# Why I will not miss Tivo that much



## Krautrocker (Jan 13, 2009)

I bought a Humax Foxsat HDR a few months ago and at first all I did was moan about its horrible user interface and how it was much more fiddly to do things that on Tivo were a breeze.

But then.....

I realised the picture quality of the Humax was amazing, even in SD. However we still have some much older recordings on the Tivo and when we watched something recently, I could not believe how I had accepted such an absolutely lousy picture. 

I still wish the Foxsat replicated certain Tivo features and I wish its user interface wasn't so aesthetically unappealing; I also do really still miss certain aspects of Tivo including the fact my partner finds it an absolute doddle to use - not something she's ever likely to say about the Foxsat. 

But that picture quality!

C'mon, don't you all agree? I know there'll be some people who talk about how it can be modded but I think a product shouldn't have to be modded, especially when those mods are not authorised.

From what I've seen of the Virgin model, looks like those lovely blue clean screens have gone to be replaced by cluttered screens all in a horrible - to my mind - red colour.

I can't get cable and even if I could, it's unlikely I would sign up.


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## mikerr (Jun 2, 2005)

So I take it you never had mode0 on your TiVo?



> C'mon, don't you all agree? I know there'll be some people who talk about how it can be modded but I think a product shouldn't have to be modded, especially when those mods are not authorised.


So you werent prepared to upgrade a *12 year old tivo machine * to increase it's picture quality, yet still compare it to a new box which isn't recompressing the image ? 

Honestly I do flip between mode0 TiVo and VM HD TiVo on a keypress and the difference on an SD channel(eg dave) isn't all that huge IMO.

I'm lucky to have a TV with good SD scaling (Panasonic Viera) which helps a lot too.


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## Automan (Oct 29, 2000)

It is a problem with our old Tivo's that they were designed back in the era of analogue TV and CRT TV's, wide-screen if you were lucky.

Even if the guide data is sorted out, the picture quality will not improve and I guess next year less STB's will be on sale with legacy scart outputs.

Automan.


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## spitfires (Dec 19, 2006)

I don't think anyone has claimed the TiVo picture quality is better than a not-12-year-old box. But that's not the point. We want TiVo because of the ease of use and the functionality (WishLists) - if there's a subjectively less sharp picture (which let's be honest also depends on whether you have 6/6 vision or not!) then that's the price to pay.



Krautrocker said:


> I also do really still miss certain aspects of Tivo including the fact my partner finds it an absolute doddle to use - not something she's ever likely to say about the Foxsat.


That's my point.


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## katman (Jun 4, 2002)

Krautrocker said:


> I realised the picture quality of the Humax was amazing, even in SD. However we still have some much older recordings on the Tivo and when we watched something recently, I could not believe how I had accepted such an absolutely lousy picture.


Interesting.... I use SKY+ for day to day stuff and still rely on Tivo for the important stuff.

My TV is a 42" Toshiba Regza which I bought based on its performance with analogue sources as all my AV equipment at the time was analogue.

I asked the shop to connect a DVD player to it by RGB Scart and took in a normal movie with real people in it as I had noticed that in most TV shops, when looking at SD analogue pictures on flat screen, peoples faces had distinct blotches of different shades of pink reminiscent of a painting by numbers picture.

Whilst I DO notice a difference between SKY+ ( as RGB ) and Tivo ( as S-Video) I find the Tivo to be perfectly acceptable. What I find more annoying is the appalingly low bit rates alloacated to some channels on SKY. Looking in the sky planner you can see how much disc space is used by each recording and a 1 hour program on SKY Atlantic takes twice as much space as a 1 hour program on Universal.

Given that most new TVs seem to do an awful job of processing analogue video I wonder how much of the "improvement" in picture quality is down to the fact that your Tivo is connected as analogue and the Humax as HDMI.

Likewise with low bit rates on SD satellite and freeview channels, how much of the HD improvement can be attibuted to that when viewing from the same HDMI connected satellite receiver. My TV has Freeview built in and I find that it looks awful with noticable compression artifacts.


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## davisa (Feb 19, 2002)

I have moved from TiVo to a Humax HRR-FoxT2 and agree that the picture and sound quality is absolutely fantastic.

However, any quality is better than none and I do find I am missing stuff that TiVo would have recorded for me via a proper season pass, suggestion or simply because the guide is so poor on the Humax that I miss things.

So yes. Better quality good. But missed programmes not!


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## tivofromdayone (Aug 19, 2005)

A lot of this is subjective. 

We are on a 50 inch tv and watch a lot of different stuff from dross cookery stuff (her choice) to feature films and bluray.

We switched out to the humax HDR fox t2 freeview unit and picture quality wise the unit obviously decimates a standard series one tivo.

The point for us though, was that we forgave Tivo its limited image quality as it did an admirable job or recording things we wanted even when we hadn't realised it was due for broadcast. For many who watch Divx content on their TV the differences can be minimal, while raw broadcasts and especially HD leave the poor old series one looking very dated.

For me personally? If Tivo hadnt shot themselves in the foot, then my series one would have kept going as long as I could keep it going. But their dumping on us left us with the 2 choices it left everyone, those being jump ship and upgrade to something else (upgrade being a difficult word really as many will feel the user interface they get stuck with is actually a downgrade) or hold out for the 3rd party EPG.

I think the main factor of the series one story is going to be how many of us stay loyal to the box (if not the company). Those that have akready disconnected and moved on, and equally those who are in the process, will have to make a concerted effort to slip the box back into their AV media setup. Many who have adapted to the newer contenders will probably not bother doing so and commit the old S1 units to the loft. If the 3rd party EPG does take off, I could see me using the old box as a secondary unit in the computer area of the house. That said, if I were able to rip the vidoe footage from the box in situ upstairs and play it on the humax then the setup could be almost perfect for us.

Either way, as others have said, it is a bit unfair comparing picture quality between a unit that when built had no hint of definitions to come against new units with their all singing all dancing picture (and sound) qualities. Not to mention inbuilt multiple tuners and internet/external hard drive capabilities.

If anything, we should all be saying how good the interface was to even have lasted to the current times. I for one will miss what Tivo was capable of in scheduling terms if not picture quality.


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## velocitysurfer1 (Sep 6, 2006)

katman said:


> What I find more annoying is the appalingly low bit rates alloacated to some channels on SKY. Looking in the sky planner you can see how much disc space is used by each recording and a 1 hour program on SKY Atlantic takes twice as much space as a 1 hour program on Universal.


I have SKY HD, and watching the F1 today on my TiVo but recorded via the sd version of the BBC1HD channel is fantastic and is a huge improvement over watching the BBC1SD channel.

As katman says it all depends on the bit rate of the programme being viewed. Live programs like Xfactor and dancing on ice are awful quality (and content!)


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## tivofromdayone (Aug 19, 2005)

velocitysurfer1 said:


> Live programs like Xfactor and dancing on ice are awful quality (and content!)


definitely 3 red thumbs there


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## katman (Jun 4, 2002)

velocitysurfer1 said:


> I have SKY HD, and watching the F1 today on my TiVo but recorded via the sd version of the BBC1HD channel is fantastic and is a huge improvement over watching the BBC1SD channel.


When I first got SKY+ (havent gone HD) I was looking forward to an improvement over Tivo because there is no conversion in the recording. What I discovered was that BBC1 on SKY looked worse than BBC1 Terestrial due to the low bit rates and the channels that I had recorded from Sky on Tivo with noticable artifacts was also down to Sky.

They told us that Digital TV would do for TV what CD did for audio, but instead of giving us more quality they gave us more quantity.

Also instead of more choice of content, they gave us a greater choice of channels on which to watch the same content !!!


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## spitfires (Dec 19, 2006)

@tivofromdayone - very well put.


.


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## tonywalk (Sep 10, 2002)

katman said:


> They told us that Digital TV would do for TV what CD did for audio, but instead of giving us more quality they gave us more quantity.


CD didn't do it for audio though. Vinyl still sounds better.

Discuss


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## spitfires (Dec 19, 2006)

^ 

Indeed. Crystal clear audio just doesn't sound right. Yes I can do without the annoying pops & clicks but a good static cleaner removes those.

I think this is where TV is starting to go wrong as well - too much concentration on the technology & sharpness of the picture and not enough on 
(1) whether that is in in fact "lifelike" (c.f. pictures of models in magazines who have been airbrushed to within an inch of their life to remove their natural imperfections) and 
(2) the _content_ of the programme! 

The real world just _isn't_ 'pin sharp' or 'crystal clear' - it has imperfections & fuzzy bits and we shouldn't remove them or the sound / picture just sounds / looks wrong!


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## katman (Jun 4, 2002)

tonywalk said:


> CD didn't do it for audio though. Vinyl still sounds better.
> 
> Discuss


As a DJ I have to disagree, maybe when new but some of my singles that have been played thousands of times sound truly awful, and even some of the brand new singles were awful when they were made from recycled vinyl with visible "lumps" in them. LOL

My point is that digital TV didnt give us CD, it gave us a very low bit rate real audio file 

The best PAL Broadcast TV pictures I have ever seen were the german channels that used to be on analogue ASTRA, far superior to those offered by SKY after they had been through a videocrypt encoder/decoder.


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