# holy new cox dvr options batman!



## ripple_024 (Jan 4, 2005)

ok...i've been bitter about having to leave tivo for cox (hardware issues) and the one thing that i wish the dvr had was group by titles. well, a new update occured allowing you to not only group shows by title but you can also delete all new shows or all viewed shows w/a couple button pushes! anyhow, carry on...


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## ChuckyBox (Oct 3, 2005)

If you've got the Motorola DVR hardware, you'll probably get the option to have TiVo software on it sometime next Summer/Fall (if all goes well).


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## Billy66 (Dec 15, 2003)

I'm glad you like what you already have. Don't hold your breath for a push of TiVo to it. Even if it ever becomes available, you may not want it for free let alone for a premium.

In any case, glad you got a new feature.


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## ripple_024 (Jan 4, 2005)

yep...here's the full list of new features added to the motorola box using the passport echo software: http://www.cox.com/HR/cable/dvr/features.asp


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## ripple_024 (Jan 4, 2005)

Billy66 said:


> I'm glad you like what you already have. Don't hold your breath for a push of TiVo to it. Even if it ever becomes available, you may not want it for free let alone for a premium.
> 
> In any case, glad you got a new feature.


why would i not want the tivo software pushed to it?


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## jcaudle (Aug 16, 2004)

Will the Tivo software be available for the Scientific Atlanta DVRs? Cox doesn't use the Motorola equipment here in Fairfax, Va I don't think. If you ask their CSRs about it, they ar clueless.


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## bpurcell (Mar 16, 2005)

The Disk usage indicator is nice, although not really essential. I also like the ability to play all shows in a given folder (really nice for watching kid shows). The rest of the upgrades don't seem all that interesting.

BTW, I'm not a Comcast DVR user. I just looked at the updated features on the link above.


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## ripple_024 (Jan 4, 2005)

bpurcell said:


> The Disk usage indicator is nice, although not really essential. I also like the ability to play all shows in a given folder (really nice for watching kid shows). The rest of the upgrades don't seem all that interesting.
> 
> BTW, I'm not a Comcast DVR user. I just looked at the updated features on the link above.


they're interesting when you've been forced to sort through a pile of shows with no real organization. having the shows put into folders is a huge deal for me. also, not having to delete shows one at a time is nice as well.


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## ZeoTiVo (Jan 2, 2004)

Billy66 said:


> I'm glad you like what you already have. Don't hold your breath for a push of TiVo to it. Even if it ever becomes available, you may not want it for free let alone for a premium.
> 
> In any case, glad you got a new feature.


so how was your test drive of the TiVo software? Obviously you have some considerable inside knowledge of the Comcast TiVo offering.


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## cwoody222 (Nov 13, 1999)

jcaudle said:


> Will the Tivo software be available for the Scientific Atlanta DVRs?


No, just Motorola.


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## MickeS (Dec 26, 2002)

I like the "Unviewed Show Identifier" and the "Automatic favorites"! Also the "Play All" in a folder would be great, I still don't understand why TiVo doesn't have that!
The rest don't seem that interesting, but those would be useful for me.

TiVo needs to get on the ball NOW with USEFUL features. And their S3 UI is an embarrassment for a HD recorder.


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## ZombiE (Dec 17, 2005)

*Disk Usage Indicator *



> Displays the amount of used and available DVR hard disk space, including the number of remaining hours of Estimated Free Space and the estimated number of hours consumed by Saved Until Manually Erased and Automatically Erased as Needed content. To view the disk usage indicator select DVR List on your remote, press the A button, press the down arrow to highlight "View Disk Info," and press the Select button.


What the hell, thought this was "too hard" to do???????
Nice indicator display as well. I guess someone at Motorola or who ever writes the software for the box is smarter than the people at Tivo.........

Z


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## MickeS (Dec 26, 2002)

ZombiE said:


> *Disk Usage Indicator *
> 
> What the hell, thought this was "too hard" to do???????
> Nice indicator display as well. I guess someone at Motorola or who ever writes the software for the box is smarter than the people at Tivo.........
> ...


That indicator is still useless, other than as a way to give the user a meaningless number.


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## Billy66 (Dec 15, 2003)

ripple_024 said:


> why would i not want the tivo software pushed to it?


Who knows, maybe you'll like what you have better that's all. You may want it. Only you can know the answer to that.



> so how was your test drive of the TiVo software? Obviously you have some considerable inside knowledge of the Comcast TiVo offering.


No, not at all. I'm just a blowhard, I didn't mean to imply that.


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## ajwees41 (May 7, 2006)

cwoody222 said:


> No, just Motorola.


Yes it will be avalable for SA dvr's

ajwees41


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## ripple_024 (Jan 4, 2005)

MickeS said:


> That indicator is still useless, other than as a way to give the user a meaningless number.


i don't think it's useless....it's an approximate visual. it's a lot better than playing roulette with your programming. gmail just incorporated a visual space bar...to me that's even more useless (based on the amount of disk space you get) but i still like it.


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## ZombiE (Dec 17, 2005)

MickeS said:


> That indicator is still useless, other than as a way to give the user a meaningless number.


I wouldn't think it would be useless since this is one item people have been asking for, for over four years.......

Z


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## mattack (Apr 9, 2001)

MickeS said:


> That indicator is still useless, other than as a way to give the user a meaningless number.


You think it's meaningless and useless, so don't use it.

*I* would pay good money for an accurate FSI. (one time fee)
Heck, it wouldn't even need to be *that* accurate, as long as it never *over*estimated how much free space there is.

Even if I had to turn off the variable rate encoding to make it supposedly more meaningful.. Just tell me I have 3 hours 21 minutes at basic quality.
(usually it's more like 55 minutes at basic quality!! The reason I have to go find things like Masterpiece Theatre or Nova to nuke to make more room for broadcast prime time shows.)


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## ChuckyBox (Oct 3, 2005)

ZombiE said:


> I wouldn't think it would be useless since this is one item people have been asking for, for over four years.......


TiVo has a free space indicator; it is called "TiVo Suggestions."


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## Fraser+Dief (Nov 18, 2005)

That's odd. Most of get a list of miscellaneous programs of wildly varying length when we choose Tivo Suggestions. Care to share the secret remote code that turns it into a FSI?


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## samo (Oct 7, 1999)

ZombiE said:


> I wouldn't think it would be useless since this is one item people have been asking for, for over four years.......
> 
> Z


6 years to be exact. TiVo doesn't do it because it is one of the features that differentiates it from other DVRs. Every DVR on a market that I know off has FSI in one form or another except for TiVo.


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## MickeS (Dec 26, 2002)

ZombiE said:


> I wouldn't think it would be useless since this is one item people have been asking for, for over four years.......


It doesn't make it any more useful. But I've said it before: TiVo should just do it to shut people up.


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## ashu (Nov 8, 2002)

MickeS said:


> It doesn't make it any more useful. But I've said it before: TiVo should just do it to shut people up.


Especially when the competition (SARA) advertises it as the first among a bunch of minor upgrades. I acan almost hear them saying "Wow, TiVo has been stuck-up enough not to offer this highly demanded feature for ages. Let's one-up them"

Oh, and I find myself agreeing.

Even a frakking df -k output would rock, as far as I'm concerned. Honestly, Damn TiVo and their insistence upon not releasing anything but (what they perceive to be) a perfectly evolved and complete feature. Love 'em or hate 'em, that's how they've decided to go about this.


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## jfh3 (Apr 15, 2004)

Billy66 said:


> I'm glad you like what you already have. Don't hold your breath for a push of TiVo to it. Even if it ever becomes available, you may not want it for free let alone for a premium.


Care to expand on this comment?

I gave up on the Comcast 6412 Phase III after 11 months and finally got rid of it because I was tired of waiting for the Tivo port.


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## appleye1 (Jan 26, 2002)

MickeS said:


> It doesn't make it any more useful. But I've said it before: TiVo should just do it to shut people up.


Maybe, but then people will ***** about how it doesn't work the way they think it should. It's a lose-lose situation.


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## Billy66 (Dec 15, 2003)

jfh3 said:


> Care to expand on this comment?
> 
> I gave up on the Comcast 6412 Phase III after 11 months and finally got rid of it because I was tired of waiting for the Tivo port.


Really, I've got nothing to expand on. I should be more cryptic, more often. It makes people think I know something. 

Seriously, I was just expressing my opinion that it could be a while for Cox because it's taken so long for Comcast. I dunno, could be tomorrow I suppose, but probably not.


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## Redux (Oct 19, 2004)

Fraser+Dief said:


> That's odd. Most of get a list of miscellaneous programs of wildly varying length when we choose Tivo Suggestions. Care to share the secret remote code that turns it into a FSI?


The suggestions, when fully populated, are in aggregate your free space. I don't do recorded suggestions and I have so many tivos all with huge drives that free space is not an issue, but that's what I'd use if I needed to know.

I certainly agree with the comment that Tivo should add the specific feature (using some kind of useless algorithm) just to shut people up.


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## classicX (May 10, 2006)

bpurcell said:


> The Disk usage indicator is nice, although not really essential.


I will assume that you use Tivo and have never had a disk usage indicator.

I have a Scientific Atlanta DVR and I find the disk usage indicator extremely useful (although I only get a disk use percentage, not a colourful breakdown as in the above link).

When the disk usage is very high (over 90%), you get a warning when you go to the recordings list. This tells me that if I don't delete things soon, either something I may want to save will be erased, or no new shows will be recorded (depending on if I have auto-erase on or off).

It helps me decide what to watch also, when I have a mix of HD and SD shows available. I'll watch the HD first and delete them to make the most room.


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## classicX (May 10, 2006)

Redux said:


> The suggestions, when fully populated, are in aggregate your free space. I don't do recorded suggestions and I have so many tivos all with huge drives that free space is not an issue, but that's what I'd use if I needed to know.
> 
> I certainly agree with the comment that Tivo should add the specific feature (using some kind of useless algorithm) just to shut people up.


For some reason I don't like the idea of writing information constantly to my free space just so I can know how much of there is.

I can't imagine why...

If I have a bucket partially full, I don't fill the rest with water to measure how much more space is available, I just measure it.

As for the comment that Tivo said it was "too hard to do," that's a bold-faced lie. Usefulness of the feature aside, the only way I can even fathom that statement even resembling the truth is because of suggestions, and that would only add one more variable to the formula.

How difficult is it to write out:

Space.Used = Recordings.size + Suggestions.size
Space.Free = Space.Total - Space.Used

Or even:

Disk.UsedPercent = 100 * (Space.Used / Space.Total)

It's simple arithmetic, and a single line of code is all it takes to update the 'Space.Used' variable.


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## ChuckyBox (Oct 3, 2005)

Fraser+Dief said:


> That's odd. Most of get a list of miscellaneous programs of wildly varying length when we choose Tivo Suggestions. Care to share the secret remote code that turns it into a FSI?


That's the great thing about it, it doesn't require a remote code. You just look at your suggestions folder and you know roughly how much space you have at your default quality setting. If it gets down to zero, you're going to start losing things you've recorded. How much more information do you really need? Anything that tries to provide more accuracy is going to generate a constant stream of complaints because it doesn't work the way people want or expect. Look at classicX's post (above) -- he wants to include suggestions. Somebody else wants to include suggestions and deleted items. Somebody else doesn't want either. Another wants a lookahead feature that includes things in the todo list for some period. Then somebody complains because a show got deleted when the thing said there was enough space (except he had manually recorded something that he had conveniently forgotten about). I don't think they should include it just to shut people up, because it wouldn't shut people up.

(And "wildly varying length?" Almost everything I get is either 30 minutes or 60 minutes, with the occasional 15 or 120 thrown in. All in all, though, it's a pretty close match to what's in my NP list.)


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## ChuckyBox (Oct 3, 2005)

classicX said:


> For some reason I don't like the idea of writing information constantly to my free space just so I can know how much of there is.
> 
> I can't imagine why...


I can't either. Tell me.


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## ashu (Nov 8, 2002)

ChuckyBox said:


> I can't either. Tell me.


I guess he's afraid he'll rub the magnetic gooey bits off the platters of the hard drive from that frequent writing 

In all seriousness, though - Suggestions is a poor man's replacement for a true FSI. And while I may otherwise be a staunchly pro-TiVo kind of guy, it ticks me off that they refuse to put some effort into getting this feature right.


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## MickeS (Dec 26, 2002)

classicX said:


> How difficult is it to write out:
> 
> Space.Used = Recordings.size + Suggestions.size
> Space.Free = Space.Total - Space.Used
> ...


What would you DO with that number? It doesn't tell you how much space there will be available next week, or 2 days from now. The Cox example is a close approximation, better than your useless suggestion, but it still doesn't take into account any manual deletions.

Your TiVo WILL TELL YOU when you schedule a recording whether there is space or not for it. If there is a recording you want to keep, set it as Keep until I delete.

How hard is this to understand? Apparently it's REALLY REALLY complicated for some.


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## gastrof (Oct 31, 2003)

ajwees41 said:


> Yes it will be avalable for SA dvr's
> 
> ajwees41


Where does this information come from?


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## ashu (Nov 8, 2002)

gastrof said:


> Where does this information come from?


I'd trust him ... he KNOWS his (cable) stuff


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## ripple_024 (Jan 4, 2005)

up


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## classicX (May 10, 2006)

MickeS said:


> What would you DO with that number? It doesn't tell you how much space there will be available next week, or 2 days from now. The Cox example is a close approximation, better than your useless suggestion, but it still doesn't take into account any manual deletions.


I already posted what I do with that number. Secondly, the Cox example draws it's information from formulas similar to what I posted. And why would it need manual deletions into account? Those are considered as free space.



MickeS said:


> Your TiVo WILL TELL YOU when you schedule a recording whether there is space or not for it. If there is a recording you want to keep, set it as Keep until I delete.
> 
> How hard is this to understand? Apparently it's REALLY REALLY complicated for some.


My SA 8300 also warns me when my disk space is low. I still like to see a graphical representation that I can check at will, rather than suddenly find out while scheduling more recordings.

If I'm in a hurry and just want to schedule something, and then get a warning about space requirements, I'd be pissed that when I WAS able to watch / delete some recordings, I had no way of knowing if my space was getting low.

Besides, I thought this was a discussion forum, not a debasement forum.


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## classicX (May 10, 2006)

ChuckyBox said:


> I can't either. Tell me.


Barring the fact that some people might not even _want_ to record suggestions, this is a krufty way of seeing how much free space you have left. It forces the user to calculate when it's something the box is probably already doing (yet Tivo won't display it to the user).


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## MickeS (Dec 26, 2002)

classicX said:


> My SA 8300 also warns me when my disk space is low.


You mean you can't tell when you have a hundred or so shows recorded on your 140 hr machine that it's running low? You never see the projected deletion date? You don't know how to use "Keep until I delete"?

The number is a way to show information that is of very little real use, but makes someone think they're in control.


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## ashu (Nov 8, 2002)

MickeS said:


> You mean you can't tell when you have a hundred or so shows recorded on your 140 hr machine that it's running low? You never see the projected deletion date? You don't know how to use "Keep until I delete"?
> 
> The number is a way to show information that is of very little real use, but makes someone think they're in control.


This is the Great Debate, and the pro/anti FSI folks will never see eye to eye. Quit it! I will too.


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## aridon (Aug 31, 2006)

I can eyeball it by the # of deleted items in my now playing folder. As I understand it they delete as space fills up so whatever is left as it dwindles down is free space. Frankly I couldn't give a **** less how much free space I have in 2 weeks but more importantly how much space I have left now. You can always delete things if needed once space starts getting lower especially if you have a bunch of long shows or movies getting ready to record.


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## ajwees41 (May 7, 2006)

gastrof said:


> Where does this information come from?


http://www.multichannel.com/article/CA6365434.html?display=Breaking+News

I saw a different webpage (can't find it now, but it said the SA would get it before Motorola) I don't know which one to trust.

ajwees41


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## MickeS (Dec 26, 2002)

ashu said:


> This is the Great Debate, and the pro/anti FSI folks will never see eye to eye. Quit it! I will too.


I quit it and hereby declare I will never reply about this issue again - until maybe TiVO has put a FSI in.


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## classicX (May 10, 2006)

MickeS said:


> I quit it and hereby declare I will never reply about this issue again - until maybe TiVO has put a FSI in.


At which point there will be myriad complaints about how it doesn't / could / should work.


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## mattack (Apr 9, 2001)

ChuckyBox said:


> That's the great thing about it, it doesn't require a remote code. You just look at your suggestions folder and you know roughly how much space you have at your default quality setting. If it gets down to zero, you're going to start losing things you've recorded. How much more information do you really need?


I want to not have to remember that I just watched and deleted 1.5 hours of shows, so then I can do the mental math of "add suggestions + what I watched since the last recording" to get the real amount of free space.

I use the free space functionality on my Toshiba XS32 *all the time*. I'm usually very near full, the same as with my Tivos. But at least the Toshiba gives me this information. (one of the couple of positive things I can say about it. Unfortunately it DOESN'T have the reliability or UI of Tivos. I would pay $$$ to get the best of both worlds.)


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## classicsat (Feb 18, 2004)

MickeS said:


> What would you DO with that number? It doesn't tell you how much space there will be available next week, or 2 days from now.


It doesn't know what you will watch and delete, and what is scheduled to be recorded, as most FSIs probably don't.

All it does is show you what is free at the time you check.
It is just a dumb FSI.

A smart FSI would have to take into account your viewing habits and upcoming recordings.


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## classicsat (Feb 18, 2004)

ashu said:


> This is the Great Debate, and the pro/anti FSI folks will never see eye to eye. Quit it! I will too.


Looking at the bigger picture, it seems the argument is between a simple % free at the time, which the one faction is happy with, the other faction not standing for the simple FSI, but desiring nothing less than a smart FSI, or no FSI at all, which the former is declaring complex or even nearly impossible.


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## Fraser+Dief (Nov 18, 2005)

ChuckyBox said:


> That's the great thing about it, it doesn't require a remote code. You just look at your suggestions folder and you know roughly how much space you have at your default quality setting.


I was being sarcastic about the remote code.

As I said, when I click that I get a list of 30 items, most of which I'm unfamiliar with. (If I was familiar with them, they'd be on season passes or thumbed down). At any given time, there could be 30 half hour sitcoms, or 30 two hour movies.

I guess we're all supposed to take an hour to go through the entire list, writing down the length of each one, and then guess how that applies to future recordings, all of which might be in totally different quality levels.

Or, tivo could just bloody break down and give us a simple FSI.


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## davezatz (Apr 18, 2002)

bpurcell said:


> I also like the ability to play all shows in a given folder (really nice for watching kid shows).


It's a good feature that TiVo should think about adding.

EDIT: Not only for kid shows, but for some of the short TiVoCast content like NYTimes


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## classicsat (Feb 18, 2004)

Fraser+Dief said:


> Or, tivo could just bloody break down and give us a simple FSI.


You could use TiVoPlaylist.


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## mike3775 (Jan 3, 2003)

The people who claim that the recently deleted and Tivo suggestions are a good example of how much space you have are wrong.

On my Tivo, I did a little trial. I transferred everything from my DT tivo to my PC and put a few items back on the now playing list, I put back the latest Simpsons, Family Guy, Lost, Deep Sea Detectives, and Judge Alex. Thats only 4 shows and I did not delete any suggestions that it had recorded, which was around 56. The recently deleted folder was at 20 when I did that, and after I deleted everything in the suggestions folder, it rose to 76. I left it alone for 2 days, and it recorded 20 suggestions during those 2 days and deleted 35 recently deleted programs from its folder.

Why? I have a 180 hour HD on the DT, it didn't need to delete anything from suggestions nor the recently deleted, but it did anyways to record 20 suggestions. 

Just because the recently deleted folder goes down in the amount, doesn't mean that the HD is filling up, because of the 180 hours, I only was using 30 hours according to the tivo playlist program I have installed. 

Suggestions and Recently deleted folders seem to have nothing to do with HD space on my 180 DT tivo, so to say that thats a great way to know about space is wrong, as my little experiment proved otherwise. The tivo will delete programs in recently deleted whenever it wants to, even if it doesn't need to.


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## MickeS (Dec 26, 2002)

mike3775 said:


> The tivo will delete programs in recently deleted whenever it wants to, even if it doesn't need to.


Yes. So you'll think you have less space than you actually have. And this is a problem how?


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## mike3775 (Jan 3, 2003)

I was just saying that people say to use those two folders as an indicator as to how much space they still have. Thats a wrong assumption to make, because if people go by those two folders, they may delete things without watching them to clear up room when they really do not need to.

Thats all.

That is why Tivo needs an indicator of some sort to allow people to see how much space they have at the moment. I find it odd that some say it would be to tie consuming to implement, yet the guy who made TivoPlaylist came up with an easy program that didnt take much time or effort it seems and it works great.


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## ajwees41 (May 7, 2006)

The only difference I see between the Pioneer Passport Echo 

on the Motorola dvr's and the Tivo is multi room viewing..

ajwees41


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## yunlin12 (Mar 15, 2003)

classicsat said:


> You could use TiVoPlaylist.


This thread here?


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## ashu (Nov 8, 2002)

yunlin12 - thanks for pointing that one out! I had forgotten about it and didn't really play with it before!



ajwees41 said:


> The only difference I see between the Pioneer Passport Echo
> 
> on the Motorola dvr's and the Tivo is multi room viewing..
> 
> ajwees41


While I respect your opinion (you know that ... here and elsewhere), I DO hope you only mean that from a bulletted 'feature list advertising blurb' point of view, right?

Not a qualitative analysis/comparison of the UI(s) itself, right?


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## ajwees41 (May 7, 2006)

ashu said:


> yunlin12 - thanks for pointing that one out! I had forgotten about it and didn't really play with it before!
> 
> While I respect your opinion (you know that ... here and elsewhere), I DO hope you only mean that from a bulletted 'feature list advertising blurb' point of view, right?
> 
> Not a qualitative analysis/comparison of the UI(s) itself, right?


Yes that's how I wanted to explain it.


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