# So, just how bad IS Tivo Desktop (Plus)?



## DoctorNorm (Jun 9, 2010)

A quick question from someone who is only now delving into the TiVo world: Is Tivo Desktop 2.8 (Plus) the most poorly designed piece of software of the last decade or only in the bottom 5?

I'm not a gigantic fan of TiVo's general interface. Here we are in the year 2010 using TiVo units whose size can be measured in terabytes, allowing a really large number of video files and TiVo offers nothing to let the user organize these files.

I finally broke down and laid out $25 for the Plus key for TD2.8 for one purpose: to allow me to transfer files to my TiVo unit within folders.

Here you have a flaky piece of software that provides absolutely no information to the user. Trying to transfer a few dozen episodes? The best you can do is sit at the unit and hope to eventually see a blue light. Is a file being transcoded? Which file? Well who would want to know that? Has an error occurred? Let's look in the non-existent log file. Not sure if you set things up correctly? Why not look in the non-existent documentation.

How's that for a first post from a cranky old guy?


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## jcthorne (Jan 28, 2002)

pyTivo.....


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## JimboG (May 27, 2007)

Tivo Desktop really is quite bad. Save your $25 and try something else.

Fortunately, the Tivo user community has created excellent software including pyTivo, Streambaby, and kmttg. The developers for these three programs deserve a hearty round of applause.

The user interface on the new Tivo Premiere might be half-baked, but the transfer speed to and from a computer or another Tivo Premiere is quite impressive. Once Tivo fixes the over the air reception hiccups on the Premiere I might consider buying one.


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## solutionsetc (Apr 2, 2009)

DoctorNorm said:


> How's that for a first post from a cranky old guy?


Cranky possibly; but I would add that you are more objective with your assessments than many others here. Or perhaps you're just use to using well engineered and up to date software with modern interfaces.

It seems over the past few years TiVo has only been concerned with fixing show-stoppers, placing ads, and peddling content.


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## DoctorNorm (Jun 9, 2010)

Well, I finally got pyTivo to work, but for all it's worth, it has a number of shortcomings as a software package: 

1) Poor to non-existent documentation. For example I am desperately searching the web to find out how to create subfolders within TiVo folders created by pyTivo. 

2) The folder mechanism provided by pyTivo is dismal. Let's see now. I have 72 episodes of Futurama plus the four movies. I'd like to create subfolders for each of the seasons. As I see it, I have to create 72 metafiles manually. Doesn't sound like a lot of fun.

3) No one seems to be in charge of maintaining an up-to-date Windows Installer.


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## orangeboy (Apr 19, 2004)

DoctorNorm said:


> Well, I finally got pyTivo to work, but for all it's worth, it has a number of shortcomings as a software package:
> 
> 1) Poor to non-existent documentation. For example I am desperately searching the web to find out how to create subfolders within TiVo folders created by pyTivo.
> 
> ...


If you find it lacking, don't use it. I don't believe some of your wants relating to subfolders are even available natively on with the TiVo software. Where in the Now Playing/My Shows have you ever seen subfolders? 

As far as "who's in charge", no one is. The developers share their work for the sake of sharing. If wmcbrine, rdian06 or moyekj decided not to do anything else ever, that's up to them. They owe you nothing. I'm certainly grateful for their efforts, as I am sure others are as well...


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## alexnvrmnd (Oct 13, 2009)

orangeboy said:


> If you find it lacking, don't use it. I don't believe some of your wants relating to subfolders are even available natively on with the TiVo software. Where in the Now Playing/My Shows have you ever seen subfolders?
> 
> As far as "who's in charge", no one is. The developers share their work for the sake of sharing. If wmcbrine, rdian06 or moyekj decided not to do anything else ever, that's up to them. They owe you nothing. I'm certainly grateful for their efforts, as I am sure others are as well...


Here, here!! I know these apps may not be 100% perfect, but they do one helluva job as is, and I'm grateful for the people who've put so much effort into creating and maintaining them.

My app of choice is StreamBaby, and to be honest, it's almost the only thing I use on the TiVo. So, I'm jus glad it exists. it almost sounded like this guy was *****ing about every litttle thing an app may or may not do. But, maybe he's just frustrated. but, I know where you were going with your post, Orangeboy!


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## jlb (Dec 13, 2001)

I am one of those folks who bought a plus key a long time ago and I am sticking with it only because my needs are few, especially with a 1TB drive.....


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## Tobashadow (Nov 11, 2006)

Pytivo does folders just fine. 

Here is how mine is setup, on one drive I have a folder named TV and one named Movies. I point pytivo to each of those. Inside of the folders is the seperate folders for each and seperated folders per season or type of movie.

Example- To watch episode 3 season 4 of star trek voyager, I scroll down to my TV marker in now playing list and inside of it is a list of folders named the shows name then inside of those is a folder for each of the seasons with the episodes in it.

Group all your shows and seasons like that and point the pytivo to only the main folder and then all you have to do is add to that folder and they will be in there on the tivo.


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## wmcbrine (Aug 2, 2003)

DoctorNorm said:


> For example I am desperately searching the web to find out how to create subfolders within TiVo folders created by pyTivo.


If you mean on the TiVo end, you can't do that; the TiVo only supports one level of folders.



> _As I see it, I have to create 72 metafiles manually._


I think you want default.txt there. You can do one file per season, if grouping is your only concern. (You'd still want to create individual files to give each episode its own description, though.)

You don't necessarily have to do it manually, either.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

I've been using TiVo Desktop Plus for years and recently started using pyTiVo and KMTTG. I'm using all three now but I still use TiVo Desktop the most since it's always been very reliable for me.


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## lrhorer (Aug 31, 2003)

DoctorNorm said:


> Well, I finally got pyTivo to work, but for all it's worth, it has a number of shortcomings as a software package:
> 
> 1) Poor to non-existent documentation.


Yeah, but it really doesn't need much. One of its biggest weaknesses (and strengths) is that there are multiple pyTiVo developers, all crafting their own features. Unfortunately, that means it can be difficult to keep abreast of all the features. OTOH, the principal authors are active both here and in the pyTiVo forum.



DoctorNorm said:


> For example I am desperately searching the web to find out how to create subfolders within TiVo folders created by pyTivo.


I'm not certain what you mean. Create a directory within the directory specified by a pyTiVo share, and it will show up underneath the share in the NPL. Create a second share, and it will show up in the NPL. I have one main share containing all the actual videos (some in sub-directories), and secondary shares holding only symlinks to the videos in the main share. To create a new folder, just `mkdir <share folder>/`, or if you are using Windows, click on <Create New Folder>.



DoctorNorm said:


> 2) The folder mechanism provided by pyTivo is dismal. Let's see now. I have 72 episodes of Futurama plus the four movies. I'd like to create subfolders for each of the seasons. As I see it, I have to create 72 metafiles manually. Doesn't sound like a lot of fun.


Well, first of all, what do you mean "manually". There are automated and semi-automated tools out there for that. I use one of the semi-automatic ones called MetaGenerator by MasterCephus.



DoctorNorm said:


> 3) No one seems to be in charge of maintaining an up-to-date Windows Installer.


I wouldn't really know or care about that.


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## DoctorNorm (Jun 9, 2010)

I'm sorry if my initial remarks bugged some people. A lot of it turned out to be a matter of plain, ordinary ignorance.

My problem was that I was extremely naive. I refused to believe that the TiVo designers could be so drastically incompetent. I couldn't imagine that a software team could, in the 21st century, develop a file management system (which is a key element of the TiVo OS) that did not support a hierarchical file system when it was shown 40 years earlier that it was a rather trivial matter.

So the answer to my original question is, as was pointed out, that what I want is impossible (until the current TiVo team retires and is replaced by people who have a clue.)

So, my bad!

My comments about lack of documentation still stand, although given that the dedicated people developing third-party TiVo software are doing it for no recompense, it's certainly understandable.

From now on all my bile will be aimed at the TiVo folks themselves.

But one quick question: If I am limited to organizing my pyTiVo shares but can not see the heirarchy on the TiVo unit itself, is there any way to simply play a file within a share without first pulling it onto the TiVo via transfer? I don't see that option on the TiVo itself.

Sorry for some of my earlier comments. Mea culpa.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

TiVo doesn't stream. The title is actually transferred to the TiVo and viewed from the hard drive. 
Although with the Premieres faster transfer rates you can start watching right after intiating the transfer. ANd it will continue to trnasfer in much faster than realtime.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

ferrumpneuma said:


> Streambaby is a streaming app to play files from a PC on a TiVo without transferring.


I thought they were talking about pyTiVo? Does Streambaby work with that also.


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## jbernardis (Oct 22, 2003)

Streambaby is a separate app, although it can, and in my case does, point to the same directory I am using as my pytivo share. That way, I have the option of either streaming the program using streambaby or transferring it using pytivo.


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