# Just switched from cable DVR to tivo - missing some of these features...



## glowrider (Nov 23, 2009)

I just got an HD XL tivo to replace my 8300HD Scientific Atlanta DVR...

I don't know if it's just me, but there are a couple of features missing that maybe someone can help out with? Or maybe they're just there and I don't know...

*Play from beginning - If I've stopped a recorded show in the middle, I only have the option to "Resume playing" and not to play from beginning...

*Stop and delete - Same thing, watching or recording a program, I want to not only stop the recording, I want to delete it.

*Visual indication of what's being/going to be recorded in the guide view.

*Ads? Seriously? Meh...

These are big issues for me - hoping someone may have some clue as to what I'm talking about. 

Thank you for helping a new guy out. The threads I've searched have been quite old.


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## TiVoEvan74 (Sep 11, 2004)

Others will be sure to chime in. Here are my quick takes on the 4 points you raised.

*Play from beginning

Start rewinding and press the -->| key. That will jump you back to previous tick marks; you can quickly return to the start (or the end by FF and quick key).

*Stop and delete 

Yes, two steps. Stop, but the shortcut is the Clear key. It deletes whatever it's on (yes with a prompt).

*Visual indication of what's being/going to be recorded in the guide view.

That would be useful, although I rarely if ever use the guide view. If you go to the main Now Playing screen and select 2 that takes you to the To-do list where you can scroll through upcoming recordings or view the history and find out what wasn't recorded or what isn't going to be recorded.

*Ads? Seriously? Meh...

Just ignore 'em. I dislike ads very, very much, but at least they are only at the bottom of lists.

Now, having said all that, don't let those things be big hang ups (easier said than done, I know-- I'm particular also about specific features in a user interface)...

Instead start to explore the many Tivo features that are big advantages over most cable DVRs-- season passes that float if a show's time is rescheduled, suggestions, etc. If you search the boards, you'll find several threads and posts that outline all the goodies. Most people who have used both won't go back to a cable DVR. The pluses of Tivo are just that good!

You made a good switch!


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## cameron1212 (May 12, 2009)

when i switched from cable dvr i also really missed seeing upcoming recordings in the program guide. one of the 2 views of the program guide does show a red circle next to a show that is currently recording.

i think you can use the small button that looks like a half circle arrow to jump back and forth from the beginning to the end of a recording.


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## glowrider (Nov 23, 2009)

I found hitting the left arrow will ask me if I want to delete a program at any point during the playback.

That's quite useful.

I figured out the rewind + >| button, but during a ball game, for example, you may get caught with a score on the screen you don't want to see. This should be able to be done from the Now Playing screen *before* you load up the program, imo.

The half circle arrow is a 5-sec jump or so, isn't it?

The guide view is a huge deal for me. I need to see that visual overlap, upcoming programs is just not useful at this point, at least until I get used to it I guess. 

I'm sure I'll get used to the changes, and I know there're tons of benefits, but there are just little things that seem so common-sensical...


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## bkdtv (Jan 9, 2003)

glowrider said:


> I'm sure I'll get used to the changes, and I know there're tons of benefits, but there are just little things that seem so common-sensical...


Since you a new to TiVo, be sure to see the _Using TiVo_ section of the *TivoHD Overview, Q&A, Setup, Tips* sticky.


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## slowbiscuit (Sep 19, 2006)

TiVoEvan74 said:


> *Play from beginning
> 
> Start rewinding and press the -->| key. That will jump you back to previous tick marks; you can quickly return to the start (or the end by FF and quick key).
> 
> ...


The lack of both of these is highly annoying, and basically inexcusable for a modern DVR. Both should have been taked for granted, but are not (apparently) the Tivo Way.


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## snarler (Feb 4, 2009)

slowbiscuit said:


> The lack of both of these is highly annoying, and basically inexcusable for a modern DVR. Both should have been taked for granted, but are not (apparently) the Tivo Way.


I'll give you Play from Beginning...that one is irritating as sin sometimes.

But visual indication of what's gonna be recorded in the guide doesn't seem to bug me so much. The To-Do List not only tells me that information, but does so for many more channels and much more into the future than one screens worth of channel guide can hold. And the ability to see what happened (or didn't happen) and why something won't record in the future is nice. Plus, if I happen to be in the guide and want to know if a particular show is gonna be recorded, I just move to hit and hit record and if it is, the choice that pops up will say "Record as Planned" vs the various recording options that appear if it is not already marked to be recorded.

Edit: just saw the original comment included not being able to see what is being recorded. I thought shows that are recording had the red dot in a button icon on them?


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## bkdtv (Jan 9, 2003)

snarler said:


> Edit: just saw the original comment included not being able to see what is being recorded. I thought shows that are recording had the red dot in a button icon on them?


They do, but I'd guess that he was referring to future shows.


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## bkdtv (Jan 9, 2003)

slowbiscuit said:


> The lack of both of these is highly annoying, and basically inexcusable for a modern DVR. Both should have been taked for granted, but are not (apparently) the Tivo Way.


While I agree completely, I believe Moxi has the same limitation (unless it was addressed recently).


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## astrohip (Jan 7, 2003)

glowrider said:


> *Play from beginning - If I've stopped a recorded show in the middle, I only have the option to "Resume playing" and not to play from beginning...





slowbiscuit said:


> The lack of both of these is highly annoying, and basically inexcusable for a modern DVR. Both should have been taked for granted, but are not (apparently) the Tivo Way.


On the "Play From Beginning" issue, simply hit the Play Button, then press the Skip To Tick Button ("-->") twice. The first press skips to the end, the second press skips back to the beginning. I use this all the time. Skip, skip, skip; you can go back & forth, start to end.

So maybe I'm not understanding what you find highly annoying, but two clicks is pretty simple in my book. :up:


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## nelamvr6 (Nov 24, 2009)

astrohip said:


> On the "Play From Beginning" issue, simply hit the Play Button, then press the Skip To Tick Button ("-->") twice. The first press skips to the end, the second press skips back to the beginning. I use this all the time. Skip, skip, skip; you can go back & forth, start to end.
> 
> So maybe I'm not understanding what you find highly annoying, but two clicks is pretty simple in my book. :up:


Only if you haven't programmed to 30 second skip into that button, right?


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## astrohip (Jan 7, 2003)

nelamvr6 said:


> Only if you haven't programmed to 30 second skip into that button, right?


Don't know. Never use 30 second skip. I have it on my DirecTV DVR (dedicated button), and I've used it, but I find I can use 3XFF on the TiVo so accurately, I don't need 30ss.


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## dianebrat (Jul 6, 2002)

glowrider said:


> I just got an HD XL tivo to replace my 8300HD Scientific Atlanta DVR...
> 
> I don't know if it's just me, but there are a couple of features missing that maybe someone can help out with? Or maybe they're just there and I don't know...


you're such a lightweight at complaining, I didn't see the "it doesn't have a PIP when I'm in the menu..." that's one of the time honored complaints.


I think you'll find in the long run that the Tivo implementations make a lot of sense, and they're not better or worse, but different because Tivo has spent more time with the OS and usability.

Diane


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## slowbiscuit (Sep 19, 2006)

astrohip said:


> On the "Play From Beginning" issue, simply hit the Play Button, then press the Skip To Tick Button ("-->") twice. The first press skips to the end, the second press skips back to the beginning. I use this all the time. Skip, skip, skip; you can go back & forth, start to end.
> 
> So maybe I'm not understanding what you find highly annoying, but two clicks is pretty simple in my book. :up:


Uh, as opposed to selecting a simple 'Play from beginning' in the menu?  I know about the workaround, and it sucks.
And for those that like using (and planning records in) the guide, the lack of indicators is just dumb.

I like the Tivo, but these two missing features annoy me on a constant basis, especially when all of the cable DVRs and the now-ancient Replays already have both features.


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## ZeoTiVo (Jan 2, 2004)

glowrider said:


> I figured out the rewind + >| button, but during a ball game, for example, you may get caught with a score on the screen you don't want to see. This should be able to be done from the Now Playing screen *before* you load up the program, imo.


confused - if you have watched some of the show already and are truly doing resume playing then I would assume you have already watched the part already viewed.

So I think instead you are turning on live TV and seeing something that is being recorded you did not want to see, If that is the case then just hit the TiVo button twice before the TV power button. That way you will see the now playing menu and can pick the show being recorded and it will play from the start just like you want.


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## ATLMike (Jan 30, 2003)

glowrider said:


> but during a ball game, for example, you may get caught with a score on the screen you don't want to see. This should be able to be done from the Now Playing screen *before* you load up the program, imo.


Could you explain how you would get into that situation? I watch tons of delayed sports but have never had that happen.


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## wiznh (Nov 26, 2009)

glowrider said:


> I just got an HD XL tivo to replace my 8300HD Scientific Atlanta DVR...
> 
> I don't know if it's just me, but there are a couple of features missing that maybe someone can help out with? Or maybe they're just there and I don't know...
> 
> ...


I just switched too - getting used to the differences after a couple of years with my Motorola DVR takes some adjustments. As others have said, all in all, TiVo is better. We have three of them (TiVo HD) networked (CAT5 cable) and it's way cool to be able to transfer programs from one to the other. With my iPhone I just programmed one of my units to record a show (requires a net connection).

I have a question I'm sure you want the answer to. How much space is left on the hard drive? Doesn't seem to be a way to do that. TiVo Desktop won't do it either.

I just installed Galleon and it does it with the ToGo application. Galleon is a bit tricky to install. As others here have said, it doesn't do the scan test for TiVos correctly - it says it can't find them - but it does find them. The ToGo app shows my three units and the programs on them and the space left in Gigabytes (they have 40Gb drives).

If you like to save recordings, you'll want to get an external 1Tb drive. I'm planning to get one.

The Guide takes some getting used to (there are two to chose from). Galleon (when I figure out what I'm doing wrong) will let me do picture slideshows and play music and videos from my PC on the TiVos. I can see my PC now from the TiVos. The networking stuff is what makes TiVo so much better than the other DVRs.

They should show the space available for recording. Hopefully they'll add that in the next release of their software.


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## bkdtv (Jan 9, 2003)

wiznh said:


> I have a question I'm sure you want the answer to. How much space is left on the hard drive? Doesn't seem to be a way to do that. TiVo Desktop won't do it either.


Be sure to check out the *Using TiVo FAQ*, as it answers these and a number of other questions in detail.

The TiVo is designed to operate with a full drive. When you delete a recording, it is not actually deleted; it is moved to the Recently Deleted folder at the bottom of the NPL, which is where it remains until space is needed for a new recording. This gives you the ability to undelete. If you have 20 recordings in Recently Deleted, that means you've got space for at least 20 new recordings.

Suggestions are recorded until no free space is left, unless you disable that feature. When space is needed for a user-scheduled recording, the Recently Deleted folder is cleared first, and once that folder is empty, Suggestions are deleted. The disk remains full, as user-scheduled recordings replace the contents of the Recently Deleted and Suggestions folders.

If you really want to see how much of your capacity is used, and for what, download tools like kmttg will tell you that (screenshot).


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## Mammatus (Sep 23, 2006)

slowbiscuit said:


> I know about the workaround, and it sucks.
> And for those that like using (and planning records in) the guide, the lack of indicators is just dumb.
> 
> I like the Tivo, but these two missing features annoy me on a constant basis, especially when all of the cable DVRs and the now-ancient Replays already have both features.


Wow. Your life must really suck if these are the kinds of things that 'annoy [you] on a constant basis'.

Good luck getting through an average day.


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## solutionsetc (Apr 2, 2009)

Mammatus said:


> Wow. Your life must really suck if these are the kinds of things that 'annoy [you] on a constant basis'.
> 
> Good luck getting through an average day.


What a compassionate response!

I suppose TiVo is perfect in your eyes? It doesn't annoy you that their "development team" seems focused on piling on ads and buggy content delivery rather than adding long overdue, often asked for features that have been missing from the core interface for years?

If not, I would suggest you are not a very discerning fellow. For me, I find the snails pace and lackluster quality of ongoing development to be frustratingly annoying.

Yeah it is still better overall than the cable boxes; but that is a pretty lackluster achievement for this day and age.


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## astrohip (Jan 7, 2003)

slowbiscuit said:


> I know about the workaround, and it sucks.
> I like the Tivo, but these two missing features annoy me on a constant basis





Mammatus said:


> Wow. Your life must really suck if these are the kinds of things that 'annoy [you] on a constant basis'.
> 
> Good luck getting through an average day.


Mammatus--I was just getting ready to reply with a "Life's a B*tch" response when I saw you had basically said it for me. Could things be improved? Sure, nothing's perfect. Is it a constant annoyance? I guess so . . .


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## ZeoTiVo (Jan 2, 2004)

slowbiscuit said:


> Uh, as opposed to selecting a simple 'Play from beginning' in the menu?  I know about the workaround, and it sucks.


yes the much simpler practice of a number of DVRs to never remember you watched part of a show and to always just play from the beginning is much simpler


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## lstone19 (Mar 29, 2003)

Ironically, for the two months we had a Comcast HD DVR before I told them to get that piece of junk out of our house and got an HD TiVo, I hated it constantly warning me that space was close to full. I wanted it full! Just delete the oldest recording like any good DVR would and quit bothering me with warnings.

Although in fairness, I think it depends on what you're used to. Having 3 S2s in the house, I was frustrated by how un-TiVo-like the Comcast interface was.


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## Mammatus (Sep 23, 2006)

solutionsetc said:


> What a compassionate response!
> 
> I suppose TiVo is perfect in your eyes? It doesn't annoy you that their "development team" seems focused on piling on ads and buggy content delivery rather than adding long overdue, often asked for features that have been missing from the core interface for years?
> 
> ...


I guess I'd rather be somewhat less 'discerning' (in the eyes of someone like you) than have something as menial as my _Tivo _cause me constant annoyance.

Sure, they could do some things better, but my Tivo consumes a small segment of my time/energy/life such that small inadequacies or inefficiencies don't phase me much.

Overall, I'm happy to have it, think it is a great product, and am more than willing to pay what they're asking for the box/service.

As for your constant daily annoyances of having to make 3 or 4 button presses for a relatively little-used function you feel should be done in 1, well good luck with that. I hope you're able to find serenity somewhere, somehow.


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## solutionsetc (Apr 2, 2009)

Mammatus said:


> As for your constant daily annoyances of having to make 3 or 4 button presses for a relatively little-used function you feel should be done in 1, well good luck with that. I hope you're able to find serenity somewhere, somehow.


Well I am not talking about three or four button presses. More like having to run upstairs, turn on the TV, bring up the guide, navigate to a show, schedule a recording, turn everything off, and head back downstairs when there is a conflict on the downstairs box (as opposed to just having the TiVo record the conflicted show on the upstairs box - they're both on a network, right?).

As for button presses how about the 50 or 100 it takes to set up a wishlist because of the lack of predictive text entry and a '90's interface designed for a 25-inch low def TV.

And of course TiVo search which has been in development for what seems like forever and still does not work.

While you may not need more than cable box functionality to record and view your occasional show, many others pay extra for TiVo's expanded feature set (such as networkability) and are frustrated over the long standing omissions that still exist. There was a time when TiVo listened to their customers and addressed major concerns; the linear guide for instance, but now-a-days not so much.

Just because you do not avail yourself of these features enough to recognize their perpetual shortcomings is little excuse for the sarcastic, condescending tone towards more sophisticated users.

I guess I just don't get the mindset of the "TiVo Defenders" here. We all know and admit that there is/has been room for improvement. What better place to discuss that than here? What about this so pushes your buttons that you feel the need to make a post (out of only 45 over the last three years) so condescendingly rude?

Talk about the need to find a little serenity somewhere.


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## wiznh (Nov 26, 2009)

Thanks for the advice, esp. re kmttg as I just installed it and it's very handy, more so than Galleon to check disk space.

How can I delete all the recently deleted files at one time. Is there a way to do that?

Is there a PC program that will let you manage disk space (delete files) from the PC? That would be a nice feature to have.

As for other missing features (or features that folks seem to want and have been waiting for (according to the complaints I'm reading here today) as the chief technologist and president of a company that makes software and hardware, I have to agree with the dissenters. There seems to be a disconnect between TiVo and it's customers and that concerns me as a new customer. I know that it's a lot harder to GET customers in the first place than to keep them. I make sure that our employees do their level best to keep customers happy. Bug reports are encouraged - "you find 'em we squash 'em pronto for free" is rule #1 at my company. We constantly improve the product (learned that from the Japanese) and try as best we can to make improvements in software retroactive to products people already own.

Sometimes its not possible to make significant improvements without a hardware upgrade so when we do that we offer a trade-in deal on the old hardware.

As for features I miss, one I miss every day is the clock. The series 3 TiVo had a clock - its a pity they deleted it from the TiVoHD. I'm sure they did it as a cost cutting measure as digital displays aren't cheap.

I'm generally happier with the TiVos than the Comcast DVR but a warning to TiVo - Comcast will be offering networkable DVRs in a few months (so a Comcast sales guy told me at BestBuy). Had I known that before I bought, I might have waited for the new DVR as was pointed out in another thread, if the box breaks, you are renting it so you just take it to Comcast and they replace it for free. No lifetime warranty hassles, no cablecards.

I hope TiVo is listening to this forum and taking notes.


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## solutionsetc (Apr 2, 2009)

Wiznh,

You can't delete all your recently deleted at one time&#8230; and I don't know why you would want to as they do not affect anything.

Nor is there anything to delete files from TiVo remotely; you gotta be in front of it do delete anything.

As for TiVo listening to these forums&#8230; I know it happens, but not sure how regularly. If you have features you would like to see (like more control over networked TiVos) you should definitely take the direct approach to ask for it.

http://research.tivo.com/suggestions/2web519.htm

Your position on software development is akin to my own (we have a menu in our software devoted to reporting bugs - and fixing them is paramount). I think you're right in your assessment that TiVo's competition has their "number" and are innovating what consumers feel is important. And with the money they are investing in the nextgen fiber networks (FiOS, Uverse, etc.) they are going to fight hard to garner as much market share as possible.

TiVo, as a smaller entity, "should" be more nimble in this regard, so the lack of innovation over the last 5 years is puzzling at best. Perhaps they felt what they already had was enough. Perhaps they just don't have the resources. Perhaps the current code base is so hobbled that implementing anything new is painful.

I do know that most of what TiVo does it does pretty well, and there is value in that. But it needs to do more if it is to stand apart from the competition that is coming.

Welcome to the forums.

-ss


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## ZeoTiVo (Jan 2, 2004)

wiznh said:


> Thanks for the advice, esp. re kmttg as I just installed it and it's very handy, more so than Galleon to check disk space.
> 
> How can I delete all the recently deleted files at one time. Is there a way to do that?
> 
> Is there a PC program that will let you manage disk space (delete files) from the PC? That would be a nice feature to have.


 you misunderstand "recently deleted" - just like on a PC - this space is seen as free space by the Tivo and it will empty this as needed to make new recordings. The space used to hold recordings is also not a system partition so trying to keeps some x amount of space totally free has no value to the OS or TiVo app.
The real thing for a user to keep an eye on is the passes set to "Keep Until I delete" - this is the main setting that will impact scheduled recordings if there are too many of them and the TiVo decides there is no more space for future recordings



> As for other missing features (or features that folks seem to want and have been waiting for (according to the complaints I'm reading here today) as the chief technologist and president of a company that makes software and hardware, I have to agree with the dissenters. There seems to be a disconnect between TiVo and it's customers and that concerns me as a new customer. I know that it's a lot harder to GET customers in the first place than to keep them.


 TiVo knows that so well that they determined in their specific case that getting new standalone customers is TOO expensive for them. The business model now is too make money from partnerships or as the design and development company for other com0panies that have the market share already. TiVo wants to keep a standalone market but they are decidedly NOT focused on growing the customer ranks for standalone at this time



> We constantly improve the product (learned that from the Japanese) and try as best we can to make improvements in software retroactive to products people already own.
> 
> Sometimes its not possible to make significant improvements without a hardware upgrade so when we do that we offer a trade-in deal on the old hardware.


 Not sure what your company makes but TiVo is the only CE appliance I own that supplies quarterly updates at a minimum and more as needed and that I have WAY more features now then when I first bought each of my TiVo DVRs. They have some trade in deals as new hardware is put out but TiVo already has little to no margin and no profit so in a way the deals are already in the pricing to begin with versus giving up some margin to existing customers. despite that you can see some upgrade deals at TiVo.com in manage your account.

PS - always verify somewhere else what Best Buy or Comcast employees will tell you.


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## astrohip (Jan 7, 2003)

wiznh said:


> How can I delete all the recently deleted files at one time. Is there a way to do that?
> 
> Comcast will be offering networkable DVRs in a few months (so a Comcast sales guy told me at BestBuy).


No way to delete them, but no need; they are already deleted.

And I would certainly make book on what the Comcast sales guy tells you. 

I know it seems like many of us are TiVo fanboys, but as someone who actually (currently) has three major and different HD-DVRs (TiVo, Comcast, DirecTV), the TiVo is *miles* ahead of the others. The DirecTV actually isn't bad, but it's no TiVo. And the Comcast--an absolute POS. It may have a couple features TiVo is missing (Ex: FSI), but as far as day to day usability, it's not in the same league. And that's what *really* counts with a DVR--usability.

Scenario: you FF at 3X, and you hit Play--your DVR backs up a tad and starts playing. Opps, wait, not the Comcast. It starts playing as is. Which means you get to do a few 8 second rewinds to get back to where you want to be. Oh, and the 8 sec rewind: on the TiVo, it is instantaneous. Reacts within a tenth of a second or so, and rewinds/starts playing just as fast. The Comcast DVR: for some reason, it takes about a second to react, which really screws up your ability to time 2 or 3 presses.

These are day to day, real life situations where a TiVo is simply the best performing DVR on the market. So I put up with no FSI.


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## lew (Mar 12, 2002)

ZeoTiVo said:


> you misunderstand "recently deleted" - just like on a PC - this space is seen as free space by the Tivo and it will empty this as needed to make new recordings. The space used to hold recordings is also not a system partition so trying to keeps some x amount of space totally free has no value to the OS or TiVo app.
> The real thing for a user to keep an eye on is the passes set to "Keep Until I delete" - this is the main setting that will impact scheduled recordings if there are too many of them and the TiVo decides there is no more space for future recordings
> 
> .


I used to think that. Assume your drive is full and tivo will have to purge a program from the RDF every time you record a new program. Tivo purges the program with the oldest *record date not the oldest delete date.* That means deleting a program that's a month or so old will be completely gone almost immediately.

I manually purge about half my RCD every week or so. I like to make sure I'll be able to recover a program at least a few days after I delete it. I don't want to find out another family member was planning on watching the show.

I don't agree with tivo's logic. JMO but there is a much greater chance of wanting to recover a show deleted yesterday then a show deleted 2 weeks ago, regardless on when the show was recorded.


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## mattack (Apr 9, 2001)

lew said:


> I used to think that. Assume your drive is full and tivo will have to purge a program from the RDF every time you record a new program. Tivo purges the program with the oldest *record date not the oldest delete date.* That means deleting a program that's a month or so old will be completely gone almost immediately.


Are you sure that's still the case? I thought that was changed. (I don't usually have a big enough recently deleted folder to be able to tell.) I actually thought it did some kind of guesstimate nowadays about how much space it expects to need in order to determine what it deletes.

(I still don't really understand why the original poster wants to *regularly* restart from the beginning after he's watched part of a show.)

I do agree with some of the other things mentioned -- I'd still pay $$$ for a reliable FSI, and i definitely *don't* want the Tivo to delete things for me.. But because of the constant nag screens I'd get otherwise, I live 'at risk' and once in a while do lose recordings. (Except when I goof up, all season passes are 'all episodes', but not 'keep until I delete' since as I said, I'd get nag screens for individually scheduled recordings all the time otherwise.)


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## nelamvr6 (Nov 24, 2009)

Please pardon my ignorance, what is an FSI?

I've done searches, haven't found anything that seems to fit this discussion.


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## dianebrat (Jul 6, 2002)

nelamvr6 said:


> Please pardon my ignorance, what is an FSI?
> 
> I've done searches, haven't found anything that seems to fit this discussion.


Free Space Indication/Indicator


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## lew (Mar 12, 2002)

It's still the case.

Your tivo is full. Would you rather have your tivo delete old programs or would you rather it not record scheduled programs? Sounds like you need more storage. Internal upgrade, external drive or offload programs to a PC.

Assuming you have sugestions off the size of your RDF functions as a FSI.



mattack said:


> Are you sure that's still the case? I thought that was changed. (I don't usually have a big enough recently deleted folder to be able to tell.) I actually thought it did some kind of guesstimate nowadays about how much space it expects to need in order to determine what it deletes.
> 
> (I still don't really understand why the original poster wants to *regularly* restart from the beginning after he's watched part of a show.)
> 
> I do agree with some of the other things mentioned -- I'd still pay $$$ for a reliable FSI, and i definitely *don't* want the Tivo to delete things for me.. But because of the constant nag screens I'd get otherwise, I live 'at risk' and once in a while do lose recordings. (Except when I goof up, all season passes are 'all episodes', but not 'keep until I delete' since as I said, I'd get nag screens for individually scheduled recordings all the time otherwise.)


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## slowbiscuit (Sep 19, 2006)

ZeoTiVo said:


> Not sure what your company makes but TiVo is the only CE appliance I own that supplies quarterly updates at a minimum and more as needed and that I have WAY more features now then when I first bought each of my TiVo DVRs.


OK I'll bite, what are the 'quartely' updates this year? All I can think of is Blockbuster VOD (who cares) and some other update last spring that I can't remember now.

Completely MIA at this point is the fall/winter update, which I hope will include cable VOD via Seachange that was promised for late this year.


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## lew (Mar 12, 2002)

slowbiscuit said:


> OK I'll bite, what are the 'quartely' updates this year? All I can think of is Blockbuster VOD (who cares) and some other update last spring that I can't remember now.
> 
> Completely MIA at this point is the fall/winter update, which I hope will include cable VOD via Seachange that was promised for late this year.


It's not clear if the VoD via Seachange was ever promised to us or just to customers who receive tivo boxes supplied through participating cable systems (RCN).


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## orangeboy (Apr 19, 2004)

slowbiscuit said:


> OK I'll bite, what are the 'quartely' updates this year? All I can think of is Blockbuster VOD (who cares) and some other update last spring that I can't remember now...


So an update isn't really an update unless it's something that *you* want?


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## lew (Mar 12, 2002)

orangeboy said:


> So an update isn't really an update unless it's something that *you* want?


No, the updates aren't quarterly and tivo seems to have skipped the fall update.


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## ZeoTiVo (Jan 2, 2004)

nelamvr6 said:


> Please pardon my ignorance, what is an FSI?
> 
> I've done searches, haven't found anything that seems to fit this discussion.


Free Space Indicator - basically how much room is left for more recordings.

It could be a simple x bytes left but how useful that would be to the average person is doubtful. It gets complicated to say how many hours of space left when you have digital and analog and 4 recording levels of analog possible even.

Myself, I upgraded to a bigger drive - 500 gig in my DT and 1 TB in my TiVo HD. I simply do not delete shows until the whole family is done with them and have shows 3 months old or older that could be deleted any time but have not had to be deleted by the DVR to make room. So no real need for an FSI by me.


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## ZeoTiVo (Jan 2, 2004)

lew said:


> No, the updates aren't quarterly and tivo seems to have skipped the fall update.


there have been some quiet updates this year to try and fix things like pixellation issues and the gray screen on analog issues. So no big noticeable updates as in the past but they have been steady.

The main point that there are updates to the TiVo on a regular basis and that the DVR has more features then when you first got it stands though. They may not be features you wanted or care about but that falls under the heading of "you can not please everyone" and how you individually value your own TiVo DVR.

as for my value -
Netflix instant view and Rhapsody are two I use and like that I have it in one apliance under my TV. TiVoToComeback makes the need for a DVD player at my TV obsolete as I rip DVDs to my PC and serve them up from there to any TV in the house. No playback hassles and indeed I can use TiVo trickplay to watch those.
TiVoToGo lets me take shows with me on my smartphone when I want to. I work from home now so do not use that feature as much now, but used it over Thanksgiving.
The expanded wishlist setup lets me record sports with accuracy. A not as touted feature is that the standard lists setups have markedly improved as well. I have a wishlist that is simply "Holiday" - it recorded all the Halloween shopws, the Thanksgiving Specials while I was away and has Christmas queued up. It even recorded the "saved by the Bell" July 4th special and then I used the logical operators to say NOT "saved by the bell" and no more worries about wasting space on their Christmas special

In short from my perspective TiVo has added plenty of value over the course of my owning TiVo DVRs and I do not know of other DVRs that would have all the above save for a HTPC setup but for the way I would do it, the HTPC costs the same and my TiVo DVRs are reliable and straightforward enough for even my youngest to use easily.


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## astrohip (Jan 7, 2003)

ZeoTiVo said:


> Free Space Indicator - basically how much room is left for more recordings.
> 
> It could be a simple x bytes left but how useful that would be to the average person is doubtful. It gets complicated to say how many hours of space left when you have digital and analog and 4 recording levels of analog possible even.
> 
> Myself, I upgraded to a bigger drive - 500 gig in my DT and 1 TB in my TiVo HD. I simply do not delete shows until the whole family is done with them and have shows 3 months old or older that could be deleted any time but have not had to be deleted by the DVR to make room. So no real need for an FSI by me.


I've always felt the FSI should just be how much space is used by already recorded regularly scheduled shows. Don't count Suggestions or Deleted, and don't even attempt to calculate what's upcoming. That's how the cableco & DirecTV do it; it's short, sweet and simple.

But +1 on the hard drive. I've upgraded both my S3s, and space is not a problem. It's really the only way to go for a serious TV watcher. Right now I have 90 in the RD Folder, so space is a non-issue. I've got recordings going back to 2007 (all six Star Wars in HD!).


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## orangeboy (Apr 19, 2004)

astrohip said:


> I've always felt the FSI should just be how much space is used by already recorded regularly scheduled shows. Don't count Suggestions or Deleted, and don't even attempt to calculate what's upcoming. That's how the cableco & DirecTV do it; it's short, sweet and simple.
> 
> But +1 on the hard drive. I've upgraded both my S3s, and space is not a problem. It's really the only way to go for a serious TV watcher. Right now I have 90 in the RD Folder, so space is a non-issue. I've got recordings going back to 2007 (all six Star Wars in HD!).


You should talk moyekj to spin off his version of an FSI into a stand alone app (it's a part of kmttg right now):


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## TerpBE (Jan 23, 2003)

TiVoEvan74 said:


> *Visual indication of what's being/going to be recorded in the guide view.
> 
> That would be useful, although I rarely if ever use the guide view. If you go to the main Now Playing screen and select 2 that takes you to the To-do list where you can scroll through upcoming recordings or view the history and find out what wasn't recorded or what isn't going to be recorded.


But that doesn't help if you see a show in the guide that you like, and want to know at-a-glance if it's being recorded or not. I like to take a look at the prime time schedule and know what is and is not going to be recorded.

For example, let's say I have season passes for Community, Survivor, FlashForward, and Fringe. I check the guide and see this:










If I want to find out which shows are being recorded and which shows aren't scheduled or might be missed because of a conflict, I have to go between the guide, to do list, and recording history and mentally cross-check each of them. It would be a much easier to see what's going on by doing something as simple as this:










It seems that almost _*every other DVR on the market *_can do this. Why can't Tivo? I doubt it would be that difficult to add.

It feels like they're just deciding not to make it available because they don't want customers to use it that way - kind of like how gmail doesn't allow sorting because they want people to use search instead.


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## bkdtv (Jan 9, 2003)

TerpBE said:


> It seems that almost _*every other DVR on the market *_can do this. Why can't Tivo? I doubt it would be that difficult to add.
> 
> It feels like they're just deciding not to make it available because they don't want customers to use it that way - kind of like how gmail doesn't allow sorting because they want people to use search instead.


Back in 2007, TiVo implemented the following in the Java version of the their software for Comcast's Motorola boxes. It has genre highlighting and guide record indicators for individual recordings, season passes, and wishlists.










As for why TiVo doesn't have this feature on the standalones...there's some history to that. The original TiVo software was designed in 1997-1998 without an electronic program guide (EPG). The TiVo software used in public trials during 2H 1998 had guide data, but no EPG; you had to use search to find upcoming programs.

TiVo and ReplayTV first demonstrated their DVRs to the public at CES in January, 1999. At CES, TiVo lead ReplayTV in core DVR functionality, but ReplayTV had an EPG and TiVo did not. TiVo spent the next three months on a crash effort to implement an EPG that [they hoped] would not infringe on Gemstar patents.

TiVo went from having no EPG at all in January, 1999 to shipping their product with the "TiVo style" EPG in March, 1999. At the time, TiVo did not know that it would take ReplayTV another 8 months to ship their first units (late August, 1999), so design decisions were made that would allow the company to meet its goal of March release. There was also some concern that the EPG would have to be disabled if Gemstar sued.

A few years later, after TiVo licensed the Gemstar EPG patents, TiVo skinned its "TiVo-style" EPG to match the grid-style format used on other DirecTV receivers. That feature then found its way to standalones.

In the period since, TiVo employees have suggested several times that adding record indicators would require a major re-engineering effort. Their core software was designed for use without an EPG, so more seamlessly integrating the two is apparently no small task. TiVo evidently feels that certain EPG improvements for the existing software (written in C) are/were not worth the costs involved.

I expect to see this feature in any significant rewrite / reworking of the TiVo software. No one knows if/when that will happen, or whether it is underway right now. Until then, TiVo users will have to rely on the To Do List.


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## lrhorer (Aug 31, 2003)

glowrider said:


> *Play from beginning - If I've stopped a recorded show in the middle, I only have the option to "Resume playing" and not to play from beginning...


This is a judgment call on the part of the developers, and I certainly see their logic. For the most part, I think most people who watch part of a program and then come back later want to start back where they left off. Of course, the Tivo could offer an additional entry in the play list which allows one to start at the beginning rather than where one left off.

That said, I will take the TiVo's actual functionality a million times over compared to the perfectly hateful "functionality" of the SARA software on the 8300HD. If the user started watching a pre-recorded program before it was quite finished recording, when the DVR reached the end of the "live" broadcast, it would unceremoniously dump the viewer out of the program and then would not even remember where it left off. The viewer was forced to fast-forward through the entire @%~#*^! program to find where one got dumped.



glowrider said:


> *Stop and delete - Same thing, watching or recording a program, I want to not only stop the recording, I want to delete it.


Again this is a judgment call on the part of the developers, but they decided, for better or worse, to be a bit more conservative. Rather than assuming anything in particular about the viewer's intent, they took a minimalist approach to observing the user's directives and gave the user greater control over the process, at the cost of requiring the user to take a more active role in the overall process.



glowrider said:


> *Visual indication of what's being/going to be recorded in the guide view.


In my estimation, this is one of the most poorly understood aspects of the TiVo, especially for new users. Although the TiVo developers saw fit to include not one but two guides in the UI, they are wholly unnecessary, and in fact are a complete waste of time. Other than for testing purposes, I haven't looked at a guide in over 9 years.



glowrider said:


> These are big issues for me - hoping someone may have some clue as to what I'm talking about.


Why would they be big issues? To my eye, they represent relatively small variations on mostly secondary aspects of using the DVR. I mean, being able to start at the beginning rather than where one left off would seem to me to be much less important than being able to easily, accurately, and reliably record the programs in the first place. Add to that the fact that I (and obviously the TiVo developers) would expect by far most often the user would start back where they left off rather than at the beginning, and this feature would definitely be of secondary importance IMO. To put it another way, while many people might enjoy the additional option, I think there would be a great uproar if the TiVo did not have the option to start back where one left off, while the lack of this feature... not so much. In my estimation, the same goes for the other features.

Of course, *ANY* new system is going to require some adjustment on the part of the user. It is inevitable that some favored features are going to be handled differently, or perhaps even be non-existent. Sometimes, however, the way the feature can be handled may not be immediately obvious. That's one area where a forum like this can really shine. Here you have the ear of aficionados and gurus who may be able to quickly tell you about alternate means of executing any particular task. Sometimes the work-around is less desirable than the previous feature, but at least it gets the job done. Sometimes the new features are at least as good, or even perhaps far better than the other implementation, but are simply not immediately obvious to someone who is used to some other method. In any case, there are always trade-offs, and in the big picture what is most important is not the presence or absence of a small number of desirable features, but that the system significantly out-performs the competition in most of its implementations, weighted by the importance of each feature.


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## lrhorer (Aug 31, 2003)

lew said:


> Your tivo is full. Would you rather have your tivo delete old programs or would you rather it not record scheduled programs? Sounds like you need more storage. Internal upgrade, external drive or offload programs to a PC.


Absolutely. This is another area which seems to be poorly understood by many users. Logically, the TiVo storage system can be seen as a modified FIFO buffer. Unlike static storage, such a system is not a limited resource. Below a certain size, the buffer will eventually overflow. Depending upon utilization, however, beyond a certain size, the buffer will never overflow, since in the case of a TiVo, the system itself removes data from the buffer at a steady rate. Functionally, what this means is that beyond a certain drive size, the user will never need to worry about deleting programs at all, period. In simple terms, the only reason for a user to ever delete a program at all is that they don't want to watch it. Even this is unnecessary, as the TiVo itself will eventually delete the program, but doing so does allow the system to be more efficient, and it does eliminate clutter.



lew said:


> Assuming you have sugestions off the size of your RDF functions as a FSI.


Or else the size of the Suggestions folder functions as as one - sort of - but neither one tells one anything of any significance, any more than an FSI does. For most situations, I have never seen any compelling reason to have Suggestions turned off. With the exception of the fact the RDF gets purged extremely quickly when one has Suggestions turned on, there really isn't any down side to having Suggestions turned on.


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## lrhorer (Aug 31, 2003)

TerpBE said:


> But that doesn't help if you see a show in the guide that you like


That presupposes that one is wasting their time by looking at the guide in the first place.



TerpBE said:


> and want to know at-a-glance if it's being recorded or not.


Except in most cases, it doesn't. At best it only tells the user that it is or is not being recorded on that channel at that time. For the bulk of programming out there, this is only a small piece of the story. Just as an example, the movie An American Affair is being offered eleven different times on five different channels in the next two weeks on my CATV lineup.



TerpBE said:


> I like to take a look at the prime time schedule and know what is and is not going to be recorded.


Aside from its fundamental ability to record programs, the most important feature of the TiVo is it allows one to completely discard any notion of "Prime Time", or any other notion of time or channel. This is not a criticism of your tastes or viewing preferences, but why are you narrowing your focus to a particular time of day?



TerpBE said:


> For example, let's say I have season passes for Community, Survivor, FlashForward, and Fringe. I check the guide and see this:


The fundamental question here is, "Why are you checking the guide for this?" There are a number of more effective and efficient ways to handle conflicts, especially ones which may span dozens or even hundreds of channels in any guide lineup.

Now that said, I'm the very first to admit TiVo *REALLY* needs to beef up their conflict handling mechanisms and utilities, but an icon in one of the guides doesn't even come anywhere close to filling the bill.



TerpBE said:


> If I want to find out which shows are being recorded and which shows aren't scheduled or might be missed because of a conflict, I have to go between the guide, to do list, and recording history and mentally cross-check each of them.


No, you don't. First of all, since these are all Season Passes, the main thing to do is take note of the relative position in the Season Pass list of each program. The top two will automatically be recorded, and the others will not. If the order is wrong in the list, and a less favored one is being selected, then you need to fix the list order. Beyond that, assuming none of the four are repeated during the next two weeks, there's fundamentally nothing to be done, since the TiVo only has two tuners (assuming we limit the discussion to a single TiVo, of course). In this case, the situation boils down to worrying about something you cannot fix, which is pointless. If one of the programs in question is habitually repeated more than once (which is often the case both on Cable channels and with East / West coast feeds), then one may put it at a lower priority but select "Record all, including duplicates", and let the TiVo handle the conflict every time. Beyond that, there's really nothing to be done. The simple fact is a four-way conflict of uniquely broadcast Season passes is without fail going to result in two of them not being recorded at all. If one has the more favored programs higher in the Season Pass list, then the two favorites will be recorded, and it is the best one can do, period. Having some sort of marker in some guide won't change the fact in the least.



TerpBE said:


> It would be a much easier to see what's going on by doing something as simple as this:


Unless the channels in question just happen to lie sequentially in the guide, then it isn't easy in any sense of the word. Trying to resolve a conflict using a guide between, say, channels 7, 215, 788, and 1036 is the very essence of being difficult, time wasting, frustrating, and ineffective.



TerpBE said:


> It seems that almost _*every other DVR on the market *_can do this. Why can't Tivo? I doubt it would be that difficult to add.
> 
> It feels like they're just deciding not to make it available because they don't want customers to use it that way - kind of like how gmail doesn't allow sorting because they want people to use search instead.


Something like that may be part of it. Don't expect Craftsman to expend any money making their screwdrivers more chisel-like just because some owners insist on using their screwdrivers as chisels. See bkdtv's response above, however. The point is, undertaking a task which fundamentally provides only a very poor and ineffective band-aid to a problem is not the best use of resources.


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## lrhorer (Aug 31, 2003)

astrohip said:


> I've always felt the FSI should just be how much space is used by already recorded regularly scheduled shows. Don't count Suggestions or Deleted


Why not? I think most people would agree we can discount Deleted items, although I have seen any number of posts - some in the last few days - which give great importance to the contents of the RDF from the perspective of the author in question. Even if we can get 95% agreement on excluding the RDF, why exclude Suggestions from an FSI? The real answer is, "The FSI is meaningless either way."



astrohip said:


> and don't even attempt to calculate what's upcoming.


It's only what is upcoming which has any importance to the issue at all. Assuming for the moment the TiVo did not have all the capabilities which make an FSI a completely useless utility, then the FSI would *STILL* only be useful when considering what is going to be recorded in the near future.



astrohip said:


> That's how the cableco & DirecTV do it; it's short, sweet and simple.


It may be short, sweet, and simple, but it's completely useless on any DVR which is not functionally crippled. Of course, many leased DVRs are indeed functionally crippled.



astrohip said:


> But +1 on the hard drive. I've upgraded both my S3s, and space is not a problem. It's really the only way to go for a serious TV watcher. Right now I have 90 in the RD Folder, so space is a non-issue. I've got recordings going back to 2007 (all six Star Wars in HD!).


I have some going back to 2006, but the point is, there is never any time when I have to worry about how much space is on any of my TiVos. Unless I happen to wind up lost in the wilderness for three months, there is never going to be any risk of running out of functional space on the TiVo that causes a program I wanted to watch to be erased, or causes the TiVo to fail to record something I wanted to be recorded. Excluding my own negligence or incompetence, of course.


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## jcaudle (Aug 16, 2004)

slowbiscuit said:


> Uh, as opposed to selecting a simple 'Play from beginning' in the menu?  I know about the workaround, and it sucks.
> And for those that like using (and planning records in) the guide, the lack of indicators is just dumb.
> 
> I like the Tivo, but these two missing features annoy me on a constant basis, especially when all of the cable DVRs and the now-ancient Replays already have both features.


if thats all you can find. Lets talk about the cable Dvrs crappy season pass structure...poor ability to search for shows and tiny drive capacity. Cisco/Scientific Atlanta Crap. I wouldn't have one of the things in my house...I would go back to Directv first. There is nothing that DVR does better than Tivo...as far as the ads on on Tivo menus I don't even pay attention to them. They don't interrupt the programs.


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## lew (Mar 12, 2002)

FSI is meaningless (a better term would be of little use) to customers with upgraded hard drives. A FSI is definitely a plus to HD customers with a stock (20 hour) DVR. Turning off suggestions and using RDF is a "work around".

With a small hard drive the decision on which shows to delete is not made based on age of recording. A movie which is shown multiple times is the first to go, even if I recorded it yesterday. A program that's available on VoD (assuming you have a cable STB) is also a program that can be deleted, even if it was recorded yesterday.


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## lrhorer (Aug 31, 2003)

slowbiscuit said:


> The lack of both of these is highly annoying


Highly annoying? All else being equal, they don't even make my list of the top 1000 features I would consider worthwhile for development. If these make your list of "highly annoying" things in your life, even if limited to the relatively unimportant arena of DVR useage, then we need to trade lives.



slowbiscuit said:


> and basically inexcusable for a modern DVR. Both should have been taked for granted, but are not (apparently) the Tivo Way.


Oh, give me a break! Inexcusable? Of all the omissions for which the TiVo developers might reasonably called to task to explain, these don't even make the first cut.


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## lrhorer (Aug 31, 2003)

lew said:


> FSI is meaningless (a better term would be of little use) to customers with upgraded hard drives. A FSI is definitely a plus to HD customers with a stock (20 hour) DVR. Turning off suggestions and using RDF is a "work around".


Well, first of all, with hard drive upgrades being available for under $60, or in the case of supported upgrades for under $90, this seems to me to be a fairly moot point. Secondly, even with an undersized hard drive, an FSI is not a particularly useful or effective way to manage one's recordings.



lew said:


> With a small hard drive the decision on which shows to delete is not made based on age of recording.


Taken in context, I presume you mean the decision by the user is not make based upon recording age? This is true whether the drive is large or not. Of course, from a purely statistical viewpoint, one might infer an older recording not yet watched might reasonably be less important than a newer one, but with a small drive that inference has a much larger margin of error. The main point, however, is that whether the drive is small or large, the older, less important (by category) entries are going to go first. If one insists on keeping a small drive, micro-managing the content, or both, then a far better means of doing so is sorting by date with groups turned off. One can then instantly see which programs are in greatest danger of being deleted and make a very quick decision to allow them to be deleted if the need arises, or apply a KU setting. After making these quick decisions - requiring only moments - one can then watch or KU any considered to be "valuable".



lew said:


> A movie which is shown multiple times is the first to go, even if I recorded it yesterday. A program that's available on VoD (assuming you have a cable STB) is also a program that can be deleted, even if it was recorded yesterday.


Yes, but the point is there is no need to consider this for the entries on the drive as a whole. Sorting by date with groups off presents one immediately with a list of those programs potentially about to be deleted. If none of the programs at the bottom of the scheduled section are "important', then one needn't bother with any further investigation. If after applying any required KU settings the scheduled list is still populated with programs of interest, then one might need to apply the sorts of criteria you mention, but the salient fact here is if the scheduled recordings overflow the drive space, then older recordings will get deleted, no matter what. Looking at a list of the recordings on the drive does not create more time to watch them, and if one does not have the time to watch them then eventually the oldest ones will be deleted. If that's OK, then when it eventually happens is not an issue of concern. If it's not OK, then one must embark upon a campaign of watching the important programs before it is too late. To be effective, that campaign should not start when the drive is "full", but rather should be a matter of continuous viewing habits. In any case, this means with a small drive the user must modify his family's viewing habits to accommodate the small drive or else risk losing some "important" programs. With a large drive, the system will accommodate the user's viewing habits without modification and without a danger of deleting anything of interest.


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## lrhorer (Aug 31, 2003)

bkdtv said:


> I expect to see this feature in any significant rewrite / reworking of the TiVo software.


Well, not to be flippant, but I don't ever expect to "see" it, at all, even if it is implemented. At the very top of my exceedingly long list of completely unacceptable "features" of he SA 8300HD running the SARA software was the fact the DVR required the viewer to "use" a guide - and I use the term "use" very loosely. I will never voluntarily own a DVR so badly broken as to require the use of a guide.



bkdtv said:


> No one knows if/when that will happen, or whether it is underway right now. Until then, TiVo users will have to rely on the To Do List.


Well, the ToDo / Recoding History list, the Season Pass list, and a little personal grey matter, along with the warning which accompanies any non-automatic scheduling involving a conflict.

What I would like to see is a "Conflict List", either as part of the ToDo list (just like the Recording History list) or as a separate menu under "Find Programs". This list would tell the user at a glance whenever there are any full conflicts or even just clipped starts / endings. Then in a fashion very similar to changing the Season Pass priority, one should be able to move any entry up or down in the conflict instance to allow a different recording to be clipped or not recorded, and also the ability to drill into any recording in the instance to search for other upcoming showings.


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## mattack (Apr 9, 2001)

lew said:


> It's still the case.
> 
> Your tivo is full. Would you rather have your tivo delete old programs or would you rather it not record scheduled programs? Sounds like you need more storage. Internal upgrade, external drive or offload programs to a PC.
> 
> Assuming you have sugestions off the size of your RDF functions as a FSI.


Yes, I know all of what you're saying in the 2nd & 3rd paragraphs.

I was referring to the *ORDER* of deletion in the recently deleted folder. That's the part that I thought had changed (a while ago).

I would rather have it NOT record scheduled programs -- but as I said, I can't "realistically" keep everything until I delete, because I'll get WAY more nag screens, and the tivo *doesn't* recalculate the To Do list instantaneously after I delete something. If it did, I would keep everything until I delete, and e.g. delete a show at 7:58 and if it then realized there was space to record a show at 8. But since it doesn't do that, I live "on the edge" and sometimes lose programs.

My S3 does have an expanded drive (1 TB), and it's still almost full -- mostly of Tivo basic programs. Yes, that's a lot (though I did watch a bunch over the thanksgiving break). My TivoHD has a stock drive, and I'm thinking of expanding it.


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## mattack (Apr 9, 2001)

lrhorer said:


> That presupposes that one is wasting their time by looking at the guide in the first place.
> ...
> Aside from its fundamental ability to record programs, the most important feature of the TiVo is it allows one to completely discard any notion of "Prime Time", or any other notion of time or channel. This is not a criticism of your tastes or viewing preferences, but why are you narrowing your focus to a particular time of day?


BECAUSE THE BEST SHOWS (IN MY OPINION) SHOW UP between 8-11pm Monday-Saturday, and 7-11pm on Sunday.. and are typically NOT repeated.

You're purposely missing the point.

While I now have enough tuners that I don't check things *as often* as I used to (and I'm not the person you were responding to).. I still check prime time listings VERY often.. at least several days a week (sometimes today and tomorrow for example). That is to catch specials or other non-series recordings.


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## mattack (Apr 9, 2001)

lew said:


> FSI is meaningless (a better term would be of little use) to customers with upgraded hard drives. A FSI is definitely a plus to HD customers with a stock (20 hour) DVR. Turning off suggestions and using RDF is a "work around".


It's meaningless *TO YOU*. A close to full upgraded drive is essentially the exact same situation as having the stock drive.

I use the free space indicator on my non-Tivo many times a day. Since I record at different qualities (though there are only two choices I typically use -- longest recording time, and another one that has the highest quality audio and slightly better video), I have to change between those two and check again (though I can usually make a rough translation from one to the other).. it's still better than the lack of any replacement on the Tivo.

A FSI would be VERY useful to me (and worth money, even though I have lifetime subscriptions).

Transfers to a computer is a 'workaround', but in my experience, it hasn't worked very well on a Mac. Even directly connected through a router (i.e. not even trying to do it via wireless), the transfers very often stop with no indication of what went wrong, and they can't properly continue. So especially for digital/HD recordings, I haven't gotten many to successfully transfer. (I remember I have transferred some tivo basic recordings long ago.)


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## lstone19 (Mar 29, 2003)

People use their TiVos in different ways and have different expectations. I personally have no use for a FSI as I expect my TiVos to be 100&#37; full at almost all times. I have a couple of low priority auto-record wish lists that catch a lot of showing of classic shows. I know I'll never watch most of them but they're there for when the situation warrants (e.g. I've seen it before but it makes good background noise while I do something else). My goal is to always have a wide variety of stuff I can watch.

Other people want to watch every thing they record. And if that works for them, great!

As I said earlier, I personally, for the short period I had a Comcast DVR, found its warnings of low space when I set up a recording to be very annoying. I just wanted it to delete the oldest show and not annoy me with such stuff. For me, TiVo has largely hit the target on how I want to watch TV (OTOH, Comcast widely missed, and not just because of the free space warnings. But as I also said earlier, the Comcast DVR lasted in our house less than two months before I (and more importantly, my wife) was convinced that an HD TiVo was in order).


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## samo (Oct 7, 1999)

lrhorer said:


> That presupposes that one is wasting their time by looking at the guide in the first place.





lstone19 said:


> People use their TiVos in different ways and have different expectations.


There are several ways to waste time with DVRs. One way is to have hundreds of season passes and wishlists, record all the trash on a huge drive and when you are ready to watch TV fish for something worth watching in a huge selection of hundreds of shows. Some people collect huge archives of the "good" movies or shows on the servers and then never watch them just like they did with piles of VHS tapes.
Using the guide to select shows that you will potentially watch may seem like waste of time to the "trash collectors", but by spending some time upfront you limit what you have on your DVR to the shows that you will most likely watch. Not all of them, but at least 30-40%.
Having hundreds of shows on DVR to me is a same as having thousands of books in your library that you will never read but can impress your friends how intellectual you are or the same as kids that used to hoard thousands of songs on Napster so they can brag about it. There is no practical purpose to have huge hard drive filled with programming that you will never watch. 
And it may actually take more time to find something in your personal "archive" than it would to search the guide for something that is of interest to you.


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## ZeoTiVo (Jan 2, 2004)

lew said:


> With a small hard drive the decision on which shows to delete is not made based on age of recording. A movie which is shown multiple times is the first to go, even if I recorded it yesterday. A program that's available on VoD (assuming you have a cable STB) is also a program that can be deleted, even if it was recorded yesterday.


and precisely why TiVo lets you set the Keep Until date as to your preferences on season passes/wishlists and on individual shows.

Aslo even with my large 1 TB drive I have a scifi movies wishlist set to keep at most 10 and let the TiVo roll off the 11th one. All I want is a list of 10 movies I might watch or I might not view any one of them.

with my original 40 hour TiVo that was effectively 20 hours with my recording quality I did indeed feel compelled to manage the TiVo every day and sometimes stayed up late to watch something before something had to go for more room. First solution was another TiVo so the kids had their shows on a seperate TiVo. Then when I upgraded to a large drive, well that was very liberating to keep 10 shows of a new series and see if it would do a second year before watching, keeping a nice movie list and in general just not worrying about disk space.


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## lew (Mar 12, 2002)

There is at least one poster in this thread who doesn't understand why everyone doesn't agree with him. Why different customers have a need for different features. Some of us use the 30 second skip "hack". Others think they can FF through the commercials faster.

The program guide is particularly useful when your cable system is offering a free preview of one of the premium channels. Go through the HBO listings and pick shows/movies you want to record.

I like the job HDNet does showing movies. I'll sometimes browse through the guide and pick movies to record.

I agree with samo, I don't see how some posters view even a fraction of what they record. A significant number of the boxed DVD sets of TV shows never get watched. Some of us like to record shows so we have something interesting to watch when our shows air reruns.

I currently have a FiOS DVR and tivos. I use the FSI. That way I know when I have to do "houskeeping" and delete shows that are available to me in other ways.


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## JeffKusnitz (Apr 9, 2008)

glowrider said:


> I figured out the rewind + >| button, but during a ball game, for example, you may get caught with a score on the screen you don't want to see. This should be able to be done from the Now Playing screen *before* you load up the program, imo.


So someone else was watching the game and paused it while score was being displayed and then you came along and wanted to watch it from the start? Or the converse (you were watching it and didn't want someone else to see the score when they started watching?)?


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## ZeoTiVo (Jan 2, 2004)

samo said:


> but by spending some time upfront you limit what you have on your DVR to the shows that you will most likely watch. Not all of them, but at least 30-40%.
> Having hundreds of shows on DVR to me is a same as having thousands of books in your library that you will never read but can impress your friends how intellectual you are or the same as kids that used to hoard thousands of songs on Napster so they can brag about it. There is no practical purpose to have huge hard drive filled with programming that you will never watch.
> And it may actually take more time to find something in your personal "archive" than it would to search the guide for something that is of interest to you.


what the f? I don't know about you, but I tend not to show off my now playing list to friends. I would only post in this forum so as to inform folks of my approach to DVR usage for whatever benefit it may be to them. I do have maybe 60 season passes on 2 main TiVo DVRs and hundreds of shows on them. I use this alphabetical thing in my now playing list to make it really easy to find a show. I spend maybe 20 seconds finding what I want to watch.

Like I said in the other post, I will have things that record and fall off the TiVo never watched but no big deal or waste of time on my part and I have 95% of what the family wants to watch on the DVR.

So no problem for me if someone only wants to have 10 season passes and no clutter on their DVR but to say that people with large drives and lots of passes are stupid show offs by default is kinda arrogant. In my case it is just a desire to have a range of choice on what to watch and when to watch it.

PS - I archive nothing and watch most things once and thus know I have no need to preserve the recording somehow. I own maybe 50 DVDs - mainly kids stuff that was watched over and over.


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## astrohip (Jan 7, 2003)

lew said:


> There is at least one poster in this thread who doesn't understand why everyone doesn't agree with him. Why different customers have a need for different features. Some of us use the 30 second skip "hack". Others think they can FF through the commercials faster.
> 
> The program guide is particularly useful when your cable system is offering a free preview of one of the premium channels. Go through the HBO listings and pick shows/movies you want to record.


Your first point is the basis for so many of these endless discussions (like I'm not adding to it?). Everyone has their own way of using a TiVo. I listen to how others use it, as it may give me some ideas. But in the long run, we do what we want. There is no right or wrong.

While I rarely use the guide, especially for my Season Passes (that's what Futon Critic is for), I do use it for movies. Once a week, I change the guide display (I use the original version) to Favorites Only, which I have set to the major premier movie channels. I have one concise screen with all the channels shown. I then jump to Saturday night, and look to see what movies are showing. If I want any of them, I tweak my "Movies" wishlist to record it and add to the Movies Folder. I have 14 movies in it now, and it can take months (years?) before I get around to some of them. But that is one use for the guide.

Someone that never watches movies may not use it. I do.


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## lew (Mar 12, 2002)

Posters who want a FSI, and are willing to use a PC to view it, should try tivoplaylist

http://tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=293241

It's probably time for tivo to update the interface. The current interface is 10 years old. It was written to be released quickly and to run on older (slower) hardware. Tivo is a premium product but Moxi and some cable DVRs are superior in at least some areas.

I wonder if it's time for tivo to release a new model without analog and dial-up support. Maybe even a model without OTA.

I'm starting to think Moxi has the right idea. Media extenders. Moxi said the extenders will be able to view live TV. Add a 6 tuner unit and customers won't have to pay digital outlet fees and cable card rental fees for some of their sets. I don't think the subscription model will work with extenders. Tivo may need to include the equivalent of LS in the pricing of the extender. Maybe an extra $50-$100.

bkdtv
Thanks for continuing to give us insight in DVR products. Your information continues to be interesting and helpful.



bkdtv said:


> The original TiVo software was designed in 1997-1998 without an electronic program guide (EPG). The TiVo software used in public trials during 2H 1998 had guide data, but no EPG; you had to use search to find upcoming programs.
> 
> TiVo and ReplayTV first demonstrated their DVRs to the public at CES in January, 1999. At CES, TiVo lead ReplayTV in core DVR functionality, but ReplayTV had an EPG and TiVo did not. TiVo spent the next three months on a crash effort to implement an EPG that [they hoped] would not infringe on Gemstar patents.
> 
> ...


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## ZeoTiVo (Jan 2, 2004)

lew said:


> I wonder if it's time for tivo to release a new model without analog and dial-up support. Maybe even a model without OTA.


they could include digital OTA I would think, but yes an all digital TiVo DVR would get rid of many legacy issues and make for a uniformity that allowed for far easier feature integration


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## slowbiscuit (Sep 19, 2006)

lew said:


> I'm starting to think Moxi has the right idea. Media extenders. Moxi said the extenders will be able to view live TV. Add a 6 tuner unit and customers won't have to pay digital outlet fees and cable card rental fees for some of their sets. I don't think the subscription model will work with extenders. Tivo may need to include the equivalent of LS in the pricing of the extender. Maybe an extra $50-$100.


Bingo. Having decent extenders (with no extra cable fees, which seem to go up every year) makes the 7MC HTPC route look a lot better too, well at least it would if there were more options than buying Xboxes. If only Microsoft would release the update to allow PCs as extenders...
But for Tivo, since they're so tied to the sub model, I don't see how they could make any money off of it as you said.

Agree 100% wrt comments for bkdtv, he is the man both here and at AVS. The insight about the guide history explains a lot, even if I don't agree with their ultimate decision not to rewrite it enough to include indicators. 
Thanks Ken.


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## samo (Oct 7, 1999)

ZeoTiVo said:


> So no problem for me if someone only wants to have 10 season passes and no clutter on their DVR but to say that people with large drives and lots of passes are stupid show offs by default is kinda arrogant.


Sorry if my post sounded that way. "Show off" was not the intent of book library example. Having a lot of unused material was. Everybody has a limited time to watch TV. Recording everything that may or may not be of interest to you just shifts a decision "to watch or not to watch" in time but still requires you to check a description or preview few minutes of the show and make a choice. You can make a decision ahead of time or after show is recorded - still takes about the same time to decide.
Not to say that season passes and wishlists are useless. If it is a show you know about and like, then of course automated recording is a way to go. But if you have hundreds of season passes, then it is obvious that you are shooting in a dark in all directions on a hope that you will will find something of interest. And more of the shows you have recorded, more time it would take to make a decision.


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## ZeoTiVo (Jan 2, 2004)

samo said:


> Sorry if my post sounded that way. "Show off" was not the intent of book library example. Having a lot of unused material was. Everybody has a limited time to watch TV


 fair enough and well replied. I do indeed have stuff on my TiVo I will never actually watch.



> Recording everything that may or may not be of interest to you just shifts a decision "to watch or not to watch" in time but still requires you to check a description or preview few minutes of the show and make a choice. You can make a decision ahead of time or after show is recorded - still takes about the same time to decide.


yes, but I decide on my schedule versus the Broadcast schedule. I have a couple of new show web sites, one that come up in a tab when I start my browser. I look out the next two weeks at times and make season passes for whatever sounds interesting. I have the room so no biggie to me to set them KUSN and keep all the shows.
Sons of Anarchy is an example of one that I had 12 episodes of before my wife and I decided to watch it. We started in and liked it enough to keep it. We do not watch it around the kids of course so we are still about 8 episodes behind, but no biggie.

Other shows I had 6 episodes of and then the canceled it "The unusuals" was one. I liked the show and watched the 6 or so anyway but others I have just simply deleted without the annoyance of being into a show and then it gets canceled before it had a chance.

So I really do not get this need to figure out a show before it is on as necessary for DVR watching. If that is your way then fine by me, but I find it a lot less hassle to record what sounds interesting and decide on my own time if I will watch or delete. TiVo lets me do this because I can upgrade the drive space myself and it was a large factor in keeping with TiVo like I have


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## samo (Oct 7, 1999)

Hey Zeo,
Thanks for the link you have in your post. It is a very informative site that helps to plan ahead of the time what to record. It actually is well suited for people like me who like to chose what to record. Believe it or not I even use paper monthly DirecTV movie guide to schedule recordings of the movies.


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## ZeoTiVo (Jan 2, 2004)

samo said:


> paper monthly DirecTV movie guide


they print guide data  How is the DVR supposed to use that 

But yes, I think our only difference is that I will record something that sounds even remotely interesting, on the off chance it turns out to be one of those gems for me.


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## wiznh (Nov 26, 2009)

Thanks folks, I'm learning the Ways of the TiVo byte by byte. 

New surprise - I recorded 6 programs on my bedroom TiVo and wanted to view them in the library. No can do as they are COPY PROTECTED. 

Say what? I'm only moving them from one of my TiVos to another - within the same house. What's the big deal? Why can't I, for example, view those recordings on my PC? Is there any way to transfer them from TiVo to TiVo, something I've overlooked being a newbie? Isn't this the same as having a DVD of the movie? I"m wanting to TRANSFER the file, not duplicate it.

Sheesh.....


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## solutionsetc (Apr 2, 2009)

wiznh said:


> Sheesh.....


It is a well known flaw in TiVo that shows with the don't copy byte set can not be used with MRV. When/If TiVo gets around to streaming for MRV this will be possible.


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## astrohip (Jan 7, 2003)

wiznh said:


> New surprise - I recorded 6 programs on my bedroom TiVo and wanted to view them in the library. No can do as they are COPY PROTECTED.
> 
> Sheesh.....


The original Header to this thread is "Just switched from cable DVR to tivo - missing some of these features..."

You do realize that with a cable DVR, watching content in another room wouldn't even be in the discussion? At least with a TiVo, one can watch most content on any TiVo in the house. I just checked my Now Playing List, and every recording can be transferred except for the premium channel movies I've recorded. All the ABC, CBS, NBC, FOX, Disc, Hist, etc--ready to transfer.

I realize that ATT (and maybe others) now offer any room viewing (well, as long as you're willing to limit your Uverse viewing/recording to two HD shows at a time--I can record/watch 4/6 with my TiVos). And someday TiVo may offer streaming. But my Comcast box (and TW before them) had no such remote viewing option.

No DVR is perfect. Some offer features that others don't. It's up to you to decide which are the most important. I believe after spending some time with a TiVo you will agree that it excels in the areas that count the most--reliability, ease of use, speed of operation and more.


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## astrohip (Jan 7, 2003)

solutionsetc said:


> It is a well known *flaw *in TiVo that shows with the don't copy byte set can not be used with MRV. When/If TiVo gets around to streaming for MRV this will be possible.


Flaw? It's required by law.


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## steve614 (May 1, 2006)

astrohip said:


> Flaw? It's required by law.


The "flaw" is with Tivo using the *copy* method for MRV. If Tivo would stream or *move* content, they could have MRV for copy protected content and still be in compliance with the law.


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## solutionsetc (Apr 2, 2009)

astrohip said:


> Flaw? It's required by law.


No it is not. Moxi and ATT support MRV with copy-protected content, so do other less mainstream devices.

The flaw is TiVo's obsolete methodology of MRV _requiring_ copying in the first place. This was not a problem years and years ago when everything was analog and DRM didn't exist, and the low bandwidth of shows meant it could be copied from unit to unit faster than real time.

Those days have been gone for years, and in inimitable TiVo fashion, they have chosen not to address the issue, but instead inconvenience their subscribers (who are leaving in droves).


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## bkdtv (Jan 9, 2003)

steve614 said:


> The "flaw" is with Tivo using the *copy* method for MRV. If Tivo would stream or *move* content, they could have MRV for copy protected content and still be in compliance with the law.





solutionsetc said:


> The flaw is TiVo's obsolete methodology of MRV _requiring_ copying in the first place. This was not a problem years and years ago when everything was analog and DRM didn't exist, and the low bandwidth of shows meant it could be copied from unit to unit faster than real time.


I would call it a limitation than a flaw. TiVo's 2007 hardware doesn't seem capable of sustaining the network throughput necessary to reliably stream HD.

AT&T re-compresses (degrades) all HD into 5-6Mbps, so streaming for them is no problem on older hardware. Moxi was the first DVR to ship the Broadcom BCM7400 SoC, which offers roughly twice the performance of the chip in the TivoHD, and closer to three times the network throughput.


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## solutionsetc (Apr 2, 2009)

bkdtv said:


> I would call it a limitation than a flaw. TiVo's 2007 hardware doesn't seem capable of sustaining the network throughput necessary to reliably stream HD.
> 
> AT&T re-compresses (degrades) all HD into 5-6Mbps, so streaming for them is no problem on older hardware. Moxi was the first DVR to ship the Broadcom BCM7400 SoC, which offers roughly twice the performance of the chip in the TivoHD, and closer to three times the network throughput.


I understand the TiVo hardware is dated. But than why not a move option instead of copy?


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