# Why Tivo needs to get its head back in the game, now with their new "Edge"



## Joe3

The innovative one stop search that TiVo always publicly promised that they were going to do for years is now being done better by someone else. Here comes the competition with a Tivo killer feature. TiVo so far has been promising, but never delivered as promised. The results, they may have lost their edge and their future at the same time.

See link.

Next time you pick a movie, ask Google for help
Next time you pick a movie, ask Google for help


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## jay_man2

It's only a killer feature if you care about it. Me, meh.


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## Joe3

jay_man2 said:


> It's only a killer feature if you care about it. Me, meh.


You can assume TiVo customers care about what they bought or thought they bought.


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## jay_man2

Search engine wasn’t a consideration in my purchase. And I learned long ago that you can’t assume anything.


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## SullyND

I have zero interest in this feature. 

As long as TiVo continues to record tv reliably that’s all I care about. I know what content I want to watch on Amazon, on Netflix, and soon on Disney+, I have multiple ways to watch any of them, but 99% of the time use the apps on my TV.


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## Joe3

SullyND said:


> I have zero interest in this feature.
> 
> As long as TiVo continues to record tv reliably that's all I care about. I know what content I want to watch on Amazon, on Netflix, and soon on Disney+, I have multiple ways to watch any of them, but 99% of the time use the apps on my TV.


Yes, you have a number of devices that do this for far less cost than what you would pay for a TiVo.


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## SullyND

Do what? My TV was several magnitudes the cost of my TiVo. Only my TiVo records. I have zero interest in universal search. I don’t ever search for content.


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## Charles R

SullyND said:


> I have zero interest in this feature.


Ditto. Kind of silly to spend time on (virtually) useless features...


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## johnfasc

My TiVo does exactly what I want it to do. Record several programs at once, if need be.....let's me play all my favorite music, YouTube included.....let's me stream Netflix and Amazon prime or others.....let's me watch when I want and what I want ota....and all without the 9 easy steps in your suggestion!


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## nrc

One search has worked great on TiVo for years. Well, it did until the listing data went into the crapper, anyway. The story you referenced is more like a suggestion feature. No thanks, I don't need Google telling me what to watch. 

Not to say that there's not still plenty of room for Tivo to improve. But I'd rather see user profiles and tracking for watched episodes in series.


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## Joe3

nrc said:


> Not to say that there's not still plenty of room for Tivo to improve. But I'd rather see user profiles and tracking for watched episodes in series.


I think TiVo going down the path of profiles and tracking would Not be the way to go and it brings up privacy concerns with how far they would go with the information they are collecting. A way to drill deeper if wanted or needed into show information that already exists on the internet and present it simply and cleanly is in TiVo's sphere of operations and particular area of interest.


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## dianebrat

Joe3 said:


> I think TiVo going down the path of profiles and tracking would Not be the way to go and it brings up privacy concerns with how far they would go with the information they are collecting. A way to drill deeper if wanted or needed into show information that already exists on the internet and present it simply and cleanly is in TiVo's sphere of operations and particular area of interest.


In YOUR opinion, but I knew the minute I saw the thread started it was going to be infected with a negative baseline.
On the other hand I agree with profiles and certainly series watched episode globally noted by others, what you think is "the killer app" others don't share.


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## tampa8

Less than zero interest. It would play no part in my decision to keep/buy TIVO. Along the lines of not caring much about a Smart TV. I want the TV to have a great picture with features that directly relate to that along with enough inputs etc. I want my DVR/OTA receiver to do just that, record OTA, have a good tuner, be reliable.


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## TishTash

With all due respect to the OP, this 'killer' Google feature is overrated. Fanhattan/FanTV and Yidio cast a much wider net with more listed streamers, & without the privacy issues Google baggages. 

Also, I feel honing media to one's comfort habits is self-limiting: Some of the best discoveries I made were purposely going against my conventional tastes. But, as always, one's mileage may vary widely.


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## dswallow

The most important features to me are:

1) Effective, controllable, FF/REW/Back-x-Secs/FW-x-Secs through content I'm watching. Almost nobody other than TiVo seems to know how to do this.
2) Tracking (and recording when necessary, of course) what I've watched and what's left to watch on TV series. This only works well on broadcast/non-streaming cable on TiVo. The stream app integration for this is well-intentioned but useless/terrible, and considering the sad state of the third-party apps and how they're just not integrated into the experience, it's not even a pleasant experience when it does work.

I no longer use a single interface. TiVo's is unworkable for the third-party apps, having bad apps or old versions, or just terribly slow while using their UI. So I use TiVo for Live TV and standard cable/broadcast season passes. I'd been using Fire TV for those, but decided to switch back to Roku for a while, as I was rather annoyed with the crappy over-integration of Amazon Prime videos everywhere in the interface. Either integrate everything or nothing. And I just don't see that changing. The third parties all want to control their UI. For some reason they think it helps their bottom line when I am already subscribing and just need to organize their content and track what I haven't watched. Netflix seems to manage to track properly. Hulu and Amazon are unreliable enough, especially season-to-season that I never trust them and refer to yet more third-party tracking.

I rely most, oddly enough, on trakt.tv, to track everything, since nobody can do it among the apps well or fully. So I have to manually keep it updated, well, except for all the content I watch through Plex, since it can update trakt.tv automatically.

Truth is I'm at a precipice here where I think I should be considering streaming-only options, but still feel connected to the live tv and recording concept, perhaps unnecessarily. If I could just get that as an option on a per-day basis, it'd be a very easy thing to switch now, but I still feel compelled to protect the option.


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## Joe3

jay_man2 said:


> Search engine wasn't a consideration in my purchase. And I learned long ago that you can't assume anything.





Charles R said:


> Ditto. Kind of silly to spend time on (virtually) useless features...





tampa8 said:


> Less than zero interest. It would play no part in my decision to keep/buy TIVO. Along the lines of not caring much about a Smart TV. I want the TV to have a great picture with features that directly relate to that along with enough inputs etc. I want my DVR/OTA receiver to do just that, record OTA, have a good tuner, be reliable.





TishTash said:


> With all due respect to the OP, this 'killer' Google feature is overrated. Fanhattan/FanTV and Yidio cast a much wider net with more listed streamers, & without the privacy issues Google baggages.
> 
> Also, I feel honing media to one's comfort habits is self-limiting: Some of the best discoveries I made were purposely going against my conventional tastes. But, as always, one's mileage may vary widely.


Do you think TiVo should drop collections of content from multiple video streaming providers?

So,... It doesn't look like you think TiVo should aggregate, along with OTA or cable, multiple subscription-based video streaming providers and allow its users to view that content from a single interface. Am I reading you right??

Please, help the OP out.
Thanks


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## schatham

I like the old Tivo search. When you could pick a category to record, like Halloween or Christmas and it would record them all.

This was before the One Pass search that has never worked any good.


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## JackMcC

Yeah, not really going to help me unless my Redbox history is part of the search....which NO device currently includes nor would I want it to anyway.

Sent from my SM-G960U using Tapatalk


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## TonyD79

schatham said:


> I like the old Tivo search. When you could pick a category to record, like Halloween or Christmas and it would record them all.
> 
> This was before the One Pass search that has never worked any good.


That's not so much the one pass aspect but the fact that searches and wishlists both have very limited data to search. More data fields and show types are needed as well as channel ranges and more.


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## tenthplanet

The best search device is still your computer and a real keyboard.


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## TishTash

TonyD79 said:


> That's not so much the one pass aspect but the fact that searches and wishlists both have very limited data to search. More data fields and show types are needed as well as channel ranges and more.


It would help if program descriptions were accurate, i.e., Gracenotes vs Rovi.


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## Charles R

Joe3 said:


> So,... It doesn't look like you think TiVo should aggregate, along with OTA or cable, multiple subscription-based video streaming providers and allow its users to view that content from a single interface. Am I reading you right??


Yes you are. I have zero interest in TiVo outside of OTA recordings. It will never (be able to for a variety of reasons) offer streaming features equal to dedicated devices. For me the _great effort _to change inputs pales in comparisons to what one would give up. I'm not even sold on TiVo running as an app on a dedicated Android TV device... once again you'll lose more than you gain.

I find the fact that the variety of streaming apps have wildly different interfaces decreases the user experience far more than using different inputs. And TiVo will never be able to uniform them. Bottom line let everyone do what they do best...


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## Sparky1234

"I find the fact that the variety of streaming apps have wildly different interfaces decreases the user experience far more than using different inputs. And TiVo will never be able to uniform them. Bottom line let everyone do what they do best..."


Well said!


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## hapster85

My Roamio OTA does exactly what I bought it for: records OTA TV. In the 3 years I've had it, I've never once used the search function, or in any way asked it to suggest what I should watch. I don't use the apps either.

As long as it continues to record what I tell it to record, I'll continue to be happy with it.


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## Rugged Ron

I can't recall ever doing a Tivo search, and probably never will. It's a non-issue to me.


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## ej42137

Search was pretty useful for a short time, but the data that backed it up became very unreliable. (This isn't something we can blame Rovi for, it happened some time before the acquisition.) Although I must agree that if all you watch is OTA it's not going to be that valuable.

But if all you watch is OTA you're living in the dark ages and TV is probably not that big a part of your life.


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## Mikeguy

ej42137 said:


> But if all you watch is OTA you're living in the dark ages and TV is probably not that big a part of your life.


LOL. What a funny way to try to make friends and influence people.


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## Charles R

ej42137 said:


> Although I must agree that if all you watch is OTA it's not going to be that valuable.


I think you left TiVo out... all you watch on TiVo is OTA.


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## ej42137

Charles R said:


> I think you left TiVo out... all you watch on TiVo is OTA.


No. Whatever might be between you and your TV, if your only source is OTA, then TiVo search would be of little use. Even back for the short time it actually worked.


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## hapster85

ej42137 said:


> No. Whatever might be between you and your TV, if your only source is OTA, then TiVo search would be of little use. Even back for the short time it actually worked.


OTA isn't my only source, but it's my only source on TiVo. I use Fire TV for streaming. Rarely use the search function on it, or any of the streaming services I use either. Yet I manage to find things I want to watch. Crazy, I know.


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## mschnebly

hapster85 said:


> OTA isn't my only source, but it's my only source on TiVo. I use Fire TV for streaming. Rarely use the search function on it, or any of the streaming services I use either. Yet I manage to find things I want to watch. Crazy, I know.


Ya gotta love technologies that just automatically show you things you want to watch without having to look for anything. The future is bright


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## Mikeguy

ej42137 said:


> No. Whatever might be between you and your TV, if your only source is OTA, then TiVo search would be of little use. Even back for the short time it actually worked.


I guess I'm missing something: why is TiVo search of little use for OTA use? It finds shows.


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## TishTash

Mikeguy said:


> I guess I'm missing something: why is TiVo search of little use for OTA use? It finds shows.


I suppose OTA implies very few channels, and search in general is more valuable the deeper the content?


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## OrangeCrush

TishTash said:


> I suppose OTA implies very few channels, and search in general is more valuable the deeper the content?


It's useful for finding a given show airing on some future date to set up a season pass once in a while, but that's about it. When I first got my Roamio I set up all the apps and tried the whole one-pass thing, but there was always too much of a lag for new episodes to pop up in the lists, like it would take over a week for things that were just added to Netflix, Amazon, etc. to show up.


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## kucharsk

Joe3 said:


> The innovative one stop search that TiVo always publicly promised that they were going to do for years is now being done better by someone else.


The very first thing I did with my Roamio is turn off its search of streaming and other sources for programming.

I want to know what's being broadcast on-air, and *that's it*.

If I wanted to *buy* it, I'd go to Amazon or iTunes instead.



TishTash said:


> I suppose OTA implies very few channels, and search in general is more valuable the deeper the content?


Between all the channels like Buzzr, MeTV, Antenna TV, Movies! and so on I have well over forty channels of OTA content available, which is why I want *only* OTA programs listed.


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## mickrussom

SullyND said:


> As long as TiVo continues to record tv reliably that's all I care about.


what i want tivo to keep doing

- record tv/cable reliably
- keep their index/programIDs up to date and clean
- keep the old ui experience as an option
- keep things like pytivo workable so i can send videos to the tivo with metadata

wishlist:
- be able to ge through and automatically mark all 'V58' 'not-subscribed' and black/blank channels as unchecked. its extremely irritating that the tivo now at 20 years old cant scrub the channels for things that you dont receive.
- be upgrade friendly - stop trying to make enthusiast's life difficult.
- improve quality over bolt.
- pip

thats it.

based one what i know about edge im likely not going to be upgrading mainly due to the forced new ui experience.


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## KevTech

mickrussom said:


> be able to ge through and automatically mark all 'V58' 'not-subscribed' and black/blank channels as unchecked.


Get your channels setup of what you receive/do not receive then use kmttg to save the channel list then you just upload on a new Tivo or the same Tivo if it was reset.
As long as what you receive/do not receive has not changed this is a real quick way to get the channel list like you had it.

When I went from Premiere to Bolt I just went through guided setup on the Bolt then after that was complete uploaded my nameofTivo.chan file to the Bolt and my channel list was complete of what I receive/did not receive.

Took me all of maybe a minute and all channels I don't receive were unchecked.

Did the same with all my season passes.


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## HerronScott

kucharsk said:


> The very first thing I did with my Roamio is turn off its search of streaming and other sources for programming.
> 
> I want to know what's being broadcast on-air, and *that's it*.
> 
> If I wanted to *buy* it, I'd go to Amazon or iTunes instead.


Streaming does not mean that you have to buy it if you have subscriptions to Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu etc (and you can set it to Free only in the search options).

Scott


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## mickrussom

KevTech said:


> Get your channels setup of what you receive/do not receive


never bothered doing this. and i dont think i ever will. it will take too long...

yes, kmttg can be used to fix crippled tivos (like who wouldnt write up an application to export/import these configs... tivo.com should do it for the user. all the config / settings /season passes/ would be utterly trivial to backup automatically to tivo.com)

at this point with te4 not supporting pytivo/ttg i dont care anymore. the bolt-vox-te3-lifetime will be the last box - the 4th lifetime box ive owned.

i want a v58 detection feature. if they dont implement it i will simply care less about tivo than ever before - te4 and the apparent death of ttg has been too much


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## KevTech

mickrussom said:


> never bothered doing this. and i dont think i ever will. it will take too long...


What I did was log into my Comcast account then I could view all channels that my package receives. Went through unchecking what I did not receive then saved the list with kmttg. 
I think it took me about 5 minutes.



mickrussom said:


> at this point with te4 not supporting pytivo/ttg i dont care anymore. the bolt-vox-te3-lifetime will be the last box - the 4th lifetime box ive owned.


PC to Tivo does not work but Tivo to PC does as I just used it last night.


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## mickrussom

KevTech said:


> PC to Tivo does not work but Tivo to PC does as I just used it last night.


I have no use for Tivo to PC.


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## Sparky1234

mickrussom said:


> I have no use for Tivo to PC.


It does come in handy, at times, for some of us.


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## Jayhawker88

I'm the odd duck that loves the Bolt and the new UI, and I think both search and One Pass are done really, really well. I don't understand the issues some have.

I really like that I can set One Passes for Netflix, Prime, Hulu, Epix and HBO Go shows, and launch the specific episode I am on from My Shows. We may be watching several different shows, and having them listen My Shows helps keep us up on them. Would love them to add a Showtime Go app.

I like the Idea of the Edge, but the main features it adds I don't need, yet. My TV just does HDR 10, which the bolt does, and I don't have an Atmos sound bar, yet. But once I upgrade, the Edge will the next thing I grab.


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