# Turn Off Top Menu Banner?



## blam (Nov 15, 2007)

In looking at the premier menu, that top banner with the show thumbnails is really annoying. Has anyone seen if there will be an option to turn it off?


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## steve614 (May 1, 2006)

I don't know, but there is an option to use the "classic" interface instead.


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## nrc (Nov 17, 1999)

Someone posted a user's guide somewhere, but I'm going to guess no. Supposedly you'll eventually be able to put other short cuts up there, although there will probably be an ad slot reserved.


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## blam (Nov 15, 2007)

nrc said:


> although there will probably be an ad slot reserved.


That is what i'm worried about. More ads on my menu.


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## rainwater (Sep 21, 2004)

blam said:


> That is what i'm worried about. More ads on my menu.


Actually, it looks like less ads in the navigation with them being moved to a banner. That is much better than the current interface that puts ads in the menus themselves.


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## ZeoTiVo (Jan 2, 2004)

blam said:


> That is what i'm worried about. More ads on my menu.


Moxi has no ads


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## TrueTurbo (Feb 19, 2008)

ZeoTiVo said:


> Moxi has no ads


Whoopy freekin doo!


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## moyekj (Jan 24, 2006)

ZeoTiVo said:


> Moxi has no ads


 No ads as in "no advantages".


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## ScottUrman (Dec 22, 2004)

blam said:


> In looking at the premier menu, that top banner with the show thumbnails is really annoying. Has anyone seen if there will be an option to turn it off?


FWIW, I was lucky enough to get to user-test the new UI a year or so ago at Tivo HQ. After just a few minutes I found myself completely ignoring the top banner and just focusing on the menu itself.


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## gweempose (Mar 23, 2003)

I never pay attention to the banner in the beta search.


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## Xecuter2 (Jul 21, 2008)

As long as McDonands or insurance ads dont scroll across the top.


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## jmpage2 (Jan 21, 2004)

Xecuter2 said:


> As long as McDonands or insurance ads dont scroll across the top.


That's what you'll probably see when Comcast and other Cable Cos "deploy" this to their customers. Use the existing framework to push tons of ads.


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## bschuler2007 (Feb 25, 2007)

> After just a few minutes I found myself completely ignoring the top banner and just focusing on the menu itself.


Nice user testing... I didn't see 1/4 my screen.. LOL.. what's next, Helen Keller will announce she test drove all Toyotas.. 
What is the point of being a beta tester if you don't see 1/4 of the screen?


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## nrc (Nov 17, 1999)

bschuler2007 said:


> Nice user testing... I didn't see 1/4 my screen.. LOL.. what's next, Helen Keller will announce she test drove all Toyotas..
> What is the point of being a beta tester if you don't see 1/4 of the screen?


There has been a beta forum for over a year for commenting on the TiVo Search interface on which this new UI is based. Did you provide some of your constructive criticism there?


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## riekl (Jan 29, 2001)

moyekj said:


> No ads as in "no advantages".


Spoken like someone who's never seen a Moxi. Both units have advantages over each other, but there are quite a few things Moxi does circles around Tivo on. (3 tuners, better search, better conflict navigation, true multi room viewing). Tivo has a better general interface (slower ! damn it Tivo put some cpu in these things) and direct integration with Netflix/Amazon.


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## LoneWolf15 (Mar 20, 2010)

riekl said:


> Tivo has a better general interface (slower ! damn it Tivo put some cpu in these things)


Tivo apparently listened to you, as the Premiere line has a dual-core CPU that is also 100MHz faster in clock speed.

http://hd.engadget.com/2010/03/09/the-processor-in-the-tivo-premier-is-over-twice-as-fast-as-the-s/

http://www.tivo.com/products/tivo-premiere/premiere-questions.html#


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## jmpage2 (Jan 21, 2004)

LoneWolf15 said:


> Tivo apparently listened to you, as the Premiere line has a dual-core CPU that is also 100MHz faster in clock speed.
> 
> http://hd.engadget.com/2010/03/09/the-processor-in-the-tivo-premier-is-over-twice-as-fast-as-the-s/
> 
> http://www.tivo.com/products/tivo-premiere/premiere-questions.html#


The real benefit of the Premiere would be the on board Flash decoding since that will potentially result in the best speed bump.


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## LoneWolf15 (Mar 20, 2010)

jmpage2 said:


> The real benefit of the Premiere would be the on board Flash decoding since that will potentially result in the best speed bump.


While good from one perspective, as an IT guy, I must admit being leery of any device that is Flash-based. I've seen too much incompetence by Adobe, resulting in instability, security issues, and high resource usage.

Since the Tivo involves a controlled hardware environment, it is likely it can avoid these issues (at least, if they hired topnotch Flash/Actionscript developers), but it will be interesting to see how the Premiere works out. As one of the early-adopters, I'll end up finding out firsthand.


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## jmpage2 (Jan 21, 2004)

LoneWolf15 said:


> While good from one perspective, as an IT guy, I must admit being leery of any device that is Flash-based. I've seen too much incompetence by Adobe, resulting in instability, security issues, and high resource usage.
> 
> Since the Tivo involves a controlled hardware environment, it is likely it can avoid these issues (at least, if they hired topnotch Flash/Actionscript developers), but it will be interesting to see how the Premiere works out. As one of the early-adopters, I'll end up finding out firsthand.


I have these same concerns, on the plus side though, this will likely result in accelerated development of apps and features for the new boxes.


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## bkdtv (Jan 9, 2003)

jmpage2 said:


> I have these same concerns, on the plus side though, this will likely result in accelerated development of apps and features for the new boxes.


That's the whole point of Flash right there.

The old interface was built in a C and had countless dependencies that made changes difficult (or impossible without a major rewrite).

Flash development will be an order of magnitude more efficient.


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## LoneWolf15 (Mar 20, 2010)

bkdtv said:


> That's the whole point of Flash right there.
> 
> The old interface was built in a C and had countless dependencies that made changes difficult (or impossible without a major rewrite).
> 
> Flash development will be an order of magnitude more efficient.


Flash development, by its very nature, is often inefficient.

If you substituted "flexible" for "efficient", then I'd agree with you. For all of us who work in computers and have seen a 720p Flash video bring a system to its knees, or have experienced the nightmare of patching it almost every month due to securities that opened a system wide to infection, or have tried to implement a patching system in the enterprise (sigh just thinking about that one), "efficient" is not a word I'd use.

Trust me, I dearly hope my concerns will be unfounded. After all, I've got one of these boxes pre-ordered as well.


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## blam (Nov 15, 2007)

I'm sorry, but Flash for an interface on a HD box? Crazy. 

First of all, Flash is animation program. You have to go through crazy hoops to program anything complex on it. It is totally crash prone once you get it beyond showing a ball bouncing around.

Second, it is slooooooow. And judging from the videos I saw, the interface looks amazingly slow.

TiVo. I'm not sure who sold you on a flash interface, but suck it up and go back to C. I can't have my TiVo interface being slow and crashy.

Flash is fine for little web ads, and games, but for a rock solid super fast HD TV interface? Nope.

I had one ordered, but after seeing the video of how slow the UI was, and those horrible pictures up top that will surely be cheezy internet ads with a dancing guy over low mortgage rates, I cancelled my order and will wait and see how the reviews go.

TiVo. I love ya man. But ads on top, and slow flash interface, this was a wrong move.


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## gweempose (Mar 23, 2003)

blam said:


> TiVo. I love ya man. But ads on top, and slow flash interface, this was a wrong move.


I think you are jumping to conclusions. The demo was being performed on a beta version of the HDUI. I believe it was also mentioned that the search was loading items slowly in the demo because of a flaky internet connection, as well as the fact that they hadn't optimized the caching yet.


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## ZeoTiVo (Jan 2, 2004)

it amazes me how people pre-judge an item that has not even shipped yet. Good thing Moxi's with HD interface can be ordered right now - have not heard anyone describe the Moxi interface as slow.


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## JimboG (May 27, 2007)

ZeoTiVo said:


> it amazes me how people pre-judge an item that has not even shipped yet. Good thing Moxi's with HD interface can be ordered right now - have not heard anyone describe the Moxi interface as slow.


Good God, do you get a free toaster with every 100th Moxi reference in a totally unrelated thread?:down::down::down:


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## innocentfreak (Aug 25, 2001)

One thing I hope and would be interested to see is the ability added over time to possible customize the UI. I don't know if this is possible with flash, but it sounds like it might since you will have the choice between classic and HD.


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## DaveWhittle (Jul 25, 2002)

innocentfreak said:


> One thing I hope and would be interested to see is the ability added over time to possible customize the UI. I don't know if this is possible with flash, but it sounds like it might since you will have the choice between classic and HD.


UI "Themes" would be cool to match a room decor.


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## gweempose (Mar 23, 2003)

DaveWhittle said:


> UI "Themes" would be cool to match a room decor.


Speaking of themes, I recently discovered "Gradient iCool" for Firefox. I find it quite soothing.


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## jmpage2 (Jan 21, 2004)

innocentfreak said:


> One thing I hope and would be interested to see is the ability added over time to possible customize the UI. I don't know if this is possible with flash, but it sounds like it might since you will have the choice between classic and HD.


I can't see TiVo making their interface skinnable. It would be cool though.


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## Joe3 (Dec 12, 2006)

gweempose said:


> I think you are jumping to conclusions. The demo was being performed on a beta version of the HDUI. I believe it was also mentioned that the search was loading items slowly in the demo because of a flaky internet connection, as well as the fact that they hadn't optimized the caching yet.


It is better to jump to conclusions first than find out after investing into the new TiVo box that TiVo has jumped the shark and sold us out with a slow flash interface for profitable cheezy internet ads.


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## jmpage2 (Jan 21, 2004)

Joe3 said:


> It is better to jump to conclusions first than find out after investing into the new TiVo box that TiVo has jumped the shark with a flash interface by selling us out profitable cheezy internet ads.


Last time I checked there are pretty good return policies in place. If the box is slow as molasses then just return it and send TiVo a message.


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## Joe3 (Dec 12, 2006)

jmpage2 said:


> Last time I checked there are pretty good return policies in place. If the box is slow as molasses then just return it and send TiVo a message.


No, I'll be watching for a few months after roll out. I have a series 3.

Definitely go for it if you are TiVo-less and learn the Jedi trick with the ads.


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## jmpage2 (Jan 21, 2004)

Joe3 said:


> No, I'll be watching for a few months after roll out. I have a series 3.


I am taking the opposite tack. I am buying two new boxes in the hopes they are better than my S3 boxes. If they are I will be getting rid of those boxes via eBay pronto, before the value of them starts to rapidly degrade.


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## Joe3 (Dec 12, 2006)

jmpage2 said:


> I am taking the opposite tack. I am buying two new boxes in the hopes they are better than my S3 boxes. If they are I will be getting rid of those boxes via eBay pronto, before the value of them starts to rapidly degrade.


Good luck, let us know how you do.


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## LoneWolf15 (Mar 20, 2010)

JimboG said:


> Good God, do you get a free toaster with every 100th Moxi reference in a totally unrelated thread?:down::down::down:


If he does, I'm willing to donate a bathtub and a nearby electrical outlet.


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## ZeoTiVo (Jan 2, 2004)

LoneWolf15 said:


> If he does, I'm willing to donate a bathtub and a nearby electrical outlet.


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## innocentfreak (Aug 25, 2001)

After checking out the Gizmodo and EngadgetHD review, I definitely am hoping they offer some way to turn this off.


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## etz (Sep 8, 2006)

Wall Street Journal's Walter Mossberg says you can only turn off the banner by switching to the "classic" UI layout.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703312504575141821757303184.html


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## blam (Nov 15, 2007)

Mossberg Says:

The new HD interface was slower than the old standard one in my tests, with frequent delays, even in scrolling through a list of recorded shows. TiVo says this is a bug being fixed.

I found the Discovery Bar a distraction, cluttering the menu screens, with no way to turn it off unless you revert to the old interface (a buried option.) This is partly because TiVo hopes to sell ads on the bar.

I Say:

TiVo better get on this. It really seems that they are messing up a perfect interface by making it slow and ad filled.


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## DaveWhittle (Jul 25, 2002)

Is the UI that's currently being tested a "final build"?


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## LoneWolf15 (Mar 20, 2010)

DaveWhittle said:


> Is the UI that's currently being tested a "final build"?


From what I've read, I don't believe so. A lot of the online articles have been previews, and haven't gotten a lot of time to play with the device. There have also been reports that the final revision of the UI (or updates to the shipping rev) will be pushed out during the first week of the Premiere's initial release when users get it home.

There's a lot of swirling rumors about though, so it's hard to tell. I haven't seen any reviews not marked as "Preview" yet, either. I guess we'll see this coming week.


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## davezatz (Apr 18, 2002)

blam said:


> In looking at the premier menu, that top banner with the show thumbnails is really annoying. Has anyone seen if there will be an option to turn it off?


You can't turn it off if using the HDUI. However, you can kill the video-in-guide box. In response to blam (Gizmodo blam?) above, TiVo did tell me at CES one of the discovery bar's tiles will be used for ads.


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## Mike-Mike (Mar 2, 2010)

I don't mind the discovery bar, in fact, I kind of like it.... my question is: I will only have OTA, will my discovery bar only show OTA/Netflix/Amazon options? or will it show stuff on cable I don't get?


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## bkdtv (Jan 9, 2003)

Mike-Mike said:


> I don't mind the discovery bar, in fact, I kind of like it.... my question is: I will only have OTA, will my discovery bar only show OTA/Netflix/Amazon options? or will it show stuff on cable I don't get?


You can pick and choose what you want to see. If you just check the boxes for TV and Netflix, those are the only programs you will see in the Discovery bar.

The same goes for all of the new Browse TV categories. Results are only shown what you actually receive, as per your Channels -> Channel List and Channels -> Video content provider settings.


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