANYTHING that Tivo has done that hasn't made me happy. My TiVo still works EXACTLY the way it did the day I bought it. No, I take that back, it works BETTER.

But it's ok that you don't feel that way, different things are important to you, and that's fine. I just don't get the animosity.


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## Ereth (Jun 16, 2000)

freediverdude said:


> Hello all,
> 
> I just wanted to post to reassure Ereth, that there are people like myself, who recently came to this forum to learn more about Tivo and possibly purchase their first one (which I just did- awaiting shipment from Tivo).


First, thanks for speaking up, and secondly, WELCOME to the Tivolution!

I appreciate your input, especially as you are precisely the type of person I was thinking about.


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## rorion (Jul 26, 2006)

Ereth said:


> But somehow there seems to be an attitude that those of us who don't hate TiVo are just brainwashed cheerleaders.


I don't know where you got that. There's a whole range from hate to dislike to indifference, all the way to brainwashed cheerleaders. There just used to be more of the cheerleaders here in the past. A bunch of the most vigorous got PO'd over the years and left. There are still some but it's noticeably more sober here than in the past. Of course, PVRs being normal appliances now has something to with that and a bunch of those visitors to this forum probably visit a bunch of other PVR sites too. Until TiVo gets a real deal with a cable company going, like we've all known for years, they're going to become more of a niche product, so you can't expect everyone who searches for TiVo to actually buy one.


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## Ereth (Jun 16, 2000)

Well, I still see most of the brainwashed cheerleaders.

But I see a lot more of the "What's Tivos excuse this time?" and "Tivo is doomed" type threads than I used to. If it were fatalistic I could probably accept it, but it seems like some people come here JUST to say bad things about TiVo.

And that struck me that it might be sending the wrong message to potential new customers. But apparently I'm wrong on that, as freediverdude shows, so that's good news.


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## mattack (Apr 9, 2001)

cwoody222 said:


> My lifetime sub TiVo just died so I was left with the option of paying TiVo monthly. It was NOT something I was at all happy about doing.


You could go through official channels and get the subscription transferred to a repaired/replaced Tivo.


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## mattack (Apr 9, 2001)

TiVo Troll said:


> No matter how "efficiently" I watch TV, I can't watch all the TV programs worth watching. I don't like to continually be hyped-up ready to skip through commercials, when commercial breaks are actually often useful. Since I generally enjoy watching TV during so-called "PrimeTime" anyway, I mostly choose what to watch in realtime except when there's a schedule conflict (either program or personal) involving a particularly (to me) significant program, which then gets timeshifted.


I totally don't get why you would PREFER to watch shows live. It sounds like you haven't found enough shows that you like.

Then again, I've been using VCRs and for the past several years my Tivos and Toshiba hard drive/DVD recorder to avoid commercials, for around 15 years total.. (and my parents' VCR for a few years before that for a few specific shows, like Letterman, mostly late night stuff).

If I had more tuners, I would never ever watch things live, except possibly to CHECK whether something was really airing when I expected it.. then wait until it was done or watch something else. (Though with enough tuners/hard drive space, I could pad everything an hour on each side.. but I'd want the unavailable show-editing feature afterwards, that's largely why I have the non-Tivo hard drive/DVD recorder).

BTW, I sometimes do leave live TV on _as background noise_ or halfway paying attention, e.g. CNN.. but even then, I often watch something else and let IT buffer up a little while so I can FF through commercials or boring segments.


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## BillyT2002 (Oct 19, 2002)

Wll I haven't watched any "live" television and very little advertising in around six or so years thanks to TIVO. I don't plan on ever going back to "live" television.


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## jsmeeker (Apr 2, 2001)

mattack said:


> I totally don't get why you would PREFER to watch shows live. It sounds like you haven't found enough shows that you like.
> .


I like to watch live sporting events LIVE. Why? Because they occur RIGHT NOW, and virtually everyone is watching RIGHT NOW. I want to know what's going on RIGHT NOW. I can do that and let the TiVo pick up some already produced show that was shot months ago and has been sitting around in the can.


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## rorion (Jul 26, 2006)

Ereth said:


> But I see a lot more of the "What's Tivos excuse this time?" and "Tivo is doomed" type threads than I used to.


It really doesn't seem to me like there are more of these then there used to be. TiVo was about to die back when I bought mine in 1999 according to several threads on this forum. Rather, I think there are just fewer happy threads and fewer new feature proposal debate threads in between them. Complaint threads would get pushed off the first page in just a few hours. Once, a bunch of us on the beta forum even conspired to reply to all the happy threads on the main forum to push the complaint threads down for awhile. Complaint threads disappeared in minutes.  I learned a lot here in those days and I think TiVo did too because a lot of the forum ideas showed up in version 2.0.


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## murgatroyd (Jan 6, 2002)

TiVo Troll said:


> (2) the ability to record anything contained in the recording buffer as long as the EPG still indicates that the program is ongoing. (If a program contained in the 1.5 hour buffer has ended, it can be watched but not turned into a permanent recording; if the program is still ongoing it can be turned into a permanent recording and that recording will end when the program is scheduled to end in the EPG.)


How is that any different than what my S1 TiVo does?

If the program that is in the buffer has ended, choosing 'record' dumps it and records the show whose timeslot you are currently in, but if you wish, you can back up to the beginning of the buffer and watch the buffer (and save it to your VCR if you like). That sure sounds like 'can be watched byt not turned into a permanent recording' to me.

Similarly, if you have crossed a timeslot boundary, and press the record button, a TiVo will save what's in the buffer and then continue recording until the end of the timeslot, assuming you have your default recording quality set to 'Best' (which I do).

Jan


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## murgatroyd (Jan 6, 2002)

Y-ASK said:


> Well I don't really want to re-hash all the reasons why I don't recommend Tivo to any one any more, but let's just say that it's no longer TV your way but TV Tivo's way. Tivo Corp. has totally turned me off by no longer supporting the series one with updates but yet still wants to charge the full monthly price for a series one which was suppose to include the cost of software upgrades. They've just done so many thing wrong from a customer service point of view that I wouldn't want the hassle of trying to explain to family and friends why their Tivo is suddenly slow as hell, or what the yellow stars means, or what these pop-ads are all about, or why their rebate has been denied, or why they can't get lifetime when Joe down the street has it, etc. Sorry but I've probably purchased my last Tivo and when it dies so does my business relationship with Tivo Inc.
> 
> Y-ASK


Okay, I'll take the opposing view on this one.

My two Series 1 TiVos are still going strong, and I pay practically nothing for service on them. (I have lifetime on my first TiVo so I only pay $6.95 for my second one).

TiVo supports the Series one. I can still call in and get Guide Data. All the POTS (plain old TiVo service) -- the stuff I bought the TiVo for -- features still work.

I have features which I like which the newer machines don't have.

They aren't upgrading the software so it is stable and I don't have bloatware shoved down my throat.

My machines are still hackable.

I don't see anything not to like.

Sure, it's a bummer that TiVo no longer sells Lifetime service for the boxes, but hey, if they don't make money from someone, they won't be able to stay in business.

I'm happy with my two Series 1 machines just as they are.

I really don't get that people whine about the S1 not getting software upgrades. TiVo Inc. isn't like Microsoft or Real Player or any number of other companies I could name, which FORCE you to take a software update or not get any support, then say "oh, your hardware is too old? well that's too bad, you're SOL". As long as my TiVos can still call in to a server and get the clocks reset and pick up Guide Data and do their thing, what the bleep do I care if other people have other software that does something else?

If I wanted all the stuff you can do with a Series 2, there is nothing stopping me from going out and buying a Series 2. And since I've got the lifetimed box, once I had finished paying for the box, I'd still get a price break on the service.

What's not to like? I'll take backdoors over folders ANY day.

Jan


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## TiVo Troll (Mar 23, 2006)

murgatroyd said:


> How is that any different than what my S1 TiVo does?


The record-from-buffer feature is "different" by an hour.


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## Y-ASK (Aug 17, 2001)

Hi Jan,

All excellent points except the 1st point you make. You can't compare your Lifetime with a 2nd $6.95 box with someone who purchases an S1 off E-Bay and establishes an account for the 1st time. It's now a year commitment with a rather large penalty for canceling ($200.00) and $12.95 a month. $6.95 is very reasonable for an S1 that only gets guide data and no updates and if the box is paid for there should be no commitment. That's just more BS from Corp. Tivo. And this goes to the heart of why it's difficult to support Tivo by talking about it to friends and family. What if they don't like it and didn't read the fine print like this guy:

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=309151

So what would you like me to do after all the sales pitch that were made and my best friend purchases the damn thing and then hates it for what ever reason? I'm sure I'm going to get blasted and I'm certainly going to feel bad if he got stuck with the cancellation fee because he went over his 30 days trial. Or he didn't get his rebate because Tivo decide to use some lame ass rebate company. Or he can't sell it on E-Bay because no one else wants to sign up for a year commitment. I value my friendship more than I value blindly supporting Tivo Inc. as some here do.

Y-ASK


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## Y-ASK (Aug 17, 2001)

Ereth said:


> But it's ok that you don't feel that way, different things are important to you, and that's fine. I just don't get the animosity.


No animosity intended, just a response to: 


Ereth said:


> and anybody who can't figure out the yellow star in about 30 seconds probably isn't smart enough to operate a TV anyway.


Dude, there's nothing to figure out. The yellow star is there, in your face, and you can ignore it if you like. I personally feel that it represent forced advertisements and was the start of all the BS. It's being put there (forced) without my consent.

Now for some Animosity:

One other thing I really hate about Tivo that goes along with this forced ads theme. I hate it when I get up in the morning and I turn the channel to the Cartoon Network so my kid can watch something while I get ready. Tivo comes along 10 minutes later and decides to change the channel while I'm in the shower. Now the kid is upset and has no idea why it happened and the content the channel was changed to may not be appropriate for my 3 year old, but I have no recourse but to put up with TV Tivo's way. It just sucks. This is by far my biggest complaint with Tivo and their GD ads BS. Why is Tivo Inc. touching my box (not theirs) at 5:30 AM in the morning East Coast time?

Y-ASK


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## TiVo Troll (Mar 23, 2006)

mattack said:


> I totally don't get why you would PREFER to watch shows live. It sounds like you haven't found enough shows that you like.
> 
> Then again, I've been using VCRs and for the past several years my Tivos and Toshiba hard drive/DVD recorder to avoid commercials, for around 15 years total.. (and my parents' VCR for a few years before that for a few specific shows, like Letterman, mostly late night stuff).
> 
> ...


No matter what "system" is used for watching TV, from a computerized pre-scheduled recording to a manual click of a remote, a viewer is never going to catch everything that s/he might want to see. Basically, I prefer a different way of sifting out what I watch from what's playing than you do.

If a concept like ReplayTV's ill-fated _Commercial Advance_ worked perfectly every time and could be retroactively turned off when desired when watching TV from the recording buffer I'd use it. But CA is erratic at best. I turned it off.

I'd rather watch TV live than go out of the way to watch it delayed and then click through commercial breaks. Commercial breaks provide a convenient time to shift attention from the TV screen anyway. And focusing in on every break just to skip through or past it can be excrutiatingly painful over time! Often there will something during a break that, if I see a piece of it, I'll want to go back and check it out. Couple that with the sloppiness of the RW-FF procedure (even TiVo's which has the best offsets) and I end up focusing closely on a whole bunch of shinola that I don't wanna' focus on at all.

Currently, on the TV I watch most, I use 3 DVR's in a "parallel" recording configuration:

A ReplayTV with a days long buffer is connected to a cable box which is tuned manually. That ReplayTV is used for its recording buffer only.

A Series 2 TiVo is connected to analog cable as well as a digital cable box (also feeding the ReplayTV). Unfortunately single tuner Series 2's can't be configured for analog cable along with digital cable, so I "fool" it by selecting analog cable with DirecTV, which is an imperfect solution at best. (Besides not being able to control the STB, many DirecTV feeds are 3 hours off.)

An LG recorder is connected to analog cable and the cable STB as well. Unfortunately Series 2 and LG have similiar set-up limitations regarding analog & digital cable.

Both the TiVo and LG's outputs are sent to a DVD/HD recorder w/a 6hr. recording buffer (which isn't dropped by changing channels) and assemble-editing capabilities. Except for being non-intuitive to use the DVD recorder is similiar to a DVR in its capabilities. Normally it utilizes TV Guide+ but that's turned off because in order to gather guide info the DVD recorder itself must be turned off, and that's not what I want.

Another TV receives OTA through another DVD/HD recorder with TV Guide+ set for OTA Canadian channels. There are only two local channels which can be received OTA, plus seven Canadian. (Canada is behind the US in ATSC OTA; within the next few years there should be a lot more digital OTA available; right now there's only one local digital OTA channel.)

As you can see, I have a fairly unique set-up. So I like to watch TV "my way"!!! I really don't watch a great deal of TV, but as you do, I sometimes leave the news on in the background.


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## TiVo Troll (Mar 23, 2006)

Y-ASK said:


> Now for some Animosity:
> 
> One other thing I really hate about Tivo that goes along with this forced ads theme. I hate it when I get up in the morning and I turn the channel to the Cartoon Network so my kid can watch something while I get ready. Tivo comes along 10 minutes later and decides to change the channel while I'm in the shower. Now the kid is upset and has no idea why it happened and the content the channel was changed to may not be appropriate for my 3 year old, but I have no recourse but to put up with TV Tivo's way. It just sucks. This is by far my biggest complaint with Tivo and their GD ads BS. Why is Tivo Inc. touching my box (not theirs) at 5:30 AM in the morning East Coast time?
> 
> Y-ASK


It sounds like you need to turn off Suggestions!


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## jmoak (Jun 20, 2000)

Y-ASK said:


> I hate it when I get up in the morning and I turn the channel to the Cartoon Network so my kid can watch something while I get ready. Tivo comes along 10 minutes later and decides to change the channel while I'm in the shower.


Is it changing channels for a suggestion or for "service info"?

If it's the former, well you know what to do to stop that.

If it's the latter, when did they start doing that at 5:30 eastern time??


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## rorion (Jul 26, 2006)

TiVo Troll said:


> It sounds like you need to turn off Suggestions!


No I think he's talking about yellow star infomercial recording which is not controlled by that setting. You don't get a choice on that one except for recording all your shows or at least not watching stuff live around whatever random time TiVo inc. happens to pick this week.


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## TiVo Troll (Mar 23, 2006)

rorion said:


> No I think he's talking about yellow star infomercial recording which is not controlled by that setting. You don't get a choice on that one except for recording all your shows or at least not watching stuff live around whatever random time TiVo inc. happens to pick this week.


OIC. Bummer!!!

(Naughty TiVo. Out! Out! Out!)


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## davezatz (Apr 18, 2002)

jmoak said:


> If it's the latter, when did they start doing that at 5:30 eastern time??


We may seen a few early morning incidents over the last few months... I get in the shower around 6ish EST and I think that's about when my fiance has reporting seeing things that sound like commercial recordings to me.


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## murgatroyd (Jan 6, 2002)

TiVo Troll said:


> The record-from-buffer feature is "different" by an hour.


Which was already covered by your first point. So why two entries on your list? Yes, there is more likelihood that the buffer will contain an entire program to record, but you already covered that point while discussing the longer length of the recording buffer.

Jan


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## Jonathan_S (Oct 23, 2001)

freediverdude said:


> One thing I don't see too much of on here are chats about all the features of the Tivo and how they work, and why they are so much better than other services. Maybe that has been beaten to death in years past, but newbies like me are curious.


Well, it is a little hard to give a simple comparison, because all cable DVRs aren't equal.

Some of them are still little more than digital VCRs, you can program them to record every CBS every Tuesday at 8, but can't tell them to record NCIS whenever it is on.

Some cable DVRs support name based recording, like the TiVo's Season Pass feature, where you can tell them to record a show, like NCIS, by name. They will search through the guide data and record it whenever it is on, or handle things like 90 minute special episodes.

I believe that some cable boxes are smart enough to support recording of new episodes only, just like TiVo's First Run Only setting. That's convenient if you've been watching a show from the beginning and don't want to see repeated episodes or summer reruns. Any new episodes get recorded, any old ones don't.

From what I've heard, I don't think any cable boxes supports Wishlists or Suggestions. Some people really like those feature, others never use them; so how much of an advantage they are for you I couldn't say.
I personally like wishlists, and have 30 or 40 set up to catch programs if they every do air. A wishlist is just a keyword or category search that you set up and wait for the TiVo to find a matching program.

So I have some movie I'd kind of like to see, so I set up Title wishlists for them. Same for some old series, if they ever get syndicated my TiVo will grab them.
I also have an auto-recording wishlist set for first run premiers, and another set for first run with the keyword pilot. Between them they grab basically every new series first episode so I can take a quick look and see if it is anything I might like.


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## Y-ASK (Aug 17, 2001)

rorion said:


> No I think he's talking about yellow star infomercial recording which is not controlled by that setting. You don't get a choice on that one except for recording all your shows or at least not watching stuff live around whatever random time TiVo inc. happens to pick this week.


Ding! Ding! Ding! You are correct! Suggestions are turned off and it happens about 6-8 times a month. Generally it's around 5:30 can be earlier or later. I've seen it happen as late as 06:00 AM. And since my morning routine is pretty consistent I probably see more than most. Even when it happens after years of dealing with it, it still pisses me off big time. And it's all due to advertisements provided by Tivo. And since I have three kids who take turns selecting what they are going to watch (which always involves a channel change) setting the channel to one station to record every morning is not an option. The option I would prefer is for Tivo to leave my box alone, enough with the ads already.

Y-ASK


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## jmoak (Jun 20, 2000)

Y-ASK said:


> Suggestions are turned off and it happens about 6-8 times a month. Generally it's around 5:30 can be earlier or later. I've seen it happen as late as 06:00 AM. And since my morning routine is pretty consistent I probably see more than most.


Jeeze, I gotta agree with you there. That's a pita. Doing it at 2 or 3 am doesn't bother me too much, but some of us have early mornings regularlly, but it hasn't caught me at that time yet.

In an effort just to keep that from happening when your kid is watching that early, set a lowest quality 2 hour block recording for 5-7am on the cartoon channel. It'll already be on that channel when you turn on the tv and it'll stay on the channel that way. You'll just have to delete it later. It may just be a workaround, but it'll keep the kids happy. ....AND force it to do it your way again.

Not to mention giving you an uninterrupted shower!


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## Ereth (Jun 16, 2000)

Y-ASK said:


> Ding! Ding! Ding! You are correct! Suggestions are turned off and it happens about 6-8 times a month. Generally it's around 5:30 can be earlier or later. I've seen it happen as late as 06:00 AM. And since my morning routine is pretty consistent I probably see more than most. Even when it happens after years of dealing with it, it still pisses me off big time. And it's all due to advertisements provided by Tivo. And since I have three kids who take turns selecting what they are going to watch (which always involves a channel change) setting the channel to one station to record every morning is not an option. The option I would prefer is for Tivo to leave my box alone, enough with the ads already.
> 
> Y-ASK


I've not encountered that, but then I don't get up at 5:30 am, and I can see why it would bother you.

Question though, once the kid decides what he wants to watch, why not just hit the "Record" button on your remote before you head for the shower? Tivo won't change channels then. Admittedly it's a work around and not ideal, but it sounds like it would help.

(As for the animosity comment, I didn't mean you specifically, I meant the overall tone of the forum lately. There's a lot more "TiVo screwed me" posts and threads where people try to respond to those are met with "cheerleader" comments. I haven't seen any animosity in this thread at all, I was just thinking out loud about the overall tone).


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## Ereth (Jun 16, 2000)

Jonathan_S said:


> Well, it is a little hard to give a simple comparison, because all cable DVRs aren't equal.


I often think it would be useful to do something like DrStranges famous TiVo vs ReplayTV document, with a special effort to be fair. But the difficulty here is that there are now so many different DVRs out there that nobody has them all to do a fair comparison.

If I tell you about the complaints my friend has about his Comcast DVR, that's second hand and we don't know if they are valid or exaggerated, for instance.

I wonder if we could do some sort of group-effort and come up with a pretty reasonable guide to the various products out there, and if we did, if it would be useful or if it would be too unwieldy and too long (especially if *I* were to write it!) for people to read.


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## murgatroyd (Jan 6, 2002)

Y-ASK said:


> Hi Jan,
> 
> All excellent points except the 1st point you make. You can't compare your Lifetime with a 2nd $6.95 box with someone who purchases an S1 off E-Bay and establishes an account for the 1st time. It's now a year commitment with a rather large penalty for canceling ($200.00) and $12.95 a month. $6.95 is very reasonable for an S1 that only gets guide data and no updates and if the box is paid for there should be no commitment. That's just more BS from Corp. Tivo. And this goes to the heart of why it's difficult to support Tivo by talking about it to friends and family. What if they don't like it and didn't read the fine print like this guy:
> 
> ...


On the first point: the example of my two S1s was intended to address the 'no software updates' part of your argument. Note that most software companies don't update you for free, forever. When you get new software, you usually do pay something for the upgrade -- and in many cases, you are forced to take the upgrade or you eventually don't get service. TiVo Inc. isn't treating us with an upgrade policy like Intuit's, for instance, of "upgrade or die". Sure, I haven't got Home Media stuff, but I haven't had to pay for it to subsidize everyone else who does. My service fee hasn't gone up over the life of my boxes, it has gone down.

Now about the new users. Yes, I agree that having to commit for a year is a drag, but they still do give you the 30 days to make up your mind.

And see, here's the thing. I may be old-fashioned, but if your friend went over his 30 days trial, that's his problem, not yours. Aren't you guys both grown people? Can't you be responsible for yourselves?

I am really puzzled by the fact that people these days are terrified by the fact that OMG _they might not like something_. It's like someone handed out wishes when I wasn't looking, and a fairy godmother told all you guys that you wouldn't ever be disappointed in anything ever again, not ever ever ever. So when something doesn't work out the way you wanted -- not that it's broken or defective, just that it doesn't work the way you wanted -- you just can't take it.

Does every single part of the TiVo interface work the way I would have designed it, had I been on the design team? No, it does not. Is Guide Data always perfect? No, it is not. Did the TiVo designers come up with some cool features that I would never have thought of? Yes, they did.

Is having two TiVos better than looking shows up on online listing services, keeping a boatload of entries in an Excel spreadsheet or database, and doing what my TiVos do now BY HAND? Absolutely.

I think the real problem is what I call the "principle of not enough". Those of us who, like Ereth and me, are long-time timeshifters with VCRs instantly see the value of TiVos, but there aren't enough of us. So TiVo has to campaign for new users among people who are new to timeshifting, and they attribute stuff that is inherently sucky about trying to timeshift to the TiVo being sucky, which is short-sighted and unfair.

People expect a TiVo to be magic, and that it will magically get all the shows they want without intervention. Well, I have news for them, there are LOTS of situation where you don't get the shows you want and _if you were still depending on VCRs, you wouldn't have got them then either_. Yet people blame TiVo for the show being missed. I just don't get that.

Here's what I might expect of you, a long-time TiVo user, to do for me if you were my friend encouraging me to get TiVo.

1) a good buddy might help a friend with setup
2) a good buddy could ask me for a list of my favorite shows and set up some Season Passes and wishlists, and show me how everything works and do some explaining about unexpected conditions
3) a good buddy might encourage their friend to sign up for TCF and subscribe to the Season Pass Alerts and show him the 'advice for new users' threads, etc.
4) a good buddy would be available if their friend has a question or needed tweaking or troubleshooting
5) a good buddy would warn his friend about recording scenarios that will bite you in the ass if you aren't aware of them (like trying to record something that follows a live sporting event, e.g. ESPN decides on the fly to stay with a game that is running over and moves the upcoming game to ESPN2 with no warning).

But would I expect the thing to be perfect and blame my buddy if it didn't work exactly as I expected? Would I blame my buddy because sometimes timeshifting just sucks? No, I would not.

When I give recommendations, I want people to know both the good stuff and bad. I have worked in sales, and there have been plenty of times where I have talked customers OUT of buying something when I suspected they wouldn't like it, because I want them to come back and get more stuff from me later on.

I don't blindly support TiVo. I do recognize that TiVo Inc has to make decisions that I don't like, like discontinuing lifetime, because they have to stay in business.

The new pricing scenarios suck. I'm with you there.

But I still think TiVo is a tremendous value.

Jan


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## murgatroyd (Jan 6, 2002)

Jonathan_S said:


> I personally like wishlists, and have 30 or 40 set up to catch programs if they every do air. A wishlist is just a keyword or category search that you set up and wait for the TiVo to find a matching program.
> 
> So I have some movie I'd kind of like to see, so I set up Title wishlists for them. Same for some old series, if they ever get syndicated my TiVo will grab them.
> I also have an auto-recording wishlist set for first run premiers, and another set for first run with the keyword pilot. Between them they grab basically every new series first episode so I can take a quick look and see if it is anything I might like.


If I may expand on what Jonathan_S has said:

Wishlists rock. The better you get at making a good wishlist, the more awesome they are.

What VCR or other DVR can record stuff that you really, really want to see, when you didn't even know the show existed in the first place?

My husband (and I) love the singer Kate Bush. She never makes appearances on television, but just for fun, when I first got my TiVo, I set up an auto-recording keyword wishlist for "Kate Bush". Ha ha, this will never get any hits, I said.

Then my TiVo recorded for us the episode of Saturday Night Live with Kate Bush as the musical guest. I did not know she had been on the show. And on doing a little research, I discovered that if you buy the commercial video of that program, her appearances aren't on the tape because of some rights problem. So the ONLY way to see these performances are to stumble upon the repeat of Saturday Night Live somehow.

Imagine how much work it would be to go through the online listings for Comedy Central week after week after week after week.

Are they showing the SNL with Kate this week? Nope.
Are they showing the SNL with Kate this week? Nope.
Are they showing the SNL with Kate this week? Nope.
Are they showing the SNL with Kate this week? Nope.
Are they showing the SNL with Kate this week? Nope.
Are they showing the SNL with Kate this week? Nope.
Are they showing the SNL with Kate this week? Nope.
Are they showing the SNL with Kate this week? Nope.

You get the idea.

And if you don't know that she was ever on the show, you can't even do that. You won't KNOW to look for it.

This is one of many reasons why they will have to pry my TiVo remotes out of my cold dead hands.

Jan


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## rorion (Jul 26, 2006)

murgatroyd said:


> When you get new software, you usually do pay something for the upgrade -- and in many cases, you are forced to take the upgrade or you eventually don't get service. TiVo Inc. isn't treating us with an upgrade policy like Intuit's, for instance, of "upgrade or die".


Well now that TiVo no longer has lifetime, I think it's clear that they charge for updates too - even after your box stops getting them. As for "upgrade or die", I've been using Quicken for many years and never run into that. On the other hand, TiVo's policy is: "We'll upgrade you when we want to upgrade you and we won't when we won't". There is no "or die" there's just: "you have no choice, we're in complete control of this" unless you're willing to hack or disconnect from the service. I don't see where this is significantly better than "upgrade or die". It seems like sort of the same overall policy only you're more in control of your PC so they need a carrot and stick whereas TiVo can just do it.


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## murgatroyd (Jan 6, 2002)

rorion said:


> Well now that TiVo no longer has lifetime, I think it's clear that they charge for updates too - even after your box stops getting them. As for "upgrade or die", I've been using Quicken for many years and never run into that. On the other hand, TiVo's policy is: "We'll upgrade you when we want to upgrade you and we won't when we won't". There is no "or die" there's just: "you have no choice, we're in complete control of this" unless you're willing to hack or disconnect from the service. I don't see where this is significantly better than "upgrade or die". It seems like sort of the same overall policy only you're more in control of your PC so they need a carrot and stick whereas TiVo can just do it.


How do you figure that without lifetime, "it's clear that they charge for updates too - even after your box stops getting them".

As I understand the new pricing scenarios, if you can find a vendor who will sell you the hardware so that you own the box outright, you still pay $12.95 a month. Otherwise the cost of the box is rolled into the price (and yeah, thanks SO much to all of the whining weenies who cried about "I have to buy the box and THEN I have to pay for service on top of it -- waaaaah!"  See what your whining got us?).

So let's say I bought a S1 from one of you disgruntled "I'm through with TiVo" users for my brother and sent it to him for Christmas. After my gift subscription to him ran out, would he pay $12.95/mo for it, or not?

I appreciate your comments about being force-fed upgrades by TiVo, but at least your TiVos still work. On the other hand, I am about to lose two computers because they are too slow to run the most recent operating system and what they do run is no longer supported. TiVo doesn't force me to commit piracy in order to keep my TiVo running.

Jan


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## murgatroyd (Jan 6, 2002)

rorion said:


> No I think he's talking about yellow star infomercial recording which is not controlled by that setting. You don't get a choice on that one except for recording all your shows or at least not watching stuff live around whatever random time TiVo inc. happens to pick this week.


You can see the possible timeslots in the Guide Data, if you want to see what time the show might be on.

I like Ereth's work-around of hitting the record button once the show has been selected. Then the TiVo will know it is busy and it won't do the other recording.

Jan


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## Ereth (Jun 16, 2000)

rorion said:


> It really doesn't seem to me like there are more of these then there used to be. TiVo was about to die back when I bought mine in 1999 according to several threads on this forum. Rather, I think there are just fewer happy threads and fewer new feature proposal debate threads in between them. Complaint threads would get pushed off the first page in just a few hours. Once, a bunch of us on the beta forum even conspired to reply to all the happy threads on the main forum to push the complaint threads down for awhile. Complaint threads disappeared in minutes.  I learned a lot here in those days and I think TiVo did too because a lot of the forum ideas showed up in version 2.0.


Question: if you've been here since 1999, and even in the Beta Forums (ACK! NDA!), why the new ID with only 8 posts?

Some of us other old timers would likely know you by another name, I would assume? Care to share what it was?


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## freediverdude (Jul 27, 2006)

Wow, it does sound like that Wishlist feature is something nobody else has. I would really like that one. What is this thing about it recording an informercial once a week automatically though. That seems odd.

So I guess it would really depend on my particular cable company, as to whether I got even a decent DVR or just a VCR-like device. We've always hated our cable company, which used to be called Time Warner and they're now calling themselves Brighthouse. 

Do you guys find, though, that the Tivo records too many programs to watch? I can just envision this thing, once I get it set up with some recording requests, recording and recording and recording, picking up way more hours of stuff than I ever could watch, hehe.


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## rorion (Jul 26, 2006)

murgatroyd said:


> How do you figure that without lifetime, "it's clear that they charge for updates too - even after your box stops getting them".
> 
> As I understand the new pricing scenarios, if you can find a vendor who will sell you the hardware so that you own the box outright, you still pay $12.95 a month.


I wasn't refering to any of the higher cost options. If it really costs TiVo $12.95 a month to provide TV guide data when they don't even have to pay for paper, then TiVo deserves to be out of business. Surely much of this is the cost of developing software. In fact it even says pretty much that in my service agreement. (With the usual CYA disclaimer that no specific future features are actually promised. However they do say that whatever features and change they may or may not provide are part of the service. Of course that's how they slip those yellow stars in too  all part of the future service improvements you agreed to.)

Putting it another way, if I had been paying monthly for 7 years, I would have paid more for TiVo service than for any other single software program I've run over that time including update fees. I'm not going to try to exactly compare which software equates to the TiVo app in complexity but I think that >$1000 is a fair amount of money for using a TV recording app for 7 years. (Lifetime for $200 was pretty reasonable though so I'm not complaining.)



murgatroyd said:


> I appreciate your comments about being force-fed upgrades by TiVo, but at least your TiVos still work. On the other hand, I am about to lose two computers because they are too slow to run the most recent operating system and what they do run is no longer supported. TiVo doesn't force me to commit piracy in order to keep my TiVo running.


They must be pretty old. I have 1970s, 1980s and 1990s computers here that still run fine. "supported"??? Heck many of the companies no longer even exist but they still run fine and do more than they did the day I bought them. TiVos have only been around since 1999 so they I don't see how we can compare them. Let's see how our Series 1s are doing in 30 years. I have no idea what the answer will be to that.


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## rorion (Jul 26, 2006)

Ereth said:


> Question: if you've been here since 1999, and even in the Beta Forums (ACK! NDA!), why the new ID with only 8 posts?


Because I haven't posted since about 2001 and either my ID is gone or I can't remember it. Yeah, I'm hoping they don't care too much about the NDA for a release 6 years ago, but I won't say more than that. (And I think everyone knows that a beta forum exists.) Besides, this wasn't the idea of anyone at TiVo Inc. Some of us just got annoyed at the negativism over the rollout procedure. (Which was public.)


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## Ereth (Jun 16, 2000)

freediverdude said:


> Wow, it does sound like that Wishlist feature is something nobody else has. I would really like that one. What is this thing about it recording an informercial once a week automatically though. That seems odd.
> 
> So I guess it would really depend on my particular cable company, as to whether I got even a decent DVR or just a VCR-like device. We've always hated our cable company, which used to be called Time Warner and they're now calling themselves Brighthouse.
> 
> Do you guys find, though, that the Tivo records too many programs to watch? I can just envision this thing, once I get it set up with some recording requests, recording and recording and recording, picking up way more hours of stuff than I ever could watch, hehe.


Wishlists rock. They are especially good for things like "Wierd Al does a special on MTV whenever he releases a new album. Get that" or "I like the P-3C Orion, get me any shows that mention that" or even "I want to see that one episode of Seinfeld with Teri Hatcher, record that when it's on, but no others".

Nobody else has that as far as I know.

As for more than you can watch? Sure. But you discover, after you've had one a while, that some shows are less "important" than others. You'll have a handful that you want to watch close-to-live, or at least same day (like, say, "Lost"), a bunch more where you want to watch them reasonably soon, and then more that you discover you don't mind not watching for weeks. Often which are which will surprise you. About 4 months after you get your box you'll turn it on and discover you've voraciously watched all of whatever your favorite show really is, and there's a whole bunch of some other show that you thought you really liked, but whenever you turned on your Tivo you picked something else to watch. Heck, I used to be a rabid Stargate fan and then last season I missed half the season without realizing it (but they were all dutifully waiting on me when I got to them). That's the true power of TiVo, the part you can't get from the commercial. How totally freeing it is, how you can like a show but not be tied to it, and maybe not even watch any of it's episodes until the summer when NOTHING is on, and you have a whole season of "24" just sitting there ready to watch.

It's liberating.


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## Ereth (Jun 16, 2000)

rorion said:


> Because I haven't posted since about 2001 and either my ID is gone or I can't remember it. Yeah, I'm hoping they don't care too much about the NDA for a release 6 years ago, but I won't say more than that. (And I think everyone knows that a beta forum exists.) Besides, this wasn't the idea of anyone at TiVo Inc. Some of us just got annoyed at the negativism over the rollout procedure. (Which was public.)


Actually, the "ACK! NDA!" comment was a joke. It's a bit of a running gag around here that you aren't supposed to mention you were in the Beta for ANY release, not even 1.3, which I can neither confirm nor deny that I might or might not have been involved in Beta Testing, if such a thing were to have happened.


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## hawk4hire (Jan 20, 2004)

This may have been asked, but was there a decrease AFTER Tivo annoucned the LifeTime subs went away? I wonder if that in addition to the new pricing structure made a difference? 

Just curious...


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## rorion (Jul 26, 2006)

Ereth said:


> Actually, the "ACK! NDA!" comment was a joke. It's a bit of a running gag around here that you aren't supposed to mention you were in the Beta for ANY release, not even 1.3, which I can neither confirm nor deny that I might or might not have been involved in Beta Testing, if such a thing were to have happened.


In hindsight I should have said, "there used to be a place where some of us talked privately..." because it really had no more to do with any beta than that. Some of us just decided to do something about negativism (bumping optimism up) and it seemed to work though it took a fair amount of effort because "^^bump^^" was a bit too obvious


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## Jonathan_S (Oct 23, 2001)

freediverdude said:


> What is this thing about it recording an informercial once a week automatically though. That seems odd.


TiVo uses that informercial as a way to push out video to the unit. So for example if they have a menu item to see some movie trailer; the trailer got onto the TiVo by being aired in the informercial and the TiVo recorded it.
The informercial doesn't show up in the normal menus as something you are going to / have recorded, and it gets saved to reserved space, so it doesn't reduce the number of hours of recording time available.
However, the TiVo does have to change the channel to record it (unless something else is already scheduled to record at that time), so if you are watching live tv or expect the TiVo to stay on the same channel as the previous night that channel change could be annoying.


freediverdude said:


> Do you guys find, though, that the Tivo records too many programs to watch? I can just envision this thing, once I get it set up with some recording requests, recording and recording and recording, picking up way more hours of stuff than I ever could watch, hehe.


It's certainly possible to do that. After briefly going overboard and trying to record and watch everything, I started dumping shows that I only watched occasionally. That cut back on what the TiVo was recording.

The other thing I did was put in a much larger hard drive, which, if I didn't let it get away from me, let unwatched shows pile up until I felt like watching them or until regular programming went into reruns. So I could catch up watching programs from October during the November, December holiday reruns, or watch a bunch of stuff during the summer rerun season.

Just don't panic if your TiVo fills up and starts deleting old shows. If you hadn't gotten around to watching them it must not have been that important. (If there is a special or something that your really want to save you can always mark it Keep Until I Delete so the TiVo won't delete it even if it gets full)


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## murgatroyd (Jan 6, 2002)

rorion said:


> I wasn't refering to any of the higher cost options. If it really costs TiVo $12.95 a month to provide TV guide data when they don't even have to pay for paper, then TiVo deserves to be out of business.


Okay, we have now entered "do not feed the troll" territory.

The idea that businesses must provide things to consumers at the bare cost of goods, well, that must come out of the same box of stupid ideas as the world owing them a life where they are never disappointed by anything.

"When they don't even have to pay for paper". 

Jan


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## Sapphire (Sep 10, 2002)

pcguru83 said:


> I think part of it is how easy the cable companies make it to get one of their DVR offerings. I've met many a person who says, "Oh yeah, I have TiVo" only to discover that they are referring to those sorry excuse for DVR's the cable companies try to pass off.
> 
> I've tried explaining to those people the graces of TiVo, but it's always, "Well mine does that too!" You just can't grasp the greatness and ease of use unless you've actually used a TiVo--and that's becoming rarer and rarer these days. Years ago, TiVo was the only option (aside from ReplayTV) for a DVR. Today though, as I pointed out before, just about every cable company will provide a DVR for an extra $5-6 a month.


Well I've had both TiVo and cable company DVR, and I think I'm agreeing with "those people."

I have a SA8300, and while it is no TiVo, it is a basic DVR which works good enough.

It's no TiVo, but it's easy enough to use.

It also costs a lot less, does high def and works with cable. TiVo currently doesn't offer this combination.

I'm hoping Series3 will change that, but it's an unreleased product.


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## Ereth (Jun 16, 2000)

Raj said:


> Well I've had both TiVo and cable company DVR, and I think I'm agreeing with "those people."
> 
> I have a SA8300, and while it is no TiVo, it is a basic DVR which works good enough.
> 
> ...


If you are hoping for Series3 then there must be something that TiVo does that your SA8300 does not, and that something is the part that is hard to describe to "Those people" with whom you claim to be agreeing (but if you are hoping for Series 3 then I submit you actually don't agree with them as they see no difference in what they have and an actual TiVo).


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## TiVo Troll (Mar 23, 2006)

TiVo Troll said:


> The record-from-buffer feature is "different" by an hour.





murgatroyd said:


> Which was already covered by your first point. So why two entries on your list? Yes, there is more likelihood that the buffer will contain an entire program to record, but you already covered that point while discussing the longer length of the recording buffer.
> 
> Jan


My *first point* not only covered the difference in buffer length but also stated that the buffer isn't dumped when changing channels.

While the ability to retain the buffer through channel changes doesn't affect the ability to turn a program being buffered into a permanent recording it's a really nice feature when watching TV in realtime.

The two entries were in answer to a question about what DVR features enhance casual (not timeshifted) viewing. So despite my poorly organized list, there are really three items, one of which TiVo shares. (BTW, does _TiVo Basic_ retain the ability to turn a program in the recording buffer into a permanent recording when the recording is started after the program starts? I'd guess not, but I forget.)


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## TiVo Troll (Mar 23, 2006)

Ereth said:


> I often think it would be useful to do something like DrStranges famous TiVo vs ReplayTV document, with a special effort to be fair. But the difficulty here is that there are now so many different DVRs out there that nobody has them all to do a fair comparison.
> 
> If I tell you about the complaints my friend has about his Comcast DVR, that's second hand and we don't know if they are valid or exaggerated, for instance.
> 
> I wonder if we could do some sort of group-effort and come up with a pretty reasonable guide to the various products out there, and if we did, if it would be useful or if it would be too unwieldy and too long (especially if *I* were to write it!) for people to read.


DrStrange wrote the most detailed *reviews* of different DVR products ever compiled, back in the days when ReplayTV was considered (by TiVo fans) a lowly DVR while TiVo took hard drive TV recording up another level to PVR! I doubt anyone can top his efforts.

DrStrange hasn't posted recently. His last post was on *April 4*. I wonder if he's OK.

I always wondered if DrStrange wasn't disabled or limited in mobility because of his reticence to talk about himself, the unusual number of TiVo's he owned, as well as the time he appeared to have available for compiling his reviews. He stated more than once that he had no connection whatsoever with TiVo other than liking it a lot! He was/is a great asset to these Forums!


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## murgatroyd (Jan 6, 2002)

TiVo Troll said:


> (BTW, does _TiVo Basic_ retain the ability to turn a program in the recording buffer into a permanent recording when the recording is started after the program starts? I'd guess not, but I forget.)


I don't have TiVo Basic, since I don't own the Toshiba or whichever of the TiVos has the distinction between TiVo Basic / TiVo Plus. I have a S1 with what used to be ordinary TiVo service, what those users would call "TiVo Plus". So I can't speak to what TiVo Basic does, but my understanding was that the trick play features were the same for both services.

So let's say I come home from work very late, the tuner was already on channel 3 because I was recording something on NBC earlier in the evening and now The Tonight Show is on. I turn on the TV and see that Robin Williams is the guest, but the musical act is about to start so I've missed all of his segments.

If I press the record button at that moment, since my default recording quality is Best, my TiVo will save the 30 minutes' worth of The Tonight Show which is already in the buffer and continue recording until the timeslot for The Tonight Show is over. Then the partial recording of The Tonight Show will be on my Now Playing List and I can do anything with it that I can do with any other recording on my Now Playing List.

For the record: I am not inherently hostile to other DVRs. I believe in understanding how your DVR works, no matter what it is, so you can get the most out of it. I once met a Replay owner, and after some good-natured ribbing, said that 'of course the ideal solution would to have one of each, so that you could take advantage of the differences in the way they work'.

Jan


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## TiVo Troll (Mar 23, 2006)

freediverdude said:


> Do you guys find, though, that the Tivo records too many programs to watch? I can just envision this thing, once I get it set up with some recording requests, recording and recording and recording, picking up way more hours of stuff than I ever could watch, hehe.


Definitely, for me. All TV isn't created equal!

An important thing for me is not to watch a recorded program just because it's recorded. If a program is worth recording it's worth watching. I'd rather miss a program than to start missing a whole slew of recorded programs because of a lack of time or interest.

That's one reason why I philosophically don't like the concept of _Suggestions_. At any time I can find something playing in realtime from the more than 200 sources available, without using a computer program, that is as good as a _Suggestion_.


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## TiVo Troll (Mar 23, 2006)

murgatroyd said:


> I don't have TiVo Basic, since I don't own the Toshiba or whichever of the TiVos has the distinction between TiVo Basic / TiVo Plus. I have a S1 with what used to be ordinary TiVo service, what those users would call "TiVo Plus". So I can't speak to what TiVo Basic does, but my understanding was that the trick play features were the same for both services.
> 
> So let's say I come home from work very late, the tuner was already on channel 3 because I was recording something on NBC earlier in the evening and now The Tonight Show is on. I turn on the TV and see that Robin Williams is the guest, but the musical act is about to start so I've missed all of his segments.
> 
> ...


By all means have at least one DVR of each brand that interests you!

I understand how TiVo's recording from the buffer works. I'm just curious about the capabilities of _TiVo Basic_ regarding recording from the buffer. Recording from the buffer was a big deal when first offered. *DrStrange's review* makes the point that with _TiVo Basic_ the default recording quality setting must be chosen in advance so that recording from the buffer wouldn't even be theoretically possible unless the default was set to "Best".


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## rorion (Jul 26, 2006)

murgatroyd said:


> Okay, we have now entered "do not feed the troll" territory.




Now THERE'S the answer to the question of how useful this forum is to TiVo. Don't have an answer? Try a label!


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## TiVo Troll (Mar 23, 2006)

rorion said:


> If it really costs TiVo $12.95 a month to provide TV guide data when they don't even have to pay for paper, then TiVo deserves to be out of business. Surely much of this is the cost of developing software. In fact it even says pretty much that in my service agreement. (With the usual CYA disclaimer that no specific future features are actually promised. However they do say that whatever features and change they may or may not provide are part of the service. Of course that's how they slip those yellow stars in too  all part of the future service improvements you agreed to.)
> 
> Putting it another way, if I had been paying monthly for 7 years, I would have paid more for TiVo service than for any other single software program I've run over that time including update fees. I'm not going to try to exactly compare which software equates to the TiVo app in complexity but I think that >$1000 is a fair amount of money for using a TV recording app for 7 years. (Lifetime for $200 was pretty reasonable though so I'm not complaining.)


"TiVo Service" is the primary means from which TiVo Inc. generates revenue. Service is worth whatever customers are willing to pay for it. TiVo's ongoing costs for providing its service are probably relatively low; as they should be if TiVo is pursuing a viable business plan.


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## rorion (Jul 26, 2006)

TiVo Troll said:


> Service is worth whatever customers are willing to pay for it.


Which brings me back to my original comment about the old-timers I know not being willing to pay the new price for the service as currently defined. Or this thread. It seems to me that the features (implies upgrades) or the price needs work to capture a wider market.


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## TiVo Troll (Mar 23, 2006)

rorion said:


> Which brings me back to my original comment about the old-timers I know not being willing to pay the new price for the service as currently defined. Or this thread. It seems to me that the features (implies upgrades) or the price needs work to capture a wider market.


Tell me about it!

Whaaah!!! Bring back Lifetime!


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## greg_burns (May 22, 2004)

jmoak said:


> In an effort just to keep that from happening when your kid is watching that early, set a lowest quality 2 hour block recording for 5-7am on the cartoon channel. It'll already be on that channel when you turn on the tv and it'll stay on the channel that way. *You'll just have to delete it later.* It may just be a workaround, but it'll keep the kids happy. ....AND force it to do it your way again.


Can you set a KAM=1 on a manual recording like that? I do the same (but with a SP) for the morning news, so I know the channel will be tuned already to watch the weather live.


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## ZeoTiVo (Jan 2, 2004)

cwoody222 said:


> My lifetime sub TiVo just died so I was left with the option of paying TiVo monthly. It was NOT something I was at all happy about doing.


 umm - didn't TiVo work out transferring your lifetime to another box for 150$.


> People are accustomed to pay their cable company monthly.
> 
> People are not accustomed to pay their VCR/DVD company monthly.
> 
> ...


now these are good points but for me to get a cable co DVR means I have to go to the digital tier which is a good bit more money for things I do not want now. TiVo S2 actually worked out being cheaper overall after 17 months along with being a better scheduler

now 600 to 800 for the S3 before mointhly payments is a different story. we will soon see how that goes. I think this place is still not a liability to TiVo - better for people to come here first and find out about the product vs find out after they bought it , they do not like it. Also I think this place helps a lot of people over the hump of paying for the value.

*also many in this thread are missing the point that the Cable compoanies are not exactly seeing the DVRs end up in 10 million homes a year either. *


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## chris_h (Dec 17, 2003)

freediverdude said:


> Do you guys find, though, that the Tivo records too many programs to watch? I can just envision this thing, once I get it set up with some recording requests, recording and recording and recording, picking up way more hours of stuff than I ever could watch, hehe.


And I say, let it record! That is the great thing about auto-delete, they just fall off the edge and something else can record. Some DVRs do not have auto-delete (I think it was the early Dishnetwork models) and when they fill up, your new programs will not record. Yuck.

A friend mentioned the whole "you will never be able to watch all 140 hours anyways" theory to me. Obviously not, given my time constraints. But that is not the goal for me. My goals for my tivo are:

1) Faithfully record any program important to anyone in my family.
2) Make sure I never have to say "Crap, 200 channels and nothing good on!"
3) Always have something ready to watch that fits my mood when I have time to watch tv.

Tivo does all that for me quite well.

As for wishlists, yes, they rock. A friend of mine is a die-hard NASCAR fan. Me, not so much, but I did have a "NASCAR in HDTV" wishlist. A quick comparison showed that I was watching much more NASCAR in HD than he was, due to my wishlist.


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## HDTiVo (Nov 27, 2002)

ZeoTiVo said:


> now 600 to 800 for the S3 before mointhly payments is a different story. we will soon see how that goes. I think this place is still not a liability to TiVo - better for people to come here first and find out about the product vs find out after they bought it , they do not like it. Also I think this place helps a lot of people over the hump of paying for the value.
> 
> *also many in this thread are missing the point that the Cable compoanies are not exactly seeing the DVRs end up in 10 million homes a year either. *


With all the price cutting going on, I think my $300 box fee is looking pretty good lately.

Cable companies are blowing TiVo away in deployment. They are doing the kinds of numbers it was thought TiVo could do years ago. If TiVo were doing a small fraction of that today, they'd be printing money.


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## classicX (May 10, 2006)

Ereth said:


> No, I would agree. I think Ann said we get 100 new registered members a day. Still that's a lot of people, isn't it? Are people coming here and deciding NOT to get TiVos? I would assume some portion of them are. My question really boils down to "are some of those who decide not to get TiVos doing it because of the contents of the TCF Forum?" I know for a fact that the Forum was instrumental in my own decision TO get TiVo. I was impressed with the open atmosphere, the sort of giddyness that was going on in the early days, and the way people were accepting of newcomers and went out of their way to help.
> 
> If that's still happening, then fine. I just wonder if we've simply become jaded over time and don't present that same "first impression".


I am a registered member, and I do not have a Tivo. If that answers your question, great.

Let me explain my situation, which I suspect is more common than one might think: I had a Tivo (DirecTivo, in my case). It was my first DVR and it was AWESOME. I wanted to record everything! I made Season Pass after Season Pass. I recorded anything I thought was remotely entertaining. I recorded SpongeBob! (I was 25 years old, now 28). I recorded MXC. Editing settings was a breeze. I loved that Tivo recorded suggestions based on my previous habits. Then my 1-year "deal" with DirecTV ran out. I ended up paying twice what I had been paying. Then the nice man from Cablevision came to visit. He told me about a TV Land flowing with milk and honey for a mere pittance compared to what I was paying. They had a DVR too! Oh, the world was bright and shiny. I signed up for a one year deal. I was excited!

Then I got the Cablevision installation. Everything was so nice. I could just go to the store (around the corner for me) and get new stuff. I could just say I need 12 DVRs and they would give them to me! Sweet! HDDVR?? GNARLY!

Now it's time to start putting in my "Season Passes." How do I record? I have to choose it from the guide (OK) or..... choose it from the guide sorted by Alphabet. What? I can only choose one letter and one day at a time. WHAT?? I have to choose "By Title" and then choose a letter, and then choose what DAY to search?? WTH? The guide data is only for one week? OMGNO. OK, so what if I know I want to record something, but it's not coming on for two months, and I'm afraid that by then I won't remember to record it? I can't??? NO WISHLIST?!~

Sadness ensues.

Thankfully, I've only had one problem with the Scientific Atlanta boxes, and that was just that one show wasn't recorded. Lucky me, from the sounds of things.

OK, so I just moved to a Comcast area in the beginning of June, so you can bet I was hoping for two things: Comcast Tivo and Verizon FIOS. Neither in my area yet (but Verizon is installing FIOS in my area so I probably have less than a year for that). Darn! OK, let's just go with the Comcast DVR [oh heavens no, I've heard stories about the Moto!!].

I never thought I'd be HAPPY to see the Scientific Atlanta boxes..... i was like YES!! NO iGUIDE!!! W00t!

I am counting the days until the S3 is out....

*On an interesting side note - Comcast here doesn't use Cablecards in their STBs. I went to their store and picked up a box, noticed it was missing (because it was in my box with Cablevision) and asked about it. He said "we don't use cablecards in our boxes." I guess they've had some problems with people cracking them in the past?


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## russwong (Sep 17, 2002)

This will probably be a long post, but I've probably posted something similar in the past. When I first got Tivo, it was the greatest thing ever. For someone who loved TV, to be able to record shows even when the show shifted, or a special 1 hour episode happened and was still recorded was just the best. All my friends were impressed and my roommates loved the Tivo. I told everyone about it and the fact that it was a onetime fee with lifetime service, made it even better.

As I became more savy, I determined I wanted dual-tuner functionality. That was back in 2000 maybe... but no dual tuner till just recently. In 2001, I started getting into HD and wanted an HD Tivo.... it's 2006 and still waiting.

Lifetime has been eliminated. Not impressed with any of the added features so far. Only groups have been useful to me. Products like Sage, BeyondTV, MCE came out and made it pretty easy to do what the Tivo does and more.

Now I only have a Series 2 Tivo that is on, because it has Lifetime Warranty on it (which I actually haven't used in a while). I have a decomissioned Series 1 with 240 gigs and a turbonet card and a Series 2 with no hard drives.

Instead, I have 2 media centers. 1 which records HD onto 750 gigs of space via 3 different tuners and one that has a dual tuner that records my analog on another 500 gigs of space. Both able to stream to my XBOX and XBOX360 and easily copy to a laptop for travel.

For me, Tivo was cutting edge in 99/00, but then never kept moving forward or forward fast enough for me. I still think the interface is one of the best and if I was buying something for my parents, I'd consider a Tivo, but otherwise there are better options that give you more flexibility and better features that are good enough for me to not use Tivo. So unfortunately, I find myself telling people who ask me, not to buy a Tivo.... quite a change over the course of 6 years.

Here's hoping the comcast Tivo option eventually comes out, because I think that would be cool.


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## Ereth (Jun 16, 2000)

I have BeyondTV as well, just for HDTV. I'm trying to figure out the value of streaming to an Xbox360, though. I guess my problem is that my BeyondTV system is sitting in my entertainment center about 2 feet to the left of my Xbox 360, and while both are hooked up to the same TV, the BeyondTV box is hooked up via DVI and the Xbox360 is hooked up by component cable.

I can't figure out why I would want to watch TV from the Xbox360 rather than just switch to the BeyondTV box.


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## russwong (Sep 17, 2002)

Yeah, in your situation it's not necessary.

I have one of my media centers in the kitchen and one in the office. Then at my actual 2 TVs, I have the xbox's. So I'm able to watch shows in the kitchen, when I'm there or eating dinner (on the little 19" TFT), but if I want to watch on the sofa on the bigger TV, I just use the xbox. If the HTPC and the XBOX are at the same TV, then not necessary, unless you have another TV in the house, moving the xbox is a little easier, if you wanted to watch shows there.


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## BillyT2002 (Oct 19, 2002)

There is only one way to answer this question once and for all:

TivoPony, TivoOpsMgr, anyone else from TIVO out there? As a customer, have I lost my value to your company? Please let me know so we can put this question to rest. Thank you.


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## classicsat (Feb 18, 2004)

rorion said:


> I wasn't refering to any of the higher cost options. If it really costs TiVo $12.95 a month to provide TV guide data when they don't even have to pay for paper, then TiVo deserves to be out of business.


Sure they don't have to pay for paper (apart form normal office supplies), but they do need to pay for that data, and pay for the "tubes" to deliver it. That is in addition to forward development costs.



> Putting it another way, if I had been paying monthly for 7 years, I would have paid more for TiVo service than for any other single software program I've run over that time including update fees. I'm not going to try to exactly compare which software equates to the TiVo app in complexity but I think that >$1000 is a fair amount of money for using a TV recording app for 7 years. (Lifetime for $200 was pretty reasonable though so I'm not complaining.)


TiVo isn't an hardware or an app, it is a service. The hardware and box software is the means to provide that service.


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## classicsat (Feb 18, 2004)

murgatroyd said:


> I appreciate your comments about being force-fed upgrades by TiVo, but at least your TiVos still work. On the other hand, I am about to lose two computers because they are too slow to run the most recent operating system and what they do run is no longer supported. TiVo doesn't force me to commit piracy in order to keep my TiVo running.
> 
> Jan


Neither do the computer companies. You are free to run then contemporary software, or free stuff on the computers you own.

I own a low end Pentium I run a simpler Linux on to get real things done, or could run Win95 with its limitations.


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## rorion (Jul 26, 2006)

classicsat said:


> Sure they don't have to pay for paper (apart form normal office supplies), but they do need to pay for that data, and pay for the "tubes" to deliver it. That is in addition to forward development costs.


From what I can see, many new TiVos are being hooked up to user-supplied tubes 

My parents pay less than 1/3 of the TiVo cost for the paper TV Guide, which includes 80 glossy pages printed in color and postage in addition to the data acquisition cost. If it's really costing TiVo more than that to deliver it through some collection of their tubes and customer tubes, then I think they should start shopping for a new kind of tube. Maybe the USPS tube. 



classicsat said:


> TiVo isn't an hardware or an app, it is a service. The hardware and box software is the means to provide that service.


Uh huh. Microsoft and my previous employer also wanted to redefine their products as a service for the nice reliable income stream. So far their customers haven't allowed them to do it.


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## sushikitten (Jan 28, 2005)

Jonathan_S said:


> Well, it is a little hard to give a simple comparison, because all cable DVRs aren't equal.
> 
> Some of them are still little more than digital VCRs, you can program them to record every CBS every Tuesday at 8, but can't tell them to record NCIS whenever it is on.
> 
> ...


I never thought of this, but I love it! I am going to try setting this up!!!


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## Ereth (Jun 16, 2000)

rorion said:


> From what I can see, many new TiVos are being hooked up to user-supplied tubes
> 
> My parents pay less than 1/3 of the TiVo cost for the paper TV Guide, which includes 80 glossy pages printed in color and postage in addition to the data acquisition cost. If it's really costing TiVo more than that to deliver it through some collection of their tubes and customer tubes, then I think they should start shopping for a new kind of tube. Maybe the USPS tube.


Do you think people would be willing to pay less for TiVo service if it came with as many ads as the paper TV Guide does?

Remember that most print magazines are paid for entirely by the ad revenue, not the price the consumer pays.

I seem to notice a whole lot of "TiVo shouldn't be forcing ads on us" here AND "TiVo shouldn't charge more than companies who DO force ads on us". The real world doesn't work that way. TiVo can't possibly do both and stay in business.


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## rorion (Jul 26, 2006)

For whatever reason, few people complain about ads in magazine. Magazines have found a business model that is successful. I find that I even read many print ads. I don't like video ads so much, so my guess would be that TiVo needs a different solution. I've also noticed that during yellow star debates, magazines were trotted out as an example about once every ten posts or so and didn't seem to convince anyone so I think a lot of people just don't see them the same way.

Personally I don't mind the current yellow stars but I doubt they can make enough money with ads while keeping them that unobtrusive. (My old S1 is immune to banner ads so I have little to say about them.)

So my guess is that more ads won't fix TiVo.


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## classicsat (Feb 18, 2004)

rorion said:


> From what I can see, many new TiVos are being hooked up to user-supplied tubes


In those cases, mwhat is saved in modem pool costs goes towards paying for some of the advanced content networked customers enjoy.


> My parents pay less than 1/3 of the TiVo cost for the paper TV Guide, which includes 80 glossy pages printed in color and postage in addition to the data acquisition cost. If it's really costing TiVo more than that to deliver it through some collection of their tubes and customer tubes, then I think they should start shopping for a new kind of tube. Maybe the USPS tube.


The thing is, TiVo is their own company (albeit they have partners), and TiVo is their only revenue stream, either by advertising (which isn't much), or subscription revenue. Plus they do take a loss on the sale of hardware, which they have to make up.

Most of the paper guides are part of some media conglomerate that can stand a thinner profit margin, have greater ad revenue, a lower customer aquisition cost (with no hardware to subsidise), and no customer devices to support or update software on.



> Uh huh. Microsoft and my previous employer also wanted to redefine their products as a service for the nice reliable income stream. So far their customers haven't allowed them to do it.


Same with TiVo, almost. I wasn't around here when TiVo made the sub only rule, and some people probably had a fit about that, as when Lifetime was taken away.


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## rorion (Jul 26, 2006)

I think you're saying that being bought is the best solution for TiVo and TiVo customers. I wouldn't be against that answer, but I believe TiVo's management is against it (currently.)


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