# Software update coming by end of this month.



## BlackBetty (Nov 6, 2004)

__ https://twitter.com/i/web/status/12175947517


> Software updates are coming, the first at the end of the month, another in May.


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## curiousgeorge (Nov 28, 2002)

BlackBetty said:


> __ https://twitter.com/i/web/status/12175947517


Longest two weeks of my life. Never have I pined for a service update like this.


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## DPF (Mar 20, 2003)

Agreed. Let's hope they get it fixed. For their own good. I tend to think the users here on these forums are actually going to be more forgiving than your run of the mill customer. Despite all the complaining here.

Releasing the UI in this state was a pretty big mistake in my opinion.

-DPF


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## ldobson (Jan 18, 2004)

Let's hope it can be fixed. Flash is a BIG system hog.


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## blacknoi (Jan 23, 2006)

I was an early adopter of the S3 (paid my 799) but I'm waiting on the Premier until this update comes... and see what the fallout is / improvements that are made.


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## ZeoTiVo (Jan 2, 2004)

ldobson said:


> Let's hope it can be fixed. Flash is a BIG system hog.


Flash has its own chipset to run on - Flash is not the problem


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## stonewallers (Apr 8, 2010)

I hope it fixes the problems. I'm wishing I had gotten another tivo HD rather than the premiere. First I tried turning off the live tv window, then I switched to the sd menu figuring it was the ad bar and yet I've still have one premiere automatic restart and one pull the power cord restart.


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## mgerenser (Jan 28, 2009)

The buggy and slow Premiere has convinced me to return my 2 units to TiVo. I consider myself a patient guy, but after more than a week of messing around with the Premieres, dealing with lockups, slow menus and weird glitches, it has become clear to me that they are not simply ready for prime time.

I'm not willing to wait another 2 weeks (or more!) for a fix. And lets face it, there's no guarantee that this software update will actually fix all the issues. I don't like spending more than 800 bucks to be a beta tester.

Don't get me wrong - I'm not a TiVo hater. I really want to see them succeed. But the company really boggled this one. They never should have released the Premieres in such a state. Unfortunately, the only way to send a message to these companies is with the wallet.


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## RichB (Apr 2, 2003)

ZeoTiVo said:


> Flash has its own chipset to run on - Flash is not the problem


Can you be sure?

Even text submenus seem to draw slowly compared to anything modern.

- Rich


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## ltxi (Feb 14, 2010)

My Premier running the SD UI seems to be the functional equivalent (speed, responsiveness, stability) of the HD XL. It is unstable with the HD UI. 

The only reason I have a Premier in the first place is because I had two out of three HD XL units die in about their first month. One I returned and one just got replaced under warranty. It's sitting in the box until I decide I can really trust the Premier.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

ltxi said:


> My Premier running the SD UI seems to be the functional equivalent (speed, responsiveness, stability) of the HD XL. It is unstable with the HD UI.
> 
> The only reason I have a Premier in the first place is because I had two out of three HD XL units die in about their first month. One I returned and one just got replaced under warranty. It's sitting in the box until I decide I can really trust the Premier.


Running the SD UI on my boxes is noticeably faster than the S3 and TiVoHD boxes.

But the HD UI seems fast as well. I see people have complained about the Now Playing list in the HD UI being slow. But mine pages down almost instantly.


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## Richard Cranium (Mar 28, 2010)

aaronwt said:


> Running the SD UI on my boxes is noticeably faster than the S3 and TiVoHD boxes.
> 
> But the HD UI seems fast as well. I see people have complained about the Now Playing list in the HD UI being slow. But mine pages down almost instantly.


Same here.


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## DPF (Mar 20, 2003)

Mine most certainly does not page down instantly. I'm at 20&#37; full on a base Premiere. I'm really getting curious aaronwt, there has to be a reason why you're units seem to be functioning so much better than this group as a whole.

Maybe it's the network they're on (I can't help thinking the Ethernet network performance is factor here, all the way up to ISP).

Maybe the Cable provider (signal during changeover to preview window hiccuping, borking the system)

HDMI to TV/equipment (another link in the communication chain) borking during the jump to the HD menu structure.

There has to be something fundamentally different. Something traceable. It's like they remembered to put a black box "make it work" part in your units that we didn't get.

-DPF


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## richsadams (Jan 4, 2003)

The HDUI "My Shows" list on our Premiere XL was pretty snappy at first, but as more and more recordings/pages are added it seems to be getting slower and slower. The issue (to me) seems to be the loading of the graphics for whatever show it lands on each time I page up or down. Since it apparently doesn't cache anything the back-and-forth between what I assume are TiVo's servers and the box can take some time. The show graphics at the top of the overall menu can be very slow to load sometimes as well. We're on FIOS with 20MB (down) broadband and TiVo is "hard wired" (ethernet) to our network. The unit flies with the SDUI, but HD is very slow. 

I also dislike the unit having to switch between HD and SD UI's to make settings changes...feels half-baked. All of the menus s/b HD IMHO. 

I'm sure they'll be able to resolve this but it is painful and quite disappointing that they were released in this state. 

Oh, I meant to add that on a brighter note I transferred a recording from the PXL to my Mac (via iTiVo) and it literally flew! A one-hour show took less than 20 minutes to transfer which is about half the time of our Series3 (which was a little faster than our TiVo HD). I've also used MRV between our Series3 and the PXL and the results were terrific as well. So to that end...it's a winner! :up:


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## orangeboy (Apr 19, 2004)

richsadams said:


> The HDUI "My Shows" list on our Premiere XL was pretty snappy at first, but as more and more recordings/pages are added it seems to be getting slower and slower. The issue (to me) seems to be the loading of the graphics for whatever show it lands on each time I page up or down. Since it apparently doesn't cache anything the back-and-forth between what I assume are TiVo's servers and the box can take some time.


If TiVo could cache the images for what's in My Shows, To Do List, and _maybe_ Season Passes during Guide Data connections (or even during the "Showcase" downloads), I think I would be a happier camper!



richsadams said:


> The show graphics at the top of the overall menu can be very slow to load sometimes as well...


If TiVo does what I suggested above, I wouldn't care too much about the length of time those Discovery Bar images takes to display. Also, if the second core gets enabled, perhaps one core could handle navigation functions while the other core loads the non-cached images, so user experience is a bit better...


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## xboard07 (Dec 16, 2007)

Can't come soon enough. It's still pathetic Tivo released the Premiere in this condition.


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## Videodrome (Jun 20, 2008)

Tivo isnt microsoft, i guess they didnt realize that when they released it. I am just waiting on the moxi version with native netflix etc, then cya tivo.


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## NotVeryWitty (Oct 3, 2003)

aaronwt said:


> Running the SD UI on my boxes is noticeably faster than the S3 and TiVoHD boxes.
> 
> But the HD UI seems fast as well. I see people have complained about the Now Playing list in the HD UI being slow. But mine pages down almost instantly.


So, I guess what this means is that the HD UI runs great, so long as you have 35 Mbps internet speed (like Aaron).


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## DPF (Mar 20, 2003)

NotVeryWitty said:


> So, I guess what this means is that the HD UI runs great, so long as you have 35 Mbps internet speed (like Aaron).


That would appear to be the difference from the list I mentioned above. Well if that's the case, then some background caching is going to be an absolute necessity since those kinds of connection speeds aren't exactly common.

Plus removal of whatever the hook is that's crapping the whole thing out when a graphic can't be grabbed fast enough. No green circle while graphics are being requested. It's got to be independent.

Makes sense as that would explain the SD being relatively fine. No need for Album Cover graphics to get pulled.

-DPF


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## jmpage2 (Jan 21, 2004)

I would imagine that the most to expect from the April update is the highest priority bugs getting fixed and maybe some modest performance improvements.

Then in May, if you are super super lucky then you get dual core.

Then maybe by the Fall you get Pandora a new Netflix application, etc, along with a bit more of the UI converted to HD.

It's just hard to be optimistic about how they are going to do this all in under a year considering how long they've been working on this product prior to release and how lackluster the product is at "launch".


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## justen_m (Jan 15, 2004)

ZeoTiVo said:


> Flash has its own chipset to run on - Flash is not the problem


This isn't my area of expertise, but are you saying Flash has its own ASIC? Or SoC? I suppose I could google, but I am lazy this morning. It seems very strange from the standpoint of an embedded systems engineer to have a parallel hardware path just for Flash.

I have no idea about Flash performance, having neither experienced it nor researched it nor tested it.

[edit] Well, that's because I have the Flashblocker Firefox add-on for my three Windows machines. There was probably a reason behind that.  But that is just anecdotal evidence.


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## Monty2_2001 (Aug 6, 2005)

Flash is a performance nightmare. I worked on boxes that ran it, and wow was it the worst. They'll need every bit of that dual core running at full speed to get acceptable performance, and they knew this going in. I don't think any patches will do much to really help until that happens.


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## MickeS (Dec 26, 2002)

jmpage2 said:


> I would imagine that the most to expect from the April update is the highest priority bugs getting fixed and maybe some modest performance improvements.
> 
> *Then in May, if you are super super lucky then you get dual core.*


I think the chances of winning the Powerball are higher than getting dual core in May.


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## jmpage2 (Jan 21, 2004)

MickeS said:


> I think the chances of winning the Powerball are higher than getting dual core in May.


The problem that they are going to have is that they will (likely) soon hit a performance wall until the dual core is working, which could potentially stop further development until it is resolved.


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## MichaelJHuman (Aug 3, 2005)

jmpage2 said:


> The problem that they are going to have is that they will (likely) soon hit a performance wall until the dual core is working, which could potentially stop further development until it is resolved.


If Flash itself was not written with multi-threading in mind, and Flash is the problem, dual cores should not improve performance much. It's not clear to me how multi-threading can help a UI. They are pretty linear in my experience. Events from the UI have to be handled in order, for example.

If the worst of the UI problems are related to it grabbing data from the internet, caching will be needed for performance. If I had to bet money, I would guess a lack of caching is their main peformance problem. On 'My Shows' there's crap on the top bar, like ads. If they are loading those in real time from the internet, you can see why My Shows is SLOW.


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## BlackBetty (Nov 6, 2004)

jmpage2 said:


> It's just hard to be optimistic about how they are going to do this all in under a year considering how long they've been working on this product prior to release and how lackluster the product is at "launch".


Considering that TiVo is about to $300M from Dish on top of the $100M they already received.....They certainly can hire enough engineers to make it happen.


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## rainwater (Sep 21, 2004)

MickeS said:


> I think the chances of winning the Powerball are higher than getting dual core in May.


I think people expecting very much performance improvements when they "turn on dual core" are going to be sadly mistaken. Unfortunately, the articles written about this are clearly misunderstanding the issue. Both cores are being used now. I think people took the quote from TiVo too literally. Clearly they can write their code to take advantage of the dual cores. But at the OS level, it is surely already using both cores already. My guess is the HD UI wasn't written specifically for taken advantage of the CPU and leaves this task up to the OS. So they will certainly work on adding support for it there. However, those expecting a 25-50% jump in performance will be disappointed.


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## ldobson (Jan 18, 2004)

I think people are jumping to conclusions too quickly with this. We dont actually know that its the HDUI that is causing the performance issues, all we know is that is how it is perceived by using the device. Is it quite possible there is some background runaway process which is sending the system load through the roof and the "lockup" behavior is simply due to a cpu/memory exsortion issue. There's a lot of elements which could cause the symptoms we are seeing, its really hard to say without having a root shell open on the box at the time of a lockup


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## bkdtv (Jan 9, 2003)

rainwater said:


> I think people expecting very much performance improvements when they "turn on dual core" are going to be sadly mistaken. Unfortunately, the articles written about this are clearly misunderstanding the issue. Both cores are being used now. I think people took the quote from TiVo too literally. Clearly they can write their code to take advantage of the dual cores. But at the OS level, it is surely already using both cores already.


That's what I thought as well. I thought both cores were enabled in Linux, but disabled in the Adobe Stagecraft environment on which the new HDUI runs.

That is not the case. A review of the serial boot log from 14.1b confirms that the second core is currently *disabled* in Linux. I found this hard to believe given the improvements in TTG and MRV throughput, but the boot log doesn't lie.



rainwater said:


> My guess is the HD UI wasn't written specifically for taken advantage of the CPU and leaves this task up to the OS. So they will certainly work on adding support for it there.


From what I've been told by non-TiVo sources, that isn't the case. I'm told Broadcom's Adobe Stagecraft environment can use both cores on their SoCs.

I would guess that either TiVo's own software is not yet stable with both cores enabled *or* there are various bugs in the Broadcom-optimized Stagecraft environment. TiVo's HDUI is more ambitious than most Flash applications (Netflix, Youtube) already running on other Broadcom-based hardware, so it is possible -- even likely -- they've run into a number of bugs that manifest when both cores are enabled.


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## DPF (Mar 20, 2003)

bkdtv said:


> A review of the serial boot log from *14.1b* confirms that the second core is currently *disabled* in Linux.


Come again? Is there a 14.1b out there in the wild? Did I miss that somehow?
-DPF


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## lessd (Jan 23, 2005)

DPF said:


> Come again? Is there a 14.1b out there in the wild? Did I miss that somehow?
> -DPF


We all have 14.1a, came out in the first week of April (Series 4 only) Check your SI screen


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## bkdtv (Jan 9, 2003)

DPF said:


> Come again? Is there a 14.1b out there in the wild? Did I miss that somehow?


That was a typo.


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## DPF (Mar 20, 2003)

Ok, that's what I thought, just wanted to be sure.
-DPF


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## orangeboy (Apr 19, 2004)

bkdtv said:


> That's what I thought as well. I thought both cores were enabled in Linux, but disabled in the Adobe Stagecraft environment on which the new HDUI runs.
> 
> That is not the case. A review of the serial boot log from 14.1b confirms that the second core is currently *disabled* in Linux. I found this hard to believe given the improvements in TTG and MRV throughput, but the boot log doesn't lie...


TiVoPony mentioned that in this post as well: http://tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?p=7853623#post7853623


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## jmpage2 (Jan 21, 2004)

BlackBetty said:


> Considering that TiVo is about to $300M from Dish on top of the $100M they already received.....They certainly can hire enough engineers to make it happen.


I hope you are right, based on their recent track record though it seems far more likely they will blow that cash on booze and hookers.


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## riekl (Jan 29, 2001)

jmpage2 said:


> I hope you are right, based on their recent track record though it seems far more likely they will blow that cash on booze and hookers.


It isn't a 'recent' track record it is a 'for our entire company history we are pathetically slow to release new features and fixes' history. I doubt they even have a QA department and the programming team is likely one part time guy playing quake (based on the results we've seen from this company).


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## innocentfreak (Aug 25, 2001)

According to Margret from her Twitter posts earlier, the update should be out early next week. This was said to people in response to their TiVos locking up so it should hopefully address that issue. Now whether anything else will be in the patch, who knows.


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## TrueTurbo (Feb 19, 2008)

Man, some of you guys lead a very sad and depressing life! If TiVo hardware and support irks you even half as much as you complain about, you should send the units back and go find something else that might make you happier!


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## jmpage2 (Jan 21, 2004)

TrueTurbo said:


> Man, some of you guys lead a very sad and depressing life! If TiVo hardware and support irks you even half as much as you complain about, you should send the units back and go find something else that might make you happier!


Look at it from our point of view. If TiVo doesn't get the harsh criticism from owners who aren't drinking the kool-aid they won't have any incentive to get better.

Kind of funny that you take a "defend TiVo at all costs" approach when it's very clear that Premier has some big problems.

Leave and get something else? Is that like when someone criticizes the US they get told if they don't like it then pack up and move to another country?


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## TrueTurbo (Feb 19, 2008)

jmpage2 said:


> Look at it from our point of view. If TiVo doesn't get the harsh criticism from owners who aren't drinking the kool-aid they won't have any incentive to get better.
> 
> Kind of funny that you take a "defend TiVo at all costs" approach when it's very clear that Premier has some big problems.
> 
> Leave and get something else? Is that like when someone criticizes the US they get told if they don't like it then pack up and move to another country?


Big problems for you, definitely. Why should I drink from your sour kool-aid!? Sorry you're having problems, but I'm not going to tar and feather TiVo because you are having a bad experience.

I defend TiVo because at least for me, their products work and work well. I wish more people who aren't having issues would speak up. As I said in other posts, people without issues rarely post about their good experiences because when they do, people like you jump in and call them 'fanboys'.


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## vansmack (Dec 1, 2003)

TrueTurbo said:


> find something else that might make you happier!


You know what would make me happy?

If somebody would change the way I watch television.

If I had a box with more brains, more brawn and more beauty.

If I had the cable box my cable compnay doesn't want me to have.

If I could behold the revolutionary new TiVo Premiere.

These are their words, not mine, and if you don't think I have to right to complain that I have a Series 3 box with a faster processor after being told all of this then you may be confusing sad and depressing with very disappointed, and yes, a little angry. And every right to be.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

It's certainly more than an S3 box with a faster processor. it's also has more and faster memory. Less of a power hog than the S3 too.

So far i have been pleased with the Premiere and excited about more features being added to it in the future.


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## vansmack (Dec 1, 2003)

aaronwt said:


> it's also has more and faster memory. Less of a power hog than the S3 too.


Oh yes, silly me. How very "revolutionary" of them....


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## TrueTurbo (Feb 19, 2008)

vansmack said:


> You know what would make me happy?
> 
> If somebody would change the way I watch television.
> 
> ...


Of course you all have every right to complain! Complain all you like. Be angry if you want to. Be sad and depressing if it floats your boat. I'm just sorry you feel that way. Personally, I can't live like that. If something pisses me off the way TiVo appears to be doing to you, I move on. Life's too short to waste nurturing high blood pressure and stomach ulcers.


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## Phantom Gremlin (Jun 20, 2002)

jmpage2 said:


> I hope you are right, based on their recent track record though it seems far more likely they will blow that cash on booze and hookers.


No, that can't be true. TiVo has top people from around the world working on their behalf. How do I know this? They have said so themselves. Here's their most recent 10K to the SEC:

_We have from time-to-time outsourced engineering work related to the design, development, and manufacturing of our products. We have and expect to in the future work with companies located in jurisdictions outside of the United States, including, but not limited to, Taiwan, India, Ukraine, United Kingdom, and Mexico._​
All I can add is that their original hardware and software was developed in California, and it wasn't anywhere as buggy as the current incarnation.


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## Monty2_2001 (Aug 6, 2005)

Phantom Gremlin said:


> No, that can't be true. TiVo has top people from around the world working on their behalf. How do I know this? They have said so themselves. Here's their most recent 10K to the SEC:
> 
> _We have from time-to-time outsourced engineering work related to the design, development, and manufacturing of our products. We have and expect to in the future work with companies located in jurisdictions outside of the United States, including, but not limited to, Taiwan, India, Ukraine, United Kingdom, and Mexico._​
> All I can add is that their original hardware and software was developed in California, and it wasn't anywhere as buggy as the current incarnation.


Ouch, well that certainly explains it.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

Phantom Gremlin said:


> No, that can't be true. TiVo has top people from around the world working on their behalf. How do I know this? They have said so themselves. Here's their most recent 10K to the SEC:
> 
> _We have from time-to-time outsourced engineering work related to the design, development, and manufacturing of our products. We have and expect to in the future work with companies located in jurisdictions outside of the United States, including, but not limited to, Taiwan, India, Ukraine, United Kingdom, and Mexico._​
> All I can add is that their original hardware and software was developed in California, and it wasn't anywhere as buggy as the current incarnation.


The orignal software and hardware was from the 20th century. This is the 21st century.


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## Phantom Gremlin (Jun 20, 2002)

aaronwt said:


> The orignal software and hardware was from the 20th century. This is the 21st century.


Ahh, do you mean  the world is now flat? Or is it actually  hot, flat, and crowded?

Either way, you're right. TiVo Inc of the 20th century is gone.


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## dewd2 (Feb 22, 2010)

OK, I now have 14.1c.

Any idea what this addresses? The lockups?


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## jenz (Sep 19, 2009)

Same here, I was fixing network settings and noticed both P-XLs showed pending restart, restart I did and voila, I now have 14.1c as well. I just turned HD menus back on, so I can't really speak about lockups (none in the past 5 minutes), but the green loader circle still seems to take just as long when I'm looking at my shows.


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## vansmack (Dec 1, 2003)

TrueTurbo said:


> Complain all you like.


Thank you. All I wanted was for you to recant what you wrote in post #38 and grant me permission to continue complaining.

Now why don't you go hang out in the "My Tivo is Working Fine" thread...


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## BlackBetty (Nov 6, 2004)

dewd2 said:


> OK, I now have 14.1c.
> 
> Any idea what this addresses? The lockups?


+1


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

".....Should fix lockups. Let me know if you ever experience one again. "

http://twitter.com/tivodesign


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## Mwickler (Apr 17, 2010)

Just updated today's patch. It is noticeably better, but has a ways to go to be an acceptable experience.


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## TrueTurbo (Feb 19, 2008)

vansmack said:


> Thank you. All I wanted was for you to recant what you wrote in post #38 and grant me permission to continue complaining.
> 
> Now why don't you go hang out in the "My Tivo is Working Fine" thread...


This is a thread about upcoming software updates. It's you who should pop over to the "My Life's a ***** and my TiVo Hates Me" thread.


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## johnner1999 (Oct 26, 2002)

is this "c" update the major update that was scheduled for the end of the month? Or just a stop gap measure? Amd in its current state is MRV faster then on a TiVo-HD box (mine would be hardwired via power over ethernet with est speeds of 20-65mbs)


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## Mike-Mike (Mar 2, 2010)

quite frankly I am glad people like True Turbo and aaronwt post on here... if it wasnt' for them and a handful of others I would be afraid TiVo was going to rape my mom or something.. this board is like a nonstop hate fest of TiVo, I personally can't wait for my PXL to get here

anyhow keep fighting the good fight True Turbo and aaronwt


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## RichB (Apr 2, 2003)

johnner1999 said:


> is this "c" update the major update that was scheduled for the end of the month? Or just a stop gap measure? Amd in its current state is MRV faster then on a TiVo-HD box (mine would be hardwired via power over Ethernet with est speeds of 20-65mbs)


Don't know, but there are a couple of users still reporting lockups.
Plenty of more letters where that came from. Numbers are cheap too 

- Rich


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## chicagobrownblue (May 29, 2008)

My Tivo locked up yesterday. When it rebooted I was on 14.1c and no lockup doing the live TV button several times followed by the Tivo button.


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## jacksonian (Nov 3, 2003)

I went from a-->c yesterday on my 2 XLs and they seem faster and more stable.


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## richsadams (Jan 4, 2003)

jacksonian said:


> I went from a-->c yesterday on my 2 XLs and they seem faster and more stable.


+1 :up:


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## cranbers (Apr 2, 2010)

So is it confirmed the update for "end of the month" that this post is titled is already delivered and is the 14.1c version?


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## richsadams (Jan 4, 2003)

cranbers said:


> So is it confirmed the update for "end of the month" that this post is titled is already delivered and is the 14.1c version?


TiVo rarely confirms or denies update status, but this from TiVo's Twitter account (dated 4/15/10):



> Software updates r coming in the next weeks which will address this. Another release in May too. We'll keep u posted on these!


Historically TiVo has always been able to address these sorts of issues (never fast enough for those of us having issues) and there's no reason to think that they won't this time. However I'm also on the fence about keeping my Premiere XL. I like the HDUI and think it has potential, but there are enough problems that switching back to our Series3 has become more and more tempting...especially for my wife who was difficult enough to convince that we needed to "upgrade" in the first place. The "upgrade" has been disappointing to date.


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## GapGrin (Jul 18, 2009)

FWIW, the lockups may be from something more fundamental than just the new features specific to the premiere. My HD 652 _started_ locking up about the time many of y'all just got the last update, and it appears related to a version upgrade they pushed down. I have all of the same kinds of slowdown/lockup symptoms you describe, but on my HD box.

Not that it fixes your problem, only that you may have some hope that it isn't necessarily shoddy software per se condemning your new Premiere purchase. I know that without hope there is no disappointment, but I'd rather occasionally suffer the latter than be without the former.


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