# TiVo confirms the SD portions of HDUI will be converted



## curiousgeorge (Nov 28, 2002)

At last we FINALLY have official confirmation that TiVo will convert the SD parts of the HDUI so it's all HD format. TiVo twittered an answer today that they will do it.

Now we just need to know when....


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## orangeboy (Apr 19, 2004)

curiousgeorge said:


> At last we FINALLY have official confirmation that TiVo will convert the SD parts of the HDUI so it's all HD format. TiVo twittered an answer today that they will do it.
> 
> Now we just need to know when....


The last TiVo tweet I see is from June 21.


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## Am_I_Evil (Apr 7, 2009)

orangeboy said:


> The last TiVo tweet I see is from June 21.


https://twitter.com/#!/tivodesign


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## TheWGP (Oct 26, 2007)

Maybe I'm being cynical, but just to throw it out there... Margret is probably responding with the best of intentions, but we'll have to see what happens. Tivo folks gave similar "unofficial" indications that the Series 3 would work with multi-stream Cablecards, for example - and it turned out not to be possible / happen / etc. for whatever reason. I've gotten the impression folks at Tivo really did wish that had turned out differently - it's nothing malicious, just the way things shake out sometimes doesn't go according to plan.

Just saying... same way that just because I "plan to win the lottery" doesn't mean it'll happen. Completely aside from the fact that I'd never buy a ticket.


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## curiousgeorge (Nov 28, 2002)

TheWGP said:


> Maybe I'm being cynical, but just to throw it out there... Margret is probably responding with the best of intentions, but we'll have to see what happens. Tivo folks gave similar "unofficial" indications that the Series 3 would work with multi-stream Cablecards, for example - and it turned out not to be possible / happen / etc. for whatever reason. I've gotten the impression folks at Tivo really did wish that had turned out differently - it's nothing malicious, just the way things shake out sometimes doesn't go according to plan.
> 
> Just saying... same way that just because I "plan to win the lottery" doesn't mean it'll happen. Completely aside from the fact that I'd never buy a ticket.


I am pretty cynical about TiVo and the Premiere at this point (and I hate that I have become such), but I think your example and this one are quite different. The one you mentioned had to do with hardware and specs that were out of TiVos control. Finishing the SD->HDUI transition is plain programming - essentially skinning the UI. No outside forces really affect it, and it's not a hardware issue.

I was just happy there was FINALLY in indication that finishing it is in the works. Prior to this all we had was the survey questions from months ago asking if it was a good idea.


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## Am_I_Evil (Apr 7, 2009)

curiousgeorge said:


> Prior to this all we had was the survey questions from months ago asking if it was a good idea.


but really...they had to ask?


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## MikeTerryP (Mar 12, 2004)

If they move from SD to HD menus without addressing the speed issues, that would make it worse, not better.


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## tomhorsley (Jul 22, 2010)

MikeTerryP said:


> If they move from SD to HD menus without addressing the speed issues, that would make it worse, not better.


Yea, to me this headline reads: TiVo confirms they are going to fix cosmetic BS while ignoring bugs and performance :-(.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

The conversion from SD to HD menus cannot happen soon enough. That is the one thing I hate about my Premieres. I hate seeing the SD menus.


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## orangeboy (Apr 19, 2004)

Am_I_Evil said:


> https://twitter.com/#!/tivodesign


Thanks - I ended up finding TiVo Margret's tweet before seeing your post. I suppose if I were told to tune to channel 3 for a special announcement, I'd expect to see that announcement on channel 3, not channel 4.

On the other hand, since TiVo Margret is an employee of TiVo, her statements do represent TiVo, so it's just a matter of semantics.


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## MikeTerryP (Mar 12, 2004)

aaronwt said:


> The conversion from SD to HD menus cannot happen soon enough. That is the one thing I hate about my Premieres. I hate seeing the SD menus.


Margret? Margret, is that you? Are you hiding in there?


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## L David Matheny (Jan 29, 2011)

MikeTerryP said:


> If they move from SD to HD menus without addressing the speed issues, that would make it worse, not better.


I'm going to be an optimist and assume that they mean simply that all HDUI menus will use HD resolution, thus avoiding annoying resolution shifts when changing menus, and not that they're going to add unwanted, hardware-hogging, downloaded eye candy (ads) to all HDUI menus.


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## TerpBE (Jan 23, 2003)

The tweet indicates that they _*plan *_to finish updating SD to HD. That's a little different than saying they _*will*_.


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## smbaker (May 24, 2003)

L David Matheny said:


> I'm going to be an optimist and assume that they mean simply that all HDUI menus will use HD resolution, thus avoiding annoying resolution shifts when changing menus, and not that they're going to add unwanted, hardware-hogging, downloaded eye candy (ads) to all HDUI menus.


I expect the 'advertisement bar' will make an appearance on the new screens.

Really, finishing what they've started is so little work. Maybe they hired an intern, or maybe the administration listened to my pleas that the HDUI is a "shovel-ready project" and donated some stimulus money. Maybe they'll re-skin it all in green, and call it a green project.

I'm a cynic. I don't expect this to get finished anytime soon. Maybe around the time the Premiere's replacement arrives. Finishing the product isn't a priority, or they'd have done it last year.


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## aadam101 (Jul 15, 2002)

smbaker said:


> Finishing the product isn't a priority, or they'd have done it last year.


Tivo will finish it for the next Tivo box and then use it as a selling point. Then they will come up with some lame excuse as to why they can't finish it on the Premiere. Sadly, this will probably be my last Tivo ever.


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## wemetzger (Jun 17, 2004)

I say keep as is, and work on something more useful.


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## innocentfreak (Aug 25, 2001)

Am_I_Evil said:


> but really...they had to ask?


They asked people to rate the feature ideas and also put them in rank from highest to lowest.

While I would like them to finish the HDUI, I would much rather see new features.

Originally I said TiVo should, as they roll out updates, upgrade one screen at a time. At this point though I think if TiVo doesn't update everything at once this forum and other sites will be flooded with negative posts and feedback.

Of course as the TiVo Ninja pointed out,


TiVoJerry said:


> May I suggest utilizing the link to Request Feature Enhancement?
> It helps get the word to those who listen. A volume of reports might catch their attention!


http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?p=8578831#post8578831


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## atmuscarella (Oct 11, 2005)

wemetzger said:


> I say keep as is, and work on something more useful.


I would say just say get rid of it, but then all the people who apparently want to spend their time watching the UI instead of TV would have a fit. So I will say instead, replace it with something that works as well as the text based UI and add enough useless graphics to keep everyone happy.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

wemetzger said:


> I say keep as is, and work on something more useful.


Working on something more "useful" may be more practical, but in it's current form the half finished UI is an embarrassment to TiVo and the product. Like it or not people's first impression of a product comes from their interaction with the UI, and not the practical features. By finishing the UI they could attract more first time users via live demos and TV commercials.

Although part of "fixing" the UI needs to also be improving the speed. Having a bunch of flashy graphics in a UI that is a total dog is no better then just sticking with the old SD UI.

Dan


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## ltxi (Feb 14, 2010)

Just as long as they leave the option of using the SD UI alone, I don't really don't give a damn. Never liked the HDUI, slow and unfinished aside it's annoyingly distracting, and now that I don't have to go into it to get disk utilization data I care even less.


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## aadam101 (Jul 15, 2002)

innocentfreak said:


> They asked people to rate the feature ideas and also put them in rank from highest to lowest.
> 
> While I would like them to finish the HDUI, I would much rather see new features.


So they asked people to prioritize new features over half finished old features? Why don't they just slap me in the face while stealing my wallet?



innocentfreak said:


> Originally I said TiVo should, as they roll out updates, upgrade one screen at a time. At this point though I think if TiVo doesn't update everything at once this forum and other sites will be flooded with negative posts and feedback.


Isn't it too late for that?


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## innocentfreak (Aug 25, 2001)

aadam101 said:


> So they asked people to prioritize new features over half finished old features? Why don't they just slap me in the face while stealing my wallet?
> 
> Isn't it too late for that?


No they gave a list of features and asked you to mark the ones you were interested in. Then it asked you to rate the order of preference on the ones you marked. Look up the post on engadgethd or zatznotfunny. He had a picture of the questions. Also different surveys had different feature lists. It is very possible there are those who didn't mark finishing the hdui as a preference since they use the sdui.

No, imagine the posts if the next update came out with one new screen. People would be whining and *****ing how it took TiVo this long and they only released one new screen.

While people may still complain once they update the ui, I see people *****ing less if all the hdui is updated at once.


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## tivogurl (Dec 16, 2004)

I'd rather see them fix scheduling bugs (overlapping shows on the same channel should use only 1 tuner), recording bugs (if a show doesn't record properly due to signal problems it's still treated as recorded in the 28-day window rather than immediately rescheduled for later), and improve wishlists (multiple categories per wishlist please). I didn't get a TiVo to watch the UI.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

tivogurl said:


> I'd rather see them fix scheduling bugs (overlapping shows on the same channel should use only 1 tuner)


I think this is a design flaw in the way TiVo stores video data and is not capable of being fixed by sharing overlapping video between programs. Because of this they have to fall back on the scheduling rules which state that the higher priority program always gets tuner priority and the lower priority program gets clipped.

Dan


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## mattack (Apr 9, 2001)

"not capable"? It's just software. The tivo could record BOTH shows entirely (and not stop recording in between) and simply duplicate 'padding' on each program.

This is something I'd pay extra for (or strongly consider a new box for, even though as I say it shouldn't require new hardware), since it would ESSENTIALLY double the number of tuners for me. (Yes, I seem to record a lot of shows abutting on the same channel).


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## innocentfreak (Aug 25, 2001)

mattack said:


> "not capable"? It's just software. The tivo could record BOTH shows entirely (and not stop recording in between) and simply duplicate 'padding' on each program.
> 
> This is something I'd pay extra for (or strongly consider a new box for, even though as I say it shouldn't require new hardware), since it would ESSENTIALLY double the number of tuners for me. (Yes, I seem to record a lot of shows abutting on the same channel).


Maybe if more people suggest it as the ninja recently posted about ideas the more TiVo will look into it.


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## TheWGP (Oct 26, 2007)

TerpBE said:


> The tweet indicates that they _*plan *_to finish updating SD to HD. That's a little different than saying they _*will*_.


Best, most succinctly stated post of the thread...


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## tivogurl (Dec 16, 2004)

Dan203 said:


> I think this is a design flaw in the way TiVo stores video data and is not capable of being fixed by sharing overlapping video between programs.


While sharing video is ideal, it is not necessary. Clipping can work fine, it's the scheduling of two tuners that bugs me. A 1:05 show followed by a 1:00 show on the same channel, with the first show in higher priority, should only schedule 1 tuner: record 1:05, then record 0:55. Basically, conflicting shows on the same channel should have an option to be clipped rather than be recorded on two tuners. Ordinarily I wouldn't care too much about it, but with the scheduling shenanigans networks engage in these days (intentionally running shows a few minutes off their scheduled times) you often have to add spurious padding to season passes.


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## crxssi (Apr 5, 2010)

smbaker said:


> I'm a cynic. I don't expect this to get finished anytime soon. Maybe around the time the Premiere's replacement arrives. Finishing the product isn't a priority, or they'd have done it last year.


I am a cynic too. We can look forward to

1) Another year of waiting
2) 20 new bugs related to the final release of those converted menus
3) After another year, 10 bugs related to that which are never resolved
4) Somehow permanent damage to the SDUI, even though it was the HDUI they were trying to address

That said, I would much rather see them spend what (apparently little) development effort they have in:

1) Fixing EXISTING BUGS
2) Improving the performance of the existing HDUI or just throwing it completely away and starting over again
3) Adding more user control over the HDUI
4) Adding important missing features, like the ability to backup all your settings and configuration for restoration later WHEN your TiVo fails.

I will not hold my breath.


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## crxssi (Apr 5, 2010)

ltxi said:


> Just as long as they leave the option of using the SD UI alone, I don't really don't give a damn. Never liked the HDUI, slow and unfinished aside it's annoyingly distracting, and now that I don't have to go into it to get disk utilization data I care even less.


+200

I have been terrified with each "update" that they will further break, damage, or remove the SDUI.


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## rainwater (Sep 21, 2004)

mattack said:


> "not capable"? It's just software. The tivo could record BOTH shows entirely (and not stop recording in between) and simply duplicate 'padding' on each program.


I doubt the hardware is capable of video muxing in realtime. It would have to copy part of the mpeg-2 video and attach it to the end of another video. No way this could be done in realtime and would make dealing with the case of the user watching it live very difficult.


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## smbaker (May 24, 2003)

rainwater said:


> I doubt the hardware is capable of video muxing in realtime. It would have to copy part of the mpeg-2 video and attach it to the end of another video. No way this could be done in realtime and would make dealing with the case of the user watching it live very difficult.


No need to write the data twice. You just let the videos on disk share some of the same blocks. There's many filesystems that allow this sort of sharing already, with reference counts so that when one file is deleted the shared blocks persist until the second is deleted. You'd have to be a little smart about block boundaries, so that they didn't occur in the middle of an mpeg frame. Also might have to be a little clever about encryption if the video is stored in an encrypted format (I don't know whether Tivo keeps them encrypted on disk or not). Point is, it's doable in an efficient manner without duplication of effort.

Furthermore, if one wants a more naive solution, just postprocess the videos and copy the padding. Do this in the background so it doesn't affect realtime performance. I think this is what mattack was suggesting. There's spare CPU cycles. Heck, there's an entire second core that's not being used.



crxssi said:


> I am a cynic too. We can look forward to
> 
> 1) Another year of waiting
> 2) 20 new bugs related to the final release of those converted menus
> ...


I don't see anything difficult about converting the remaining screens unless they're completely incompetent. My cynicism revolves more around them actually doing what they say rather than whether or not they have the technical ability do it without totally mucking things up. The engineers and programmers at Tivo seem to be capable people, my gut feeling is that management is responsible for making these poor decisions about 1) shipping the product before it was finished, and 2) not finishing it after it shipped.


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## rainwater (Sep 21, 2004)

smbaker said:


> No need to write the data twice. You just let the videos on disk share some of the same blocks. There's many filesystems that allow this sort of sharing already, with reference counts so that when one file is deleted the shared blocks persist until the second is deleted.


Of course that would mean rewriting the custom filesystem TiVo uses. Probably rewriting the streaming/transferring protocols, and rewriting the playback of video. I'm not sure how much TiVo is going to invest in such a scenario that doesn't seem to affect many people.


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## L David Matheny (Jan 29, 2011)

smbaker said:


> No need to write the data twice. You just let the videos on disk share some of the same blocks. There's many filesystems that allow this sort of sharing already, with reference counts so that when one file is deleted the shared blocks persist until the second is deleted. You'd have to be a little smart about block boundaries, so that they didn't occur in the middle of an mpeg frame. Also might have to be a little clever about encryption if the video is stored in an encrypted format (I don't know whether Tivo keeps them encrypted on disk or not). Point is, it's doable in an efficient manner without duplication of effort.


Overlapping files can cause complications when one of the files is deleted, so I still think it would be better to duplicate the content in question. But surely block boundaries and encryption are a done deal by the time this duplication would be taking place. It should be simple in principle to just copy some number of whole blocks; but see below.



rainwater said:


> Of course that would mean rewriting the custom filesystem TiVo uses. Probably rewriting the streaming/transferring protocols, and rewriting the playback of video. I'm not sure how much TiVo is going to invest in such a scenario that doesn't seem to affect many people.


It is possible that TiVo's code (even good, efficient code) may have been written in such a way that duplicating the overlapping content could be difficult without serious rewriting; or it might be relatively simple. We aren't in a position to know. But surely the scenario we're discussing affects almost every TiVo user at times.


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## smbaker (May 24, 2003)

L David Matheny said:


> Overlapping files can cause complications when one of the files is deleted, so I still think it would be better to duplicate the content in question.


A simple reference counting strategy can solve deletion issues. Decrement the reference count, and only delete the block when it hits zero.



L David Matheny said:


> It is possible that TiVo's code (even good, efficient code) may have been written in such a way that duplicating the overlapping content could be difficult without serious rewriting; or it might be relatively simple. We aren't in a position to know.


Certainly, but there always comes a time in any project when it's time to go back to the drawing board, make a list of things you should have done differently, and do some rewriting.



rainwater said:


> Of course that would mean rewriting the custom filesystem TiVo uses. Probably rewriting the streaming/transferring protocols, and rewriting the playback of video. I'm not sure how much TiVo is going to invest in such a scenario that doesn't seem to affect many people.


Personally, I would frequently use such a feature. I'd also like something like implicit padding where all shows were automatically padded by a minute or two. I'm constantly running into shows that run about 30 seconds past the boundary.

I don't see why it would involve rewriting the streaming/transferring/playback code. It should all be doable with an indirection layer inside of the filesystem. If it's too "hard" to do it the efficient way with shared blocks, then just implement a background strategy to do copying. Less work that way.


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## aadam101 (Jul 15, 2002)

innocentfreak said:


> No they gave a list of features and asked you to mark the ones you were interested in. Then it asked you to rate the order of preference on the ones you marked. Look up the post on engadgethd or zatznotfunny. He had a picture of the questions. Also different surveys had different feature lists. It is very possible there are those who didn't mark finishing the hdui as a preference since they use the sdui.
> 
> No, imagine the posts if the next update came out with one new screen. People would be whining and *****ing how it took TiVo this long and they only released one new screen.
> 
> While people may still complain once they update the ui, I see people *****ing less if all the hdui is updated at once.


They were still asking customers to prioritize FINISHING old features or creating new features. I can't think of any other company who operates like this.


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## lpwcomp (May 6, 2002)

Anyone know why they removed the counter from the "Recently Deleted" folder in the HD menus?


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

lpwcomp said:


> Anyone know why they removed the counter from the "Recently Deleted" folder in the HD menus?


No idea. but what was the point in having a counter? A show could be 15 miniutes, 30 minutes, 60 minutes, 2 hours, 3 hours etc. What was the point in havign a counter in teh recently deleted folder? The content has already purposely been deleted. what difference does it make how many programs are in there? I could possiby see if they all took up the same amount of space, but five 30 minute programs can all take up different amounts of storage space.


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## innocentfreak (Aug 25, 2001)

aadam101 said:


> They were still asking customers to prioritize FINISHING old features or creating new features. I can't think of any other company who operates like this.


But the majority of people may not notice or care. I think it makes sense to ask a portion of your user base where they should focus their work. To me it especially makes sense if in the end you are going to have to incorporate those features into the new UI you just spent the time finishing.

Just because there are people complaining here doesn't mean people are complaining to TiVo.

If it bothers you that much, send in a suggestion daily with your top suggestion being to finish the UI.



TiVoJerry said:


> May I suggest utilizing the link to Request Feature Enhancement?
> It helps get the word to those who listen. A volume of reports might catch their attention!


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## Philmatic (Sep 17, 2003)

crxssi said:


> +200
> 
> I have been terrified with each "update" that they will further break, damage, or remove the SDUI.


They will never remove the SDUI since you cannot use the HDUI on a SDTV. While the SD user base is admittedly small, they cannot just say "Upgrade to an HDTV" especially when the TiVo has composite and component outputs that spit out SD signals.

They will at some point probably stop fixing issues and providing updates to the SD UI and you may lose functionality (Which can be seen now with the free space indicator), but you will never see the SDUI completely vanish.


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## innocentfreak (Aug 25, 2001)

Philmatic said:


> They will at some point probably stop fixing issues and providing updates to the SD UI and you may lose functionality (Which can be seen now with the free space indicator), but you will never see the SDUI completely vanish.


Bad example since they recently added the free space indicator to the System info screen for SD UI users  Think that was needed to support the addition of the FSI to the iPad App though.

I do agree to a point though. I think if they add something that can be easily added to the SDUI like the delete option on the transfer screen they will.


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## scandia101 (Oct 20, 2007)

Philmatic said:


> They will never remove the SDUI since you cannot use the HDUI on a SDTV.


So when I was using my Premiere with an SDTV and I switched to the HD menus (for various reasons), I was just imagining what I was seeing on my TV?



> While the SD user base is admittedly small, they cannot just say "Upgrade to an HDTV" especially when the TiVo has composite and component outputs that spit out SD signals.


That doesn't help your first statement at all.


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## Philmatic (Sep 17, 2003)

innocentfreak said:


> Bad example since they recently added the free space indicator to the System info screen for SD UI users  Think that was needed to support the addition of the FSI to the iPad App though.


I meant the free space indicator on the Now Playing List/My Shows screen.



scandia101 said:


> So when I was using my Premiere with an SDTV and I switched to the HD menus (for various reasons), I was just imagining what I was seeing on my TV?


I think you must have been.  To my knowledge, TiVo will not allow you to choose the HDUI unless you are using Component or HDMI and are at either 720p or 1080i resolutions. Are you connected at 480p perhaps? I know the HD Menu option is greyed on my Bedroom TP and that feeds into my TV via composite.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

Philmatic said:


> I meant the free space indicator on the Now Playing List/My Shows screen.
> 
> I think you must have been.  To my knowledge, TiVo will not allow you to choose the HDUI unless you are using Component or HDMI and are at either 720p or 1080i resolutions. Are you connected at 480p perhaps? I know the HD Menu option is greyed on my Bedroom TP and that feeds into my TV via composite.


In my bedroom I feed an HDTV over HDMI at 1080i/720P and on the composite output I have a Hava HD Platinum as well as a DVD burner connected to the composite output of the Premiere. I only use the HDUI and it shows up on my composite output. Even when the HDMI connection is cut(I have it going through an HDMI switch box so i put it on a blank input otherwise macrovision prevents me from recording to the DVD recorder), the HDUi still shows up over the composite output.


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## scandia101 (Oct 20, 2007)

Philmatic said:


> I think you must have been.  To my knowledge, TiVo will not allow you to choose the HDUI unless you are using Component or HDMI and are at either 720p or 1080i resolutions. Are you connected at 480p perhaps? I know the HD Menu option is greyed on my Bedroom TP and that feeds into my TV via composite.


I was using composite and I set the Tivo to 720p with a 4:3 smartscreen (didn't actually have one)


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## slowbiscuit (Sep 19, 2006)

L David Matheny said:


> It is possible that TiVo's code (even good, efficient code) may have been written in such a way that duplicating the overlapping content could be difficult without serious rewriting; or it might be relatively simple. We aren't in a position to know. But surely the scenario we're discussing affects almost every TiVo user at times.


I don't see what the big deal, code-wise, would be to simply have a single tuner's output be split into both files when the overlap time is reached. The tuner code should just be transferring to disk with little to no processing after all. After the first recording is done, simply close the file like normal and keep writing to the pointer you already opened for the new file. Sure there's some dupe in the two files but who cares it's just a few minutes anyway and this *should* be the easy way to do it.

I think the problem lies in the tuner scheduler/conflict manager, not the file writing part itself.


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## Philmatic (Sep 17, 2003)

aaronwt said:


> In my bedroom I feed an HDTV over HDMI at 1080i/720P and on the composite output I have a Hava HD Platinum as well as a DVD burner connected to the composite output of the Premiere. I only use the HDUI and it shows up on my composite output. Even when the HDMI connection is cut(I have it going through an HDMI switch box so i put it on a blank input otherwise macrovision prevents me from recording to the DVD recorder), the HDUi still shows up over the composite output.





scandia101 said:


> I was using composite and I set the Tivo to 720p with a 4:3 smartscreen (didn't actually have one)


I see, it looks like you have to have a valid HD output to get the HDUI to output on composite or SD output. I was just trying to use a single composite output to a SDTV and it kept saying it required a display capable of displaying 720p and above.


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## lpwcomp (May 6, 2002)

slowbiscuit said:


> I think the problem lies in the tuner scheduler/conflict manager, not the file writing part itself.


You assume the hardware can handle the additional 2 output streams.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

mattack said:


> "not capable"? It's just software. The tivo could record BOTH shows entirely (and not stop recording in between) and simply duplicate 'padding' on each program.


I know it's just software, but I think it's low level enough that doing this would require a major overhaul of the entire files system TiVo uses.



tivogurl said:


> While sharing video is ideal, it is not necessary. Clipping can work fine, it's the scheduling of two tuners that bugs me. A 1:05 show followed by a 1:00 show on the same channel, with the first show in higher priority, should only schedule 1 tuner: record 1:05, then record 0:55. Basically, conflicting shows on the same channel should have an option to be clipped rather than be recorded on two tuners. Ordinarily I wouldn't care too much about it, but with the scheduling shenanigans networks engage in these days (intentionally running shows a few minutes off their scheduled times) you often have to add spurious padding to season passes.


I know it may seem logical to you, but TiVo has to error on the side of caution. Using two tuners to record back to back recordings with just a minute of overlap may seem stupid, but at least when they do it that way both programs get recorded as the user selected. With the other approach they would make assumptions and could end up potentially ruining a recording that someone wanted differently. For example say you have tow programs back to back that you like to transfer to your PC and convert to DVD. You add padding to the end of the first one to make sure you can get the entire program as a single file. If this now cuts off the first minute of the second one then it could potentially make it so you could not get it as a single file. With the current system you can ensure, via priorities, that both shows are recorded, including the padding, and can be transferred as a single file with no breaks.

Dan


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## tivogurl (Dec 16, 2004)

Dan203 said:


> I know it may seem logical to you, but TiVo has to error on the side of caution.


Make it a user-selectable option, then. TiVo needs more configurable parameters.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

I agree, but TiVo has always been kind of leery of having too many options. They like to pick something and stick to it.

Personally I'd like to see an option that would avoid clipping if the program could be rescheduled within 48 hours. I have record a bunch of programs from cable networks (i.e. USA, FX, A&E, etc...) that end up getting clipped by a few minutes due to padding on the previous program even though the same episode is repeated constantly throughout the week. I'd rather get the complete program a few hours late then have a partial episode missing the first 2-3 minutes.

Dan


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

Dan203 said:


> I agree, but TiVo has always been kind of leery of having too many options. They like to pick something and stick to it.
> 
> Personally I'd like to see an option that would avoid clipping if the program could be rescheduled within 48 hours. I have record a bunch of programs from cable networks (i.e. USA, FX, A&E, etc...) that end up getting clipped by a few minutes due to padding on the previous program even though the same episode is repeated constantly throughout the week. I'd rather get the complete program a few hours late then have a partial episode missing the first 2-3 minutes.
> 
> Dan


Why not turn off clipping? I leave the show clipping option off. In those situations it just records the show at a later time when it airs. I don't want any of my shows clipped otherwise I will be missing something. All my Season Pass shows that have multiple airings, which is typical from cable shows, have low priorities. So if there is a conflict at the normal time it will just record it at the later airing.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

I have it on because I occasionally get conflicts from network programs where something is scheduled for 31 minutes and it causes something to not record. In the case of programs that only air once, like most network shows, I would rather be missing a minute then miss the show completely. However in the case of a show that is repeated throughout the week I'd rather wait until there was a clear opening to record it without clipping.

Dan


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## aadam101 (Jul 15, 2002)

innocentfreak said:


> But the majority of people may not notice or care. I think it makes sense to ask a portion of your user base where they should focus their work. .


I disagree. They promised us an HDUI. Some people bought their units based on this promise. We only got half a HDUI. (it's more like 10%)


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## caddyroger (Mar 15, 2005)

Why bother with it, a lot of us can not use the HDUI that the premiere has now. They should work on getting to work better before adding more problems to it.


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## tomm1079 (May 10, 2005)

Think about this guys...

Odds are they needed it for the other partners. Good chance it is done and being tested and they just need to change the background colors. Hopefully v15 of the software is the one we are waiting for (a year and a half later....)


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## tivogurl (Dec 16, 2004)

Dan203 said:


> I have it on because I occasionally get conflicts from network programs where something is scheduled for 31 minutes and it causes something to not record. In the case of programs that only air once, like most network shows, I would rather be missing a minute then miss the show completely. However in the case of a show that is repeated throughout the week I'd rather wait until there was a clear opening to record it without clipping.


Then what I suggest TiVo do is make clipping a per-show preference rather than a global preference.


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## slowbiscuit (Sep 19, 2006)

lpwcomp said:


> You assume the hardware can handle the additional 2 output streams.


No, I assume that they can write to two different files (instead of one) at the same time, which they're already doing on separate tuners. All you're adding is one additional file stream write, which the box and drive should easily be able to handle.


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## lpwcomp (May 6, 2002)

slowbiscuit said:


> No, I assume that they can write to two different files (instead of one) at the same time, which they're already doing on separate tuners. All you're adding is one additional file stream write, which the box and drive should easily be able to handle.


With two tuners, that is potentially two additional write streams, not just one.


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## Sam Lowry (Oct 17, 2002)

While I hate the advertisement bar with a passion - if we must have it, wouldn't it make more sense to have it vertically oriented? We have HD horizontal screens with a great deal of space. As it is, you can only see a small number of shows listed because of the bar.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

tivogurl said:


> Then what I suggest TiVo do is make clipping a per-show preference rather than a global preference.


That would be perfect. Except, as I mentioned before, TiVo has always been leery of adding too many options so it'll probably never happen.

Dan


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## slowbiscuit (Sep 19, 2006)

lpwcomp said:


> With two tuners, that is potentially two additional write streams, not just one.


Whatever, still dirt simple and easily handled by the hardware. But as I said, I don't think the problem is hardware or file writing code, it's probably in the scheduler.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

Sam Lowry said:


> While I hate the advertisement bar with a passion - if we must have it, wouldn't it make more sense to have it vertically oriented? We have HD horizontal screens with a great deal of space. As it is, you can only see a small number of shows listed because of the bar.


I'd rather have it horizontal than vertical on a widescreen TV. That makes better use of a 16:9 TV. Plus the TiVo info is spread aross the sceen below the bar and the window on the upper right.


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## JTalbert (Jan 1, 2001)

I would like to believe Tivo will do this, but I have lost complete and total faith in Tivo.

Before they change all the UI to HD they need to hire a programmer that can figure out how to enable the second core on the dual core processor to help speed things up. 

Oh and who at Tivo thought it would be a great idea to use the most graphic/CPU intensive program out there, Adobe Flash for the new GUI.. No wonder [email protected] doesnt work well.

I have been using Tivo since Dec 2000, 7 Tivo's in that time frame and I have sent Magret a few emails in my time expressing my concerns and she, just as anyone who works in corporate can really care less about what me, the consumer wants. 

How long has the premier been out? What new things have they given us since then? Oh oh oh, Hulu, and Pandora, neither of which really helps enhance the crippled functionality of the Tivo premier. 

To show how out of touch with reality The release an iOS app that ONLY works with the iPad... How many tens of millions of iPhones are there out there? Tivo is so obliviously way out of touch of reality. 

Tivo... Once a great product.... Once a great company... Now its struggling to just be a hasbeen at this rate...


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## HellFish (Jan 28, 2007)

tivogurl said:


> I'd rather see them fix scheduling bugs (overlapping shows on the same channel should use only 1 tuner),





smbaker said:


> I'd also like something like implicit padding where all shows were automatically padded by a minute or two. I'm constantly running into shows that run about 30 seconds past the boundary.


DirecTV's DVRs do both of this, and it's awesome seeing them work in tandem. And modified Tivos can do the implicit padding (aka soft padding) for series 1-3 (link). In a thread where I talked about these features previously, someone suggested that both of these features are probably covered by ReplayTV patents.... which DTV now owns.


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## curiousgeorge (Nov 28, 2002)

JTalbert said:


> I would like to believe Tivo will do this, but I have lost complete and total faith in Tivo.
> 
> Before they change all the UI to HD they need to hire a programmer that can figure out how to enable the second core on the dual core processor to help speed things up.


Irrelevant because Flash doesn't support multithreaded apps. Dual Core won't help, except possibly, MAYBE for some really low-level stuff that has nothing to do with Flash, and I really don't think that's where the speed bottlenecks are on Premiere (hint: FLASH IS PROBABLE A HUGE HOG).


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## jcthorne (Jan 28, 2002)

Running the flash interface on its own core with all underlying tivo processes on the other may not be a balanced use of the cores, but would be a far better use than not using one core at all.


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## crxssi (Apr 5, 2010)

JTalbert said:


> IBefore they change all the UI to HD they need to hire a programmer that can figure out how to enable the second core on the dual core processor to help speed things up.


We have been over that dozens of times in the forum. As long as the GUI is based one what is assumed to be a single-threaded environment (Flash), adding additional multiprocessing is going to be mostly unproductive. I doubt hiring a single programmer can fix that.


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## crxssi (Apr 5, 2010)

jcthorne said:


> Running the flash interface on its own core with all underlying tivo processes on the other may not be a balanced use of the cores, but would be a far better use than not using one core at all.


It doesn't matter if it is balanced or not. But I agree that even if the GUI is not threaded, a TiVo will benefit from the additional core being active. But the extent of that benefit is probably miniscule at best. I suspect that the CPU is almost always nearly completely unloaded except for during interaction with the GUI and the rare times that it is digesting downloaded scheduling info. Perhaps also when transferring large files, but I doubt it, because I notice no slowdown of the UI when it is transferring data across the network.


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## orangeboy (Apr 19, 2004)

JTalbert said:


> Oh and who at Tivo thought it would be a great idea to use the most graphic/CPU intensive program out there, Adobe Flash for the new GUI.. No wonder [email protected] doesnt work well.


It's refreshing to have experts in StageCraft programming contributing their opinions about TiVo's implementation of that product.


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## TheWGP (Oct 26, 2007)

orangeboy said:


> It's refreshing to have experts in StageCraft programming contributing their opinions about TiVo's implementation of that product.


Glad to hear you recognize talent so openly and with such welcoming comments!


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## SMWinnie (Aug 17, 2002)

tivogurl said:


> I'd rather see them fix scheduling bugs (overlapping shows on the same channel should use only 1 tuner)...





Dan203 said:


> I think this is a design flaw in the way TiVo stores video data and is not capable of being fixed by sharing overlapping video between programs. Because of this they have to fall back on the scheduling rules which state that the higher priority program always gets tuner priority and the lower priority program gets clipped.


I've been asking for this feature for a few years in every feedback channel I can find. No reply.

My understanding is that a TiVo records program streams to a bunch of small file slices anyway, with a program in the NPL essentially being an ordered list of pointers to the slices. So, implementing duplicative overlap on the same channel should be a matter of identifying the slices in the stream from, say, XX:58 until XY:02 and then changing the delete routine to make sure that there are no other owners of the slices.

That's likely either: (1) harder than it sounds (as Dan asserts); (2) easy but not a high enough priority to implement; or (3) easy to implement but consciously left out of the feature set in the interest of selling more boxes.

My solution was to install SageTV on my 24/7 WHS box, mount a decent antenna in the attic and add a SiliconDust HDHomeRun ATSC OTA dual tuner. (Most of my conflicts were solvable by offloading one job to Sage. The cable shows tend to have multiple airings; it's the Big 4 network shows that fight for time slots and only show up once.)


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## L David Matheny (Jan 29, 2011)

SMWinnie said:


> My understanding is that a TiVo records program streams to a bunch of small file slices anyway, with a program in the NPL essentially being an ordered list of pointers to the slices. So, implementing duplicative overlap on the same channel should be a matter of identifying the slices in the stream from, say, XX:58 until XY:02 and then changing the delete routine to make sure that there are no other owners of the slices.


If your understanding is accurate, then TiVo should make every effort to do that. I still think it might be easier said than done, however. The Devil is in the details.



SMWinnie said:


> That's likely either: (1) harder than it sounds (as Dan asserts); (2) easy but not a high enough priority to implement; or (3) easy to implement but consciously left out of the feature set in the interest of selling more boxes.


Regarding (3), they would be mistaken. Having four tuners might be the sort of feature that would let some people get by with fewer TiVo boxes; but properly implementing same-channel overlap would just make subscribers happier, rather than frustrating them. People don't buy extra TiVos just to handle overlap.


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## Joe Siegler (May 10, 2000)

Read through all of this, and there's one feature I want addressed more than any other (which hasn't been brought up).

It's the fact that you cannot use the HD menus if you have TiVo's KidZone turned on. KidZone is a huge help for us here, we don't have to worry about what's going to "pop up" for kids to see if the TV gets turned on. Don't really want a DVR without that now.

However, if you have a S4, and you try turning on the HD menus, some popup shows up which says (I'm paraphrasing) "You cannot turn on the HD menus if you have KidZone active. Please disable KidZone before selecting this".

Thanks, guys. I sort of understand - the "picture in menu" would have to be constrained to KidZone limits, or eliminated. I want HD menus with KidZone, and never EVER take away KidZone, or I'll be pissed.


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## aadam101 (Jul 15, 2002)

Joe Siegler said:


> It's the fact that you cannot use the HD menus if you have TiVo's KidZone turned on. KidZone is a huge help for us here, we don't have to worry about what's going to "pop up" for kids to see if the TV gets turned on. Don't really want a DVR without that now.


This has been discussed in other threads. This is what has me most upset at Tivo. They promised HD menus. They didn't promise HD menus as long as you don't need to use other features like parental controls.

They didn't disclose the truth about their new "feature". This is how lawsuits happen.


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## Joe Siegler (May 10, 2000)

Annoying, yes. Lawsuit worthy? Nah - come on. Not everything that happens in the world requires a lawsuit. It's just TV after all. There's more important things in the world to get worried about than a menu on a DVR.


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## aadam101 (Jul 15, 2002)

Joe Siegler said:


> Annoying, yes. Lawsuit worthy? Nah - come on. Not everything that happens in the world requires a lawsuit. It's just TV after all. There's more important things in the world to get worried about than a menu on a DVR.


Some people shelled out $500+ for those DVR menus. Lawsuits have been wom over much less money.


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## atmuscarella (Oct 11, 2005)

aadam101 said:


> Some people shelled out $500+ for those DVR menus. Lawsuits have been wom over much less money.


Right like there is some "legal" definition of what a HDUI is. Everyone got what was pictured in TiVo's adds, they never said all the sub screens would be the same. This law suite crap is just that - crap. I don't like the UI on my TV, Receiver, or Blu-ray player, they are all crap. Does anyone really believe all those companies should send me a check just because I don't like their crappy UIs?

TiVo needs to fix their HDUI because part of the reason to buy a TiVo is because it doesn't have a crappy UI like most consumer electronics. They were foolish enough to switch to a flash based graphical UI so now they need to spend as much money as it takes to make it work as well as their text based UI does. That may or may not mean putting worthless graphics on each page, put it does mean having it work well.

When it comes to TiVo's UI my main concern is that it is easy to use and that I can get done what I want to get done with the least amount of effort possible. Adding a bunch of worthless graphics does not do anything for me and I wish they had just gone with an improved text based UI.


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## aadam101 (Jul 15, 2002)

atmuscarella said:


> Right like there is some "legal" definition of what a HDUI is. Everyone got what was pictured in TiVo's adds, they never said all the sub screens would be the same. This law suite crap is just that - crap. I don't like the UI on my TV, Receiver, or Blu-ray player, they are all crap. Does anyone really believe all those companies should send me a check just because I don't like their crappy UIs?
> 
> TiVo needs to fix their HDUI because part of the reason to buy a TiVo is because it doesn't have a crappy UI like most consumer electronics. They were foolish enough to switch to a flash based graphical UI so now they need to spend as much money as it takes to make it work as well as their text based UI does. That may or may not mean putting worthless graphics on each page, put it does mean having it work well.
> 
> When it comes to TiVo's UI my main concern is that it is easy to use and that I can get done what I want to get done with the least amount of effort possible. Adding a bunch of worthless graphics does not do anything for me and I wish they had just gone with an improved text based UI.


The only reason we haven't seen a lawsuit is because Tivo is barely a blip on the radar these days. Let Apple or Microsoft pull some shady crap like Tivo and watch how fast the lawsuits come.


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## atmuscarella (Oct 11, 2005)

aadam101 said:


> The only reason we haven't seen a lawsuit is because Tivo is barely a blip on the radar these days. Let Apple or Microsoft pull some shady crap like Tivo and watch how fast the lawsuits come.


Point to one law suite because an electronics company built a product with a crappy UI. I do not think you will find one and most products have significantly crapper UIs than TiVo's HDUI.

What a UI looks like and how it works is not a regulated thing and their is no legal definition for what a HDUI is or how it has to work. When TiVo told us the Premiere had an HDUI, it could have been pretty much anything that was presented at 720p or greater resolution, it would not have to have one graphic anywhere. When they showed us pictures/video of what pieces of their HDUI was going to look like as long as the sections they showed were what was presented they had no legal obligation to have the rest look anything like it.

Frankly I use a UI so I can watch TV. The way some people talk around here I think they must want to watch their UI. Which I am sure is fine with TiVo as they use the UI to present adds. This is the same as where Google is going with Google TV. Trick people into watching the UI and send them adds.

PS: And by the way Microsoft did produce a product with a crappy graphical UI it was called Windows. It took them almost a decade (the release of Win XP) before they built a product that wasn't bug ridden and didn't crash and burn regularly. And no they were not sewed over it.


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## lpwcomp (May 6, 2002)

IMHO, aadam101 may be correct about someone bringing suit since:

a. It would take an idiot to bring suit over this issue

b. anyone who shelled out that much money strictly for the HDUI is an idiot.

No lawyer is going to take this case except as a class action. The only people who get anything out of a class action suit of this type (where there is no actual harm) are the lawyers - on both sides.


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## aadam101 (Jul 15, 2002)

atmuscarella said:


> Point to one law suite because an electronics company built a product with a crappy UI. I do not think you will find one and most products have significantly crapper UIs than TiVo's HDUI.


The lawsuit isn't over a "crappy UI." It's over false marketing claims. There are plenty of those lawsuits out there.

It would take a class action suit. Again, if Tivo were a bigger company this would have already happened. Luckily for Tivo, they lost most of their customers long before the Premiere so there wouldn't be many people suing anyway.


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## atmuscarella (Oct 11, 2005)

aadam101 said:


> The lawsuit isn't over a "crappy UI." It's over false marketing claims. There are plenty of those lawsuits out there.
> 
> It would take a class action suit. Again, if Tivo were a bigger company this would have already happened. Luckily for Tivo, they lost most of their customers long before the Premiere so there wouldn't be many people suing anyway.


What exactly were TiVo's "false" marketing claims? Remember there is no legal definition of what a HDUI is. In fact the term "HDUI" has no meaning other than what ever TiVo says they meant by it.


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## aadam101 (Jul 15, 2002)

atmuscarella said:


> What exactly were TiVo's "false" marketing claims? Remember there is no legal definition of what a HDUI is. In fact the term "HDUI" has no meaning other than what ever TiVo says they meant by it.


According to Tivo, the Premiere offers a "Reinvented HD user interface".

This is a pretty questionable statement. While they did update a small handful of screens, many people, myself included are not able to use these screens. I was rather disappointed when I first got my Premiere and learned the HD screens could not be used if parental controls were turned on. I can't find anything on the Tivo website that states this.

To add insult to injury, Tivo sent surveys asking people if they still wanted the HD interface to be completed! I don't know any other company who sells you features that are half complete and then a year later asks customers if they would like the features completed.

Since nobody is suing, none of this matters.


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## TheWGP (Oct 26, 2007)

IAAL, I am not your lawyer, this is not legal advice.



aadam101 said:


> The only reason we haven't seen a lawsuit is
> because Tivo is barely a blip on the radar these days.


I'm convinced this is true.

Cases based on false marketing claims tend to be easy to convince a company to settle, because they are interested in keeping their internal data or information private. Thing is, I'm not convinced there is a credible argument that there's a false marketing claim being made. Sure, you may FEEL that way, but making a sufficient showing to get your class certified takes a bit more than that. 

That said, weak class claims never stopped attorneys before... but what DOES stop us is when the company at issue doesn't have money or there's a low chance of getting a settlement. Tivo is widely seen as a footnote that's bound for bankruptcy or buyout at some point. What's more, they have a reputation as willing to fight bruising litigation battles, though some of that is just "rub-off" from Charlie Ergen. A settlement with Tivo in particular would probably be a) harder to come by than usual and b) unlikely to deliver much, even in terms of fees, at least compared to the resources that would be required.

BTW that survey might be good evidence of Tivo's "bad intent" at the introduction of the Premiere, and so lend credence to false marketing claims, but it doesn't show anything in and of itself except that users are pissed off.


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## atmuscarella (Oct 11, 2005)

aadam101 said:


> According to Tivo, the Premiere offers a "Reinvented HD user interface".
> 
> This is a pretty questionable statement. While they did update a small handful of screens, many people, myself included are not able to use these screens. I was rather disappointed when I first got my Premiere and learned the HD screens could not be used if parental controls were turned on. I can't find anything on the Tivo website that states this.
> 
> ...


For the record I would like to agree with you that there are/have been unacceptable issues with the Premiere's HDUI. I have no desire to defend TiVo on the Premiere debacle, my belief is they messed up big time by releasing the Premiere when they did. They either should have release it without the HDUI or at least got it to the point where it is now before releasing it at all.

That however falls under the category of its a crappy UI not that it isn't what TiVo advertised. We assumed that because it was a TiVo that any new UI would be rock solid and not be like most electronic devices. I am sure many people are not going buy what ever comes next until they have read reviews and are sure it isn't going to be like the Premiere.

Terms like "Reinvented HD user interface" have no universally defined meaning and mean what ever the manufacture says they mean. That is what marketing is all about, using words that have no defined meaning to help potential customers believe what they want to believe to so they can justify purchasing the product. It is also exactly what TiVo did, at the time of the Premiere's release there were few to no reasons to buy it to replace functioning Series 3 or TiVo HD units. TiVo used slick marketing to make people believe they were getting much more than what they got and many replaced functioning units that did not need to be replaced. Some are happy with their purchases and some are not.

Even now until the Premiere officially gets unit to unit streaming there are very few reasons to buy one to replace a functioning Series 3 or TiVo HD unit. I will say however that I do like my Premiere and do prefer it over my Series 3 or TiVo HD units. It is a better unit, just not as much better as what some people would have liked.

Thanks,


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## smbaker (May 24, 2003)

Every month somebody proposes a "Lawsuit" over some slight from Tivo. Until someone goes out and hires a lawyer (or convinces one there's money to be had in a class action), it's all talk. 

One of the guiding principles of our capitalist system is "let the buyer beware". It's very easy to get information/reviews on the web. Do your research, and if someone makes a crappy product don't buy it. 

That said, I'm still peeved about the sorry state about the Premiere. The best I can do is warn people off from buying them, or at least make sure they know what they're getting.


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## lessd (Jan 23, 2005)

atmuscarella said:


> For the record I would like to agree with you that there are/have been unacceptable issues with the Premiere's HDUI. I have no desire to defend TiVo on the Premiere debacle, my belief is they messed up big time by releasing the Premiere when they did. They either should have release it without the HDUI or at least got it to the point where it is now before releasing it at all.
> 
> That however falls under the category of its a crappy UI not that it isn't what TiVo advertised. We assumed that because it was a TiVo that any new UI would be rock solid and not be like most electronic devices. I am sure many people are not going buy what ever comes next until they have read reviews and are sure it isn't going to be like the Premiere.
> 
> ...


Somebody reading this thread, not familiar with TiVo, would think one purchased a TiVo for its UI, and maybe their are people that spend a lot of time with their TiVos UI, but i would think the the recorded programs are what people would spend time with (watching them), my family did not like the HDUI because it was to busy looking and did not get you to your programs any faster then the SDUI, so i run all my TP in the SDUI mode. For family simplicity I don't know what could replace the TiVo that is much better, the cable co DVR could do the job, but you can't upgrade the hard drive. I guess some people purchase a TiVo for the HDUI, if so i can understand why they are not happy. For me the TP are great with super fast MRV, and streaming most likely coming. (works now with a few problems), Netflix works without problems, I am happy with my 4 TPs in the way we use them.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

I only run the HD UI. I am in the UI now more than any other TiVo I've owned. I will look at the show episode guides as well as accessing the online streaming services for video and music.

I've also run into a few shows from the bar at the top of the screen. Without the bar I would have never discovered them.


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## lessd (Jan 23, 2005)

aaronwt said:


> I only run the HD UI. I am in the UI now more than any other TiVo I've owned. I will look at the show episode guides as well as accessing the online streaming services for video and music.
> 
> I've also run into a few shows from the bar at the top of the screen. Without the bar I would have never discovered them.


Don't get me wrong i was not putting down anybody that found the HDUI useful, but from what you are doing with the HDUI, and assuming you don't need the kid zone, you most likely don't have much use for the non HD menus to be in HD like system information, the cable card setup etc. and the rest of the non HDUI, as you should not have to go to them very often in normal TP use.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

lessd said:


> Don't get me wrong i was not putting down anybody that found the HDUI useful, but from what you are doing with the HDUI, and assuming you don't need the kid zone, you most likely don't have much use for the non HD menus to be in HD like system information, the cable card setup etc. and the rest of the non HDUI, as you should not have to go to them very often in normal TP use.


Correct. I don't go to those screens very often.

The main menus i would like to see in HD would be the Now Playing list when viewing it from another TiVo and also the Season Pass and recording history screens. Although if I had to choose between those it would be when viewing the the Now Playing List from another TiVo since I use that many times more often than the SP screen.


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## lessd (Jan 23, 2005)

aaronwt said:


> Correct. I don't go to those screens very often.
> 
> The main menus i would like to see in HD would be the Now Playing list when viewing it from another TiVo and also the Season Pass and recording history screens. Although if I had to choose between those it would be when viewing the the Now Playing List from another TiVo since I use that many times more often than the SP screen.


Viewing another TiVo Now Playing List in HD, never thought of that, would doing that in HD cause too much network work and slow up the process because now I find it very fast to see another TPs NPL. On my one Series 2 it takes a long time for the NPL to populate.


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## johnner1999 (Oct 26, 2002)

But did they enable the 2nd core?

ok I am just *joking* which might set off a powder keg


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## JACKASTOR (May 26, 2011)

johnner1999 said:


> But did they enable the 2nd core?
> 
> ok I am just *joking* which might set off a powder keg


Anyone know when these changes will occure? How soon will they be out with new firmware to fix 14.8u2?

regards

jack


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

I don't think anyone know. It could be a month, a year, or never.


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## JACKASTOR (May 26, 2011)

aaronwt said:


> I don't think anyone know. It could be a month, a year, or never.


Seems thats always the case. I wonder if Tivo Realizes how much they cripple the over all outlook of themselves. It really sucks when they have such a great product that they cant seem to get it right. They try and introduce great features, but then they simply crash it when the block or limit features. The fees that they currently charge need to be changed. Where they would make their money is in VOD providing that themselves and going head to head with netflix could potentially increase the revenue stream 1000 fold.

regards

jack


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## lessd (Jan 23, 2005)

johnner1999 said:


> But did they enable the 2nd core?
> 
> ok I am just *joking* which might set off a powder keg


Does anybody know how to tell if the 2nd core has been enable ? (if TiVo does not post telling us so). Could it be enabled now and we just don't know it ?


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## crxssi (Apr 5, 2010)

lessd said:


> Does anybody know how to tell if the 2nd core has been enable ? (if TiVo does not post telling us so). Could it be enabled now and we just don't know it ?


OMG. Please, for the love of God, don't bring that up again.


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## smbaker (May 24, 2003)

crxssi said:


> OMG. Please, for the love of God, don't bring that up again.


I heard it from a reliable source that the second core will be enabled when clear-QAM mapping is added.


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## atmuscarella (Oct 11, 2005)

smbaker said:


> I heard it from a reliable source that the second core will be enabled when clear-QAM mapping is added.


I heard they were using an old song to come up with the date: "In the year 2525, If man is still alive, If woman can survive, They may find..." the second core.


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## bradleys (Oct 31, 2007)

aaronwt said:


> Correct. I don't go to those screens very often.
> 
> The main menus i would like to see in HD would be the Now Playing list when viewing it from another TiVo and also the Season Pass and recording history screens. Although if I had to choose between those it would be when viewing the the Now Playing List from another TiVo since I use that many times more often than the SP screen.


The Now Playing list from another TiVo / Server is something I would like to see in HD as well.

It might even be an option to simply consolidate the now playing lists - why should it matter which TiVo it is on? Add cooperative scheduling and then we are talking! :up:


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## bsmith1051 (Nov 15, 2009)

smbaker said:


> I heard it from a reliable source that the second core will be enabled when clear-QAM mapping is added.


Good one!


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## lessd (Jan 23, 2005)

smbaker said:


> I heard it from a reliable source that the second core will be enabled when clear-QAM mapping is added.


So I have to keep re-running setup to see if clear QAM mapping is now available to find out if the 2nd core is enabled, what a pain, I hope somebody on this form other than me will do it for us.
I also missed the new extra line in the System Information screen that has 2core enabled/disabled as it now has the disabled showing, I guess i will wait until that line has changes to enabled.


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## smbaker (May 24, 2003)

lessd said:


> So I have to keep re-running setup to see if clear QAM mapping is now available to find out if the 2nd core is enabled, what a pain, I hope somebody on this form other than me will do it for us.


I nominate crxssi for this most important of tasks...


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## crxssi (Apr 5, 2010)

smbaker said:


> I nominate crxssi for this most important of tasks...


OMG


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## innocentfreak (Aug 25, 2001)

lessd said:


> So I have to keep re-running setup to see if clear QAM mapping is now available to find out if the 2nd core is enabled, what a pain, I hope somebody on this form other than me will do it for us.
> I also missed the new extra line in the System Information screen that has 2core enabled/disabled as it now has the disabled showing, I guess i will wait until that line has changes to enabled.


Well you would have to do that any way to remap the clearqam channels. At least on Verizon they change frequently so I was always remapping them in Media Center. I want to say it was every 7-10 days.


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## johnner1999 (Oct 26, 2002)

crxssi said:


> OMG. Please, for the love of God, don't bring that up again.


Sorry folks - i was just kidding..... thought it would be good for a laugh


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## lessd (Jan 23, 2005)

innocentfreak said:


> Well you would have to do that any way to remap the clearqam channels. At least on Verizon they change frequently so I was always remapping them in Media Center. I want to say it was every 7-10 days.


I was also just kidding.


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## plazman30 (Jan 23, 2005)

So the latest tweet from Margret Schmnidt back to a user complaining about jumping between SDUI and HDUI screens says "Yes, work is underway."

https://twitter.com/#!/tivodesign/status/91494075487883264

I'm starting to think all the updates to get the TiVo iPad app working helped uncouple all the features from the old SDUI and make them UI agnostic, and now they just have to design the new UI elements and call the APIs the iPad app uses.


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## rainwater (Sep 21, 2004)

plazman30 said:


> I'm starting to think all the updates to get the TiVo iPad app working helped uncouple all the features from the old SDUI and make them UI agnostic, and now they just have to design the new UI elements and call the APIs the iPad app uses.


I'm pretty sure the iOS app is developed by a 3rd party contracted by TiVo. I doubt any developments in the app are related to efforts to finish the HDUI.


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## aadam101 (Jul 15, 2002)

rainwater said:


> I'm pretty sure the iOS app is developed by a 3rd party contracted by TiVo. I doubt any developments in the app are related to efforts to finish the HDUI.


Do we know this for sure? I have heard this several times but have never seen any proof. I'm not doubting you. It certainly makes sense. The iPad app is certainly better than anything Tivo has churned out in a very long time.

If it is true, I think maybe it's time they start to hire more subcontractors to do their development.


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## TheWGP (Oct 26, 2007)

aadam101 said:


> If it is true, I think maybe it's time they start to hire more subcontractors to do their development.


+1 - I'm kind of afraid the reason there's no Android app yet is because they decided NOT to subcontract that as a cost-saving measure.

Just speculation, but I hope it's not true and the Android app IS subcontracted - there's no way Tivo can keep up with Android version revisions, new devices and so on and so forth, which I fear will lead to a perpetually-broken Android app if there's no subcontractor to handle things.


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## JimboG (May 27, 2007)

TheWGP said:


> +1 - I'm kind of afraid the reason there's no Android app yet is because they decided NOT to subcontract that as a cost-saving measure.
> 
> Just speculation, but I hope it's not true and the Android app IS subcontracted - there's no way Tivo can keep up with Android version revisions, new devices and so on and so forth, which I fear will lead to a perpetually-broken Android app if there's no subcontractor to handle things.


So what I hear you sayin is that the Android market is badly Balkanized. Who would have thunk it?


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## crxssi (Apr 5, 2010)

JimboG said:


> So what I hear you sayin is that the Android market is badly Balkanized. Who would have thunk it?


[sarcasm]Yeah, having choice of manufacturer, carrier, and device type is a horrible thing....[/sarcasm]

On that note, tablet "Honeycomb" has done a very good job (so far) of bringing in more standardization and compatibility which should spill over to phone devices come" Icecream". There is almost ZERO reason to believe that at least an Android *tablet* TiVo app would have any cross-device problems.


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## TheWGP (Oct 26, 2007)

It's only really an issue if you're not a geek... 

Seriously though, on this issue Icecream is expected to help out. And in general tablets have MUCH fewer issues in my experience.

The iOS app would start to have issues too before too long if it were ignored. Tivo just doesn't move at the same pace as these relatively young development environments. This is one reason it's widely speculated the iOS app is subcontracted - Tivo just isn't that nimble.


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## plazman30 (Jan 23, 2005)

rainwater said:


> I'm pretty sure the iOS app is developed by a 3rd party contracted by TiVo. I doubt any developments in the app are related to efforts to finish the HDUI.


There is no way to know that. I don't have an iPad, so I don't know what's in the app, but if there are any screens in the iPad app that display only in the SDUI on the TiVo, it stands to reason that 14.7 and 14.8 managed to decouple some code, or add APIs that the iPad app accesses. These same APIs could be used by TiVo to add new HDUI screens.

Either that, or the development of the iPad app allowed them to switch GUI toolkits and they're dumping Flash now for something speedier and easier to develop for.

Overall. the TiVo does what I need it to do. In it's current offering it's still better than what's out there now. Though the new UI coming to the Verizon DVR does look good. But i ever switch from Verizon to Comcast, the fact that I get to keep my recorded shows with a simple cable card swap is a huge plus.


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## JimboG (May 27, 2007)

plazman30 said:


> Either that, or the development of the iPad app allowed them to switch GUI toolkits and they're dumping Flash now for something speedier and easier to develop for.


We can be pretty confident that the iPad app doesn't use Flash, as the entire iOS environment currently doesn't support Flash.

My in-laws have an iPad along with a TiVo Premiere XL that I setup for them about a month ago. The Premiere may have its issues (especially with reliable over the air reception), but it is far and away superior to the POS Cisco DVR with its 120 or 160 GB hard drive that Cox was charging ~$20 per month to rent.

The iPad app runs smooth as butter. Looks pretty, works well, and nary an SD menu in sight. Makes me wonder: 1) why use Flash Lite on the set top box; and, 2) why can the iPad TiVo app development team do their job so quickly but the software development team for the main TiVo Premiere DVR can't finish their job a year and four months after the Premiere shipped?


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## atmuscarella (Oct 11, 2005)

JimboG said:


> ...2) why can the iPad TiVo app development team do their job so quickly but the software development team for the main TiVo Premiere DVR can't finish their job a year and four months after the Premiere shipped?


I hope they haven't "finished" the Premiere's HDUI because they are going to dump flash and rebuild it in HTML5.


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## johnner1999 (Oct 26, 2002)

atmuscarella said:


> I hope they haven't "finished" the Premiere's HDUI because they are going to dump flash and rebuild it in HTML5.


why would that be a bad idea? I would think HTML5 would be better for everyone.... BUt that said I don't see how they could change the backend system so much....


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## Joe Siegler (May 10, 2000)

Does it really matter what it's BUILT in? Seems pretty snobbish, if you ask me.

All I care about it is what it looks like, and what it does, and how it runs. Don't give a damn HOW it works, just that it does.


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## DeWitt (Jun 30, 2004)

HTML5 is the coming wave... but not really there yet.


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## TheWGP (Oct 26, 2007)

DeWitt said:


> HTML5 is the coming wave... but not really there yet.


Right... so if Tivo starts thinking about it / developing for it now, they might have a shot at a decent implementation in 3-4 years when it's "the big thing" or whatever. It'll still be half-baked, but there's nothing that can be done about that I don't think.


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## atmuscarella (Oct 11, 2005)

Joe Siegler said:


> Does it really matter what it's BUILT in? Seems pretty snobbish, if you ask me.
> 
> All I care about it is what it looks like, and what it does, and how it runs. Don't give a damn HOW it works, just that it does.


While I agree that in the end all that matters is that it works. When comparing why the ipad app works so well and and the Premiere itself doesn't it does matter what it is built in.

There are a number of reasons that apple has refused to allow flash on any of its ipod/ipad devices. While TiVo should be able to improve their Flash UI, it has built in problems that can not be over come until/unless Flash itself is improved, which TiVo has no control over.


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## Joe Siegler (May 10, 2000)

atmuscarella said:


> There are a number of reasons that apple has refused to allow flash on any of its ipod/ipad devices. While TiVo should be able to improve their Flash UI, it has built in problems that can not be over come until/unless Flash itself is improved, which TiVo has no control over.


WELL...

Apple doesn't want flash to be on their devices, like it is in browsers. They also made a lot of noise about apps not being built with Adobe's back end tools, either. They recently relaxed those rules if I remember right. Still can't have flash like in a browser, but I THINK (don't quote me) that you can build with their back end tools.

But I repeat my previous statement. Who cares? I only care what the end result is like. Couldn't care less what environment it's built in.


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## L David Matheny (Jan 29, 2011)

Joe Siegler said:


> But I repeat my previous statement. Who cares? I only care what the end result is like. Couldn't care less what environment it's built in.


Some people think that the end result leaves something to be desired. And some of us believe that Flash is at least partly responsible. Otherwise, we wouldn't care either.


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## turbobozz (Sep 21, 2006)

atmuscarella said:


> While I agree that in the end all that matters is that it works. When comparing why the ipad app works so well and and the Premiere itself doesn't it does matter what it is built in.
> 
> There are a number of reasons that apple has refused to allow flash on any of its ipod/ipad devices. While TiVo should be able to improve their Flash UI, it has built in problems that can not be over come until/unless Flash itself is improved, which TiVo has no control over.


I believe the iPad, iPhone, and most current smartphones are quite a bit more powerful than the S4 platform as far as generic processing power that a GUI would use goes.

If TiVo had the MCU cores that phones have now... then the UI would likely be fast enough that no one would even care that it was running on stagecraft.
(Aside from when it decides to pull lots of data from some random server somewhere and not cache/preload it.)


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## crxssi (Apr 5, 2010)

turbobozz said:


> I believe the iPad, iPhone, and most current smartphones are quite a bit more powerful than the S4 platform as far as generic processing power that a GUI would use goes.
> 
> If TiVo had the MCU cores that phones have now... then the UI would likely be fast enough that no one would even care that it was running on stagecraft.
> (Aside from when it decides to pull lots of data from some random server somewhere and not cache/preload it.)


There are times you can "fix" a performance problem by throwing more horsepower at it and times you can't.

In the case of the Premiere, you really can't. It is a dedicated box with non-upgradable hardware (and an unused core that supposedly can't be taken advantage of in the Flash environment). Even if you could double the single core speed, it probably would still be too slow because of the way they are using the Internet in the HDUI.

The problem here is the software design, not the hardware. The hardware is fast enough to have a snappy HDUI. The HDUI is so busy trying to update the useless top bar, deal with on-screen live video, and gather information about programs you haven't even ASKED to look at (apparently non of which is cached), that everything suffers.

Although I still think the Flash backend is a big part of the problem, even if that were kept, it could be improved A LOT. For example, if the user could turn off the discovery bar, and only see live, Internet-accessed info about a program when it is REQUESTED (like in a sub menu), it would probably greatly improve the user experience.... especially since it would give more space for useful info.

It has been said before by others (and I agree)- if I could have what *I* wanted, just take the existing SDUI, make a high res version of it so more information could fit on the screen and reduce scrolling, and add some extra "look-up" information only after things are selected, it would make me happy, indeed. The solution is probably somewhere inbetween the existing SDUI and the existing HDUI.


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## smbaker (May 24, 2003)

crxssi said:


> For example, if the user could turn off the discovery bar,


Turn off the discovery bar!!!! How would I know to shop at Best Buy then? or that Aflac offers car insurance? or that I can view Godzilla vs Mothra if I buy a netflix subscription? or that I can buy The Matrix from amazon.com?

(a random sampling of the very useful items that have showed up on my discovery bar)

Oh, and Godzilla vs Mothra (1992) was recommended for me because it "_is a popular upcoming movie_".

This is clearly the most useful feature ever rolled out on my Tivo, and I'm glad to lose processing capability and slow down the UI by 30% by having these timely and relevant advertisements using a fourth of my screen space.


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## DaveWhittle (Jul 25, 2002)

Godzilla vs Mothra is awesome.


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## ufo4sale (Apr 21, 2001)

Um... you know you can figure the Discovery bar to allow and not all certain things to be show like ad's.


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## JimboG (May 27, 2007)

ufo4sale said:


> Um... you know you can figure the Discovery bar to allow and not all certain things to be show like ad's.


"figure the Discovery bar"? "figure"?? Don't post while drunk.

You can reduce the number of advertisements, but you cannot eliminate them entirely. After all, if you could eliminate unwanted ads, how would TiVo get paid for selling out their subscribers?


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## turbobozz (Sep 21, 2006)

crxssi said:


> There are times you can "fix" a performance problem by throwing more horsepower at it and times you can't.
> 
> In the case of the Premiere, you really can't. It is a dedicated box with non-upgradable hardware (and an unused core that supposedly can't be taken advantage of in the Flash environment). Even if you could double the single core speed, it probably would still be too slow because of the way they are using the Internet in the HDUI.
> 
> ...


I don't disagree that the way the S4 platform uses the internet and caching is severely lacking.
(I am disappointed that the HDUI is not only incomplete, but also requires internet.)

I do disagree that the S4 platform wouldn't be helped by a more powerful cpu and probably more ram.

It might be interesting to see a teardown of the Preview and the BestBuy TVs to see if they have been updated at all.


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## TWinbrook46636 (Feb 9, 2008)

smbaker said:


> Turn off the discovery bar!!!! How would I know to shop at Best Buy then? or that Aflac offers car insurance? or that I can view Godzilla vs Mothra if I buy a netflix subscription? or that I can buy The Matrix from amazon.com?


I especially like how the Discovery Bar recommends programs I've already rated three thumbs down. It clearly knows better than I what I like. Why eliminate such a useful feature?


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## tlwizard (Jan 11, 2004)

atmuscarella said:


> There are a number of reasons that apple has refused to allow flash on any of its ipod/ipad devices. While TiVo should be able to improve their Flash UI, it has built in problems that can not be over come until/unless Flash itself is improved, which TiVo has no control over.


Now that Adobe has entered the modern era of technology and is offering (at least in beta) a 64-bit version of Flash, I wonder if this will herald a new dawn in the Tivo UI (or possibly allow them to use both cores)?

I don't know if that's been discussed before, but does anyone know if that will help?


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## crxssi (Apr 5, 2010)

tlwizard said:


> Now that Adobe has entered the modern era of technology and is offering (at least in beta) a 64-bit version of Flash, I wonder if this will herald a new dawn in the Tivo UI (or possibly allow them to use both cores)?
> 
> I don't know if that's been discussed before, but does anyone know if that will help?


The browser Flash plugin product is not the same thing as what TiVo is using.


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## plazman30 (Jan 23, 2005)

tlwizard said:


> Now that Adobe has entered the modern era of technology and is offering (at least in beta) a 64-bit version of Flash, I wonder if this will herald a new dawn in the Tivo UI (or possibly allow them to use both cores)?
> 
> I don't know if that's been discussed before, but does anyone know if that will help?


If Tivo was smart they'd stay far away from Flash. Heck, even going back to Java would be an improvement. But HTML5 would be ideal. It's an open standard.


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## rainwater (Sep 21, 2004)

plazman30 said:


> If Tivo was smart they'd stay far away from Flash. Heck, even going back to Java would be an improvement. But HTML5 would be ideal. It's an open standard.


The premiere was designed for Flash (hardware specific components just for flash). It is doubtful an HTML5 engine would even come close to the horrible performance flash has on the box. It isn't a viable solution.


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## tomhorsley (Jul 22, 2010)

rainwater said:


> The premiere was designed for Flash (hardware specific components just for flash). It is doubtful an HTML5 engine would even come close to the horrible performance flash has on the box. It isn't a viable solution.


That has got to be nonsense. Hardware for flash? Like a CPU that has to disable one core because the flash library isn't thread safe? If flash is getting a special hardware assist on the Premiere, then God help anyone using flash without special hardware because the performance sucks on the Premiere.


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## LoREvanescence (Jun 19, 2007)

tomhorsley said:


> That has got to be nonsense. Hardware for flash? Like a CPU that has to disable one core because the flash library isn't thread safe? If flash is getting a special hardware assist on the Premiere, then God help anyone using flash without special hardware because the performance sucks on the Premiere.


the premiere does have a chip specially designed for executing flash. This is why the S3/THD will never get the HDUI.


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## rainwater (Sep 21, 2004)

tomhorsley said:


> That has got to be nonsense.


It's not. And all of these posts saying they should switch to this or that are pointless. TiVo isn't going to rewrite the Premiere to use a different architecture. They would be better off focusing on finishing the UI and optimizing the performance which I suspect is exactly what they are doing.


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## L David Matheny (Jan 29, 2011)

LoREvanescence said:


> the premiere does have a chip specially designed for executing flash. This is why the S3/THD will never get the HDUI.


Then I hope TiVo management understands that they must never eliminate the Premiere's SDUI option (i.e., lean menus without downloaded eye candy).


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## Johnwashere (Sep 17, 2005)

L David Matheny said:


> Then I hope TiVo management understands that they must never eliminate the Premiere's SDUI option (i.e., lean menus without downloaded eye candy).


They wont.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

As long as they don't force me to use all menus in teh SDUI. It's bad enough that the HDUI switches to the SDUI for some menus. I can't stand meesing around with the SDUI anymore when I'm using my girlfriends S3 boxes.

I've been in the habit of checking different seasons and episodes for shows from my Premieres since it easily lists all this info in the HDUI. That's one of the things I miss if using an S3. And the Discovery Bar has introduced me to a few shows/movies that I otherwise would ahve never looked at.

But also even when there is no internet connection which means no discovery bar, I do not notice any increase in the speed of the HDUI. Just missing info since it can't download it. .


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## lpwcomp (May 6, 2002)

aaronwt said:


> But also even when there is no internet connection which means no discovery bar, I do not notice any increase in the speed of the HDUI. Just missing info since it can't download it. .


Actually, I've noticed just the opposite. It slows down and becomes less responsive when it's having network access problems.


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## jcthorne (Jan 28, 2002)

lpwcomp said:


> Actually, I've noticed just the opposite. It slows down and becomes less responsive when it's having network access problems.


Gee, kinda like Microsoft Office?


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## turbobozz (Sep 21, 2006)

lpwcomp said:


> Actually, I've noticed just the opposite. It slows down and becomes less responsive when it's having network access problems.


Network access problems and no internet connection could be two very different things... And probably different than removing the ethernet cable/wireless adapter entirely.

If it thinks it has network access, then it might be trying to constantly try to connect.
If your connection is bad/sketchy, then it will probably be deathly slow trying to get all of the packets sent and resent.

Even so... 
If the software is being programmed to reserve active memory space and CPU cycles to maintain numerous DB pictures... then you might think that shutting that off entirely would increase your performance.
Of course... we don't know what is really causing the hangups, but it looks to me like the damn pictures and info are either actively pulled from a server or they just have really bad "swap" issues with their limited ram and memory bus.


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## geoffsh (Oct 7, 2008)

"Tivo folks gave similar "unofficial" indications that the Series 3 would work with multi-stream Cablecards, for example - and it turned out not to be possible / happen / etc. for whatever reason."

Series 3 definitely works with multi-stream cards. You just need two of them if you want to be able to record two shows simultaneously or watch one channel while recording from another at the same time. 

Series 3 will put a multi-stream card in "single-stream mode." In my experience, cable personnel are pretty hit or miss in terms of how much they know about cable cards. I would not be surprised if someone from your cable company told you that you must use single-stream cards with a Seriies 3, but its just not true.


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## rainwater (Sep 21, 2004)

geoffsh said:


> "Tivo folks gave similar "unofficial" indications that the Series 3 would work with multi-stream Cablecards, for example - and it turned out not to be possible / happen / etc. for whatever reason."


The main reason being the component manufacturer couldn't produce drivers for it to work in multistream mode. TiVo did think it would work but at the time there were no multistream cards in existence so they couldn't verify it. This situation is much different. There are no hardware issues or other vendors holding back updating the UI.


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## jmccorm (Oct 8, 2000)

johnner1999 said:


> But did they enable the 2nd core?


My _suspicion_ is that the 2nd core will *never* be enabled. It likely isn't an operating system or software issue, but a hardware one. They designed their own custom motherboard, and someone who makes a first generation dual-core motherboard has got to be super careful when it comes to cache coherency issues:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cache_coherence
http://www.nedprod.com/NedHAL/Cache%20Coherency%20solutions.html

It is very easy for me to believe that TiVo didn't get cache coherency correct in the hardware (specialized hardware support is usually required for this), and as a result, can never have two CPUs enabled without risking memory corruption.

Speculation, though. I'd have to have access to their internal documents to prove it. But I think, at this point, you might as well consider the 2nd CPU as good as dead.


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## DaveWhittle (Jul 25, 2002)

jmccorm said:


> But I think, at this point, you might as well consider the 2nd CPU as good as dead.


I'm wondering if a full HD-UI is dead too?


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## sbiller (May 10, 2002)

jmccorm said:


> My _suspicion_ is that the 2nd core will *never* be enabled. It likely isn't an operating system or software issue, but a hardware one. They designed their own custom motherboard, and someone who makes a first generation dual-core motherboard has got to be super careful when it comes to cache coherency issues:
> 
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cache_coherence
> http://www.nedprod.com/NedHAL/Cache%20Coherency%20solutions.html
> ...


I believe we will see 2nd core support in 2012. See http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=475533 for some details on the kernel update required for 2nd core support.


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## jmccorm (Oct 8, 2000)

sbiller said:


> I believe we will see 2nd core support in 2012. See http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=475533 for some details on the kernel update required for 2nd core support.


A lack of a line noting a second CPU being disabled in a work-in-progress kernel build is pretty sketchy evidence, at best. Then again, all I've got is history and speculation.

I can agree that nobody is going to prove anything either way with the 2nd CPU. I'm pretty sure it is a lemon, but who knows? I won't be unhappy if TiVo returns to its roots to enact one of those neo-management concepts, like "delight customers".


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## Joe Siegler (May 10, 2000)

I used to have a DirecTiVo back in the day. It had a USB port on it for "future use", and it never got activated for anything - even after I got rid of it and DirecTV. Wouldn't be the first time there was hardware planned and not used.


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## sbiller (May 10, 2002)

jmccorm said:


> A lack of a line noting a second CPU being disabled in a work-in-progress kernel build is pretty sketchy evidence, at best. Then again, all I've got is history and speculation.
> 
> I can agree that nobody is going to prove anything either way with the 2nd CPU. I'm pretty sure it is a lemon, but who knows? I won't be unhappy if TiVo returns to its roots to enact one of those neo-management concepts, like "delight customers".


Actually RCN has confirmed that TiVo is working on significant performance improvement for the Premiere HDUI to be released in the 2012 time-frame. I was connecting the dots between the discussion on the version 16 kernel and the comments from RCN. I think the evidence is pointing towards TiVo knowing what the problem is with performance on the Premiere platform but requiring some significant engineering effort to re-architect the platform to support the improved performance.


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## crxssi (Apr 5, 2010)

sbiller said:


> Actually RCN has confirmed that TiVo is working on significant performance improvement for the Premiere HDUI to be released in the 2012 time-frame.


Well, I wouldn't hold your breath. We have heard such optimistic news before- time and time again, and pretty much nothing happens over more than a year and a half (well, except introduction of yet ANOTHER series 4 sub-model, with the same limitations, a third-party iOS app that 2/3rds of people can't take advantage of, and a fairly useless Hulu plus app that won't allow non-plus use or non-plus video).

Still no backups of settings, still no multicore, still dismal HDUI performance, still no full HD menus, still no Netflix updates, still no streaming, still no fixes for major bugs (no response from remote freeze bug, unexpected reboots, forever slow reboots, SDUI group is empty bug, can't reboot with Slide dongle bug, etc), still no On-Demand with Cox or Charter, still no official Android app. Plus no way to turn off the discovery bar, no way to adjust fonts in HDUI nor SDUI, and no non-live caching of show icons and text in the HDUI. I am sure I am missing several more things.

With each update, I watch as none of my bugs are fixed, no features are added (or none I can use), sometimes new bugs appear, and I pray they don't take some feature away that I like or need (which hasn't happened yet, thankfully).

I am done with speculation and hopefulness. Show me real progress on MY Premiere, or I will just believe things will never get better than what we have now. If nothing else, it keeps me sane.... no hopes = fewer disappointments.


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## moyekj (Jan 24, 2006)

The iPad protocol development was a MAJOR enhancement for Premiere IMO that is not available on older TiVos, especially once it was reverse engineered such that an iPad is not necessary. It opened up the doors to a lot of extra functionality we didn't have before and made the bugs such as "does not respond to remote control" almost tolerable, and a fix for that problem is in the works despite snail progress. I'm enjoying proper functional Season Pass management (vs the tivo.com poor implementation), Season Pass backups, categorized "Will Not Record" lists, Season Premiere searches among other things I couldn't do before.
There were many things done poorly for the Premiere, but give credit where credit is due when TiVo does something right.


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## rainwater (Sep 21, 2004)

crxssi said:


> and a fairly useless Hulu plus app that won't allow non-plus use or non-plus video


Huh? It's called Hulu PLUS. Of course it only allow Plus content. That is how it works on every other device Hulu Plus is on. That has nothing to do with TiVo as they don't even develop the app.


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## drnull (Jul 21, 2003)

crxssi said:


> ... and a fairly useless Hulu plus app that won't allow non-plus use or non-plus video.


Not to take away anything at all from your list, as it's accurate. But if I understand correctly, this will never change, on TiVo or any other set-top box. I don't think Hulu allows tv viewing unless you subscribe to Hulu Plus.


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## aadam101 (Jul 15, 2002)

Joe Siegler said:


> I used to have a DirecTiVo back in the day. It had a USB port on it for "future use", and it never got activated for anything - even after I got rid of it and DirecTV. Wouldn't be the first time there was hardware planned and not used.


Didn't one of the Tivo remotes also have a button that didn't do anything? I think it was on the Series 2.


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## aadam101 (Jul 15, 2002)

drnull said:


> Not to take away anything at all from your list, as it's accurate. But if I understand correctly, this will never change, on TiVo or any other set-top box. I don't think Hulu allows tv viewing unless you subscribe to Hulu Plus.


I don't think that is what the OP meant. The free version of Hulu has videos that the paid version does not have. This is pretty stupid and very disappointing. I missed a recording the other day (my fault) and I had to watch it on my PC via Hulu since it's not available on Hulu+.

Sometimes when this happens, I just pirate it. It really is an easier solution.


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## lpwcomp (May 6, 2002)

aadam101 said:


> Didn't one of the Tivo remotes also have a button that didn't do anything? I think it was on the Series 2.


Yeah, the "Window" button never did anything of which I am aware.


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## atmuscarella (Oct 11, 2005)

aadam101 said:


> I don't think that is what the OP meant. The free version of Hulu has videos that the paid version does not have. This is pretty stupid and very disappointing. I missed a recording the other day (my fault) and I had to watch it on my PC via Hulu since it's not available on Hulu+.
> 
> Sometimes when this happens, I just pirate it. It really is an easier solution.


Actually I think the point is what crxssi was complaining about is a Hulu issue not a TiVo issue. TiVo deserves to be called on TiVo issues however blaming them for non-TiVo issues is pretty stupid.

The Hulu+ service is what it is. If someone doesn't like it they shouldn't pay for it. The non Hulu+ content that is available on Hulu.com when you access the web site with a computer and a web browser is not available through any streaming device this is not a secret and there is nothing any of us can do about it.

Thanks,


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## jmccorm (Oct 8, 2000)

moyekj said:


> There were many things done poorly for the Premiere, but give credit where credit is due when TiVo does something right.


The tablet app seems to be a case of TiVo focusing on the patent game some more. But it is nice to see that it actually had some good real-world benefits for the users.


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## HeatherA (Jan 10, 2002)

moyekj said:


> 'm enjoying proper functional Season Pass management (vs the tivo.com poor implementation), Season Pass backups, categorized "Will Not Record" lists, Season Premiere searches among other things I couldn't do before.


You do all this with the iPad app? Am I missing something?


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## moyekj (Jan 24, 2006)

HeatherA said:


> You do all this with the iPad app? Am I missing something?


 No, this is something that is now part of kmttg made possible thanks to reverse engineering of the iPad protocol by forum member "arantius" (who then used his work to make an Android app using that protocol). See relevant Wiki for more details:
http://code.google.com/p/kmttg/wiki/remote_control
It's a shame that TiVo doesn't officially provide an IDK for this as well as HME protocol - they sure could use more help from 3rd party development right now.


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## HeatherA (Jan 10, 2002)

moyekj said:


> No, this is something that is now part of kmttg made possible thanks to reverse engineering of the iPad protocol by forum member "arantius" (who then used his work to make an Android app using that protocol). See relevant Wiki for more details:
> http://code.google.com/p/kmttg/wiki/remote_control
> It's a shame that TiVo doesn't officially provide an IDK for this as well as HME protocol - they sure could use more help from 3rd party development right now.


Oh thanks... I just set that up a few weeks ago but haven't had time to really "play" with it and see what it was capable of.


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## tomhorsley (Jul 22, 2010)

sbiller said:


> Actually RCN has confirmed that TiVo is working on significant performance improvement for the Premiere HDUI to be released in the 2012 time-frame. I was connecting the dots between the discussion on the version 16 kernel and the comments from RCN. I think the evidence is pointing towards TiVo knowing what the problem is with performance on the Premiere platform but requiring some significant engineering effort to re-architect the platform to support the improved performance.


Yea, like rewriting it from scratch .


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## crxssi (Apr 5, 2010)

aadam101 said:


> I don't think that is what the OP meant. The free version of Hulu has videos that the paid version does not have. This is pretty stupid and very disappointing. I missed a recording the other day (my fault) and I had to watch it on my PC via Hulu since it's not available on Hulu+.


Yes, that is exactly what I meant. Why would anyone pay for a streaming service that not only forces commercials on you, but also denies you access to the stuff you can stream for free on the non-plus Hulu on computers? It makes absolutely no sense.

It doesn't matter to me that it is a Hulu design or Hulu limitation or Hulu rule. TiVo devoted resources of SOME AMOUNT that could have been used for something better- like fixing bugs or updating Netflix.


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## crxssi (Apr 5, 2010)

moyekj said:


> No, this is something that is now part of kmttg made possible thanks to reverse engineering of the iPad protocol by forum member "arantius" (who then used his work to make an Android app using that protocol). See relevant Wiki for more details:
> http://code.google.com/p/kmttg/wiki/remote_control
> It's a shame that TiVo doesn't officially provide an IDK for this as well as HME protocol - they sure could use more help from 3rd party development right now.


OK, that is totally kewl. I haven't seen a recent version of kttmg... the ability to backup and store/restore my season passes is just incredibly nice! And still runs very well under Linux.

I am guessing access to the "guide" data is something that is still not accessible/reverse engineered yet. It is, indeed, a shame they don't put out more info. KTTMG and the TiVo Commander Android App are two excellent examples of what can be done... and all "unofficially".


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## moyekj (Jan 24, 2006)

crxssi said:


> I am guessing access to the "guide" data is something that is still not accessible/reverse engineered yet.


 It is accessible. That's what the "Season Premieres" searching utility looks through to find Season & Series premieres. Also TiVo Commander & the iPad apps allow browsing guide data. Browsing guide is beyond the scope of what I want to implement in kmttg - best to use the TiVo itself for search or one of the mobile apps, I'm not going to re-invent that.


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## tomm1079 (May 10, 2005)

moyekj said:


> No, this is something that is now part of kmttg made possible thanks to reverse engineering of the iPad protocol by forum member "arantius" (who then used his work to make an Android app using that protocol). See relevant Wiki for more details:
> http://code.google.com/p/kmttg/wiki/remote_control
> It's a shame that TiVo doesn't officially provide an IDK for this as well as HME protocol - they sure could use more help from 3rd party development right now.


very nice! didnt even know this existed. Grabbing it now.


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## crxssi (Apr 5, 2010)

moyekj said:


> It is accessible. That's what the "Season Premieres" searching utility looks through to find Season & Series premieres. Also TiVo Commander & the iPad apps allow browsing guide data..


I don't know anything abut iPad, but on TiVo Commander you can not "browse" guide data, you can only search guide data with key words. No grid type view. I am hoping, though...


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## drnull (Jul 21, 2003)

crxssi said:


> Yes, that is exactly what I meant. Why would anyone pay for a streaming service that not only forces commercials on you, but also denies you access to the stuff you can stream for free on the non-plus Hulu on computers? It makes absolutely no sense.


Agreed. Hulu Plus totally doesn't seem worth it to me, but maybe that's because I have cable and watch what I want via my TiVo (and typically don't need to scramble to catch a missed episode).



crxssi said:


> It doesn't matter to me that it is a Hulu design or Hulu limitation or Hulu rule. TiVo devoted resources of SOME AMOUNT that could have been used for something better- like fixing bugs or updating Netflix.


But we'll have to disagree here. TiVo devoted resources to adding functionality that those who *DO* subscribe to Hulu Plus will find valuable. I'd imagine there are some people who don't have/like Netflix and aren't hit very frequently with the bugs who would have complained if TiVo had devoted resources to those areas.

It's just another case of pleasing some of the people, some of the time I guess. All I was trying to say is that you can't fault TiVo for Hulu's idiotic decision to not push all freely viewable content to their Plus program.


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## MrJedi (Apr 13, 2011)

When it come comes to streaming services like Hulu+ and Netflix I think people need to keep in mind that those services are typically hamstrung by the content owners. Take the Starz Play with Netflix, despite changing their fee structure to allow more money to go to streaming licences, they still couldn't reach a deal for renewal. The content owners are typically charging higher licensing fees for digital content than physical media. I agree that right now Hulu+ isn't worth paying for. There just isn't enough "+" content to justify the expense, unless maybe you dropped cable and just can't live without The Daily Show and Colbert Report.

I think if more DVR tracking was done on television shows advertisers would crap themselves to learn how few commercials are actually being watched. If an when that happens Hulu+ will be attractive to more advertisers, and could potentially draw more content. Until an easy hack is in place to bypass the Hulu+ commercials the advertisers know that you can't FF and they are two short to just leave the couch and make a samich.

We live in a weird time where it is really easy to view digital content, but the owners don't want us to because they are scared about piracy.


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## slowbiscuit (Sep 19, 2006)

In the case of Netflix Tivo is being hamstrung by its own crappy programmers. There is no excuse that I can see for not significantly updating an app that was outdated by its competition over a year ago, especially when long-reported bugs are not addressed. Of course they have no control over content, but they have plenty over how it's presented.


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## atmuscarella (Oct 11, 2005)

MrJedi said:


> When it come comes to streaming services like Hulu+ and Netflix I think people need to keep in mind that those services are typically hamstrung by the content owners. Take the Starz Play with Netflix, despite changing their fee structure to allow more money to go to streaming licences, they still couldn't reach a deal for renewal. The content owners are typically charging higher licensing fees for digital content than physical media. I agree that right now Hulu+ isn't worth paying for. There just isn't enough "+" content to justify the expense, unless maybe you dropped cable and just can't live without The Daily Show and Colbert Report.
> 
> I think if more DVR tracking was done on television shows advertisers would crap themselves to learn how few commercials are actually being watched. If an when that happens Hulu+ will be attractive to more advertisers, and could potentially draw more content. Until an easy hack is in place to bypass the Hulu+ commercials the advertisers know that you can't FF and they are two short to just leave the couch and make a samich.
> 
> We live in a weird time where it is really easy to view digital content, but the owners don't want us to because they are scared about piracy.


That is why when it comes to Hulu/Hulu+ using a HTPC is far superior to any other streaming device.

First you get to view everything - not sure if it still worth paying for Hulu+ but is nice to be able to watch anything on the site.

Second your comment about getting up during the commercials is spot on. Here again the HTPC is the superior to the streaming boxes because while there isn't really enough time to get up, there is enough time to jump to another browser window and check email, Twitter, Facebook, etc. if you leave the sound alone it is easy to know when to go back to your show. Kind of like channel surfing during commercials before I had a DVR.

Thanks,


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## jfh3 (Apr 15, 2004)

atmuscarella said:


> That is why when it comes to Hulu/Hulu+ using a HTPC is far superior to any other streaming device.


Your points are good ones, but use of an HTPC isn't anywhere near a mainstram solution and typically has a WAF of near zero.


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## slowbiscuit (Sep 19, 2006)

If you botch the job, sure. But it doesn't have to be that way - I ran a Myth box for years to get clear QAM HD channels before I got my Tivos and the WAF was high. It took a while to setup and get it tweaked correctly (with proper remote control mappings included), but once done performed very well for the wife and I.

I'm actually thinking about going this route again now that we can get Cablecard tuners for HTPCs that Myth can handle.


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## arantius (Jul 25, 2009)

crxssi said:


> I don't know anything abut iPad, but on TiVo Commander you can not "browse" guide data, you can only search guide data with key words. No grid type view. I am hoping, though...


It's a lot of work, and I don't use the guide (it's a DVR, I watch recorded shows, not live shows), so I didn't build it for myself. But it's open source, feel free to contribute.


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## crxssi (Apr 5, 2010)

arantius said:


> It's a lot of work, and I don't use the guide (it's a DVR, I watch recorded shows, not live shows), so I didn't build it for myself. But it's open source, feel free to contribute.


Hey, I "know" you! You wrote TiVo Commander!

I sent you an Email giving you 1,000 thanks but never heard from you!!! So thanks 1,000 here too  You are da bomb!

For me, the guide has absolutely nothing to do with "live" shows. The guide is for browsing what is available on my favorite stations and using it to set up recordings, which might also lead to a season pass if I like it. I can't do that with searching. Searching is only useful if you know what you are looking for (well, typically).

Believe me, if I could program Android, I certainly would contribute. If there is some non-programming way I could help, do let me know, however. Yes, the guide would be a lot of work- (Is it even possible? Does the API expose a known way to suck that stuff out and interact with it?)

Relevant threads:
http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=474410
http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=465942
http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=474359


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