# Is Tivo EVER going to fix the awful Premiere software?



## slice1900 (Dec 2, 2005)

I am getting more and more frustrated every time I see my Premiere start up from standby frozen. Every few weeks I try to turn it on and the screen is black except for a window in the upper right paused on whatever I was watching when I put it on standby the night before. Nothing on the remote works - the yellow light on the unit flashes so it is getting there, but it is ignored. This seems to be separate from the "frozen remote" symptoms which fortunately I haven't seen this spring, but is even more frustrating because the only cure is to pull the power cord. Then you have to wait several minutes for it boot, and then endure terribly slow menus for a while until it finally starts working properly.

This bug has been present since I bought this two years ago. Seriously, does Tivo not give a damn about quality? My Series 2 was trouble free for 7 or 8 years until it finally bit the dust, and one would think a Series 4 is an upgrade. The two tuners and HD is certainly an upgrade, but the UI has gone downhill. If Tivo ever wishes to have a chance of getting people like me to invest in another one in the future this crap needs to be fixed before they waste time adding useless features like new UIs for Youtube, Amazon and Netflix. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE fix the glaring bugs and issues in the basic functionality before you spend more time on the extras! No one buys Tivo because the Netflix UI is cool, but people will stop buying it if even waking it up from standby is a crapshoot!!


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## djwilso (Dec 23, 2006)

That sounds very frustrating. Your unit sounds defective.

I'm glad that my Premiere Elite has never done any of the things you mentioned.


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## WVZR1 (Jul 31, 2008)

slice1900 said:


> I am getting more and more frustrated every time I see my Premiere start up from standby frozen. Every few weeks I try to turn it on and the screen is black except for a window in the upper right paused on whatever I was watching when I put it on standby the night before. Nothing on the remote works - the yellow light on the unit flashes so it is getting there, but it is ignored. This seems to be separate from the "frozen remote" symptoms which fortunately I haven't seen this spring, but is even more frustrating because the only cure is to pull the power cord. Then you have to wait several minutes for it boot, and then endure terribly slow menus for a while until it finally starts working properly.
> 
> This bug has been present since I bought this two years ago. Seriously, does Tivo not give a damn about quality? My Series 2 was trouble free for 7 or 8 years until it finally bit the dust, and one would think a Series 4 is an upgrade. The two tuners and HD is certainly an upgrade, but the UI has gone downhill. If Tivo ever wishes to have a chance of getting people like me to invest in another one in the future this crap needs to be fixed before they waste time adding useless features like new UIs for Youtube, Amazon and Netflix. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE fix the glaring bugs and issues in the basic functionality before you spend more time on the extras! No one buys Tivo because the Netflix UI is cool, but people will stop buying it if even waking it up from standby is a crapshoot!!


What is it doing in "standby"! It certainly doesn't appear you've asked for any help at all! OTA - Cable - what type of network? It seems unlikely that unless you "dribbled" it as the first step of "set-up" you could have this many issues! Try it again tomorrow night!


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## scole250 (Nov 8, 2005)

Just curious why you put it in standby? I thought that was a feature used for watching pass-through TV on a single tuner Tivo.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

This is not normal behavior from a Premiere box. My two tuner Premiere and my two Elites do not behave this way.


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## rvsj (Dec 20, 2007)

scole250 said:


> Just curious why you put it in standby? I thought that was a feature used for watching pass-through TV on a single tuner Tivo.


My Premier spends most of its time in Standby. Recordings made while the unit is in Standby will not be interrupted by the periodic emergency alert tests.


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## bbrown9 (Mar 12, 2011)

You don't have to reboot. The GUI is frozen and you can restart the GUI by pressing <THUMBS DOWN><THUMBS UP><PLAY><PLAY> (I got that info from another thread on this forum - not sure if I remembered it right - if that doesn't work try reversing the THUMBs). It will take a few seconds, then thee GUI will restart. A lot faster than a reboot.

I put my TiVo in standby all the time and I never see this returning from standby. I've seen it a couple of times just randomly navigating the menu system.


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## caddyroger (Mar 15, 2005)

The only problem with my Elite is that the HD menus are still slow. I have a 25down and 5 connection.


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## moyekj (Jan 24, 2006)

slice1900, you can save yourself a lot of grief simply by switching to SDUI. Everything will be much snappier once you do so. The HDUI besides being incomplete still has many issues and while almost bearable speed on my Premiere is just way too slow on my Elite so nobody in the family room where the Elite sits wants anything to do with HDUI.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

I wonder why the Elite is slower? Perhaps recording 4 buffers is taxing the CPU/RAM more and causing the UI to slow down. You should try tuning a couple of the live buffers to channels you don't actually get and see if that speeds things up any. Not a viable long term solution, but might be an interesting test.

Dan


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## gamo62 (Oct 12, 2002)

slice1900 said:


> I am getting more and more frustrated every time I see my Premiere start up from standby frozen. Every few weeks I try to turn it on and the screen is black except for a window in the upper right paused on whatever I was watching when I put it on standby the night before. Nothing on the remote works - the yellow light on the unit flashes so it is getting there, but it is ignored. This seems to be separate from the "frozen remote" symptoms which fortunately I haven't seen this spring, but is even more frustrating because the only cure is to pull the power cord. Then you have to wait several minutes for it boot, and then endure terribly slow menus for a while until it finally starts working properly.
> 
> This bug has been present since I bought this two years ago. Seriously, does Tivo not give a damn about quality? My Series 2 was trouble free for 7 or 8 years until it finally bit the dust, and one would think a Series 4 is an upgrade. The two tuners and HD is certainly an upgrade, but the UI has gone downhill. If Tivo ever wishes to have a chance of getting people like me to invest in another one in the future this crap needs to be fixed before they waste time adding useless features like new UIs for Youtube, Amazon and Netflix. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE fix the glaring bugs and issues in the basic functionality before you spend more time on the extras! No one buys Tivo because the Netflix UI is cool, but people will stop buying it if even waking it up from standby is a crapshoot!!


Well, I have an XL, and have never had an issue with it. I don't know how long you have had your unit, but Tivo has made enormous strides with their software. And they keep on doing with every subsequent release.

It doesn't appear to be a software issue with you. It's more likely a hardware issue that is causing your problems. I am extremely happy with my unit. Even to the point of ordering a TiVo Stream.


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## compnurd (Oct 6, 2011)

No Slow Downs here and the HDUI is plenty fast


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## smbaker (May 24, 2003)

I haven't had any lockups on mine lately, although on one Tivo the tuners occasionally get screwed up and won't tune any channel (something like "the channel cannot be tuned") until it has been rebooted.

I'm also having constant problems with it losing the group and sort preferences in the now playing screen, and at the same time turning off groups in pyTivo. I'm not sure why it's doing this, but it sure is annoying every couple of days to have the sort/group preferences screwed up.

HDUI performance is still a dog. It's just not a responsive interface. I've already resigned to the fact that it never will have decent performance.

New youtube plugin kinda sucks. I liked the old one better.

I was expecting a service update to complete the HDUI by now. Wasn't that promised sometime in the spring?


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## jrtroo (Feb 4, 2008)

No, the spring update did not promise full HDUI. At that time it mentioned that more HD screens were coming in the "fall" update, but even then a full set of HD menus was not described.

My HD performance is great. Just had my now playing change its preferences, I thought that was the kids or the dog hitting the color coded buttons.

OP- you are clearly having unusual issues. If you are looking to troubleshoot, let us know a few things like:
wireless/wired internet connection
external hard drive?
why are you using standby? Does this happen at any other times?
did the reboot of the UI trick work for you?
Do you have a cablecard? TA?


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## swerver (May 18, 2012)

For sluggish ui performance, if you haven't tried the slide remote, you need to.


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## slowbiscuit (Sep 19, 2006)

I have the slide and it can't change the issue with the HDUI being a dog, nor does it address the numerous bugs in it. SDUI is the only way to go for me on the Elite, which sucks because I use the guide all the time and it's way better in HD.


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## moyekj (Jan 24, 2006)

The bottom line is the hardware is just not good enough to run the HDUI without feeling sluggish. For those that say the HDUI is not sluggish then I submit if they did try the SDUI it would feel like a jet engine, especially on 4 tuner units. Speed is all relative so not everyone is going to agree on what sluggish is or not but my point of reference is comparing to SDUI and it's no contest which one is faster, especially on 4-tuner units. I agree that there are several advantages now in HDUI and I do use it quite a bit on my Premiere, but on the Elite it is just dog slow (especially when left unattended for a while) and nobody in the family can tolerate HDUI on that unit.


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## compnurd (Oct 6, 2011)

This all depends on what you are comparing it to. The HDUI on Verizon, Direct TV, Comcasts new one are all Slower than the Tivo HDUI.... And obviously slower than there previous SDUI's... It is just a fact that the newer interfaces do and interact with alot more then the SDUI's do


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## swerver (May 18, 2012)

slowbiscuit said:


> I have the slide and it can't change the issue with the HDUI being a dog, nor does it address the numerous bugs in it. SDUI is the only way to go for me on the Elite, which sucks because I use the guide all the time and it's way better in HD.


Oh, well it made a big difference to me, using a 2 tuner premiere. Bluetooth on the slide remote makes the ui lightning fast, it was a bit painful before with the regular remote with IR.


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## smbaker (May 24, 2003)

swerver said:


> Oh, well it made a big difference to me, using a 2 tuner premiere. Bluetooth on the slide remote makes the ui lightning fast, it was a bit painful before with the regular remote with IR.


For me, bluetooth has improved the latency between pushing a button and the DVR acting on the button push. However, it hasn't done a bit of good for screen refresh times, populating menus, now playing lists, etc. Those are the places where the HDUI functions like a lazy or very sick dog.

I'm not sure why anyone is comparing Tivo to comcast or other cableco DVRs. The Tivo is a premium DVR. It's sold to people who want a much better device than those DVRs. It should utterly blow them away in features, performance, and reliability.


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## astrohip (Jan 7, 2003)

moyekj said:


> The bottom line is the hardware is just not good enough to run the HDUI without feeling sluggish. For those that say the HDUI is not sluggish then I submit if they did try the SDUI it would feel like a jet engine, especially on 4 tuner units. Speed is all relative so not everyone is going to agree on what sluggish is or not but my point of reference is comparing to SDUI and it's no contest which one is faster, especially on 4-tuner units. I agree that there are several advantages now in HDUI and I do use it quite a bit on my Premiere, but on the Elite it is just dog slow (especially when left unattended for a while) and nobody in the family can tolerate HDUI on that unit.


Agree. About once a month or so I'll switch to HDUI, usually to check out some feature I've read about in these forum that is HDUI only, and after a few minutes I'm right back to SDUI. I'm all about speed, speed, speed.



swerver said:


> Oh, well it made a big difference to me, using a 2 tuner premiere. Bluetooth on the slide remote makes the ui lightning fast, it was a bit painful before with the regular remote with IR.


It doesn't make any difference to the UI speed. I have both, and regardless of response time, the UI reaction is the same.


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## David D (May 29, 2012)

FWIW, I'm on my fourth Premier in 18 months. The first unit lasted 11 months with very few lock-ups and reboots. Around the 12th month, it would be on the TiVo start up screen when we'd turn on the tv several times a week, eventually becoming several times daily. 

We're now on the fourth unit and while improved, it still acts up several times a week, including the "TiVo service is not available..." message that requires a power down reboot. I've tried all the suggestions TiVo tech support has offered including putting the unit on a UPS with still unsatisfactory results. I'm at wits end with this and don't know what else to do. From what I gather from here and talking to TiVo tech support, these units are easily thrown by poor signal to noise ratio, multipath distortion, etc. which is common with OTA, which is what I use. I cannot get a straight answer from anyone at TiVo on a solution.


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## astrohip (Jan 7, 2003)

bbrown9 said:


> You don't have to reboot. The GUI is frozen and you can restart the GUI by pressing <THUMBS DOWN><THUMBS UP><PLAY><PLAY> (I got that info from another thread on this forum - not sure if I remembered it right - if that doesn't work try reversing the THUMBs). It will take a few seconds, then thee GUI will restart. A lot faster than a reboot.


I tried this (both ways). No luck. I've never heard of "rebooting the GUI". Any other info on this? Anyone else heard of this?

PS: I don't have any problems. I just had never heard of this process, and wanted to try it out of curiosity.


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## beejay (Feb 3, 2001)

astrohip said:


> I tried this (both ways). No luck. I've never heard of "rebooting the GUI". Any other info on this? Anyone else heard of this?
> 
> PS: I don't have any problems. I just had never heard of this process, and wanted to try it out of curiosity.


Works for me (from TiVo Central HDUI)

Never heard of it before but the screen goes blank for several seconds and then TiVo Central is redisplayed.

I'll add it to my list of codes in case it seems it's ever useful for me.


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## compnurd (Oct 6, 2011)

astrohip said:


> I tried this (both ways). No luck. I've never heard of "rebooting the GUI". Any other info on this? Anyone else heard of this?
> 
> PS: I don't have any problems. I just had never heard of this process, and wanted to try it out of curiosity.


It has been posted by Tivo people in the past as an option


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## astrohip (Jan 7, 2003)

beejay said:


> Works for me (from TiVo Central HDUI)
> 
> Never heard of it before but the screen goes blank for several seconds and then TiVo Central is redisplayed.
> 
> I'll add it to my list of codes in case it seems it's ever useful for me.


Maybe it's HDUI only. I'll try it that way. I'm an SDUI guy.


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## DocNo (Oct 10, 2001)

smbaker said:


> I'm not sure why anyone is comparing Tivo to comcast or other cableco DVRs. The Tivo is a premium DVR. It's sold to people who want a much better device than those DVRs. It should utterly blow them away in features, performance, and reliability.


Hear hear.... For the most part they have the features and reliability down (otherwise I would have ditched Tivo for cheaper solutions long ago) - but the performance has always been frustrating. I may finally go the HTPC route. Combined with thinking of cutting the cable cord and going pure OTA and streaming, despite the hassles at least I will get a fast UI if I'm willing to pay for it!


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

astrohip said:


> Maybe it's HDUI only. I'll try it that way. I'm an SDUI guy.


Yes that's a technique for rebooting the HDUI. It has no effect on the SDUI. The SDUI is more low level. If it locks up you need to pull the plug and do a full reboot.

Dan


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## moyekj (Jan 24, 2006)

FYI you can also reboot by holding down the "Format" button on the front of the TiVo for about 30 secs. (It's hard for me to reach power cord on my TiVo so I found that a good substitute).


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

Good tip, thanks. I had no idea you could do that.

Dan


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## bmgoodman (Dec 20, 2000)

If I were a betting man, I'd wager that the rumored Tivo Series 5 platform is very different from current and will dump Java, orphaning the Premiere units to software upgrades. So I hope you like the Premieres you have....


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

bmgoodman said:


> If I were a betting man, I'd wager that the rumored Tivo Series 5 platform is very different from current and will dump Java, orphaning the Premiere units to software upgrades. So I hope you like the Premieres you have....


No different than previous versions. I'll just sell my S4 boxes to cover most of the cost of lifetime S5 boxes. Just like I did when I sold my S3 boxes to cover most of the cost of my lifetime S4 boxes.

Sent from my HTC ReZound using Forum Runner


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## astrohip (Jan 7, 2003)

bmgoodman said:


> So I hope you like the Premieres you have....


I do! And I love the two S3s I still have running.

All these TiVos still record TV shows. Love it! :up:


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## bmgoodman (Dec 20, 2000)

aaronwt said:


> No different than previous versions. I'll just sell my S4 boxes to cover most of the cost of lifetime S5 boxes. Just like I did when I sold my S3 boxes to cover most of the cost of my lifetime S4 boxes.
> 
> Sent from my HTC ReZound using Forum Runner


I'm still thrilled with my S3 and Tivo HD. They're pretty bullet-proof, even if the Netflix is crappy. I understand the Premieres still have reboot issues. And a 10-minute boot time means chunks of missed recordings. No, thanks. But I'm glad you enjoy yours. I'm sure can't ALL have the reboot issue.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

bmgoodman said:


> I'm still thrilled with my S3 and Tivo HD. They're pretty bullet-proof, even if the Netflix is crappy. I understand the Premieres still have reboot issues. And a 10-minute boot time means chunks of missed recordings. No, thanks. But I'm glad you enjoy yours. I'm sure can't ALL have the reboot issue.


If I were missing shows because of reboots I certainly would be pissed. But fortunately I'm not having issues with reboots.


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## crxssi (Apr 5, 2010)

compnurd said:


> No Slow Downs here and the HDUI is plenty fast


To me, there is almost nothing "fast" about the HDUI. After several updates, it is quite "usable", however.


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## crxssi (Apr 5, 2010)

bmgoodman said:


> If I were a betting man, I'd wager that the rumored Tivo Series 5 platform is very different from current and will dump Java, orphaning the Premiere units to software upgrades. So I hope you like the Premieres you have....


They are not using Java, they are using Flash/Air.

I seriously doubt the Series 5 will be different AT ALL from a software standpoint. It will probably be very similar to the Series 4 hardware, just with an integrated Stream and (probably/hopefully) a MUCH faster CPU and probably more RAM, possibly gigabit, and a few other do-dads.

I also doubt they will orphan the Series 4. Those are just my predictions.


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## crxssi (Apr 5, 2010)

moyekj said:


> The bottom line is the hardware is just not good enough to run the HDUI without feeling sluggish


That is only part of the bottom line.

The rest of the bottom line is that the HDUI is so dependent on a live connection to TiVo's servers for uncached, live information, it can never really be fast, regardless of the hardware thrown at it.


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## mikengrove (Jun 18, 2008)

slice1900 said:


> I am getting more and more frustrated every time I see my Premiere start up from standby frozen. Every few weeks I try to turn it on and the screen is black except for a window in the upper right paused on whatever I was watching when I put it on standby the night before. Nothing on the remote works - the yellow light on the unit flashes so it is getting there, but it is ignored. This seems to be separate from the "frozen remote" symptoms which fortunately I haven't seen this spring, but is even more frustrating because the only cure is to pull the power cord. Then you have to wait several minutes for it boot, and then endure terribly slow menus for a while until it finally starts working properly.
> 
> This bug has been present since I bought this two years ago. Seriously, does Tivo not give a damn about quality? My Series 2 was trouble free for 7 or 8 years until it finally bit the dust, and one would think a Series 4 is an upgrade. The two tuners and HD is certainly an upgrade, but the UI has gone downhill. If Tivo ever wishes to have a chance of getting people like me to invest in another one in the future this crap needs to be fixed before they waste time adding useless features like new UIs for Youtube, Amazon and Netflix. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE fix the glaring bugs and issues in the basic functionality before you spend more time on the extras! No one buys Tivo because the Netflix UI is cool, but people will stop buying it if even waking it up from standby is a crapshoot!!


My premiere does the same thing. The live tv screen is always stuck on pause and tv goes black and remote becomes useless .have to unplug unit and restart..that is such a slow reboot time.
I wish TiVo would get rid of all the useless stuff on HD display screen. I end up keeping screen on standard ,not the HD one


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## Arcady (Oct 14, 2004)

bmgoodman said:


> I'm still thrilled with my S3 and Tivo HD. They're pretty bullet-proof, even if the Netflix is crappy.


The Netflix on my Premiere Elite will crash the whole box about 25% of the time I try to use it. I've still got a TiVo HD connected to the same TV in order to use Netflix reliably.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

bmgoodman said:


> If I were a betting man, I'd wager that the rumored Tivo Series 5 platform is very different from current and will dump Java, orphaning the Premiere units to software upgrades. So I hope you like the Premieres you have....


I'd take that bet. TiVo has invested a LOT of resourcesninto the HDUI and they are still actively working on it. There is no way they are going to throw out everything they've done and start over again. The next unit will likely have a faster CPU so that it runs better, but it will still be running the same UI that the current units.

Now that doesn't mean they wont abondon the Premiere platform though. The S2 units and S3 units ran esentially the same code but they still stopped releasing updates for the S2 units long before the S3 units. Even when a program shares a common codebase it can still be a PITA to maintain multiple versions. Although I predict they will keep releasing updates for at least another year, maybe two.

Dan


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## knightl (Mar 15, 2006)

astrohip said:


> I do! And I love the two S3s I still have running.
> 
> All these TiVos still record TV shows. Love it! :up:


I too, love the S3. I just had one brick on me and bought a refurb S3 from TIVO to replace it.


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## zubinh (Jun 7, 2004)

mikengrove said:


> My premiere does the same thing. The live tv screen is always stuck on pause and tv goes black and remote becomes useless .have to unplug unit and restart..that is such a slow reboot time.
> I wish TiVo would get rid of all the useless stuff on HD display screen. I end up keeping screen on standard ,not the HD one


Is there any way to just get the grid guide in HD and everything else in SD?


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## compnurd (Oct 6, 2011)

zubinh said:


> Is there any way to just get the grid guide in HD and everything else in SD?


No, It is either SDUI or HDUI


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## zubinh (Jun 7, 2004)

I'm all ready to upgrade to Premiere but now you guys are giving me second thoughts


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## compnurd (Oct 6, 2011)

zubinh said:


> I'm all ready to upgrade to Premiere but now you guys are giving me second thoughts


I love the HDUI. The problem here is what everyone compares it to. I came from Direct TV's HD Interface so to me the HDUI on the Premiere is faster. It is also faster then my in-laws Verizon Fios HD Interface. Is it as fast as the SDUI, no, but the SDUI is BASIC like the TV Guide software most cable companies use.

The HDUI does use the internet ALOT, so having a good connection and DNS servers that are properly configured and you will be fine. I have two premieres, both use HDUI, never had a slow down on either. Netflix etc works fine


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## zubinh (Jun 7, 2004)

compnurd said:


> I love the HDUI. The problem here is what everyone compares it to. I came from Direct TV's HD Interface so to me the HDUI on the Premiere is faster. It is also faster then my in-laws Verizon Fios HD Interface. Is it as fast as the SDUI, no, but the SDUI is BASIC like the TV Guide software most cable companies use.
> 
> The HDUI does use the internet ALOT, so having a good connection and DNS servers that are properly configured and you will be fine. I have two premieres, both use HDUI, never had a slow down on either. Netflix etc works fine


Thank you for the reassurance compnurd. I have upgraded my Fios speed to 50/25 and I upgraded to the latest Router with Moca Support in anticipation of upgrading. As far as "DNS servers that are properly configured" ...I have no idea what that means so if you know of a post that describes what to do, I'd appreciate it! Now all I need is for the Tivo Mini to be released.


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## smbaker (May 24, 2003)

zubinh said:


> I'm all ready to upgrade to Premiere but now you guys are giving me second thoughts


It's still a worthy upgrade. It falls far short of it's potential, but I'm still happier with my Premiere than my S3 or S2. I just have a much better expectation of quality than Tivo delivers these days.


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## mr_smits (Dec 17, 2009)

bmgoodman said:


> the rumored Tivo Series 5 platform is very different from current


I haven't heard anything about Series 5. Do we know anything about it and timeframe?


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## rhettf (Apr 5, 2012)

zubinh said:


> Thank you for the reassurance compnurd. I have upgraded my Fios speed to 50/25 and I upgraded to the latest Router with Moca Support in anticipation of upgrading. As far as "DNS servers that are properly configured" ...I have no idea what that means so if you know of a post that describes what to do, I'd appreciate it! Now all I need is for the Tivo Mini to be released.


DNS stands for Domain Name Server, it's what turns google.com into a IP address.

Your modem pulls one down from your ISP but you can usually find a more reliable/faster one with a little research.

I personally roll my own which is the fastest most secure thing to do. If you have a spare low power machine lying around its really simple to setup.

http://www.techsupportalert.com/content/how-find-best-dns-server.htm


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

mr_smits said:


> I haven't heard anything about Series 5. Do we know anything about it and timeframe?


The only mention of it at all was during a conference call when someone from TiVo mentioned that the functionality of the Stream would be built into some future hardware release. They NEVER said it was going to be a Series 5, or anything else about it, so everything else being posted here is pure rumor and speculation.

Dan


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## nrc (Nov 17, 1999)

I finally made the move to a Premiere recently. I like the HDUI. Most of the time it's fast enough. Every once in a while it bogs down. I thought I had one lockup but I wandered off and when I came back everything was back to normal. 

One thing that does annoy me is that it doesn't seem to buffer remote presses well. So if it's still rendering a menu and you select a menu item sometimes you get a bonk instead of the action expected.


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## Thunderclap (Nov 28, 2005)

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I was under the impression the current Premiere hardware was quite capable of handling the HDUI. Isn't it a dual core CPU in these units? As I understand it the issue is that Tivo hasn't "enabled" the second core yet thus causing the sluggishness.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

Thunderclap said:


> Correct me if I'm wrong, but I was under the impression the current Premiere hardware was quite capable of handling the HDUI. Isn't it a dual core CPU in these units? As I understand it the issue is that Tivo hasn't "enabled" the second core yet thus causing the sluggishness.


They enabled the second core a while back. It improved things a bit, but the UI is still a dog. I think the whole thing is just underpowered. Which seems to be confirmed by the fact that it runs better on the 2 tuner unit then the 4 tuner unit because the 4 tuner unit has more resources dedicated to recording/buffering 4 stations at a time.

Hopefully a future revision of the hardware will contain a newer chip that can run the UI a little faster.

Dan


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## compnurd (Oct 6, 2011)

Dan203 said:


> They enabled the second core a while back. It improved things a bit, but the UI is still a dog. I think the whole thing is just underpowered. Which seems to be confirmed by the fact that it runs better on the 2 tuner unit then the 4 tuner unit because the 4 tuner unit has more resources dedicated to recording/buffering 4 stations at a time.
> 
> Hopefully a future revision of the hardware will contain a newer chip that can run the UI a little faster.
> 
> Dan


I think the second core seemed to speed up other tasks more so then the UI....

I dont remember seeing a huge change with the UI when that happened... That being said though, we have alot more HD screens then we did before the core update


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## crxssi (Apr 5, 2010)

Dan203 said:


> They enabled the second core a while back. It improved things a bit, but the UI is still a dog. I think the whole thing is just underpowered. Which seems to be confirmed by the fact that it runs better on the 2 tuner unit then the 4 tuner unit because the 4 tuner unit has more resources dedicated to recording/buffering 4 stations at a time.
> 
> Hopefully a future revision of the hardware will contain a newer chip that can run the UI a little faster.


Yes, the CPU's are underpowered but (as I asserted earlier) the HDUI is so dependent on a live connection to TiVo's servers for uncached, live information, it can never really be fast everywhere, regardless of the hardware thrown at it. A TRUE, "everywhere" speedup would require a significant redesign and re-thinking of the way the HDUI works. One solution would be to download *ALL* the program information on a regular basis (not just the base listings, but also all the icons/graphics, the extended info). Another [less desirable option] would be to make anything "live" optional information that is not displayed or retrieved unless directed to do so.

I do believe faster CPU's will result in much snapper performance in perhaps most areas of the HDUI. They have so much invested in their software design, that I seriously doubt it will change much with a series 5.

One thing I would LOVE to see would be to put the OS, TiVo Software, and *ALL* settings information on flash storage. Use the hard drive to ONLY store the video. That would significantly speed up the booting and operation of many aspects of the system, and significantly improve the reliability of the system. Make that flash storage a removable card, and now you have a backup of everything important... all your preferences, channel settings, antenna config, network config, audio, config, likes and dislikes, wishlists, etc, etc. If your TiVo fails or blows a hard drive, simply move the card into a replacement unit and you are DONE.


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## Brad Bishop (Sep 11, 2001)

Just to add my two bits in:

I have an Elite. Up until the v20.1 (I think that's right) version I'd get random reboots throughout the week. Since then, it's been solid.

I also switched to the HDUI when v20.1 hit and I have no complaints. I even switched back recently to SDUI to see if I was missing any speed. It was negligible. While I don't know if the Premier is less powered than the Elite, if I were recommending settings to a friend or family member for the Elite I'd tell them to go HDUI as it's a nicer interface and the speed issue really isn't there.

Now, if only they'd finish the HDUI interface. It's pretty ridiculous that they should have had it done in 2007 with the TiVo HD and here we are, 5 years later, and you still slip into the SDUI interface depending on what you do.

As for the Java comments - it looks like people gave up on that. Yahoo! was a big player. Dominos let you order pizza via the Java interface (never worked for me). I think it's time to move past Java. It seems that most others have or are.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

crxssi said:


> One thing I would LOVE to see would be to put the OS, TiVo Software, and *ALL* settings information on flash storage. Use the hard drive to ONLY store the video. That would significantly speed up the booting and operation of many aspects of the system, and significantly improve the reliability of the system. Make that flash storage a removable card, and now you have a backup of everything important... all your preferences, channel settings, antenna config, network config, audio, config, likes and dislikes, wishlists, etc, etc. If your TiVo fails or blows a hard drive, simply move the card into a replacement unit and you are DONE.


That would be nice. Flash storage is cheap enough now that they could do that pretty easily.

Has anyone ever used a flash based drive as their primary hard drive in a TiVo? Just as an experiment to see if it made the UI any faster?

Dan


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## steve614 (May 1, 2006)

Dan203 said:


> Has anyone ever used a flash based drive as their primary hard drive in a TiVo? Just as an experiment to see if it made the UI any faster?
> 
> Dan


http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=454580


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## Thunderclap (Nov 28, 2005)

If TiVo re-wrote the HDUI in HTML5 or Java or some other program that wasn't as CPU intensie couldn't they push that to TiVo units during an update? Maybe they can find a way to re-compile the Flash code into one of these other languages so they didn't have to recode from scratch.


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## crxssi (Apr 5, 2010)

Thunderclap said:


> If TiVo re-wrote the HDUI in HTML5 or Java or some other program that wasn't as CPU intensie couldn't they push that to TiVo units during an update?


If you think it is not fast enough now, that suggestion would be beyond miserable. Their servers are already too slow and the HDUI already relies on too much "live" data.



> Maybe they can find a way to re-compile the Flash code into one of these other languages so they didn't have to recode from scratch.


That won't fix the design and probably would not speed things up much (not unless the compiled code were hand-optimized)


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

crxssi said:


> If you think it is not fast enough now, that suggestion would be beyond miserable. Their servers are already too slow and the HDUI already relies on too much "live" data.


I don't think the live data has as much bearing on the UI as you think. If the live data was really the issue then the 2 tuner Premiere wouldn't be faster then the 4 tuner Elite. I very much think this is a resource problem. I think TiVo's code allocates a specific amount of resource per tuner to ensure the primary function of the box (i.e. recording) happens without flaw. The UI gets whatever is left over. If they has a one tuner Premiere it would probably be even faster.

Dan


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## tivogurl (Dec 16, 2004)

The tuner sensitivity issues are probably hardware (Broadcom?) deficiencies. I doubt TiVo can fix them. I'm disappointed that TiVo decided to use such flaky parts.

TiVo can't speed up the CPU much either, since the CPU is embedded in the SoC. No flexibility to switch out the CPU for an ARM, for example. What they've got is about as fast as MIPs processors from 15 years ago.


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## SDNick484 (Mar 14, 2008)

I'm on a launch premiere (pre-ordered), and I hated the HDUI at first due to speed (I tried it and switched back several times). However since June of this year, I've actually not had a problem. The speed is usable, and I haven't had any lockups as described by the OP (on earlier versions of the software, I most certainly did).


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## Stevesreed (Jun 24, 2002)

Dan203 said:


> TiVo has invested a LOT of resources into the HDUI and they are still actively working on it.


I find that very hard to believe. I'm pretty sure they have not had more than a single programmer working on the HDUI for the last few years, probably not even full time.

The entire HDUI of the TIVO is no more than a 6 month project for a handful of experienced programmers.


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## jrtroo (Feb 4, 2008)

Stevesreed said:


> I find that very hard to believe. I'm pretty sure they have not had more than a single programmer working on the HDUI for the last few years, probably not even full time.
> 
> The entire HDUI of the TIVO is no more than a 6 month project for a handful of experienced programmers.


Sounds like you should go get a job with them. Executive material.

Seriously, Tivo just tweeted that we can expect some additional HD screens this fall- Season Pass Manager and To Do List included.


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## slowbiscuit (Sep 19, 2006)

If they'd just fix all the bugs I could live with it, but losing track of pause/resume points (for example) is unacceptable. And I saw this regularly when swapping from one recording to another (a common thing for me watching sports slightly delayed behind live). I've also seen it lock up a couple of times in SD screens, or going back and forth. Doing a reset on the HDUI didn't work, I had to pull the plug on the Tivo. Which is again, unacceptable.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

slowbiscuit said:


> I had to pull the plug on the Tivo.


I just learned a neat trick about TiVo. If you hold down the Format button on the front of the TiVo for a few seconds it will reboot. No need to physically pull the plug. I've been using these things for years an never knew that until a couple weeks ago.

Dan


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## lessd (Jan 23, 2005)

Dan203 said:


> I just learned a neat trick about TiVo. If you hold down the Format button on the front of the TiVo for a few seconds it will reboot. No need to physically pull the plug. I've been using these things for years an never knew that until a couple weeks ago.
> 
> Dan


I assume that would be a soft re-boot, if the TiVo is frozen will that trick still work ?


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

slowbiscuit said:


> If they'd just fix all the bugs I could live with it, but losing track of pause/resume points (for example) is unacceptable. And I saw this regularly when swapping from one recording to another (a common thing for me watching sports slightly delayed behind live). I've also seen it lock up a couple of times in SD screens, or going back and forth. Doing a reset on the HDUI didn't work, I had to pull the plug on the Tivo. Which is again, unacceptable.


I've not seen any issues with my boxes remembering the locations in recordings. I can go jack and forth and it remembers my spot as long as it's not very close to the end of the recording.

Sent from my HTC ReZound using Forum Runner


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## cherry ghost (Sep 13, 2005)

aaronwt said:


> I've not seen any issues with my boxes remembering the locations in recordings. I can go jack and forth and it remembers my spot as long as it's not very close to the end of the recording.


The problems I have with remembering locations are always with ongoing recordings.

If I'm recording a football game, catch up to live, go watch another recorded show(either finished or also ongoing), and then come back to the football game, it's hit or miss whether or not it remembers where I left off. If I catch up and watch live TV on another tuner for a while before going back to the game, it does remember the location.

I've tested all the various ways to leave the football game; pause first, don't pause, left arrow out, TiVo-->TiVo, single press "MyShows" programmed into my Harmony, and it's never consistent.

It's come to where I make a mental note of how far I am into the recording before I leave it so I know where to FF to if it doesn't remember where I left off and starts me at the beginning.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

lessd said:


> I assume that would be a soft re-boot, if the TiVo is frozen will that trick still work ?


I tried it the other night after Netflix locked up my Elite and it worked.

Dan


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## slowbiscuit (Sep 19, 2006)

cherry ghost said:


> The problems I have with remembering locations are always with ongoing recordings.
> 
> If I'm recording a football game, catch up to live, go watch another recorded show(either finished or also ongoing), and then come back to the football game, it's hit or miss whether or not it remembers where I left off. If I catch up and watch live TV on another tuner for a while before going back to the game, it does remember the location.
> 
> ...


Exactly, that's what I was talking about (watching slightly behind live) - ongoing recordings are the issue. And that issue alone led me to ditch the HDUI.


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## bbrown9 (Mar 12, 2011)

I think the HDUI slowness might be a memory leak. It's a lot peppier after a reboot and then the speed slowly degrades over time.


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## compnurd (Oct 6, 2011)

bbrown9 said:


> I think the HDUI slowness might be a memory leak. It's a lot peppier after a reboot and then the speed slowly degrades over time.


LOL i think it is the opposite.. mine seems faster as time goes on


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

I haven't noticed mine being faster as time goes on, but I also haven't noticed it being slower either.


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## crxssi (Apr 5, 2010)

aaronwt said:


> I haven't noticed mine being faster as time goes on, but I also haven't noticed it being slower either.


Neither have I. It is consistently too slow  (But at least a tolerable HDUI performance since the last update)


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## moyekj (Jan 24, 2006)

HDUI is just about tolerable on my 2-tuner Premiere, but on Elite it's just intolerable for anyone in my family. Especially when unit has been sitting without interaction for a few hours it's just ridiculously sluggish to begin with and gradually gets better. Switch to the SDUI though and right away it's snappy again. I sure hope hope the next series of hardware gets hardware properly capable of handling Flash or whatever the next interface to be used.


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## global_dev (Mar 15, 2010)

I am planning on subbing two premiers for 2 elites. Is it really that slow to be unusable?


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

global_dev said:


> I am planning on subbing two premiers for 2 elites. Is it really that slow to be unusable?


No. They are perfectly usable. I use two Elites on a daily basis. And one two tuner Premiere. Whether the Elite/XL4 is very slow is very subjective.

Sent from my HTC ReZound using Forum Runner


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## nrc (Nov 17, 1999)

Most of the time I think my Elite is fast enough. What annoys me is that sometimes when I'm going through menus I get a "bonk" as I try to proceed into the next menu. I assume that it's refusing to accept input until the screen is rendered which sucks and adds to the impression of slowness.

I don't recall ever encountering this behavior on any generation TiVo.


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## L David Matheny (Jan 29, 2011)

nrc said:


> Most of the time I think my Elite is fast enough. What annoys me is that sometimes when I'm going through menus I get a "bonk" as I try to proceed into the next menu. I assume that it's refusing to accept input until the screen is rendered which sucks and adds to the impression of slowness.
> 
> I don't recall ever encountering this behavior on any generation TiVo.


That's exactly the sort of thing that should never occur. The user interface must be lower in priority than critical tasks like recording, but it should be higher in priority than eye candy, ads, etc. If the user does something to change the menu or other screen before it's fully rendered, the TiVo should immediately abort all unfinished items on that screen (which should be separate threads) and start rendering the newly selected screen. Eventually the TiVo will catch up when the user slows down, but the user interface should never force the user to slow down. That's why we need asynchronous multithreading, as has been noted many times.


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## compnurd (Oct 6, 2011)

L David Matheny said:


> That's exactly the sort of thing that should never occur. The user interface must be lower in priority than critical tasks like recording, but it should be higher in priority than eye candy, ads, etc. If the user does something to change the menu or other screen before it's fully rendered, the TiVo should immediately abort all unfinished items on that screen (which should be separate threads) and start rendering the newly selected screen. Eventually the TiVo will catch up when the user slows down, but the user interface should never force the user to slow down. That's why we need asynchronous multithreading, as has been noted many times.


I have never had that occur


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

I have and I agree with David. The UI should always respond to commands regardless of what state it's in. When someone has been using a UI for a while they learn where things are and don't always need for the complete UI to render before making a selection.

Dan


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## crxssi (Apr 5, 2010)

compnurd said:


> I have never had that occur


I have. Many times, although it is still rare. And I have had the petals of death (also occasionally). And I have been able to get the menu totally confused by trying to delete things it is still recording too fast (frequently).

Generally, what I want to accomplish through the UI, I am many times faster (reading/reaction time/processing) than the HDUI can keep up with (page changes, scrolling, selecting, deleting, returning control to me, etc).


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## trip1eX (Apr 2, 2005)

nrc said:


> Most of the time I think my Elite is fast enough. What annoys me is that sometimes when I'm going through menus I get a "bonk" as I try to proceed into the next menu. I assume that it's refusing to accept input until the screen is rendered which sucks and adds to the impression of slowness.
> 
> I don't recall ever encountering this behavior on any generation TiVo.


That's why I sold mine.

I think the lack of responsiveness is due to their move to Flash. Flash apps are clunky. They are inefficient. All those ads that bog you down in your browser? Flash.

They made a mistake by going to Flash. NOt sure why except there is an army of flash developers out there, they could port Tivo to other platforms other than Tivo boxes and attract 3rd party development.

Series 2 never had this problem.


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## compnurd (Oct 6, 2011)

crxssi said:


> I have. Many times, although it is still rare. And I have had the petals of death (also occasionally). And I have been able to get the menu totally confused by trying to delete things it is still recording too fast (frequently).
> 
> Generally, what I want to accomplish through the UI, I am many times faster (reading/reaction time/processing) than the HDUI can keep up with (page changes, scrolling, selecting, deleting, returning control to me, etc).


I have the sounds turned off but I have never had the hdui get stuck on my button pressing or behind. I push the button for whatever screen and it responds


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## astrohip (Jan 7, 2003)

compnurd said:


> I have never had that occur


It's easy to have happen. You just aren't trying hard enough.

Example: Watching a recording, it comes to an end, you delete it and the TiVo returns to the Now Playing Screen. If you push a button the exact moment of return, you almost always get the bonk. It takes a second or so for the NP screen to redraw.



crxssi said:


> Generally, what I want to accomplish through the UI, I am many times faster (reading/reaction time/processing) than the *HDUI *can keep up with (page changes, scrolling, selecting, deleting, returning control to me, etc).


And I'm using the *SDUI*! 

It's not a big deal, but it definitely exists. LDM is correct about the solution.


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## slowbiscuit (Sep 19, 2006)

You're assuming they know how to properly do UI multithreading. Based on what we've seen with the Premieres, my guess is no. Or the abominable choice of Flash is preventing them from doing so.


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## slice1900 (Dec 2, 2005)

cherry ghost said:


> The problems I have with remembering locations are always with ongoing recordings.
> 
> If I'm recording a football game, catch up to live, go watch another recorded show(either finished or also ongoing), and then come back to the football game, it's hit or miss whether or not it remembers where I left off. If I catch up and watch live TV on another tuner for a while before going back to the game, it does remember the location.
> 
> ...


Yes, this is one of the NEW bugs they introduced this summer. When watching something that is recording, and switching to watch something else then back to the thing that is recording, it appears to always lose it's place. Very frustrating!

Even more annoying, after a recording is done when the live buffer has less than 30 minutes in it, it's not possible to rewind back to the start of the buffer. This may sound like a non-issue, but I recorded something that runs over a bit and happen to finish watching it less than 30 minutes after it ended, I want to go into the live buffer to see what I missed. But yet another new bug lurks there.

If you try, it jumps you back to the end of the buffer. I've found the only way to get to the start of the buffer is to use the 3xFF and then slow down to to 2x and then 1x as you approach the beginning, making sure to press play before you actually do reach the start of the buffer. If you wait too long and hit the start of the buffer, you're back to the end again.

Tivo obviously does little or no testing of releases before they push them out widely, or something as obvious as this would never have passed QC.


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## bobrt6676 (Dec 31, 2007)

Have had this issue pop-up once in awhile but last night it was bad. While watching the Reds recorded game, 6 timesTivo elite switched to C-Span for a couple of minutes and then switches to the last live station I was watching. How frustrating Chatted with Tivo support and there answer: 1. Switch to SDUI and 2. reboot the TA and call me in the morning if this does not help! Has not happened since switching to the ugly SDUI (sorry I'm an HD snob) There was quite a lightning/thunder storm at the time this was happening but my equiptment is connected to a power conditioner and there was never any flickering power.


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## Thunderclap (Nov 28, 2005)

I was wondering... how hard would it be for Tivo to add a setting that allows a user to enable/disable the "live" content, or all the useless stuff at the top of the HDUI menus? That stuff barely works anyway and being able to turn it off might help things a bit.


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## steve614 (May 1, 2006)

Thunderclap said:


> I was wondering... how hard would it be for Tivo to add a setting that allows a user to enable/disable the "live" content, or all the useless stuff at the top of the HDUI menus? That stuff barely works anyway and being able to turn it off might help things a bit.


It's already available. Switch to using the SDUI.


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## Thunderclap (Nov 28, 2005)

steve614 said:


> It's already available. Switch to using the SDUI.


Ha! Though not quite the option I was looking for.


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## Heinrich (Feb 28, 2002)

When I hit the Tivo button during a recording while watching, if I want to check something, how do I get back to the video that's playing without going down to the individual show and hitting 'resume'?


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## andyf (Feb 23, 2000)

Zoom button.


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## crxssi (Apr 5, 2010)

Thunderclap said:


> I was wondering... how hard would it be for Tivo to add a setting that allows a user to enable/disable the "live" content, or all the useless stuff at the top of the HDUI menus? That stuff barely works anyway and being able to turn it off might help things a bit.


It wouldn't be "hard" but it is apparent TiVo is not going to give us that kind of control. I totally agree with you, by the way. I *hate* the "Discovery Bar" and wish I could turn it off and use that space for something useful, like larger listings.


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