# Slate: Tivo Inferior to European DVRs



## Emacee (Dec 15, 2000)

You got to see this. No live padding in Europe. The DVRs know when shows actually start and actually end.



> *Why Do Americans Have the Worst DVRs?*
> 
> Our digital recorders cut off the last minutes of sporting events and our favorite shows. That doesnt happen in Europe.
> 
> www.slate.com/articles/arts/culturebox/2013/06/accurate_recording_the_one_amazing_feature_that_makes_european_dvrs_so_much.html


No clipping either because broadcasters don't follow the scheduled times and try to make programs run together - starting them 30 seconds early or ending them 40 seconds late.

Key Points: European countries have an embedded signal saying what program is on. Tivo's can use that signal to start and end recordings on time. US networks don't want us to have this for some reason.


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## slowbiscuit (Sep 19, 2006)

As the article points out (and plenty of experience with networks screwing around with start/end times show), the US-based content providers don't want DVRs to work great. They would prefer that DVRs never existed, for obvious reasons, so anything they can do (or not do) to make them painful to use is a good thing.


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## heyted (Mar 4, 2012)

> Slate: TiVos vice president of product marketing Jim Denney: "We don't have a whole lot of people saying, 'My God, I wish we could do this.'"


The same thing can be said about a DVR without a service fee. An unencrypted signal with the live event content information would be great as it could also allow automatic recording using a keyword or phrase with no need for a service fee.

I just wish TiVo Inc. would market a DVR that has a high one time cost (but less than the lifetime charge) that has only manual VCR-like recording with no guide. As long as there is little demand, and as long as people are willing to pay up to nearly $1000 for a single TiVo (sometimes over $1000 with the monthly service fee), it is not going to happen.


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## ggieseke (May 30, 2008)

I'm with slowbiscuit on this one. Once American providers realized that they could screw your DVR's functionality just by providing false info they would be all over it. Discovery and CNN are already doing a pretty good job in that regard by deliberately providing no episode info on reruns or marathons of some of their shows, defeating First Run Only SPs.

Let's say FOX (for example) decided to keep your DVR from switching to ABC at 8:00pm for Body of Proof. Send a fake signal claiming that you're running 2 minutes late and voila, no Jeri Ryan or Dana Delaney for you.

It would take new regulations, constant monitoring, and massive fines to prevent that. Can anyone really see the FCC pulling that off?

I'll stay "inferior", thank you very much.


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## lpwcomp (May 6, 2002)

ggieseke said:


> Let's say FOX (for example) decided to keep your DVR from switching to ABC at 8:00pm for Body of Proof. Send a fake signal claiming that you're running 2 minutes late and voila, no Jeri Ryan or Dana Delaney for you.


If your DVR is trying to switch at 8:00PM for "Body of Proof", then *ABC* is sending out the wrong signal since that is at least an hour early (2 hours in the East). Not to mention that the final new episode has already aired.

How exactly does this relate to the comparative quality of European and U.S. DVRs? Josh Levin is an idiot.


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## shwru980r (Jun 22, 2008)

lpwcomp said:


> How exactly does this relate to the comparative quality of European and U.S. DVRs? Josh Levin is an idiot.


The analogy used for comparison was hiring someone to cut your lawn and having to specify up front how long it will take, and having a partially cut lawn, if the time you estimated isn't enough. He's not talking about the quality of the recordings. He's talking about the inability to obtain complete recordings for some shows, particularity live sports events.


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## lpwcomp (May 6, 2002)

shwru980r said:


> The analogy used for comparison was hiring someone to cut your lawn and having to specify up front how long it will take, and having a partially cut lawn, if the time you estimated isn't enough. He's not talking about the quality of the recordings. He's talking about the inability to obtain complete recordings for some shows, particularity live sports events.


*Sigh* So U.S. *DVRs* are inferior because they can't utilize information that isn't available in the U.S.? The analogy would be if you wanted me to tell you how much it would cost and how long it would take based on a certain size and configuration of your lawn and it was actually larger than you told me it was. "What do you mean, you're not sure where the property line is so I have to mow what may be on someone else's property?"

I have a TV in storage that could display the information embedded in the signal supplied by the station - start time, run time, program name, episode name, etc. It was rarely complete or accurate.


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## ggieseke (May 30, 2008)

lpwcomp said:


> If your DVR is trying to switch at 8:00PM for "Body of Proof", then *ABC* is sending out the wrong signal since that is at least an hour early (2 hours in the East). Not to mention that the final new episode has already aired.


I was just making up an example and I've been TiVo-ized so long that I could care less what night or time it airs, but if I missed an episode I'd be miffed. 

Broadcasters here wouldn't even blink before gaming a system like that. In Europe with (mostly) commercial-free TV it's probably a different playing field. Is anyone else out there with a "First Run Only" Season Pass to Mythbusters or Deadliest Catch sick of deleting 20 reruns a week from the To Do List?

I'm not saying that TiVo couldn't do a MUCH better job of handling last-minute changes due to sporting events or news specials, but letting the broadcasters control the system would be a cluster f***.


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## lpwcomp (May 6, 2002)

ggieseke said:


> I was just making up an example and I've been TiVo-ized so long that I could care less what night or time it airs, but if I missed an episode I'd be miffed.
> 
> Broadcasters here wouldn't even blink before gaming a system like that. In Europe with (mostly) commercial-free TV it's probably a different playing field. Is anyone else out there with a "First Run Only" Season Pass to Mythbusters or Deadliest Catch sick of deleting 20 reruns a week from the To Do List?
> 
> I'm not saying that TiVo couldn't do a MUCH better job of handling last-minute changes due to sporting events or news specials, but letting the broadcasters control the system would be a cluster f***.


If you follow the accurate recording,  link and read _*that*_ article, you'll discover that it isn't quite as great as Mr. Levin would have you believe. Plus he seems only concerned with missing the ends of sporting events,not the beginning and ends of regular shows. And even he admits in the actual article that U.S. DVRs could do it if the data was available but that U.S. providers have no plans to provide it.

I reiterate, calling U.S. DVRs "inferior" based on this is idiotic.


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## aadam101 (Jul 15, 2002)

NBC and Comedy Central are two great examples of networks who refuse to start and stop their shows on time. They obviously know it's a problem for DVR users and they do it anyway. Considering NBC's ratings lately, you would think they might rethink this strategy.


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## celtic pride (Nov 8, 2005)

my local abc station starts their local news at 3:57 p.m. instead of 4:00 p.m. everyday. TIVO NEEDS TO LET US START OUR RECORDINGS EARLIER!!! and not just let us recorder our programs later!!!,Becaus i always miss the first 3 minutes of the local news and i'm tired of clipping a lot of my primetime shows!!


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## lessd (Jan 23, 2005)

celtic pride said:


> my local abc station starts their local news at 3:57 p.m. instead of 4:00 p.m. everyday. TIVO NEEDS TO LET US START OUR RECORDINGS EARLIER!!! and not just let us recorder our programs later!!!,Becaus i always miss the first 3 minutes of the local news and i'm tired of clipping a lot of my primetime shows!!


You can start a show earlier and/or later now


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## Davisadm (Jan 19, 2008)

aadam101 said:


> NBC and Comedy Central are two great examples of networks who refuse to start and stop their shows on time...Considering NBC's ratings lately, you would think they might rethink this strategy.





celtic pride said:


> my local abc station starts their local news at 3:57 p.m. instead of 4:00 p.m. everyday...


Yes, this is a strategy of the TV stations, but it is not to foil us TiVo users. Starting the news early is a way of keeping people from changing channels, because they have got you hooked. Same with other programs, start early, and they hook you in. It is a ratings game, plain and simple. Why do you think there are all the teasers right before a program starts?


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## lpwcomp (May 6, 2002)

celtic pride said:


> my local abc station starts their local news at 3:57 p.m. instead of 4:00 p.m. everyday. TIVO NEEDS TO LET US START OUR RECORDINGS EARLIER!!! and not just let us recorder our programs later!!!,Becaus i always miss the first 3 minutes of the local news and i'm tired of clipping a lot of my primetime shows!!


You can start a recording up to 5 minutes early. _*TIVOS HAVE HAD THAT ABILITY FOR A LONG TIME!!!!!!!*_

The next time you consider "shouting" in a post, I suggest you know what you are shouting about.


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## Worf (Sep 15, 2000)

Heck, I think the pad option was something available since the series 1 - it might not have been in the very first version, but it's been around for at least over a decade now.

Anyhow, the best thing stations have done to screw DVR users over has been to back-to-back programs. Where the ending of one program is followed by the beginning of the next with zero ads in-between. So you're always cutting a show off somewhere. And it keeps the ads from being a convenient cut point.

I notice cable channels like Discovery and History do it, but the networks don't, for now...


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## CharlesH (Aug 29, 2002)

Sometimes the networks play games with the start/end time to get commercials to be counted in the more highly rated program. The cost of a commercial is tied to the ratings of the program it is in.

But the bottom line is that the networks are incentivized to make life difficult for DVR owners, who do evil things like skip commercials and make all their scheduling strategies irrrelevant.


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## astrohip (Jan 7, 2003)

Emacee said:


> You got to see this. No live padding in Europe. The DVRs know when shows actually start and actually end.


Just to be picky, the article is about DVRs in general, and the difference between Europe and the US. Not TiVo. So why would you say "Tivo inferior" rather than DVRs inferior? Not a big deal, but it is a misleading subject line.



celtic pride said:


> my local abc station starts their local news at 3:57 p.m. instead of 4:00 p.m. everyday. TIVO NEEDS TO LET US START OUR RECORDINGS EARLIER!!! and not just let us recorder our programs later!!!,Becaus i always miss the first 3 minutes of the local news and i'm tired of clipping a lot of my primetime shows!!


As many others have pointed out, this is a commonly used feature of TiVo's, and has been present for well over a decade. You seriously didn't know this existed?


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## scandia101 (Oct 20, 2007)

astrohip said:


> Just to be picky, the article is about DVRs in general, and the difference between Europe and the US. Not TiVo. So why would you say "Tivo inferior" rather than DVRs inferior? Not a big deal, but it is a misleading subject line.


Why? because this is a Tivo centric forum (check the URL if in doubt) and Tivos are just a subset of U.S. dvr's and are not specifically excluded from being inferior.
What say is misleading is the title of the article because the article is really about how U.S. broadcasters don't use the real time start/end flagging used in other countries and not about the quality of U.S. dvr's.


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## SullyND (Dec 30, 2004)

scandia101 said:


> Why? because this is a Tivo centric forum (check the URL if in doubt) and Tivos are just a subset of U.S. dvr's and are not specifically excluded from being inferior.


I agree, it's a sensationalist headline. It's true of all US DVRs. Is it true of all TiVos?


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## scandia101 (Oct 20, 2007)

celtic pride said:


> my local abc station starts their local news at 3:57 p.m. instead of 4:00 p.m. everyday. TIVO NEEDS TO LET US START OUR RECORDINGS EARLIER!!! and not just let us recorder our programs later!!!,Becaus i always miss the first 3 minutes of the local news and i'm tired of clipping a lot of my primetime shows!!


This feature has been available for many many years but even before it was available you could set up a repeating manual recording that starts at 3:55, so there was never a reason to think you had to miss the first 3 minutes every day.


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## Hercules67 (Dec 8, 2007)

Worf said:


> Heck, I think the pad option was something available since the series 1 - it might not have been in the very first version, but it's been around for at least over a decade now.
> 
> Anyhow, the best thing stations have done to screw DVR users over has been to back-to-back programs. Where the ending of one program is followed by the beginning of the next with zero ads in-between. So you're always cutting a show off somewhere. And it keeps the ads from being a convenient cut point.
> 
> I notice cable channels like Discovery and History do it, but the networks don't, for now...


Unfortunately, the Networks do "DO THIS". How? By continuing the show while the credits roll. I've complained about it here:

When the credits roll on a TV show...


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## Worf (Sep 15, 2000)

Hercules67 said:


> Unfortunately, the Networks do "DO THIS". How? By continuing the show while the credits roll. I've complained about it here:
> 
> When the credits roll on a TV show...


Well, that's slightly different. The networks usually put in a couple of ads between the end of one show (after the credits are over) and the start of the next, so the DVR has a nice cut-point. But Discovery and History butt the shows together so you always cut one end off.

Anyhow, show-over-credits is probably at odds with running trailers and followups and ads - if a show does this, the network can't stick an ad while the credits roll. Especially one in-between the show ending and the next week preview.

Then again, the only network TV I watch is CBS and FOX, and the shows I do watch don't do this...


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## 59er (Mar 27, 2008)

Worf said:


> Well, that's slightly different. The networks usually put in a couple of ads between the end of one show (after the credits are over) and the start of the next, so the DVR has a nice cut-point. But Discovery and History butt the shows together so you always cut one end off.
> 
> Anyhow, show-over-credits is probably at odds with running trailers and followups and ads - if a show does this, the network can't stick an ad while the credits roll. Especially one in-between the show ending and the next week preview.
> 
> Then again, the only network TV I watch is CBS and FOX, and the shows I do watch don't do this...


I can't recall ads between the network shows I watch. The credits go right into the next show routinely, causing problems with catching the end of one show and/or the start of the next.


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## Hercules67 (Dec 8, 2007)

59er said:


> I can't recall ads between the network shows I watch. The credits go right into the next show routinely, causing problems with catching the end of one show and/or the start of the next.


PRecisely what I meant.

Lots of shows do this.


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## tivogurl (Dec 16, 2004)

lpwcomp said:


> You can start a recording up to 5 minutes early.


Arbitrarily limiting padding to a fixed list of numbers is pretty stupid, though.


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## dianebrat (Jul 6, 2002)

> Slate: Tivo Inferior to European DVRs


Thread title fail, the issue is not Tivo, but US broadcasting that's the core issue, and yes I read the article, which has a much more accurate title of "Why Do Americans Have the Worst DVRs?"


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## scandia101 (Oct 20, 2007)

tivogurl said:


> Arbitrarily limiting padding to a fixed list of numbers is pretty stupid, though.


How so?

If you could pad the beginning of a recording by as much as 24 hours in 30 second increments, it would still be an arbitrary limit. How could it be done in a non-arbitrary way?


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## tivogurl (Dec 16, 2004)

scandia101 said:


> If you could pad the beginning of a recording by as much as 24 hours in 30 second increments, it would still be an arbitrary limit. How could it be done in a non-arbitrary way?


You specify minutes by having a keypad (without letters, obviously) with a fillable field, just like wishlists have for specifying words in show titles. If you want 5 minutes, just click on "5" and finish. For 43 minutes, click "4", then "3", then finish. 2160 minutes? Click ... you get the idea.

I don't know why you'd _want_ exactly 43 minutes of padding, but I see no reason to limit you only to padding _I_ think is useful. I, after all, cannot imagine every user's use case.


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## mattack (Apr 9, 2001)

heyted said:


> I just wish TiVo Inc. would market a DVR that has a high one time cost (but less than the lifetime charge) that has only manual VCR-like recording with no guide. As long as there is little demand, and as long as people are willing to pay up to nearly $1000 for a single TiVo (sometimes over $1000 with the monthly service fee), it is not going to happen.


Tivo Basic was the closest anybody's ever come to that.

Plus, why do you want it to be from Tivo if you want to do the recording yourself? Why not just use Windows Media Center and a CETON cablecard tuner, or (???) something similar on Linux?

(I can't believe I recommended something on Windows!)

BTW, I'm someone who originally wanted to use my S1 subscriptionless. Up until analog cable went away, I used my Toshiba XS32 as a "digital VCR" for conflicts. (I still use it basically every day to dub stuff FROM my Tivo and watch faster than realtime.. I wish the Tivo app would let me watch stuff faster than realtime with sound, then I would have to do less dubbing.)..

But I realized I liked the service, even though there are tons of things I'd improve.. it "sucks less" than everything else I've seen, however.

I *still* agree with you that a reasonable "manual VCR like recorder" would be a good thing to have, though (1) I don't think it would sell well, and (2) would be even harder to do with the cablecard regulations (security of recordings and such).


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## moedaman (Aug 21, 2012)

heyted said:


> I just wish TiVo Inc. would market a DVR that has a high one time cost (but less than the lifetime charge) that has only manual VCR-like recording with no guide. As long as there is little demand, and as long as people are willing to pay up to nearly $1000 for a single TiVo (sometimes over $1000 with the monthly service fee), it is not going to happen.


No need for Tivo to make a product like that. There are several products already out there that can do that and/or use PSIP data for scheduling. Go to AVS Forum and look at the HD Recorders forum to find out about them. They're usually pretty cheap and require an EHD. But there are people out there who use them and like them.


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## scandia101 (Oct 20, 2007)

tivogurl said:


> You specify minutes by having a keypad (without letters, obviously) with a fillable field, just like wishlists have for specifying words in show titles. If you want 5 minutes, just click on "5" and finish. For 43 minutes, click "4", then "3", then finish. 2160 minutes? Click ... you get the idea.
> 
> I don't know why you'd _want_ exactly 43 minutes of padding, but I see no reason to limit you only to padding _I_ think is useful. I, after all, cannot imagine every user's use case.


Tivo has the arbitrary 1-5 minute limit on regular recordings that covers almost all needs, but you aren't limited to that. You can set up a manual recording that starts and ends exactly when you want. Tivo covers over 99% of the early padding with the 1-5 minute option and the rest can get exactly what they want recorded with a manual recording.


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## tivogurl (Dec 16, 2004)

scandia101 said:


> Tivo covers over 99% of the early padding with the 1-5 minute option and the rest can get exactly what they want recorded with a manual recording.


A manual recording is not what most people want, since it doesn't correct itself for schedule changes or first-run vs rerun.


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## mattack (Apr 9, 2001)

moedaman said:


> No need for Tivo to make a product like that. There are several products already out there that can do that and/or use PSIP data for scheduling. Go to AVS Forum and look at the HD Recorders forum to find out about them. They're usually pretty cheap and require an EHD. But there are people out there who use them and like them.


Though, like I said, none do CableCard, right? So none can record from encrypted channels.. which unfortunately soon, may be ALL channels (even rebroadcast OTA ones).


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## scandia101 (Oct 20, 2007)

tivogurl said:


> A manual recording is not what most people want,


That's not what I said.


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## dianebrat (Jul 6, 2002)

mattack said:


> Though, like I said, none do CableCard, right? So none can record from encrypted channels.. which unfortunately soon, may be ALL channels (even rebroadcast OTA ones).


Sony made the DHG series DVRs for a few years, they were not overly popular, they were everything described and used CableCARDs


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## moedaman (Aug 21, 2012)

dianebrat said:


> Sony made the DHG series DVRs for a few years, they were not overly popular, they were everything described and used CableCARDs


The Sony's used TVGOS for scheduling. I used analog TVGOS for my Panasonic DMR-EH75V dvd recorder and it was every bit as good as the Tivo guide. Sadly TVGOS is now gone and the Sony's aren't that useful anymore, although some people still use them. But after reading the AVS Forum thread about them, many users are switching to Tivo's.


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## noshi15 (Jun 27, 2013)

Yes, I agreed some people are still used Sony's. But there are more new brands in market. Many users are switching to Tivo's.


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## dianebrat (Jul 6, 2002)

moedaman said:


> The Sony's used TVGOS for scheduling. I used analog TVGOS for my Panasonic DMR-EH75V dvd recorder and it was every bit as good as the Tivo guide. Sadly TVGOS is now gone and the Sony's aren't that useful anymore, although some people still use them. But after reading the AVS Forum thread about them, many users are switching to Tivo's.


and I totally understand they are no longer a viable option with TVGOS now dead, but they were out there at the time and never got any traction, I'm amazed they made it 7 years with TVGOS on them before it was killed. From what I understand with TVGOS being killed they lost their time sync also so the units really are all but dead.


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## moedaman (Aug 21, 2012)

dianebrat said:


> and I totally understand they are no longer a viable option with TVGOS now dead, but they were out there at the time and never got any traction, I'm amazed they made it 7 years with TVGOS on them before it was killed. From what I understand with TVGOS being killed they lost their time sync also so the units really are all but dead.


Some people over at the AVS Forum have figured out how to use them in a very limited capacity. But yes, they are nearly worthless compared to what they originally could do.


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## mattack (Apr 9, 2001)

moedaman said:


> The Sony's used TVGOS for scheduling. I used analog TVGOS for my Panasonic DMR-EH75V dvd recorder and it was every bit as good as the Tivo guide. Sadly TVGOS is now gone and the Sony's aren't that useful anymore, although some people still use them. But after reading the AVS Forum thread about them, many users are switching to Tivo's.


Every bit as good as the Tivo guide? Maybe for you, but I remember this being discussed on AVS forum, and IIRC, there was WAY less information provided for shows. I don't remember absolute specifics, but I think even descriptions were very less detailed, fewer guest stars, and maybe original air dates weren't included or at least not as often. Some of that info is useful to some people (I actually think OAD is one of the most important, since I sometimes check back later on an episode or something if I figure out if I've seen every episode of a show).


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## moedaman (Aug 21, 2012)

mattack said:


> Every bit as good as the Tivo guide? Maybe for you, but I remember this being discussed on AVS forum, and IIRC, there was WAY less information provided for shows. I don't remember absolute specifics, but I think even descriptions were very less detailed, fewer guest stars, and maybe original air dates weren't included or at least not as often. Some of that info is useful to some people (I actually think OAD is one of the most important, since I sometimes check back later on an episode or something if I figure out if I've seen every episode of a show).


Yes, some of that information is useful for some people, but a guide that is accurate for scheduling is what the vast majority of people want/need. I rarely read descriptions on my Tivo guide unless it's a show that's new to me, and I usually get that info online anyway. TVGOS worked very well for scheduling and it was free.

I burned thousands of dvd's with that Panasonic, and I could still use it without a guide since I burned discs off of my dvr. A Tivo without a guide is worthless (like the Sony's are now). It was well worth the $400 that I paid for it.


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## mattack (Apr 9, 2001)

But "accurate for scheduling" isn't true *if it doesn't always have OAD*.


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## lrhorer (Aug 31, 2003)

What's more, it is highly insufficient for Wishlists and Suggestions, two of the very most powerful and important features of the TiVo.


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## shwru980r (Jun 22, 2008)

lpwcomp said:


> *Sigh* So U.S. *DVRs* are inferior because they can't utilize information that isn't available in the U.S.?


It could be made available or added by the DVR provider. The end user is a DVR customer, not a customer of the company generating the guide data. The guide data is essentially provided by a subcontractor. The DVR provider is the general contractor and is responsible for the final product.



lpwcomp said:


> *Sigh* So U.S. *DVRs*
> The analogy would be if you wanted me to tell you how much it would cost and how long it would take based on a certain size and configuration of your lawn and it was actually larger than you told me it was.


No, the DVR subscriber pays a fee for unlimited recordings. The length of a live event may grow, but the DVR provider could transmit that information and extend the recording. Instead the DVR provider chooses not to resolve the issue and instead blame it on the subcontractor providing the guide data.


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## lpwcomp (May 6, 2002)

shwru980r said:


> It could be made available or added by the DVR provider.


No, it couldn't. The information has to come as part of the video signal.



shwru980r said:


> No, the DVR subscriber pays a fee for unlimited recordings. The length of a live event may grow, but the DVR provider could transmit that information and extend the recording. Instead the DVR provider chooses not to resolve the issue and instead blame it on the subcontractor providing the guide data.


Nonsense.


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