# Tivo gets an extender!



## mr.unnatural (Feb 2, 2006)

Saw this over at The Missing Remote (which is, ironically, an HTPC website). Tivo's IP-STB extender has just been announced for fall release. Here's a link. There's a link to Tivo's full press release in the article. It appears that this is only going to be offered to GCI subscribers, but it will be interesting to see if Tivo expands the offering to the general public at a later date. I'd be curious to see if this device can link to more than one Tivo on a home network.


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## CoxInPHX (Jan 14, 2011)

Looks like all they did was regurgitate Dave's posting.
www.zatznotfunny.com/2012-08/upcoming-tivo-ip-stb-christened-mini/

There is already a thread Here:
The Tivo Mini lives....http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=491537


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## mr.unnatural (Feb 2, 2006)

I don't visit the Premiere forum so I missed it. Sorry for the duplicate thread.


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## wco81 (Dec 28, 2001)

So this is now vapor right? We're well past Fall.


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## innocentfreak (Aug 25, 2001)

wco81 said:


> So this is now vapor right? We're well past Fall.


It was pushed back until 2013.


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## wco81 (Dec 28, 2001)

I Googled Tivo Extender and this thread was one of the hits.

A lot of the other ones are from earlier in the year when they announced it. So if Tivo officially announced the delay, Google can't seem to find a web page about it.


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## innocentfreak (Aug 25, 2001)

wco81 said:


> I Googled Tivo Extender and this thread was one of the hits.
> 
> A lot of the other ones are from earlier in the year when they announced it. So if Tivo officially announced the delay, Google can't seem to find a web page about it.


TiVo never officially announced a release date so they didn't officially announce a delay.

One of the things TiVo needed to get out is the update which is just now rolling out to the priority signups. As a result with the holidays, there is just not enough time to get it out before the end of the year.

There are also rumors they wanted to change how the live TV function worked so that would require another update.


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## shwru980r (Jun 22, 2008)

innocentfreak said:


> There are also rumors they wanted to change how the live TV function worked so that would require another update.


It seems counter intuitive to use a Tivo to watch live TV. Maybe they should have released the Mini without the live TV functionality.


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## mr.unnatural (Feb 2, 2006)

If a Tivo is the only tuner attached to a TV monitor then there's no reason not to use it for live TV. I think most people would prefer to watch current news and not something that's been recorded, unless it's a special newscast they'd like to keep. A DVR isn't the answer to all TV viewing.


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## lessd (Jan 23, 2005)

mr.unnatural said:


> If a Tivo is the only tuner attached to a TV monitor then there's no reason not to use it for live TV. I think most people would prefer to watch current news and not something that's been recorded, unless it's a special newscast they'd like to keep. A DVR isn't the answer to all TV viewing.


I and many of my friends may not be home for the 6:30p network news, I record this news and can see it in less that 20 minuets when I do get home that night (I have a season pass that keeps only one news program so if I don't get to watch that night the next night it will be replaced with that night news), I can skip stories that I have no interest in, and of course the commercials.


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## mr.unnatural (Feb 2, 2006)

I was thinking more along the lines of late breaking reports, such as watching the status of Sandy on The Weather Channel or any other real-time event. I had to keep tabs on what Sandy was doing in my area and watching a recording that's a couple of hours old wasn't going to cut if. There are times when you need live TV. If it's not urgent, then a DVR is fine. Some things simply cannot wait.


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## ah30k (Jan 9, 2006)

The fact of the matter is that TiVo people tend to look down upon anyone watching anything that hasn't been previously set up as a season pass or at least programmed 24 hrs in advance.

They think people who watch live don't deserve to have a TiVo.


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## atmuscarella (Oct 11, 2005)

ah30k said:


> The fact of the matter is that TiVo people tend to look down upon anyone watching anything that hasn't been previously set up as a season pass or at least programmed 24 hrs in advance.
> 
> They think people who watch live don't deserve to have a TiVo.


Well it does seem fairly foolish to pay for a TiVo and then use it to watch the "live" broadcast of a prerecorded show. I have friends that watch many shows the same night they are broadcast but they don't watch them "live".

For actual shows that are being broadcast live for real (sports & some news) there are reasons that actually watching live makes some sense but even for local news I do the same as lessd does. Most nights I get to it around 10-15 minutes after it starts, but it is on my schedule not theirs and I don't have to waste my time with commercials or stuff I don't care about.

If someone wants to pay for a TiVo and still suffer the pain and inconvenience of "live" TV that's their business but I sure don't.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

ah30k said:


> The fact of the matter is that TiVo people tend to look down upon anyone watching anything that hasn't been previously set up as a season pass or at least programmed 24 hrs in advance.
> 
> They think people who watch live don't deserve to have a TiVo.


I don't think TiVo people look down on those who watch Live TV, but I do think they wonder why anyone with a TiVo would bother watching Live TV. It seems like an unnecessary habit. You're using the tuner anyway, so why not set it up to record? That way if something unexpected happens that interrupts your routine you wont miss anything. There are no negatives to setting up everything as a recording, so why not do it? (other then late breaking news, but that's pretty rare in the scheme of things)

Dan


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## steve614 (May 1, 2006)

I watch live TV (news) in the morning before work (no time to invest in anything recorded), and use it as background noise when I'm on the PC.
Occasionally I will also use live TV (PBS) to fall asleep to.

I don't remember a lot of talk about Tivo people looking down on others who watch live TV when they own a Tivo.
I think most of the statements I have heard had been made in jest.


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## scandia101 (Oct 20, 2007)

wco81 said:


> So this is now vapor right? We're well past Fall.


Winter begins in about 3 weeks, so we're not well past Fall, we're still in it.


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## shwru980r (Jun 22, 2008)

mr.unnatural said:


> If a Tivo is the only tuner attached to a TV monitor then there's no reason not to use it for live TV. I think most people would prefer to watch current news and not something that's been recorded, unless it's a special newscast they'd like to keep. A DVR isn't the answer to all TV viewing.


Most TVs have tuners in them. I would just run the cable directly to the TV and watch the local channels that way rather than waste a tuner from a Tivo.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

scandia101 said:


> Winter begins in about 3 weeks, so we're not well past Fall, we're still in it.


Don't hold your breath. TiVo may release them to MSOs by then but it's highly unlikely we'll see them available to retail before winter starts.

Dan


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## badtuned (Nov 29, 2012)

Not that we ever see any of these extenders here in UK, but just wondering if people have been happy with these kind of extras from tivo?


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## lrhorer (Aug 31, 2003)

mr.unnatural said:


> If a Tivo is the only tuner attached to a TV monitor then there's no reason not to use it for live TV.


There are many, many reasons not to do so, the top of which is not wasting one's time.



mr.unnatural said:


> I think most people would prefer to watch current news and not something that's been recorded


That would mean I would have to tie myself to the schedule set by the station, which is nonsense. Real news doesn't wait for 17:00 to happen, and although there are sometimes live feeds from events which are protracted in time, in general the news is no less "live" at 18:30 than at 17:00.



mr.unnatural said:


> unless it's a special newscast they'd like to keep.


I have never kept a news report.



mr.unnatural said:


> A DVR isn't the answer to all TV viewing.


That's utter nonsense. First of all, there is nothing which prevents the user from watching a program while it is recording. Secondly, while I do on rare occasions watch the weather live, even that is better served by being recorded. If I am ten minutes late (by the TV station's ridiculous notion of "late", not mine) turning on the TV, I don't want to have missed the weather.


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## lrhorer (Aug 31, 2003)

mr.unnatural said:


> I was thinking more along the lines of late breaking reports, such as watching the status of Sandy on The Weather Channel or any other real-time event.


So once every thousand years you need to watch something live?



mr.unnatural said:


> I had to keep tabs on what Sandy was doing in my area and watching a recording that's a couple of hours old wasn't going to cut if.


So the storm might have suddenly jumped 200 miles to the west? You sat there without going to the bathroom or making yourself a sandwich the entire time, glued to your TV? You would have done much better to spend your time making preparations, and nothing reported on the TV was going to likely be of any immediate significance to you.



mr.unnatural said:


> There are times when you need live TV. If it's not urgent, then a DVR is fine. Some things simply cannot wait.


In 54 years, I have never seen anything on TV that was urgent in terms of a necessary response on my part, and as I said before, if it is urgent, it isn't going to wait until 17:00 to happen. Generally speaking, TV news is no more current than a newspaper, and in terms of actual applicability to the individual viewer, it is never so. It is only more sensational, which is not relevant.


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## lrhorer (Aug 31, 2003)

ah30k said:


> The fact of the matter is that TiVo people tend to look down upon anyone


I can only speak for myself, but I don't look down on someone for wasting their time. I just cannot understand why they ever would.



ah30k said:


> watching anything that hasn't been previously set up as a season pass or at least programmed 24 hrs in advance.


I don't have very many season passes, and I only fairly rarely ever set up a program. Most of the recording is selected by the TiVos, not by me. That's the point. Why waste my time doing something the TiVo can do far, far better than any human? It's like hiring a manual laborer twice your size and strength to dig a ditch and then telling him to sit down while you dig the ditch yourself.



ah30k said:


> They think people who watch live don't deserve to have a TiVo.


Quite the opposite. I think that having paid good money for the TiVo, they deserve to enjoy its benefits, rather than foolishly ignore them. Why do something 1000 times when a superior result can be obtained without ever doing it even once? Why unnecessarily tie ones' self to someone else's schedule? Why buy in to the nonsense of "prime time"? Why burden ones' self with commercials? It is all a tremendous waste of time and effort to no useful end.


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## mr.unnatural (Feb 2, 2006)

shwru980r said:


> Most TVs have tuners in them. I would just run the cable directly to the TV and watch the local channels that way rather than waste a tuner from a Tivo.


I happen to have a 42" Sony monitor that was designed for POS (point of service  ) displays. You would program it for continuous loop displays in a bank, retail outlet, trade show, etc. It just happens to work great as an HDTV with an external tuner attached. My wife used it exclusively for watching live TV. I have since replaced the Tivo with a small form factor HTPC.



lrhorer said:


> That's utter nonsense. First of all, there is nothing which prevents the user from watching a program while it is recording. Secondly, while I do on rare occasions watch the weather live, even that is better served by being recorded. If I am ten minutes late (by the TV station's ridiculous notion of "late", not mine) turning on the TV, I don't want to have missed the weather.


Nonsense to you perhaps, but then your opinion isn't the final word on anything in this forum, is it? FYI , anything you watch "live" on the Tivo is being recorded in the buffer so you're always watching something while it's being recorded if it's live. FYFI, the Weather Channel is on 24/7 and provides regular updates. I can't recall the last time I even watched a weather forecast on a local station. Recording a weather broadcast is a ridiculous waste of time considering there are numerous other ways to get up to the minute weather. If all you're looking for is the 5-day forecast then recording is certainly an option. I can get all that on my smartphone without having to turn on the TV or schedule a recording.

Just because you think everything on TV needs to be recorded doesn't mean the rest of us are forced to follow your lead.


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## scandia101 (Oct 20, 2007)

mr.unnatural said:


> I happen to have a 42" Sony monitor that was designed for POS (point of service  ) displays. You would program it for continuous loop displays in a bank, retail outlet, trade show, etc. It just happens to work great as an HDTV with an external tuner attached. My wife used it exclusively for watching live TV. I have since replaced the Tivo with a small form factor HTPC.
> 
> Nonsense to you perhaps, but then your opinion isn't the final word on anything in this forum, is it? FYI , anything you watch "live" on the Tivo is being recorded in the buffer so you're always watching something while it's being recorded if it's live. FYFI, the Weather Channel is on 24/7 and provides regular updates. I can't recall the last time I even watched a weather forecast on a local station. Recording a weather broadcast is a ridiculous waste of time considering there are numerous other ways to get up to the minute weather. If all you're looking for is the 5-day forecast then recording is certainly an option. I can get all that on my smartphone without having to turn on the TV or schedule a recording.
> 
> Just because you think everything on TV needs to be recorded doesn't mean the rest of us are forced to follow your lead.


Your needs are not universal. What the weather channel or any app have to offer is very different and very much lacking the detail offered by a local tv station's meteorologist. You may not want the details, but other people do.


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## mr.unnatural (Feb 2, 2006)

scandia101 said:


> Your needs are not universal. What the weather channel or any app have to offer is very different and very much lacking the detail offered by a local tv station's meteorologist. You may not want the details, but other people do.


I'm not disputing that at all. OTOH, I can get weather forecasts in 15-minute increments over about a 36-48 hour period on the Weather Channel website for my zip code. I can also get local weather and satellite or radar reports of weather conditions from my local TV station's website in real time instead of having to wait for the 6 o'clock news report (or schedule a recording of same). The point of the conversation was that some people like to watch live TV for very specific reasons. I was just citing a current weather report under extreme circumstances as one of those instances. Perhaps a better example would have been the live coverage of 9/11 or some other event that would not have allowed lead time to set up a recording in advance. There was so much coverage of that event that recording it was completely unnecessary since you would get a complete recap of the events plus the current status just about any time you tuned to a cable news channel. I'm pretty sure most network programming was also preempted to cover the story.


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## tootal2 (Oct 14, 2005)

I just got a ceton echo extender for my wmc computer


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## tootal2 (Oct 14, 2005)

I didn't replace my TiVo with a small htpc. I replaced it with a big gaming system. with three 200mm fans. I play black ops 2 on it at 1080p at over 100 frames per second and record TV and use my ceton echo at the same time



mr.unnatural said:


> I happen to have a 42" Sony monitor that was designed for POS (point of service  ) displays. You would program it for continuous loop displays in a bank, retail outlet, trade show, etc. It just happens to work great as an HDTV with an external tuner attached. My wife used it exclusively for watching live TV. I have since replaced the Tivo with a small form factor HTPC.
> 
> Nonsense to you perhaps, but then your opinion isn't the final word on anything in this forum, is it? FYI , anything you watch "live" on the Tivo is being recorded in the buffer so you're always watching something while it's being recorded if it's live. FYFI, the Weather Channel is on 24/7 and provides regular updates. I can't recall the last time I even watched a weather forecast on a local station. Recording a weather broadcast is a ridiculous waste of time considering there are numerous other ways to get up to the minute weather. If all you're looking for is the 5-day forecast then recording is certainly an option. I can get all that on my smartphone without having to turn on the TV or schedule a recording.
> 
> Just because you think everything on TV needs to be recorded doesn't mean the rest of us are forced to follow your lead.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

shwru980r said:


> Most TVs have tuners in them. I would just run the cable directly to the TV and watch the local channels that way rather than waste a tuner from a Tivo.


How do you pause it, FF and Rew?


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## jamesjones_det (Dec 13, 2012)

lrhorer said:


> So once every thousand years you need to watch something live?
> 
> So the storm might have suddenly jumped 200 miles to the west? You sat there without going to the bathroom or making yourself a sandwich the entire time, glued to your TV? You would have done much better to spend your time making preparations, and nothing reported on the TV was going to likely be of any immediate significance to you.
> 
> In 54 years, I have never seen anything on TV that was urgent in terms of a necessary response on my part, and as I said before, if it is urgent, it isn't going to wait until 17:00 to happen. Generally speaking, TV news is no more current than a newspaper, and in terms of actual applicability to the individual viewer, it is never so. It is only more sensational, which is not relevant.


This is one ignorant ass response. For one sports are a great reason to watch something live along with things live centric (the weather channel for one). To add to that why shouldn't TiVo support both live and record steaming? Nothing says you have to waste a tuner when you aren't live streaming.

Just because you don't do or like something something one way doesn't mean you are right. Stop being so ignorant and think for one minute.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

Even in it's current incarnation the TiVo software has a way to set the number of tuners available to Minis to 0, so if someone doesn't watch live TV they can turn it off and their TiVo will have all available tuners for recording. So even if the Mini was released today, and was exactly as described by all the pieces we've been told by various sources, the only real limitation would be the 4 tuner host requirement.

I think the main reason for the delay is because of that host requirement. Releasing a device that requires a 4 tuner TiVo would be a bit confusing to consumers. My guess is they are going to release as-is to cable operators, since they can control what type of TiVo the user has, and then hold off on the retail release until dynamic tuner allocation is available. Then they can eliminate the 4 tuner host requirement and market it as a Premiere accessory.

Then again this is all speculation. The last time we heard anything official about the Mini was a long time ago, so who knows what state it's in now or why they've really delayed it. We'll likely have a better idea of what's going on after CES.

Dan


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

jamesjones_det said:


> This is one ignorant ass response. For one sports are a great reason to watch something live along with things live centric (the weather channel for one). To add to that why shouldn't TiVo support both live and record steaming? Nothing says you have to waste a tuner when you aren't live streaming.
> 
> Just because you don't do or like something something one way doesn't mean you are right. Stop being so ignorant and think for one minute.


Sports is the last thing I want to watch live. Way too many commercials. It's much better when you shift sports 1 to 1.5 hours after the start so the commmercials can be easily skipped.

Now the weather is something I watch live, but it's a PITA to watch sports live because of all the commercials.


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## button1066 (Sep 4, 2012)

aaronwt said:


> Sports is the last thing I want to watch live. Way too many commercials. It's much better when you shift sports 1 to 1.5 hours after the start so the commmercials can be easily skipped.
> 
> Now the weather is something I watch live, but it's a PITA to watch sports live because of all the commercials.


Sports events have so many commercials because most people prefer to watch sports live...and by 'most people' I mean, let's face it, practically everybody. They don't show commercials in lieu of action on the field and even if they did you still wouldn't be able to watch it.

Watching recorded sports and fast forwarding them is just...perverse. Why not just find out the result on your phone and save yourself even more time by not bothering to watch them at all? Come on, you don't actually like sports do you?

How about...set up your IOS devices to stream multiple live sports events via TiVo Stream and have them set up on your coffee table. Adverts and everything. That would probably be your vision of Hell.

The arguments over live TV on TiVo in this thread are so asinine they can only be treated as comedy. The one butt hurt troglodyte who seems to be begging for acknowledgement about never, ever watching live TV is the epitome of a tivocommunity *****.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

button1066 said:


> Watching recorded sports and fast forwarding them is just...perverse. Why not just find out the result on your phone and save yourself even more time by not bothering to watch them at all? Come on, you don't actually like sports do you?


By that logic watching any live event recorded is "perverse". You could say the same thing about American Idol or the series finale of Survivor, yet many, many people watch those recorded.

Also if you simply time shift sports by an hour or so you will typically catch up to live before the end of the game, so you don't actually spoil the results you just speed up the amount of time it takes to get to the conclusion. If you feel it's "cheating" not watching every play as it happens in real life then that's a personal thing. But it's really no more effective then wearing your lucky jersey or not changing your socks at effecting the outcome of the game.

Dan


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## jrtroo (Feb 4, 2008)

Timeshifting sports is one of the best ways to minimize couch time and maximize time actually doing things. Each their own, but spending 1 hr vs 3+ hrs getting through a NFL commercialfest is agony.


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## button1066 (Sep 4, 2012)

Dan203 said:


> By that logic watching any live event recorded is "perverse". You could say the same thing about American Idol or the series finale of Survivor, yet many, many people watch those recorded.
> 
> Dan


Watching sports live is not the same as watching American Idol (which isn't even a live show is it? Maybe the final episode is live, I don't know or even care).

I do think watching recorded versions of live shows is weird. What's the point of it being live one would wonder?


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## button1066 (Sep 4, 2012)

jrtroo said:


> Timeshifting sports is one of the best ways to minimize couch time and maximize time actually doing things. Each their own, but spending 1 hr vs 3+ hrs getting through a NFL commercialfest is agony.


One man's agony is another man's perfect Sunday afternoon. I am a season ticket holder to my local NFL team and can confirm that even in the stadium you will be subjected to advertisements ad nauseum.

It's sport. People like it. It's not that big of a deal.

Another argument waiting to happen: I like watching live news. A lot. The horror! I could be doing so many more interesting things...


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## steve614 (May 1, 2006)

button1066 said:


> Watching recorded sports and fast forwarding them is just...perverse. Why not just find out the result on your phone and save yourself even more time by not bothering to watch them at all? Come on, you don't actually like sports do you?


Most of the time, I don't care what the result is. I'm only interested in the action.
In my view, watching sports live and having to sit through commercials is just...perverse. We're only talking about a 'delayed viewing' here, not recording and watching the next day.

Take football. On Sunday, I start recording both early games (OTA only here) and do something else for an hour. Then I start watching game #1. When I catch up to live TV, I switch to game #2. Catch up there, I switch back to game #1, etc., etc.

So, it turns out that I can watch *both* games _almost_ in the same amount of time it would take for me to watch one game live.

By this time, games #3 & #4 have started recording, and the process is repeated.

Yeah, I must not like sports that much.


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## button1066 (Sep 4, 2012)

steve614 said:


> Most of the time, I don't care what the result is. I'm only interested in the action.
> In my view, watching sports live and having to sit through commercials is just...perverse. We're only talking about a 'delayed viewing' here, not recording and watching the next day.
> 
> Take football. On Sunday, I start recording both early games (OTA only here) and do something else for an hour. Then I start watching game #1. When I catch up to live TV, I switch to game #2. Catch up there, I switch back to game #1, etc., etc.
> ...


That would work I guess. Just stay off the Internet while you're watching the games. The problem is that sports is played in real time. It loses a lot when fast forwarded and instead might as well be edited highlights. My opinion. I like the tension of a game and the slow progress through all quarters.

Either way it does not seem to be a reason for people to write nasty comments at each other just based on their preferred viewing habits. Not that you have done this but others earlier in the thread certainly have.


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## steve614 (May 1, 2006)

button1066 said:


> It loses a lot when fast forwarded and instead might as well be edited highlights. My opinion. I like the tension of a game and the slow progress through all quarters.


You're not supposed to FF the game footage, only the commercials. You FF the game footage only if you care about the result.


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## mattack (Apr 9, 2001)

aaronwt said:


> Sports is the last thing I want to watch live. Way too many commercials. It's much better when you shift sports 1 to 1.5 hours after the start so the commmercials can be easily skipped.
> 
> Now the weather is something I watch live, but it's a PITA to watch sports live because of all the commercials.


That's funny, because one of the Engadget HD guys, who seems to hate commercials ALMOST as much as I do, can't watch sports delayed enough to skip the commercials.


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## mr.unnatural (Feb 2, 2006)

Dan203 said:


> By that logic watching any live event recorded is "perverse". You could say the same thing about American Idol or the series finale of Survivor, yet many, many people watch those recorded.
> 
> Also if you simply time shift sports by an hour or so you will typically catch up to live before the end of the game, so you don't actually spoil the results you just speed up the amount of time it takes to get to the conclusion. If you feel it's "cheating" not watching every play as it happens in real life then that's a personal thing. But it's really no more effective then wearing your lucky jersey or not changing your socks at effecting the outcome of the game.
> 
> Dan


+1. I typically don't start watching a football game until it's been on for at least 45 minutes to an hour. By the time it gets to the last two minutes of the game I've caught up to real time and watch the finale of the game live. If I catch up to real time too soon I'll usually pause playback and watch something else I previously recorded for about 20 minutes of so until I've built up enough of a delay to be able to skip past all the commercials.


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## slowbiscuit (Sep 19, 2006)

+2. I watch almost nothing live, other than background noise like news and weather. Starting an NFL game or NASCAR race an hour behind live is great.


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## fritolayguy (Oct 31, 2002)

mr.unnatural said:


> +1. I typically don't start watching a football game until it's been on for at least 45 minutes to an hour. By the time it gets to the last two minutes of the game I've caught up to real time and watch the finale of the game live. If I catch up to real time too soon I'll usually pause playback and watch something else I previously recorded for about 20 minutes of so until I've built up enough of a delay to be able to skip past all the commercials.


IMHO, only way to watch NFL football. My brother and I get together every weekend to watch our local team, and we follow this process exactly. We put phones and tablets away, and as far as we are concerned, the game is "live".


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## ah30k (Jan 9, 2006)

Do you folks consider buffered live to be live?

I personally consider any non-recorded (not saved to the NP list) to be live.

I watch a lot of buffered live shows. I surf, find something of interest, pause, take care of some other items around or maybe swap tuners to surf the other tuner, then return to watch.

I dual-tuner surf a lot.


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## innocentfreak (Aug 25, 2001)

ah30k said:


> Do you folks consider buffered live to be live?
> 
> I personally consider any non-recorded (not saved to the NP list) to be live.
> 
> ...


I consider it live. Any show I could catch up to the end of the buffer is live to me.


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## lrhorer (Aug 31, 2003)

button1066 said:


> Sports events have so many commercials because most people prefer to watch sports live...and by 'most people' I mean, let's face it, practically everybody.


This is simply false. Most women are not terribly interested in sports and a significant number of men are not.



button1066 said:


> They don't show commercials in lieu of action on the field and even if they did you still wouldn't be able to watch it.


Your point here eludes me entirely. Are you saying watching TV with commercials is preferable to sitting in the stadium? If not then you have just countered your own argument.



button1066 said:


> Watching recorded sports and fast forwarding them is just...perverse. Why not just find out the result on your phone and save yourself even more time by not bothering to watch them at all?


That would be my question, although I would not use my phone to that purpose. I use my phone to make and receive phone calls, when I must. I avoid it as much as possible. I do not use it for any other purpose.



button1066 said:


> Come on, you don't actually like sports do you?


No. They are boring. That is irrelevant, however. They are certainly not made less boring by being heavily studded with commercials that force everyone, including those who have no interest in them, to pay for them.



button1066 said:


> How about...set up your IOS devices to stream multiple live sports events via TiVo Stream and have them set up on your coffee table. Adverts and everything. That would probably be your vision of Hell.


Owning an IOS device would be my version of Hell, or at least the road to it, so I suppose your statement could be taken to be true in my case.

At work, they are forcing us to turn in our old phones and get Android phones. I am not happy about it, although I admit I really hate the current phone.



button1066 said:


> The arguments over live TV on TiVo in this thread are so asinine they can only be treated as comedy. The one butt hurt troglodyte who seems to be begging for acknowledgement about never, ever watching live TV is the epitome of a tivocommunity *****.


I suppose you mean me, although I am not alone in realizing watching live TV is a total waste of time. I could not possibly care less what you think of me, but I am compelled to point out that rather than provide a well reasoned argument supported by facts, you resort to an ad hominem attack.

Somehow I am not surprised.


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## lrhorer (Aug 31, 2003)

button1066 said:


> I do think watching recorded versions of live shows is weird. What's the point of it being live one would wonder?


The answer is it makes billions of dollars for Madison Avenue executives, manufacturers who sell massive numbers of things to people who do not need them, team owners, and team members. Other than that, there isn't any.


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## lrhorer (Aug 31, 2003)

ah30k said:


> Do you folks consider buffered live to be live?


It's a gray area. Since I am rarely able to watch anything much less than 2 or 3 days after it is recorded, the question is really moot for me.



ah30k said:


> I personally consider any non-recorded (not saved to the NP list) to be live.


Nielsen, ad agencies, and the networks would most definitely disagree with you. To them, the only purpose of TV is broadcasting the commercials. Of course, one may define anything any way one likes. All definitions are arbitrary. Yours, however, glosses over what many of us consider to be a very important aspect of owning a DVR: the ability to control the content, both in quality as well as in time.



ah30k said:


> I dual-tuner surf a lot.


It is entirely up to you, of course, but by definition the content already recorded on the TiVo is of much higher quality than the live offerings. One is able to watch much more TV of a much higher quality in the same amount of time if one lets the TiVo record everything that might be interesting (in which case the tuners will again by definition be busy and unavailable for surfing whenever there is anything interesting on), and then selects from the list of high quality videos, rather than wading through a ton of garbage.

I could easily spend hours looking for more interesting content to what the TiVos are already recording, but the odds of my actually finding it are very low. The odds of my finding it right at the very moment when it starts so that I have not missed the (often vital) first few minutes of the show are virtually zero.


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## lrhorer (Aug 31, 2003)

button1066 said:


> Either way it does not seem to be a reason for people to write nasty comments at each other just based on their preferred viewing habits.


I see. What, then, was your reason for writing this:



button1066 said:


> The one butt hurt troglodyte who seems to be begging for acknowledgement about never, ever watching live TV is the epitome of a tivocommunity *****.





button1066 said:


> Not that you have done this but others earlier in the thread certainly have.


Yes, they surely have, haven't they? Or is it somehow different when you do it? Only you and one other individual in this thread resorted to name calling, and both of you are on the same side of the issue.


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## ah30k (Jan 9, 2006)

lrhorer said:


> It is entirely up to you, of course, but by definition the content already recorded on the TiVo is of much higher quality than the live offerings.


Uh, which definition are you using?? I prefer to think that I can determine what I enjoy a touch better than the wonks who wrote the TiVo suggestion algorithm. The fact that you think otherwise is a bit insulting.

Also, half the crap on my TiVo is for my wife which is absolutely not of high quality to me.


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## ah30k (Jan 9, 2006)

lrhorer said:


> Nielsen, ad agencies, and the networks would most definitely disagree with you.


Well, when they start participating in these forums maybe we should adjust our terms. I submit that many people here consider watching a buffered show one minute, five minutes or maybe 10 minutes behind to be 'live' regardless of your expert opinion otherwise.

I just floated a clarifying question out there and definitely qualified my statements with 'to me.'


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## lrhorer (Aug 31, 2003)

ah30k said:


> Uh, which definition are you using??


Well, unless you are deliberately recording things you do not like on the TiVo, then by definition the things on the TiVo are what you like. Per your statements below, discount the stuff your wife has recorded.



ah30k said:


> I prefer to think


No, you prefer to be prejudiced. It is a simple fact humans do poorly and computers do extremely well sifting through tens of thousands of items to find ones matching particular criteria. They do so extremely quickly and essentially without errors. They also follow directions to the letter, every time. There are many, many things we humans do easily and accurately that even the most powerful computers on Earth struggle to do at all. Searching through mountains of text for matching keywords is not one of them.



ah30k said:


> that I can determine what I enjoy a touch better than the wonks who wrote the TiVo suggestion algorithm.


You are simply wrong. First of all, I never mentioned anything about Suggestions, and although Suggestions make the issue even more lopsided on the side of the TiVo, the statements apply perfectly well even with Suggestions turned off. Secondly, it is not the people who wrote the algorithms that determine what the TiVo will record. It is *YOU* who do so. *You* tell the TiVo what *you* like. It remembers and goes off searching for the the things *you* have told it to go find. This is true whether it is Suggestions, Wishlists, Season Passes, or manual recordings for that matter.

It is just not humanly practical, and in fact not humanly possible on an ongoing basis, to accurately sift through upwards of 3000 programs a day, every day, 24 x 365. In less time than it takes you to sort through a single hour's worth of programming (perhaps 400 - 500 programs), the TiVo will search through 12 whole days worth of programming (about 40,000 shows), typically without missing a single hit, as long as the data from Tribune Media is correct. If you think you can search through 40,000 shows in the current schedule (let alone the million or so broadcast every year) without quite a few errors, then you are deluding yourself. Highly trained professional airline pilots frequently cannot go through a relatively short checklist (50 items or less) without making an error, and their lives and those of their passengers literally depend upon it.



ah30k said:


> The fact that you think otherwise is a bit insulting.


The fact I know otherwise is not a subjective matter at all. You can choose to be insulted, frightened, or just plain upset if you like, but the fact is no human being can do this sort of thing better than a computer, any more than a human can compute the value of pi to a million digits better than a computer. It was a difficult task to manage, but the computer Watson did beat the two highest ranking Jeopardy champions of all time. Of course, the TiVo does not have anything even remotely like the computing power Watson does, but then the task at hand for the Tivo is far, far simpler, and the TiVo does not have an urgent deadline of only a few seconds to come up with its answers. Being insulted by the notion a computer can do something better than you will not change the fact.

You are allowing yourself to be ruled by an emotional knee-jerk response, rather than taking the time to fully comprehend the situation. Perhaps you will be tempted to be insulted by this statement, as well, but the very fact you use the term "insulted" eloquently proves my point. This is entirely about cold, hard mathematics, not your emotions.

Can you more accurately determine if a single given program in the schedule is interesting than the TiVo can? Presumably so. Can you *on average* more accurately determine which of a very limited set of programs is more interesting? Perhaps, but probably not. Can you more accurately determine which programs from the entire list of programs are likely to be more interesting on an ongoing basis? Surely not. Will it save you anything in time and effort to try or result in fewer missed programs? No way in Hell.



ah30k said:


> Also, half the crap on my TiVo is for my wife which is absolutely not of high quality to me.


That is a completely different matter, but even if only 50% (or heck, even 10%, or 5%) of the content on the TiVo is interesting to you, the point is still valid. Presumably you won't cancel a recording of your wife's while it is underway in order to grab control of a tuner, but whether it is recording your wife's stuff, or your stuff, or both, the TiVo can and will ensure with reasonably high (not perfect) accuracy when some things one or both of you like are being broadcast and record them, if you let it. Will some things slip by? Of course, but surely far fewer than will do so if you try to manually record things.

Put it this way. If your TiVo is properly configured for both your and your wife's needs, then at any given moment, the odds are high that any program of interest will be selected for recording, until such time as all the tuners are busy. This directly implies that if nothing is being recorded on one or more tuners, then either there is nothing at least as interesting as many things already recorded on the TiVo, or else the TiVo has missed one (or two, or however many tuners there are free). On a daily basis, the odds of the latter being the case are very low; low enough that worrying about it and obsessively trying to search for missed content is going to take a lot of time away from watching the good stuff, and only very, very rarely result in finding a program that would otherwise have been missed.


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## lrhorer (Aug 31, 2003)

ah30k said:


> I submit that many people here consider watching a buffered show one minute, five minutes or maybe 10 minutes behind to be 'live' regardless of your expert opinion otherwise.


Don't be silly. A definition is never a matter of opinion. It is a matter of convention. They are also completely unimportant except as a means of qualifying a debating position or allowing easy symbolic manipulations. Any two or more debaters must agree upon a uniform set of definitions to make an informative debate possible, and any two or more philosophers must similarly agree upon the definitions to make mathematical or logical proofs legible, but otherwise all definitions are meaningless.



ah30k said:


> I just floated a clarifying question out there and definitely qualified my statements with 'to me.'


Definitions are never a personal matter, unless one wishes to indulge in mental masturbation. They are always a matter of organized convention adhered to by all local participants. The statement, "To me xxxx is defined as yyyy" is completely meaningless. More importantly, whether we agree to define buffered video as recorded or not in no way changes the use to which the DVR is put when buffered video is being viewed, regardless of who is doing the viewing.

The factual point I was making, perfectly irrespective of what is defined as "live", was that the existence of the hard drive and the ability to delay and trick play video is a very distinct thing from a simple TV receiver with no storage capabilities. Whether one categorizes temporary ring buffered video differently from full blown recordings is not particularly important in the context of this discussion, but lumping buffered video together with unbuffered video, as I said, hides an important distinction.


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## lrhorer (Aug 31, 2003)

steve614 said:


> Most of the time, I don't care what the result is. I'm only interested in the action.


I think that is the most interesting perspective on watching sports I have ever seen. My hat is off to you.



steve614 said:


> In my view, watching sports live and having to sit through commercials is just...perverse. We're only talking about a 'delayed viewing' here, not recording and watching the next day.


An hour, a day, a year, a decade. What difference does it make? Would it be any less thrilling to be able to watch the very first World Series game in 1903 if you could magically come up with a video of it than the first game of next year's series?


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## ah30k (Jan 9, 2006)

You seem awfully caught up in very precise wording for me but not yourself. You told me that by definition all recordings are more important than live. You didn't mention that you meant except for what my wife recorded and except for suggestions. Maybe you also meant except for what I recorded but may not have time to watch now, or maybe what I recorded but not in the mood for now.

Your arrogance is one thing I do know to be true.

Maybe in your 100% black and white world you differentiate 10sec delay from 0 sec delay but I think that a poll of users hear would show you in a distinct minority. I have no doubt that it matters little to you though and are quite smug in your sense of being in the 1% subset of those who are 'correct.'

Have a good day.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

button1066 said:


> Sports events have so many commercials because most people prefer to watch sports live...and by 'most people' I mean, let's face it, practically everybody. They don't show commercials in lieu of action on the field and even if they did you still wouldn't be able to watch it.
> 
> Watching recorded sports and fast forwarding them is just...perverse. Why not just find out the result on your phone and save yourself even more time by not bothering to watch them at all? Come on, you don't actually like sports do you?
> 
> ...


I don't watch as much sports as most people I know but I do watch. Most of those people watch hours and hours each week. ANd they are almost always time shifting their sports watching. It's much easier for them since they don't waste time needlessly watching commercials, plus they have children which also necessitates using a DVR.


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## ah30k (Jan 9, 2006)

lrhorer said:


> An hour, a day, a year, a decade. What difference does it make? Would it be any less thrilling to be able to watch the very first World Series game in 1903 if you could magically come up with a video of it than the first game of next year's series?


Every argument you make seems more crazy than the former. Of course it matters. Watching a game without commercials (by letting the buffer fill) while not yet knowing the outcome of the game is HUGE!

How can you not see that?

Watching a mid-season last year game that I already know the outcome of versus a game today that I don't know results of and will impact playoff results??

You honestly believe these are equal?


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

Live for me is basically within a few seconds of broadcast. Anything else is not live. But by others definition then I might be watching football live since the game is still on while I'm watching what is being recorded.


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## ah30k (Jan 9, 2006)

aaronwt said:


> Live for me is basically within a few seconds of broadcast.


According to lrhorer, you are using arbitrary and silly definitions which have no place in any discussion. It is either zero seconds delayed or not. "Within a few seconds" is no definition and couching it with "for me" is just nonsense.


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## steve614 (May 1, 2006)

Well if you want to get nit-picky, if you watch ANYTHING through a Tivo, you are NOT watching "live" TV.
You are watching a TV signal that has been written to and then retrieved from a hard drive.
Even though the delay is only a couple of seconds, by definition it is NOT "live" TV.


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## mr.unnatural (Feb 2, 2006)

steve614 said:


> Well if you want to get nit-picky, if you watch ANYTHING through a Tivo, you are NOT watching "live" TV.
> You are watching a TV signal that has been written to and then retrieved from a hard drive.
> Even though the delay is only a couple of seconds, by definition it is NOT "live" TV.


Well, if you really want to get even pickier, when you watch the same signal broadcast on both an analog display next to a digital flat screen, one of them will be delayed by a couple of seconds. I play pool in a league two nights a week in a local sports bar and they have a mix of both analog CRT displays as well as digital flat screens. There's always a delay between the two types of displays, but I can't recall which one lags behind the other. The source of the signals is DirecTV.

The only way to see something "live" is to be there in person. Anything that's broadcast is delayed slightly behind the actual event in real time, although it may seem imperceptable in most cases.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

I believe they now requir a 7 second delay on all "live" broadcasts after the Janet Jackson nip slip at the Superbowl. 

Dan


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## lessd (Jan 23, 2005)

Dan203 said:


> I believe they now requir a 7 second delay on all "live" broadcasts after the Janet Jackson nip slip at the Superbowl.
> 
> Dan


You are correct on the Jackson time delay, my definition of watching live TV is when you are watching a program with no possibility of (you) moving the program forward in time, even if the program has been prerecorded like most non sports program are. Any other definition of watching Live TV becomes impossible, so if you are watching at the end of the TiVo buffer it is live, if you pause for any amount of time than it is not live unless you forward to the end of the TiVo buffer. With any other definition one will get into the impossible question, if watching a TV program the next day is not live, what time delay will make it live, 0.1 sec, 0.0000001 sec, again I am not talking about any time delay imposed on you by your equipment, the networks, etc, just if you can move the program forward yourself, it is not live TV.


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## Qwertinsky (Oct 24, 2006)

ah30k said:


> They think people who watch live don't deserve to have a TiVo.


As we say in our house "Live TV is for saps".


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## slowbiscuit (Sep 19, 2006)

Until a big news or weather event comes on...


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

slowbiscuit said:


> Until a big news or weather event comes on...


Then most times it's still recorded to avoid commercials and I'll also get quicker, up to date, information from online.


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## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

I watch sports, so I have to watch live TV then, and news every day live, that could be timeshifted a bit, but it gets stale more than a few hours after, or maybe a day or two for talk shows.


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## slowbiscuit (Sep 19, 2006)

aaronwt said:


> Then most times it's still recorded to avoid commercials and I'll also get quicker, up to date, information from online.


Not for a local tornado outbreak you won't.

Look I get it live TV is *usually* for saps. But not always.


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