# Check in here if you canceled pre-order after seeing sluggish interface videos.



## hoyty (Jan 22, 2003)

Just wondering how many people canceled their pre-orders after seeing the videos of the sluggish interface. I am hanging on to my Series 3 for now thanks. I went through the delay waiting for second tuner to be enabled in first DirecTV TiVo. I don't want to have to wait for the second core to be enabled in the Series 4.


----------



## SafariKC (Mar 6, 2000)

I'm also sticking with my Series3's for now. Once they get the thing performing on par and not bouncing around different UIs all over the place I'll look again.


----------



## innocentfreak (Aug 25, 2001)

This alone makes it worth it to me.


----------



## SafariKC (Mar 6, 2000)

With my sling, none of this transfer stuff matters to me. The things I want to archive off can take a while sure, but in my home it's actually faster than real time anyway.


----------



## flaminiom (Dec 27, 2008)

Thinking about it.

I want to pick up a Dune player also. My original plan was to keep the Tivo HD as a third/fourth tuner. Seeing the TV season is almost over, I'm thinking about canceling to get the Dune. Then revisit Tivo Premiere in the fall. Only thing keeping me hanging on is I got a pretty good deal on an XL with the upgrade and fatwallet. On the other hand, boxes might be cheaper in six months, or at least refurbs available.


----------



## flaminiom (Dec 27, 2008)

innocentfreak said:


> This alone makes it worth it to me.


What does that show? Is that between a PC and the Tivo, or between two Premiere Tivos?


----------



## jfh3 (Apr 15, 2004)

innocentfreak said:


> This alone makes it worth it to me.


Looks like they should change Series 3 transfer to Tivo HD transfer or something.


----------



## innocentfreak (Aug 25, 2001)

They probably will once they update that section.

This is what the speeds look like on the Tivo HD












flaminiom said:


> What does that show? Is that between a PC and the Tivo, or between two Premiere Tivos?


Those are both, iirc. I forget which one is which though. These are from bkdtv in the gizmodo review thread. I assume he will be updating the FAQ with more info based off these.


----------



## paulnelson20 (Oct 18, 2007)

IIRC,

1. PC to TiVo
2. TiVo to PC
3. TiVo to TiVo (incoming)
4. TiVo to TiVo (outgoing)
5. Download, ie AmazonVOD
6. Self explanatory

Take this info with a grain of salt, not sure it I'm right.


----------



## bobdolee (Mar 17, 2010)

I'm holding steady. I have faith that Tivo will iron out the bugs. Considering their dwindling customer base, they can't afford not to.


----------



## jmpage2 (Jan 21, 2004)

bobdolee said:


> I'm holding steady. I have faith that Tivo will iron out the bugs. Considering their dwindling customer base, they can't afford not to.


Considering their dwindling customer base they can't afford to ship a 1/2 done product, but they are.


----------



## innocentfreak (Aug 25, 2001)

According to bkdtv's review, an hour recording took 4 minutes on SD, or at most 20 minutes for ESPNHD with the average time of 13 minutes for local HD channels.

The same transfers on the TiVo HD, were 15 minutes for SD, 83 minutes for ESPNHD and 56 minutes for local HD channels.


----------



## BigJimOutlaw (Mar 21, 2004)

The transfer speeds are great; it's a shame I don't transfer much. 

Canceled because those laggy menus would drive me nuts. I'm sure it's everybody's hope that things speed up with a prompt software update, but I'm not going to buy on that hope. Tivo's record of fixing issues promptly the past few years is kind of against them.


----------



## innocentfreak (Aug 25, 2001)

They would probably bother me more if I had a HD set, but since I keep going to buy inbetween cycles I just haven't done it yet. I don't know if I am even sold on the new UI. I realize it is just TiVo Search Beta but I never used it since I was on SD sets.

I need to ask my friend who made the jump to see what he thought of it since he was used to the SD for so long.


----------



## Saberj (Sep 29, 2006)

I was waiting for reviews before pre-ordering. I was already on the fence due to the number of tuners. Now I can happily hold off and see if they fix things before I need to make the decision.


----------



## supersportsfan (Sep 15, 2005)

I am really thinking about it...really am...

Honestly, I would not be surprised if TiVo starts putting these pre-orders into a pre-ship queue, so people can't cancel their orders, cause I am sure they lost at least 25% of their pre-orders today...

I don't know why I am going to pay $240 to upgrade to what essentially looks like a public beta test for the box.


----------



## TrueTurbo (Feb 19, 2008)

supersportsfan said:


> I don't know why I am going to pay $240 to upgrade to what essentially looks like a public beta test for the box.


Because you have the common sense to realize that the Premiere platform will just keep growing and expanding through software updates over the next several months and you don't want to miss out on all the new functionality as it happens?


----------



## xboard07 (Dec 16, 2007)

I was going to bu yone but I am holding off for now. They should have had the HD UI much more complete before launching this product.


----------



## oViTynoT (May 18, 2007)

Am I the only one wondering how someone got 60+ Megabit/second YOUTUBE Transfers???? What kind of I-net bandwidth do you have???


----------



## dbtom (Feb 14, 2002)

I canceled my XL order  Sad.


----------



## BlackBetty (Nov 6, 2004)

supersportsfan said:


> Honestly, I would not be surprised if TiVo starts putting these pre-orders into a pre-ship queue, so people can't cancel their orders, cause I am sure they lost at least 25% of their pre-orders today.


37.78% of all statistics are made up on the spot.


----------



## bkdtv (Jan 9, 2003)

jfh3 said:


> Looks like they should change Series 3 transfer to Tivo HD transfer or something.


The current screen substitutes "DVR" for "Series3." I didn't bother to redo the screenshots.


----------



## flaminiom (Dec 27, 2008)

Anyone know if the upgrade program is a limited time offer?


----------



## Popasmurf (Jun 10, 2002)

You know, I guess I look at it in a different way. They WILL fix the issues, granted it might be a month or 2 but they will fix it. I am not going to cancel my order because I'm upgrading a S2 and want HD as well as the faster, better system when they DO fix it. I'll live with it for the time being.


----------



## RoyK (Oct 22, 2004)

Popasmurf said:


> You know, I guess I look at it in a different way. They WILL fix the issues, granted it might be a month or 2 but they will fix it. I am not going to cancel my order because I'm upgrading a S2 and want HD as well as the faster, better system when they DO fix it. I'll live with it for the time being.


Sure they will. Just like they fixed all the issues in the TiVoHD...NOT!


----------



## jmpage2 (Jan 21, 2004)

How do you cancel your order from your account screen in tivo.com?


----------



## BigJimOutlaw (Mar 21, 2004)

jmpage2 said:


> How do you cancel your order from your account screen in tivo.com?


Order history page.


----------



## jmpage2 (Jan 21, 2004)

Thanks (orders cancelled).

I'm not going to fund TiVo incompetence. I will reconsider getting the box when they prove they can complete it.


----------



## escrge (Apr 30, 2003)

Having just replaced 2 old CRT TVs with HD flatscreens, I'm upgrading from Series 2s. I'll just be happy to see HD on my beautiful new TVs. And once they turn on the second processor, I have faith it will be fine. I'm a TiVo fan to the end.


----------



## TexasGrillChef (Sep 15, 2006)

innocentfreak said:


>


How do you get to this screen on your TiVo???

Thanks

TGC


----------



## orangeboy (Apr 19, 2004)

TexasGrillChef said:


> How do you get to this screen on your TiVo???
> 
> Thanks
> 
> TGC


It's in the Network Settings - Transfer History? Or something like that...


----------



## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

hoyty said:


> Just wondering how many people canceled their pre-orders after seeing the videos of the sluggish interface. I am hanging on to my Series 3 for now thanks. I went through the delay waiting for second tuner to be enabled in first DirecTV TiVo. I don't want to have to wait for the second core to be enabled in the Series 4.


After the excellent review I'm getting eight Premeres now but will still end up with six lifetime units that I use regularly by Autumn.

With all the people griping this should help me with my the sale of my nine S3 units. Which will further reduce any out of pocket cost for my eight Premiers.

I haven't been this excited about getting a TiVo since the DirecTV HDTiVo came out in 2004.


----------



## jmpage2 (Jan 21, 2004)

aaronwt said:


> After the excellent review I'm getting eight Premeres now but will still end up with six lifetime units that I use regularly by Autumn.
> 
> With all the people griping this should help me with my the sale of my nine S3 units. Which will further reduce any out of pocket cost for my eight Premiers.


What review are you referring to? bkdtv's review that thrills you because of the faster transfer speed? This thread is for those of us pissed off enough to cancel. We know you love your 12-14 tuners but I have a feeling you are in the minority on being "excited" about this launch.


----------



## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

There is nothing in the reviews that would piss me off. Worst case, you run the old UI and it runs slightly faster than an S3 unit.


----------



## MediaLivingRoom (Dec 10, 2002)

I would not order one.


----------



## weaknees (May 11, 2001)

Has anyone confirmed that this slow UI is the final release? I've read about the speed lags in several places (especially Mossberg) but I'm not convinced that this is necessarily the final release.

All indications we've had are that the final OS release comes out next week. I'm not certain that these testers are really using the final software. Does anyone know?


----------



## MediaLivingRoom (Dec 10, 2002)

weaknees said:


> Has anyone confirmed that this slow UI is the final release? I've read about the speed lags in several places (especially Mossberg) but I'm not convinced that this is necessarily the final release.
> 
> All indications we've had are that the final OS release comes out next week. I'm not certain that these testers are really using the final software. Does anyone know?


IF weaknees can replace the CPU, that would be awesome.


----------



## jmpage2 (Jan 21, 2004)

"Final" is a misnomer in the software world. What you saw is the shipping software. If you read all of the reviews you will see that TiVo has not yet been able to enable the 2nd core on the processor due to stability issues.

It's up in the air on how much that 2nd cpu will increase the HD menus. If TiVo showed us the performance improvement, even in light of the instability it might help calm people down. Right now we simply don't know if/when they will turn on the 2nd cpu core and how much of a difference it will make.

Nothing is "final" in the software until the product goes end of support. They will release the product and then add features/capabilities for a period of time. Then when they consider it "feature complete" it goes into a maintenance phase that consists primarily of bug fixes.

Previous history has demonstrated that TiVo has challenges in these areas.


----------



## weaknees (May 11, 2001)

OK - fine - "final" was the wrong word. 

But how about a "first release" version that isn't a beta? Again, my understanding is that the "first release" won't be until next week.


----------



## jmpage2 (Jan 21, 2004)

weaknees said:


> OK - fine - "final" was the wrong word.
> 
> But how about a "first release" version that isn't a beta? Again, my understanding is that the "first release" won't be until next week.


Maybe bkdtv can enlighten us. Several reviews have indicated TiVo promises some performance improvements, and the Engadget one I believe claims it will be coming "next month".

I will remain skeptical but I suppose it is possible they could deliver it as early as next week when units start to ship... and you would think that with all the negative press on the TiVo HD and the lackluster reviews, TiVo would be on here openly defending their work and giving us a timeline.

We don't see that though, all the TiVo employed chest thumpers have mysteriously vanished, if the reviews were so far off target and massive improvements were coming immediately I would imagine TiVo Jerry and others would be on here assuring us that when the software ships it will be "complete" from a performance perspective.


----------



## bkdtv (Jan 9, 2003)

jmpage2 said:


> "Final" is a misnomer in the software world. What you saw is the shipping software. If you read all of the reviews you will see that TiVo has not yet been able to enable the 2nd core on the processor due to stability issues.


Your box has to be specifically authorized to get the software with the HD UI right now. It's not available to the "public" yet.


----------



## b_scott (Nov 27, 2006)

it'll speed up soon enough. TivoHD is already laggy. I've learned to deal with it - and you know they built this system so they could improve on it.


----------



## jmpage2 (Jan 21, 2004)

bkdtv said:


> Your box has to be specifically authorized to get the software with the HD UI right now. It's not available to the "public" yet.


Okay, thanks. Can you answer the question though of whether or not the software version shipping next week is the version you reviewed? Does it have the same sluggish performance we've seen in review videos? When will TiVo turn on the 2nd processor core and improve the performance?


----------



## flaminiom (Dec 27, 2008)

weaknees said:


> OK - fine - "final" was the wrong word.
> 
> But how about a "first release" version that isn't a beta? Again, my understanding is that the "first release" won't be until next week.


I think that if the UI includes all HD screens/menus running on both cores, then that's a final release. Surely there will be issues, but I'd consider the above to be announced features. Not sure I see that happening, however.


----------



## fatlard (Jun 30, 2003)

aaronwt said:


> After the excellent review I'm getting eight Premeres now but will still end up with six lifetime units that I use regularly by Autumn.
> 
> With all the people griping this should help me with my the sale of my nine S3 units. Which will further reduce any out of pocket cost for my eight Premiers.
> 
> I haven't been this excited about getting a TiVo since the DirecTV HDTiVo came out in 2004.


Thanks aaronwt for staying with your intent to purchase. Someone has to identify the issues and call Tivo and stay on hold and then notify them of the problems. Might as well be you.


----------



## Unseen Llama (Nov 29, 2005)

fatlard said:


> Thanks aaronwt for staying with your intent to purchase. Someone has to identify the issues and call Tivo and stay on hold and then notify them of the problems. Might as well be you.


And me too! If BestBuy would let me freakin' buy one already.


----------



## ciucca (Jun 29, 2004)

I canceled after finding the 3 tuner Moxi with the Mate.


----------



## i2k (Apr 3, 2008)

Those are some vastly improved transfer speeds though. Thats def a good sign that the new CPU is certainly more capable.


----------



## BigJimOutlaw (Mar 21, 2004)

There are no software tweaks that are going to cut the lag (at LEAST) in half within the next week, which is pretty much what's needed. If there were, Tivo would have absolutely told the media so to avoid this latest public lashing.

This is going to be an issue for a fair bit of time after launch. They put their best face forward for the media, and had no choice but to accept their faceplant today. Hopefully they've been humbled enough to decide to at LEAST turn on caching, but I'm not gonna hold my breath.


----------



## jayhajj (Dec 22, 2009)

I think the $25-50 the upgrade will cost me per TiVo is worth it for the benefit of future improvements the HD/S3 won't see. I do admit after seeing the video reviews of the menu lag, I lost my excitement for the HD interface. They explained it as TiVo didn't cache the data to save memory, since they didn't have much?? Come on TiVo, you should have done it right or not at all. I wish I could add a 1GB USB memory stick on the back for "ReadyBoost" type improvement. It's not unprecedented. Like the BD Live Ready Bluray players that require a 1GB usb memory stick.


----------



## falcon26 (Mar 17, 2010)

It seems to me that if you already have a series 3 their no reason at all to upgrade to the series 4. But if you have no tivo at all then by all means go with the series 4..


----------



## fatlard (Jun 30, 2003)

falcon26 said:


> It seems to me that if you already have a series 3 their no reason at all to upgrade to the series 4. But if you have no tivo at all then by all means go with the series 4..


or look at the Moxi.


----------



## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

jayhajj said:


> I think the $25-50 the upgrade will cost me per TiVo is worth it for the benefit of future improvements the HD/S3 won't see. I do admit after seeing the video reviews of the menu lag, I lost my excitement for the HD interface. They explained it as TiVo didn't cache the data to save memory, since they didn't have much?? Come on TiVo, you should have done it right or not at all. I wish I could add a 1GB USB memory stick on the back for "ReadyBoost" type improvement. It's not unprecedented. Like the BD Live Ready Bluray players that require a 1GB usb memory stick.


That 1GB for BD Live is not for speeding things up. It is for storage space.

BD Live is still too slow, even on the fastest players with the fastest connections.


----------



## b_scott (Nov 27, 2006)

aaronwt said:


> That 1GB for BD Live is not for speeding things up. It is for storage space.
> 
> BD Live is still too slow, even on the fastest players with the fastest connections.


it's pretty fast on PS3


----------



## cap (Jan 27, 2001)

flaminiom said:


> Anyone know if the upgrade program is a limited time offer?


I don't know the answer, but this is the reason I'm keeping my order.
Basically 1/2 off on lifetime....sign me up. 
That's been money in the bank on all my other TiVo's and they will fix the issues. The S3 launched without MRV for criminy sakes and they fixed that.


----------



## falcon26 (Mar 17, 2010)

I like those MOXI machines but man are they $$$ and they only stream netflix from a computer that's already on. If they streamed netflix like tivo and it was cheaper I'd get one..


----------



## greensky (Mar 3, 2010)

> If you read all of the reviews you will see that TiVo has not yet been able to enable the 2nd core on the processor due to stability issues.


That's the main reason I'm waiting. I don't want a new box with potential stability issues. If they get it all working in software and it's stable I'll buy one. Otherwise I'm waiting till they release updated hardware. Either way this software doesn't look anywhere near finished.


----------



## TrueTurbo (Feb 19, 2008)

fatlard said:


> or look at the Moxi.


Then come to your senses and get a TiVo Premiere.


----------



## fatlard (Jun 30, 2003)

TrueTurbo said:


> Then come to your senses and get a TiVo Premiere.


make sure you read the reviews first


----------



## daveak (Mar 23, 2009)

After the initial launch, will the 20% discount and lowered lifetime still be available? Hate to lose that deal by waiting for the box to be closer to what I want today.


----------



## orangeboy (Apr 19, 2004)

fatlard said:


> make sure you read the reviews first


Here's a couple that are _comparable_:

http://hd.engadget.com/2009/04/21/moxi-hd-dvr-initial-impressions/
http://www.crunchgear.com/2009/05/04/review-moxi-hd-dvr/

(Thanks DaveK for running these down! :up


----------



## orangeboy (Apr 19, 2004)

daveak said:


> After the initial launch, will the 20% discount and lowered lifetime still be available? Hate to lose that deal by waiting for the box to be closer to what I want today.


At one point, the TiVo website indicated this (and it still may) regarding the Premiere Upgrade Program: "Pricing and program availability is subject to change at anytime."


----------



## TrueTurbo (Feb 19, 2008)

fatlard said:


> make sure you read the reviews first


I have and my decision stands. The Moxi is no TiVo. If you think it can compete, you're sadly mistaken. If you like the Moxi interface and features, good for you. Personally, I think the Moxi is crap. I'll stick with TiVo thank you.


----------



## raker (Jan 20, 2003)

I am (was) a loyal Tivo fan. I can put up with the laggy interface. I can put up with the annoying banner frames. I can put up with the lack of built in DNLA integration. I can put up with the resolution/old UI changes. I can put up with the old season pass manager for now.

I will not put up with the change to the 30 second time skip. I hate bloody commercials. Some shows are bad enough, but it's the commercials that hammer and hammer and interrupt and extend on and on.

Reading the reviews and the comments on the change to the 30 sec skip were enough for me.

I sadly canceled my XL order. I will be back if Tivo gets their act together.

I am no longer a beta tester.


----------



## TrueTurbo (Feb 19, 2008)

raker said:


> I am (was) a loyal Tivo fan. I can put up with the laggy interface. I can put up with the annoying banner frames. I can put up with the lack of built in DNLA integration. I can put up with the resolution/old UI changes. I can put up with the old season pass manager for now.
> 
> I will not put up with the change to the 30 second time skip. I hate bloody commercials. Some shows are bad enough, but it's the commercials that hammer and hammer and interrupt and extend on and on.
> 
> ...


Huh? What do you think has changed with the 30 sec skip feature that is so bad!?! The Premiere still skips forward 30 secs.


----------



## jdgarrido (Jan 17, 2005)

Raker other users have confirm that the 30 second skip function can still be used the same way as before.


----------



## davezatz (Apr 18, 2002)

jdgarrido said:


> Raker other users have confirm that the 30 second skip function can still be used the same way as before.


At CES in January, I left my TiVo briefing with the belief there is this new 30 second scrub _in addition to_ the existing 30 second skip trick.


----------



## raker (Jan 20, 2003)

TrueTurbo said:


> I have and my decision stands. The Moxi is no TiVo. If you think it can compete, you're sadly mistaken. If you like the Moxi interface and features, good for you. Personally, I think the Moxi is crap. I'll stick with TiVo thank you.


Thanks for that. For some reason, I thought I read that the 30 sec skip feature had been changed. This is good news.

I will stick with canceling my order for now. I do like Tivo. Always have.

I will look forward to your comments and reviews (objective, right?)

thanks again.


----------



## jdgarrido (Jan 17, 2005)

I don't blame you for canceling your order. In my case I'm in a comcast area going all digital and decided getting a new tivo instead of an adapter. So I'll test it out later next week and post my findings.


----------



## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

raker said:


> I am (was) a loyal Tivo fan. I can put up with the laggy interface. I can put up with the annoying banner frames. I can put up with the lack of built in DNLA integration. I can put up with the resolution/old UI changes. I can put up with the old season pass manager for now.
> 
> I will not put up with the change to the 30 second time skip. I hate bloody commercials. Some shows are bad enough, but it's the commercials that hammer and hammer and interrupt and extend on and on.
> 
> ...


Nothing has changed with the 30 second skip. You activate it the same way you always have. You canceled your order for nothing.

I use the 30 second skip all the time now. But I plan on trying out the 30 sec slip for a while to see how I like it.


----------



## bamafan13 (Mar 7, 2010)

I will not buy one this weekend, as I was planning. Two reasons:

1) Software needs to be finished (all screens) and optimized
2) Wireless 802.11n is not out yet. No reason to buy "g" to just have to upgrade to "n" in a month

#1 really forced the decision, but #2 supports it.

I do not currently own a Tivo, but did own a DirecTivo (upgraded to 135hr) for 6 years.


----------



## smoknyreyz (Jan 5, 2005)

BlackBetty said:


> 37.78% of all statistics are made up on the spot.


and 82.4% of people believe them whether they're accurate statistics or not...


----------



## tivogurl (Dec 16, 2004)

The slowness of the UI makes me wonder if the TTL on their cache is zero.


----------



## smak (Feb 11, 2000)

davezatz said:


> At CES in January, I left my TiVo briefing with the belief there is this new 30 second scrub _in addition to_ the existing 30 second skip trick.


But not at the same time, since both use advance?

-smak-


----------



## raker (Jan 20, 2003)

aaronwt said:


> Nothing has changed with the 30 second skip. You activate it the same way you always have. You canceled your order for nothing.


I did not cancel my order easily. I'll be honest. The reviews swayed me away for now.

I went down an got an M card from my cable service. I ordered the box from Amazon first. I then found that I was not able to take advantage of the special lifetime service price unless I bought from Tivo Co. I canceled my order with Amazon and ordered through Tivo.

My wallet got real heavy. I re-read the threads with the reviews. All the reviews seemed to convey the same opinions. They can't all be wrong.

I just purchased a HDXL a month ago when stores were closing them out. I'm happy with that knowing all the pro's and con's. The close out price for the HDXL wasn't to bad either.

It wasn't just the 30 second skip issue that made me cancel. I found myself talking myself into the purchase willing to accept con's that would bug me until they finally upgraded the firmware.

I will sadly join the dark side and view the coming release from the sidelines.

I look forward to the unbiased reviews.


----------



## mchief (Sep 10, 2005)

I'm playing the waiting game. Areas of interest - faster transfers, wirelessN, 1080p, and 3 or 4 tuners. The UI in HD or not and lagging or not is of no interest. I did not buy a Tivo only for the UI. Does the Tivo RECORD and play back programs as scheduled? It does and I see no reason to upgrade from the TivoHD until there is real progress in upgrading the processors and the number of recording tuners.


----------



## flaminiom (Dec 27, 2008)

I really doubt Tivo will ever come out with more tuners. I have a feeling people who really need more than two tuners are a small minority, or at least Tivo believes that. Tivo's revenue model is heavy on subscriptions, so I think they figure that if power users want more tuners, they should get a second box. They probably also figure if they came out of triple tuners, they would actually lose money with existing multi-box owners turning of boxes. 

Honestly, that's not entirely unreasonable to at least make it a low priority. I mean, cable replays everything a dozen times through the week, so three tuners only factors in for broadcast networks. And then everything is moving VOD anyway.


----------



## innocentfreak (Aug 25, 2001)

Unfortunately I agree which is why I only bought 2 new boxes instead of 3. Now I am waiting for the Ceton card to replace my third TiVo.


----------



## sdzc (Sep 4, 2005)

BlackBetty said:


> 37.78% of all statistics are made up on the spot.


You must not have seen the new updated statistics on this. It is now 41.25% of all statistics...


----------



## ascuser (Oct 16, 2007)

sdzc said:


> You must not have seen the new updated statistics on this. It is now 41.25% of all statistics...


You are all wrong. Google tells me its 42.7% and Amazon.com even has a mug to prove it. You can't argue with Amazon. Or their mug.


----------



## Sasparilla (Dec 10, 2003)

jmpage2 said:


> "Final" is a misnomer in the software world. What you saw is the shipping software. If you read all of the reviews you will see that TiVo has not yet been able to enable the 2nd core on the processor due to stability issues.
> 
> It's up in the air on how much that 2nd cpu will increase the HD menus. If TiVo showed us the performance improvement, even in light of the instability it might help calm people down. Right now we simply don't know if/when they will turn on the 2nd cpu core and how much of a difference it will make.
> 
> ...


This was extremely well put. As another software engineer, I want to echo these statements.

If TiVo could have had quick fixes for these issues they'd be demoing them (and probably wouldn't have launched until they had them on the boxes anyways). Going from a single CPU to multiple CPU architecture is much more of an art than science as TiVo is finding out. Porting to a new software platform (from decade old C to Flash) is no walk in the park either.

I would not assume that 2nd CPU will ever get enabled, nor would I assume they'll get the lag out of the HD system display (if that was simple for them, it would already be in the shipping software). Hopefully they will, but I wouldn't assume it. Not having the 2nd CPU enabled is not a good sign.

IMHO, TiVo should have shipped the Premiere as a hardware revision to the HD with the existing interface and let users and reviewers experience faster UI & transfer speeds - the reviews would have been good at least. Then they could have worked on the new interface until it was complete, snappy and working on both CPU's before rollout (or killed it if it became obvious it wouldn't work - this happens sometimes with software development) - draping this half ported, half on interface as the front end of their next generation TiVo (and saying its the new generation) was a mistake - and they're paying for it in the reviews, all of which could have been avoided by better top level management decisions. And if they can't get the 2nd CPU enabled and/or the snappiness of the interface fixed, they'll never live it down cause it will always be there now.

All that said, when the cash is in hand (and I'm sure we can replace the internal HD in the Premiere when the time comes) I'll buy a Premiere just to get that transfer speed (transfer times for HD programs is killing me), roll it back to the Series 3 interface (and enjoy the snappiness of that 25% faster CPU that is being used). Now's the best time to get higher $$$ for that HD, compared to later.


----------



## jmpage2 (Jan 21, 2004)

Unfortunately from the comments of some of the people who already have the Premier in hand the S3/SD interface is not much peppier than it is on S3 boxes. Remember that the cpu is only 25&#37; faster and this new box probably has a bit more overhead even when running the S3 menus.

So, the ball is truly in TiVos court to prevent this from being a debacle... I'm sure that they will sell plenty of boxes to TiVo die hards and early adopters but they really need to demonstrate that they can execute in the software area if they want their platform to survive for the long haul (2+ years).

If you were a company that TiVo was trying to partner with how much work would you be willing to do on something when it's clear they can't even get the core product fully working?


----------



## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

Eevn in the PC world many programs still don't take advantage of multiple cores. The code needs to be written to do it.


----------



## gweempose (Mar 23, 2003)

Sasparilla said:


> IMHO, TiVo should have shipped the Premiere as a hardware revision to the HD with the existing interface and let users and reviewers experience faster UI & transfer speeds - the reviews would have been good at least. Then they could have worked on the new interface until it was complete, snappy and working on both CPU's before rollout ...


I couldn't agree with you more. It was a mistake to hype the product the way they did, only to launch it with a crippled, sluggish interface.


----------



## curiousgeorge (Nov 28, 2002)

falcon26 said:


> It seems to me that if you already have a series 3 their no reason at all to upgrade to the series 4. But if you have no tivo at all then by all means go with the series 4..


Meh. We upgraded two of our 4 TiVos. Originally it was one, but when I saw the huge jump in MRV throughput, I ordered another Premiere.

We use MRV a LOT and an increase of 3x-5x the speed is significant. Currently a 60 minute HD show takes about 40 minutes to transfer. With this speed boost that will drop to about 10. That's a HUGE improvement RIGHT NOW.

The season pass for different family members is nice.

The substantially reduced power consumption is not an inconsequential savings for a device that has to run 24x7x365.

The new laggy UI can be turned off until TiVo gets its act together.

Bottom line, we changed two S3s to Premiere. Once I've checked it out we may sent the THD and the other S3 down the road primarily because of the huge MRV transfer boost.


----------



## cruiserandmax (Apr 7, 2008)

I canceled my pre-order just in the nick of time. A laggy interface for any amount of time is simply not worth it for me.. I'll gladly buy one after a fix is put out, and a review confirms the interface is up to snuff (ie not laggy at ALL). But based on my understanding of the current issue (it's about caching data, not CPU capacity) I don't really expect any software update will really fix the problem .


----------



## orangeboy (Apr 19, 2004)

cruiserandmax said:


> I canceled my pre-order just in the nick of time. A laggy interface for any amount of time is simply not worth it for me.. I'll gladly buy one after a fix is put out, and a review confirms the interface is up to snuff (ie not laggy at ALL). But based on my understanding of the current issue (it's about caching data, not CPU capacity) I don't really expect any software update will really fix the problem .


You do realize that the SD interface is still there, and a bit snappier (because of the more powerful processor) then the previous models? You're only stuck with a laggy interface if you choose to be.

As far as cached data, sure it can be fixed with software - 
Instead of fetching images from the mothership for each panel change, every day during the call home, TiVo could send the images for the different shows in "My Shows", scheduled in Season Passes, and shows found in the To Do List, to be fetched locally. That of course wouldn't help images that need to load during a search, but it would definitely help in many of the other areas...


----------



## jmpage2 (Jan 21, 2004)

curiousgeorge said:


> Meh. We upgraded two of our 4 TiVos. Originally it was one, but when I saw the huge jump in MRV throughput, I ordered another Premiere.
> 
> We use MRV a LOT and an increase of 3x-5x the speed is significant. Currently a 60 minute HD show takes about 40 minutes to transfer. With this speed boost that will drop to about 10. That's a HUGE improvement RIGHT NOW.
> 
> ...


There is no season pass for different family members. That was another "mock up" that might never actually be implemented in this product.


----------



## schwinn (Sep 18, 2004)

So, Moxi isn't quite up to snuff with the wonderful Tivo interface... is there any other potential solution? What about an off-the-shelf Win7 MCE system? Does anybody even make those with cable-card capability? I know Win7 can do it, but I can't find a pre-made system anywhere (nor any real information on what components can be used for it).

But, in the end, how does it compare to Tivo/Moxi?


----------

