# Is anyone happy with the HD menus?



## rbienstock (May 8, 2007)

I am pretty happy with my Premiere XL. It performs flawlessly using the SD menus. I have never had a lockup or any other problem with the unit other than the fact that the HD menus are excruciatingly slow. I have about 40 or so recorded shows, and when I hit Ch Down to scroll the list, I get a green circle and it takes 2-3 minutes before the list actually scrolls. This is not a lockup, merely a delay. I get a similar delay when hitting the right arrow on a show listing before the screen with details displays. I can't see that this is a network issue, as my unit is plugged into a high-end Cisco gigabit switch with Cat-6 cable and I routinely get over 15 GB down on my internet service. I've gone back to the SD menus solely because the HD menus are so slow. But I really miss being able to have TV playing in a window when browsing. I have no use for the discovery bar, however. Are there any tricks to speeding up performance that anyone is aware of?


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## BlackBetty (Nov 6, 2004)

I love the new HD menu's. I think they look amazing. Can't wait until TiVo gets all of the menu's in HD.


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## denise1768 (Apr 16, 2010)

it's very, very, very, very slow.


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## MikeTerryP (Mar 12, 2004)

I think that if they manage to speed up the new menus to the SD menu level and extend them across the board, they will be fantastic. I assume they will. Until then I'm sticking with the SD menus because they are very fast and I'm so used to them.


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## brasscat (Mar 31, 2002)

Very slow for me too. Back with SD menus and it's fine.


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## Quake97 (Apr 24, 2006)

Love the new menus, except for the speed, like others have said. I also can't wait for the rest of the menus to go HD. I hope they "fix" the current ones before migrating the other ones. I'd rather wait than have them all go HD and be slow.

Joe


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## denise1768 (Apr 16, 2010)

I might just have to go back to SD.. it's really bad.


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## brasscat (Mar 31, 2002)

Oh, but to answer your question, i like the HD menus when they're working. I see where TiVo is going on and like it. One thing I liked better about the SD menus was the subtly moving TiVo icon and the animated backgrounds. Made the system feel "alive" in a cool way. I hope they can figure out how to do those tricks with Flash someday.


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## sbq (Feb 6, 2010)

denise1768 said:


> it's very, very, very, very slow.


my sentiments exactly. If the HD menu's were much faster, along the lines of the SD menu speeds, I'd be relatively happy with them.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

rbienstock said:


> I am pretty happy with my Premiere XL. It performs flawlessly using the SD menus. I have never had a lockup or any other problem with the unit other than the fact that the HD menus are excruciatingly slow. I have about 40 or so recorded shows, and when I hit Ch Down to scroll the list, I get a green circle and it takes 2-3 minutes before the list actually scrolls. This is not a lockup, merely a delay. I get a similar delay when hitting the right arrow on a show listing before the screen with details displays. I can't see that this is a network issue, as my unit is plugged into a high-end Cisco gigabit switch with Cat-6 cable and I routinely get over 15 GB down on my internet service. I've gone back to the SD menus solely because the HD menus are so slow. But I really miss being able to have TV playing in a window when browsing. I have no use for the discovery bar, however. Are there any tricks to speeding up performance that anyone is aware of?


Mine have never taken anywhere close to two to three minutes. The most my HD menus have taken is a few seconds to page down in the My Shows list.

I have been very pleased with the HD menus. It's like a preview of what is yet to come. It should only get better as they tweak the code and also add more HD menus. But the more I use the HD menus, the more I hate the SD menus.


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## brasscat (Mar 31, 2002)

aaronwt said:


> Mine have never taken anywhere close to two to three minutes.


Although it doesn't make sense, but I'm seeing a pattern of XL users having less problems. Is there something in the XL different than the standard model that could be speeding things up?


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## DaveWhittle (Jul 25, 2002)

I think the HD menus are a good taste of things to come, but not happy with the occasional lags in operation, nor the dump to SD going into certain menus.

I'm very cool with the Discovery bar, and like the fact that the window in the upper right can be paused and/or toggled on and off.

The lack of HD banner/info overlays sort of kill the HD experience. I'm anxiously waiting for the next update, which will hopefully improve performance and take the HD-UI deeper.


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## Azlen (Nov 25, 2002)

I'd like the HD menus if they were faster and they worked a little better.
I have a couple of nitpicks with the HD menus. The first is that when you are finished with a show and delete it the next screen that comes up is the first info page for the show (The screen which you usually select "play" from) With the SD menus, the next screen is the now playing list.
The second is that the information on the far right of the screen isn't always updated when you change from one show to another. So it will say that Modern Family was recorded on the History Channel or something similar if you were watching something from the History Channel prior to watching Modern Family. Is anyone else getting this BTW? I can post a screen shot later if it's unclear as to what I'm referring to.


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## Fist of Death (Jan 4, 2002)

The HD menus are very pretty and will someday be one of my favorite parts of my new Premiere XL...but not today. Once they can debug the problems I've experienced and speed things up by enabling the second processor core, I can imagine Series 3 and HD users will be green with envy - but 'till then, I'll just continue to use the SD menus. For now, I guess I have a really fast HD TiVo.


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## RichB (Apr 2, 2003)

I like the HD menus and the switching in and out of HD mode is pretty bad.

However, having a modern device pause to display 6 lines of text and then display like a teletype is pretty embarrassing. Let's just say, I would not put that on my resume 

- Rich


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## Macros_1 (Apr 23, 2010)

Well, since this is my first Tivo, I'm quite happy with the HD menus. I can't say I've had any desire to try the SD ones as of yet. 

I think the problem may be that everyone is comparing the device to older Tivos rather than cableco dvrs. Compared to the peice of junk Scientific Atlanta boxes we had from TWC, the Tivo with the HD menus is lightning fast.

It's all a matter of perspective. I'm quite happy with my Premiere (not so happy with Tivo support).


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## bobrt6676 (Dec 31, 2007)

Azlen said:


> I'd like the HD menus if they were faster and they worked a little better.
> I have a couple of nitpicks with the HD menus. The first is that when you are finished with a show and delete it the next screen that comes up is the first info page for the show (The screen which you usually select "play" from) With the SD menus, the next screen is the now playing list.
> 
> The second is that the information on the far right of the screen isn't always updated when you change from one show to another. So it will say that Modern Family was recorded on the History Channel or something similar if you were watching something from the History Channel prior to watching Modern Family. Is anyone else getting this BTW? I can post a screen shot later if it's unclear as to what I'm referring to.


 1. If you select "Play" on the show you want to watch from the NPL( instead of Select or >) Deleting at the end will act like what we are used to. 
2. Not having a problem with your second issue. Mine changes and matches accordingly.


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## shiftless (Oct 9, 2007)

I have noticed the HD menus are insanely slow if my internet connection isn't working. Paging down will get the 2-3 minute green circle. Still, they are very unresponsive and irritating but waiting for an update to fix the responsiveness. Normally only a few seconds to load, but really, that should be instantaneous.


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## TrueTurbo (Feb 19, 2008)

I love the new HD menus! They do slow down to a few seconds between actions sometimes, but I can handle a few seconds delay for the rich experience the HD menus offer. I've never had a lock-up and I've never had an action take longer than say 5 secs max. On average, I get a 1-2 sec response to any command in the HD menus.


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## dredm (Feb 16, 2002)

Yes I like the HD menus and they move rather fast for me. I am so glad I'm not one of those people having lots of problems and slowness.

On the flip side, my wife does not like them because the font and size is smaller. I told her then we just need to get a bigger screen


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## 241705 (Mar 9, 2010)

For the most part, I think the HD menus are OK. As others have mentioned, the transition from the HD to SD menus is sometimes rough.

The performance has been usually pretty good, but a couple of times I have hit the tivo button and the screen goes black for a few seconds, then slowly paints in. The delays have not yet been enough to make me switch to the SD menus, but I have disabled the video window for now; I'm not really sure that I like it.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

brasscat said:


> Although it doesn't make sense, but I'm seeing a pattern of XL users having less problems. Is there something in the XL different than the standard model that could be speeding things up?


I see no difference between my XL units and my non XL units. They both seem to perform identically.


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## DeWitt (Jun 30, 2004)

Agreed. I have one Premiere XL and one premiere. The only differences I have seen is the different start up animation.


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## ltxi (Feb 14, 2010)

.....not me. The old, classic, SD UI works just fine. I liked the disk usage meter. Other than than that, the HD UI is just a distracting and buggy pita as far as I'm concerned. But then, I'm also still addicted to classic XP.


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## _Ryan_ (Apr 4, 2010)

I definitely prefer the HD menus. They're not quick, but not that bad at all. I turned off the video preview window because I found it annoying, and I think that may have sped up the menus a little bit - it also makes switching between live tv and the menu faster in my experience.


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## ltxi (Feb 14, 2010)

good point...I might try that


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## dswallow (Dec 3, 2000)

I'm sure that eventually the HD menus will be better than the SD menus.

But for now, other than the erratic behavior of them, either in terms of them being slow at times, or how it has to switch between HD and SD menus often between screens, causing annoying delays and visual hiccups...

I find it annoying how poorly they've used the available real estate.

First, we have a technology here where almost all HD displays are edge-to-edge showing 100&#37; of the imagery that is broadcast. No overscan. None. Ever. And we have TiVo menus still with ridiculously large "safe" borders in use on HD menus. That's just a waste of real estate.

We have a minor increase in viual material, in that we see the secondary menu for each selection as you move the cursor up and down through the menu. But what we don't really get is more information on-screen in lists themselves. Instead, we generally see more whitespace... room for lengthier titles, for instance, but if the titles aren't lengthier, it's just unused space. Little, if any, extra info displayed over what you get in the SD menus.

So the HD is welcome. And eventually I expect they'll get it stabilized. But I'm quite unimpressed by the layout.

Though I remain somewhat hopeful that one day we'll see an app development kit for the platform that may provide a chance for a third party to provide certain of these improvements. But I certainly doubt we'll see any sort of SDK this year.


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## Monty2_2001 (Aug 6, 2005)

I wish they showed the original air date, at least the year, when you scroll through the list in the My Shows list. That would be a great place for that.


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## bkdtv (Jan 9, 2003)

Monty2_2001 said:


> I wish they showed the original air date, at least the year, when you scroll through the list in the My Shows list. That would be a great place for that.


Within folders, one would certainly hope for the ability to sort by original airdate, with the episode season and number displayed in place of the recorded date.

I would also like to see TiVo use the right pane on a highlighted folder to show the date of the next scheduled episode, if one exists. Currently, only the number of episodes is shown, leaving a lot of white space.


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## ArnoldDarshner (Mar 12, 2008)

dswallow said:


> I find it annoying how poorly they've used the available real estate.
> 
> First, we have a technology here where almost all HD displays are edge-to-edge showing 100% of the imagery that is broadcast. No overscan. None. Ever. And we have TiVo menus still with ridiculously large "safe" borders in use on HD menus. That's just a waste of real estate.
> 
> ...


You should test your edge-to-edge hypothesis on multiple displays. I think you'd be surprised at just how cautious manufacturers are being with overscan.

In regards to "unused space", some thoughts...

Information display should be independent of screen resolution. To put it another way, TV displays are much sharper than they were 10 years ago, however, screen sizes are relatively the same.

It's a common myth that HD allows "more space to work with" when it comes to interface design. If you think about it, a 250x250 image thumbnail actually appears much smaller on a 32" 1080p display than it would on a 32" 480i display. You really only gain fidelity with the added resolution. The threshold for information density remains the same, regardless of how many pixels you have to work with.

My point: less is more. I think TiVo has found a nice balance between respecting the dead simple navigation of the classic UI vs blanketing the screen with information. Pretty genius, if you ask me. My hope is they lean towards the dead simple side of things as they iterate and rollout service updates.


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## TrueTurbo (Feb 19, 2008)

dswallow said:


> First, we have a technology here where almost all HD displays are edge-to-edge showing 100% of the imagery that is broadcast. No overscan. None. Ever.


Speak for yourself! My JVC HD TV has plenty of overscan and there's nothing I can do about it!


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

TrueTurbo said:


> Speak for yourself! My JVC HD TV has plenty of overscan and there's nothing I can do about it!


That is true of many HD sets. Many have overscan and many do not.


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## dswallow (Dec 3, 2000)

ArnoldDarshner said:


> You should test your edge-to-edge hypothesis on multiple displays. I think you'd be surprised at just how cautious manufacturers are being with overscan.
> 
> In regards to "unused space", some thoughts...
> 
> ...


I designed and implemented flexible HD layouts for an HMI app and am pretty sure I m speaking accurately as to how it's possible to create HD layouts that are cognizant of the users desire to have, or not have, excessive borders of "safe areas". It's even possible, and relatively easy, to allow the user to select what sort of information to include in columnar data, how tightly to display the columnar data, and even to choose differing font sizes for columnar (or any) data.

Less is more: less onscreen translates to more keypresses to see the same information that could have been presented to the user in the first place.

My hope is they don't dumb everything down over and over again and actually decide to offer at least a few user-selectable options to improve the level of information presented to the user on menus.

But, fully expecting TiVo to screw that up, I still hope they provide app interfaces that could be used to replace or at least provide alternate means to access the information presented through the regular menu system.

But, honestly, I'm not holding my breath there either. TiVo could have easily done that with the HMI implementation, but they chose to just let it die off rather than offering ways to hook into regular functionality.

So, I'm basically left with expressing my disdain for the poor menu layout.


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## cranbers (Apr 2, 2010)

While I do like the concept, style and information provided in the hd interface. It's currently buggy state makes it really hard to swallow.

I know it will get better with time. But this is a situation where negative reviews are bombarding this device and its interface.

It was not worth it tivo. You should of held of and saved your customer support and public relations from such a nightmare.

I had another one of those lock ups with the non responsive select button. Then when the screen timed out and went back to live tv, I hit left arrow again, and the menu locked with the green circle in the center of the screen.

I had to pull the plug at this point. I thought I was safe after C update but I guess not.

Lesson learned, if you're using the hd interface, stay away from the tivo button and use the left arrow/live tv methods to enter and exist the menu's!!

It's too bad they did this to themselves, and were all paying for it. That saying goes, You only get one chance to make a good first impression.


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## DeWitt (Jun 30, 2004)

aaronwt said:


> That is true of many HD sets. Many have overscan and many do not.


My set is THX rated and has a seperate THX mode. THX allows no overscan. Showing every pixel is required for the rating. All of the other modes have some built in.

If you view some cable channels, particularly the SD ones, in THX mode you can get some really annoying noise around the screen edges.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

So what is causing these issues people are having? For me, I'm not having any problems. My Premieres are as reliable as any TiVo I've owned before.


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## Mike-Mike (Mar 2, 2010)

_Ryan_ said:


> I definitely prefer the HD menus. They're not quick, but not that bad at all. I turned off the video preview window because I found it annoying, and I think that may have sped up the menus a little bit - it also makes switching between live tv and the menu faster in my experience.


+1


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## baimo (Mar 2, 2006)

Macros_1 said:


> Well, since this is my first Tivo, I'm quite happy with the HD menus. I can't say I've had any desire to try the SD ones as of yet.
> 
> I think the problem may be that everyone is comparing the device to older Tivos rather than cableco dvrs. Compared to the peice of junk Scientific Atlanta boxes we had from TWC, the Tivo with the HD menus is lightning fast.
> 
> It's all a matter of perspective. I'm quite happy with my Premiere (not so happy with Tivo support).


+1 brother. my sa8300hd was the pits. But it would be nice if the hd menus were as fast as the SD menus. I love having the live tv window in the hd menus and am not wiling to give that up for the difference in speed


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## RichB (Apr 2, 2003)

I just got back from my Friends house and watched him use his Disk network DVR. The thing brings up lists instantaneously.

Apparently, Dish chose not to infringe on TiVo's performance patent 

- Rich


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## ADGrant (Jul 2, 2002)

shiftless said:


> I have noticed the HD menus are insanely slow if my internet connection isn't working. Paging down will get the 2-3 minute green circle. Still, they are very unresponsive and irritating but waiting for an update to fix the responsiveness. Normally only a few seconds to load, but really, that should be instantaneous.


That is a sign of very sloppy design/coding. They are making network calls from the UI thread.


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## r11roadster (Oct 24, 2006)

aside from a few minor issues I am happy with the look/performance of the new menus 

1. won't delete the last played video in a folder and it takes too long.
2. sometimes jumps back to TiVo central instead of now playing.

that's pretty much all the negatives I can think of.


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## mvnuenen (Jun 1, 2007)

TrueTurbo said:


> I love the new HD menus! They do slow down to a few seconds between actions sometimes, but I can handle a few seconds delay for the rich experience the HD menus offer. I've never had a lock-up and I've never had an action take longer than say 5 secs max. On average, I get a 1-2 sec response to any command in the HD menus.


What ^he^ said. Never had a lock-up and I have yet to experience an action taking longer than 3 seconds. I have an XL, about 25% filled. Can't stand the SD menu anymore...

I concur with the previous poster; the "did-not-delete" issue is annoying


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

ADGrant said:


> That is a sign of very sloppy design/coding. They are making network calls from the UI thread.


With 99.99 percent uptime for internet service it shouldn't be an issue. This was the uptime when I had comcast and also now with FiOS. It's extremely rare for me to lose internet service. About as rare as it was to lose my telephone landline when I had one.


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## bmgoodman (Dec 20, 2000)

aaronwt said:


> With 99.99 percent uptime for internet service it shouldn't be an issue. This was the uptime when I had comcast and also now with FiOS. It's extremely rare for me to lose internet service. About as rare as it was to lose my telephone landline when I had one.


Well, you and I agree that "it shouldn't be an issue", but I think it shouldn't be because Tivo shouldn't be doing it this way!

Look, I'm no Chicken Little, but I'm definitely in a down-on-Tivo mood with this Premiere release. I'd love to know their return rate. How many new customers have given up on all these glitches, pauses, and delays on a consumer electronics product?

As for me, I made a blunder keeping a Panasonic DVD recorder that from the start gave me a FEW problems, like freezes that required pulling the power cord. Somehow this stupid thing is more like a computer than a typical DVD player. I've even had to upgrade the firmware. And it's still a flaky, ridiculous machine that Panasonic isn't really supporting any longer. Should have followed my instincts and returned it immediately.

Back to the topic at hand. I'll say when Rich S. Adams, a helpful non-complainer in my book, becomes disappointed in Tivo as he has stated in another thread recently, Tivo had better watch out!


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## RichB (Apr 2, 2003)

aaronwt said:


> With 99.99 percent uptime for Internet service it shouldn't be an issue. This was the uptime when I had comcast and also now with FiOS. It's extremely rare for me to lose Internet service. About as rare as it was to lose my telephone landline when I had one.


There are sub-menus displaying 10 items taking seconds to draw.
Thje overhead that involved with getting data from the Internet is comparitively huge. Performance is all about reducing the number of calls, not the amount of data transfered.

I unplugged the network and the menus are still slow. I suspect that Flash implementation is at fault. Submenus still take 1/2 second to start to display an probably another 1/2 to paint the 5 items. With a modern device, this is really bad performance.

When a product is designed there has to be some performance goals and early prototyping to make sure the architecture is sound. Failure to do so, rarely results in a high-performance product. Want proof, press the TiVo button 

- Rich


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## puckettcg (Feb 10, 2006)

I generally like the HD menus better; I switched back from SD after the new update was released and since then I've only had one lock-up on one of my two Premieres. I did pull the plug pretty quick so it could have just been a slow to respond issue. When I first switched back, I thought the menus were a little quicker but still slow. They've actually gotten quicker since then. I'm close 50&#37; on my XL; on my standard Premiere I'm "officially" at around 21% full, but have over a 100 suggestions recorded - so I don't think how full your drive is has anything to do with how quick the menus are. 

Speaking of suggestions - one thing I don't like about the HD menu is that unless I have suggestions set to record I can't even find the suggestions folder.


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## Quaro (Sep 14, 2004)

ADGrant said:


> That is a sign of very sloppy design/coding. They are making network calls from the UI thread.





aaronwt said:


> With 99.99 percent uptime for internet service it shouldn't be an issue. This was the uptime when I had comcast and also now with FiOS. It's extremely rare for me to lose internet service. About as rare as it was to lose my telephone landline when I had one.


Blocking on network calls is a bad idea no matter how stable the network is. The UI knows exactly how big each image is, it shouldn't matter when the image is loaded or how fast the network is. It's the difference between 4 seconds and 4 milliseconds for a menu load.

My network is mostly up, but often goes through periods of extreme slowness. Sometimes due to the provider, sometimes due to heavy traffic from other computers in the house. This shouldn't effect how quickly I can select the third episode down on the menu.

I've got a Premiere on the way, so I'll post some impressions eventually. I suspect I'll be turning the SD menus on though, as I can't stand sluggish UIs in any device.


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## vstone (May 11, 2002)

I am left wondering if they actually went looking for the slowest database they could find.

I really don't care about the HD menus. I want the content in HD and I don't need pretty fonts to keep me amused while trying to find it.


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## THE Frozo (Jul 27, 2005)

Well, I havent had a TiVo in action since I put away my Series 2 a couple of years back. Now I have a 65" Plasma and Ive been itching to dump that God-awful Cablevision DVR.

Unfortunately, based on whan Im seeing here, this is not the unit to enjoy the full HD experience with. Im really suprised and disappointed that TiVo has released these units before these blatant glitches were addressed.

That said, I wont be buying the new Premiere. I really had some tax return money burning a hole in my pocket too. Sorry TiVo, for the money I need to buy your new buggy box plus the lifetime fee I think I'll be sticking with the beast I currently have. Sucks 

UPDATE:

Just found this in the most recent Sticky FAQ:



> Originally Posted by TiVoPony
> 
> Yes, the second core is not currently enabled. The software can take advantage of it, but it's not ready to release yet. Still, due to the architecture of that chip you don't get double the performance by enabling the second core, there are too many shared resources on the chip between the two cores. You do see a boost however.
> 
> ...


So even when they open up the second processor its still going to be sluggish, they are basically admitting. Honestly, I blame them for using Flash. Hell, at least they didnt use Java lol.

So freaking disappointed.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

THE Frozo said:


> Well, I havent had a TiVo in action since I put away my Series 2 a couple of years back. Now I have a 65" Plasma and Ive been itching to dump that God-awful Cablevision DVR.
> 
> Unfortunately, based on whan Im seeing here, this is not the unit to enjoy the full HD experience with. Im really suprised and disappointed that TiVo has released these units before these blatant glitches were addressed.
> 
> ...


Where do you get that from that quote? It says"...Still, due to the architecture of that chip you don't get double the performance by enabling the second core.." how does that translate to sluggish. It just says it won't be double the performance. It could be 50%. I doubt a 50% increase would be sluggish. Especially when it's only slightly sluggish now. Or the increase could be 20% or 80%. Eitherway that statement only says it won't be double. Which I would not expect anyway.


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## THE Frozo (Jul 27, 2005)

aaronwt said:


> Where do you get that from that quote? It says"...Still, due to the architecture of that chip you don't get double the performance by enabling the second core.." how does that translate to sluggish. It just says it won't be double the performance. It could be 50%. I doubt a 50% increase would be sluggish. Especially when it's only slightly sluggish now. Or the increase could be 20% or 80%. Eitherway that statement only says it won't be double. Which I would not expect anyway.


The very language they use is a red flag, in my opinion. In their own words they are admitting it wont be up to par. For a company to admit this at this point, sounds like a proactive statement to fend off high expectations. From what I am hearing (and seen video of about the sluggishness ), even 50% improvement would be less than satisfactory.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

THE Frozo said:


> The very language they use is a red flag, in my opinion. In their own words they are admitting it wont be up to par. For a company to admit this at this point, sounds like a proactive statement to fend off high expectations. From what I am hearing (and seen video of about the sluggishness ), even 50% improvement would be less than satisfactory.


50% increase would be very satisfactory for me. All my boxes seem fine. I've had no issues where it takes minutes for anything. At most a few seconds, but the norm is quicker than that.

Like the "My Shows" IT initailly takes a split second to page down. After the inital page down, it's even faster paging thorugh it. ANy increase would make it seem instant.


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## THE Frozo (Jul 27, 2005)

aaronwt said:


> 50% increase would be very satisfactory for me. All my boxes seem fine. I've had no issues where it takes minutes for anything. At most a few seconds, but the norm is quicker than that.


Well, of course Ill be curious to see how they fare in the next update. I WANT this to be good, believe me. But as of now there is no way I can purchase it, even if on principle alone.


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## RichB (Apr 2, 2003)

aaronwt said:


> 50% increase would be very satisfactory for me. All my boxes seem fine. I've had no issues where it takes minutes for anything. At most a few seconds, but the norm is quicker than that.
> 
> Like the "My Shows" IT initailly takes a split second to page down. After the inital page down, it's even faster paging through it. ANy increase would make it seem instant.


To be competitive, they need a 5X performance increase, which probably means something that is very poorly designed needs to be fixed. Horrors.

- Rich


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## THE Frozo (Jul 27, 2005)

RichB said:


> To be competitive, they need a 5X performance increase, which probably means something that is very poorly designed needs to be fixed. Horrors.
> 
> - Rich


I totally agree. I still think it has a lot to do with the decision to go with Flash though... Apparently Steve Jobs has a similar beef (just posted today on Apple's site) lol

http://www.apple.com/hotnews/thoughts-on-flash/


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## Quaro (Sep 14, 2004)

Whether you can load a menu without stopping to load an image from the internet doesn't really have anything to do with flash. It doesn't really have anything to do with enabling both cores either, really. I doubt that will help this issue much. 

The upside is that the hardware should be plenty fast enough to not have lag. I think all of these issues can be resolved by changing the way they menus work underneath. At the very least, they should be able to get the speed to exactly match how fast it can be after you yank the network cable, which seems to be less than 1 second. That itself would be a big help.


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## THE Frozo (Jul 27, 2005)

So hopefully any progress (or lack thereof) in the next update will be posted here so I get automatically notified. Very anxious to read your findings... if they manage to fix it, Im placing the order!


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## ZeoTiVo (Jan 2, 2004)

Quaro said:


> Whether you can load a menu without stopping to load an image from the internet doesn't really have anything to do with flash. It doesn't really have anything to do with enabling both cores either, really. I doubt that will help this issue much.


it will not double the speed but having another core to do the internet pull work while the other does UI work will help.
Also I have found I can start doing things on the menu _before_ the discovery bar and all get loaded.


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## dswallow (Dec 3, 2000)

ZeoTiVo said:


> it will not double the speed but having another core to do the internet pull work while the other does UI work will help.
> Also I have found I can start doing things on the menu _before_ the discovery bar and all get loaded.


One doesn't need multiple cores to design responsive UI's. But having multiple cores definitely allows you to make poor programming design choices and still manage to produce a reasonably responsive UI.

Of course, one can also make poor software design choices such that having multiple cores doesn't help at all. In fact, it's even possible to have multiple cores hurt your performance with poor software designs. 

We know that there's plenty of horespower in the single core units, even at lower performance than a single core in the Premiere, to run the recording functionality from two tuners, the playback of a recorded program, and the recording and/or serving of content via the network and still have a generally responsive UI.


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## avg99 (Apr 13, 2002)

I think they need alot of work and speed increase, but could be a real rev for TiVo.


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## toml (May 3, 2010)

I like the look and added features of the new HD menus. But they are a bit too slow.

I really like all the information you can see on the screen. I've even used the suggestions at the top of the screen, which are interesting. I like the fact that the suggestions change based on what I'm looking at in the main screen. Navigating is easy and intuitive -- just what I would expect from TiVo.

So, other than the delays, I really like the new menus. I wish all the menus were HD instead of having them switch to SD for some of the sub menus.


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## Ruth (Jul 31, 2001)

I like the HD menus more than I expected I would (once I turned off the horribly annoying PIP window, anyway). I see what they are trying to do. And I like some of the information that is now provided that wasn't there before (like how TV shows are labelled "Season 2, episode 12" instead of just giving you the episode number and leaving it for you to decode). 

But it's horribly clunky jumping between HD and SD menus since more than half of them don't seem to have been redone in HD yet. I understand what's happening, but if I were a new TiVo user I think I'd be really confused about why half the menus look completely different than the other half, for no apparent reason.

Also they have moved some things around in ways that make no sense to me. Why on earth is the option for time/channel recordings not listed under "Find TV, Movies & Videos," for example? Are you not attempting to find things when you browse by channel?


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

Ruth said:


> I like the HD menus more than I expected I would (once I turned off the horribly annoying PIP window, anyway). I see what they are trying to do. And I like some of the information that is now provided that wasn't there before (like how TV shows are labelled "Season 2, episode 12" instead of just giving you the episode number and leaving it for you to decode).
> 
> But it's horribly clunky jumping between HD and SD menus since more than half of them don't seem to have been redone in HD yet. I understand what's happening, but if I were a new TiVo user I think I'd be really confused about why half the menus look completely different than the other half, for no apparent reason.
> 
> Also they have moved some things around in ways that make no sense to me. Why on earth is the option for time/channel recordings not listed under "Find TV, Movies & Videos," for example? Are you not attempting to find things when you browse by channel?


Why would time/channel recordings be listed under "Find TV, Movies & Videos," ? that wouldn't make sense to me. I would be looking all over the place for it if it was listed there. I think the HDUI makes more sense than the SDUI did. I can't stand using only the SDUI anymore. I can't wait until they redo all the menus.


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## Ruth (Jul 31, 2001)

aaronwt said:


> Why would time/channel recordings be listed under "Find TV, Movies & Videos," ? that wouldn't make sense to me. I would be looking all over the place for it if it was listed there.


Huh. Apparently your brain works the same way as the TiVo menu designers. I am interested in your thought process though because I don't understand it at all.

Here's my logic: I search by time or channel when I'm trying to FIND something that is on TV at a certain time or on a certain channel. I'm trying to "Find TV" so I would expect that option to be located in the "Find TV" menu. More specifically, it seems like it should appear under Find TV, Movies & Video/Browse TV & Movies -- because that is precisely what I am trying to do. I'm trying to find a TV show or movie by browsing through a channel. Channel search is another way to search for a program, just like searching by title or setting up a wishlist. It makes no sense at all to me to put it in a totally different menu tree from those things.

To me, "manage recordings" logically should apply only to recordings that already exist, not new ones that I am still attempting to set up. After all, before I've found them in the guide and scheduled them to record, they aren't recordings that can be managed yet.


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## Mike-Mike (Mar 2, 2010)

I am in the same boat as Ruth. hi ruth.


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## Ruth (Jul 31, 2001)

Mike-Mike said:


> I am in the same boat as Ruth. hi ruth.


Hi Mike!

Luckily, the remote shortcut to browse by channel still works.  Well, that and I know how to RTFM.  Still, though, that one was a very counterintuitive UI change to me.

I miss "keep until [date]" a lot too. I use that one a lot. I hear that they are working on it, though, and hopefully will add it back in soon.


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## randyny (Jan 2, 2007)

I couldn't wait to get the Premier. The specs of the processor had me all excited about the potential for a fast gui. What a letdown. What a spectacular letdown. This is not knee-jerk either. I've been using it since day one of release, and I've had every Tivo since series 1. I also experience the exact same bugs and performance issues as other folks on this thread so I know it's not bad hardware.

I tested out and liked the beta tivo search on the series three. But since it took so long to navigate I only used it sporadically. I can't stand the lag on the premier. I went back to standard menus only to find the netflix icon not on my now playing list so I went back to hd menus. Then I though I needed to restart to fix what I thought was exceptional lag but I could not find the restart tivo in the hd menus. So I switched back to sd to restart.

Take forever to draw the pictures, fine, I get it -you're going to the internet. But when it takes 3 seconds to page down in the my shows list.... And, it wont even cache the key presses until I traverse the list first.

I am hoping that future upgrades will improve the speed. Dramatically. Tivo will not lose me as a customer because I've been tivo-ized and can not go back to regular tv. Oh well. Here's to the future.


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## deandashl (Aug 8, 2008)

It's interesting that old S2 people complain that S3 menu's are slower.

Then...

Old S3 people are complaining that the S4 menu's are too slow.

So as the hardware gets MUCH faster and faster; yet TiVo's menu's get slower and slower.

This would have been easier if TiVo had updated the S3 UI. At least, the UI would look like it was native. Right now the S3 UI looks like something from the Windows 3.1 generation. Sad really.


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## RichB (Apr 2, 2003)

deandashl said:


> It's interesting that old S2 people complain that S3 menu's are slower.
> 
> Then...
> 
> ...


From my old days working in processor development, my boss used to say. No matter how fast we make the hardware, the software folks will figure out how to make it slow. That was over 20 years ago and nothing has changed 

Something is very wrong with Flash and/or the software design. The good news, is it is so bad, there should be ample opportunity for improvement.

- Rich


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## chrispitude (Apr 23, 2005)

randyny said:


> I couldn't wait to get the Premier. The specs of the processor had me all excited about the potential for a fast gui. What a letdown. What a spectacular letdown. This is not knee-jerk either. I've been using it since day one of release, and I've had every Tivo since series 1. I also experience the exact same bugs and performance issues as other folks on this thread so I know it's not bad hardware.
> 
> I tested out and liked the beta tivo search on the series three. But since it took so long to navigate I only used it sporadically. I can't stand the lag on the premier. I went back to standard menus only to find the netflix icon not on my now playing list so I went back to hd menus. Then I though I needed to restart to fix what I thought was exceptional lag but I could not find the restart tivo in the hd menus. So I switched back to sd to restart.
> 
> ...


:up: :up: :up:

What he said. We tried the HD menus for one night. We started exploring some of the new episode browsing capability and the suggestions along the top. We both agreed these were promising, but after only 30 minutes my wife ordered me to switch back to SD. She couldn't stand it anymore, and neither could I.

A DVR caters to those whose time is precious, so TV watching can be done on your schedule. This UI makes it painfully obvious that you're wasting multiple minutes just trying to navigate around in it.

Well, like a previous poster said, the only promising thing is that this is so bad that it's gonna have to get fixed... right?


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## Ruth (Jul 31, 2001)

Couple more UI things that are bugging me: If you are in a folder that lists several shows, you used to be able to press channel down and it would take you directly to the last show in the list. Now, it is populating several menu options at the end of the list, and channel down takes you to the last menu option. So you have to scroll back up again to get to the shows. It's no longer a shortcut -- you might as well scroll from the top.

Also, you don't seem to be able to jump from one episode to the next from the full episode descrition screen. You have to go back to the list. Why would they take that out? Was such a useful shortcut. 

And yes, it's sloooooooow. I will say though that if you re-order your SP list, that goes hugely faster than it did before. This gives me hope that it can all be speeded up. Of course that is in an old-style menu w/o flash.


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## AnotherBostonGuy (May 6, 2010)

chrispitude said:


> :up: :up: :up:
> 
> What he said. And what he said.
> 
> ...


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## RichB (Apr 2, 2003)

AnotherBostonGuy said:


> chrispitude said:
> 
> 
> > Here's a prediction: Flash will never run quickly enough on the units and will have to be dropped. Whoever at TiVo sold the CEO on using Flash was one great salesperson.
> ...


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## jaywtivo (Aug 29, 2004)

I'm thinking of heading out to buy a Tivo Premiere this weekend. I talked to a TiVo sales guy today, and mentioned the concerns with the slow menus. 

Can I ask, are most of you using boxes you purchased shortly after Premiere was released? The Sales guy implied that, Yes Tivo takes 'those kinds' of concerns seriously, and that maybe the first units were slower. Of course, he doesn't see a problem with the speed of the HD menus on the units he was trained on.


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## orangeboy (Apr 19, 2004)

jaywtivo said:


> I'm thinking of heading out to buy a Tivo Premiere this weekend. I talked to a TiVo sales guy today, and mentioned the concerns with the slow menus.
> 
> Can I ask, are most of you using boxes you purchased shortly after Premiere was released? The Sales guy implied that, Yes Tivo takes 'those kinds' of concerns seriously, and that maybe the first units were slower. Of course, he doesn't see a problem with the speed of the HD menus on the units he was trained on.


Yes, we're all using new hardware. The Premiere was released only about a month ago, so I'm pretty sure there hasn't been a hardware revision yet. Take a look at bkdtv's Prerelease FAQ to explore the Premiere's capabilities here: http://tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=444083. I'm happy with my Premiere. It complements the Series2 and Series3 that I have...


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## randyny (Jan 2, 2007)

I have time to write another message. (I was watching a Netflix movie and made the mistake of hitting "pause". Now tivo is rebooting.) 

I think the effect of the slowness gets cumulative over time. When I first got it it was easier to overlook because I do think the menus look great and I was bouncing through the recommendations and all the good stuff. Now as I use it to just watch recorded shows it gets frustrating with the waiting. I hope this can be resolved somehow. 

I am off with my wife and son to the petting zoo. Enjoy the day!


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## falcon26 (Mar 17, 2010)

I use the SD menu. To me its 10 times as fast and 10 times as reliable over the HD menu. And 99&#37; of the time I don use 99% of the features of the HD menu anyway...


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## gamo62 (Oct 12, 2002)

Are there any differences between the THD and the Premiere (without full implementation of HD menus)?


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

gamo62 said:


> Are there any differences between the THD and the Premiere (without full implementation of HD menus)?


The Premiere is faster


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## eddieb187 (Jan 17, 2009)

aaronwt said:


> The Premiere is faster


+1

My Premere XL in SD mode is much faster than my TiVo HD.
Especially after a reboot. THD guide is slow for nearly 24 hours.
Premiere recovers much faster.


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## cranbers (Apr 2, 2010)

When im used to messing around in the premiere menu, then go to the room where the series 3 hd is, there is no comparison on how fast the menu is (the series 3 takes miliseconds where the premiere takes seconds to navigate.)

It isn't until this point you realize just how slow the menu's are in premiere. The menu takes several seconds to refresh the page where its usable as we all know, and it does this for every single level, and even if you go back, waiting on the preview panels.

Let's hope thats fixed in the next release. Not caching content, how did it make it out the door without something that basic? No wonder the unit is so slow can you imagine the hit the servers take if all of us are surfing our menu's and nothing is being cached locally? The more premieres out int he world i bet the worse its going to get.


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## bkdtv (Jan 9, 2003)

cranbers said:


> When im used to messing around in the premiere menu, then go to the room where the series 3 hd is, there is no comparison on how fast the menu is (the series 3 takes miliseconds where the premiere takes seconds to navigate.)
> 
> It isn't until this point you realize just how slow the menu's are in premiere. The menu takes several seconds to refresh the page where its usable as we all know, and it does this for every single level, and even if you go back, waiting on the preview panels.


That's the reason many switch to the classic interface on the Premiere. It is even faster than the Series3.

Performance of the HDUI must improve significantly it TiVo expects that to be a selling point. The only thing worse than a SDUI is a *slow* HDUI.


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## jmpage2 (Jan 21, 2004)

Fist of Death said:


> The HD menus are very pretty and will someday be one of my favorite parts of my new Premiere XL...but not today. Once they can debug the problems I've experienced and speed things up by enabling the second processor core, I can imagine Series 3 and HD users will be green with envy - but 'till then, I'll just continue to use the SD menus. For now, I guess I have a really fast HD TiVo.


Green with envy? 

When they make the Premiere compelling enough many of us will simply upgrade to it. It's not there yet though.


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## NTIV10 (May 7, 2010)

chrispitude said:


> Whoever at Tivo sold the CEO on using Flash was one great salesperson.


Amen!

Anyone who doubts Steve Jobs' reasons for avoiding flash, just try out a TiVo Premiere in HD and then SD menu modes! I HATE flash in every medium... I'd be thrilled to see it become completely extinct. Apple essentially completely rejecting it will help push it in that direction, I hope.


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## b_scott (Nov 27, 2006)

i would love them if they were as fast as the SD menus. As of now, I'm stuck with SD.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

NTIV10 said:


> Amen!
> 
> Anyone who doubts Steve Jobs' reasons for avoiding flash, just try out a TiVo Premiere in HD and then SD menu modes! I HATE flash in every medium... I'd be thrilled to see it become completely extinct. Apple essentially completely rejecting it will help push it in that direction, I hope.


You just need more processing power. No issues with PCs and flash. Hopefully if they implement the second core and they optimize it for two cores, it should be much faster.


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## NTIV10 (May 7, 2010)

aaronwt said:


> You just need more processing power. No issues with PCs and flash. Hopefully if they implement the second core and they optimize it for two cores, it should be much faster.


The issue isn't processing power, it's the efficiency of flash itself. It's a resource hog. This makes it slower than the alternative frameworks, no matter what platform you're running.


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## sghrush (Mar 8, 2005)

When attempting to enter text for a You Tube search, the HDUI is so laggy and frustrating that I have to wait a few seconds before I can enter the next letter. Or I could keep entering commands on the remote and then a few seconds later the HDUI will do a catch up.


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## orangeboy (Apr 19, 2004)

NTIV10 said:


> The issue isn't processing power, it's the efficiency of flash itself. It's a resource hog. This makes it slower than the alternative frameworks, no matter what platform you're running.


Others beg to differ: http://tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?p=7877502#post7877502


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