# More Consistent UI for Streaming Apps



## NashGuy (May 2, 2015)

I think TiVo realizes that marrying together streaming with traditional DVR functionality is the way forward for their platform (especially their retail products aimed at cord cutters). To that end, I would really love to see TiVo enforce a greater level of consistency in the user interfaces of the major video streaming apps they provide. I suppose the ultimate goal would be a uniform look and set of behaviors among the apps (like Apple TV has) that would match the regular TiVo HD UI. But even if that never happens, here's the LEAST they could do for any new apps to be added as well as for future updates to existing apps like Netflix and Amazon Prime Instant Video.

1. Make sure that the play, pause, FF, rewind, up, down, left, right and select buttons on the TiVo remote all function as expected. I think this is already the case among all current apps but I'm not 100% sure.

2. Make sure that the instant replay (back curled arrow) and skip forward buttons instantly takes you back/forward several seconds in the video stream. If not exactly 8 seconds back and 30 seconds forward, as is the case with traditional DVR functionality, then somewhere close. I know Netflix currently uses the instant replay button like this but in Amazon Prime, that button exits the app!

3. Make sure that multiple presses of the instant replay and skip forward buttons are "stackable," e.g. if one press takes you back 10 seconds, three consecutive presses take you back 30 seconds. This is not the case currently with Netflix. I'm not even sure what Netflix is trying to do when you hit the instant replay button more than once. (And while you're at it, can you keep at least the last few minutes of the video stream cached in RAM so that it's instantly accessible on instant reply/rewind so as to avoid having to buffer up a new stream?

4. Make sure that the back button takes you back to the last screen/menu viewed within the app (just like the back button works on a web browser). If currently viewing a video, the back button takes you back to the screen from which the video was launched. If on the home/start screen of the app, the back button would exit the app.

5. Make sure the clear button exits the app and takes you back into the TiVo menu system from whatever point you are in the app EXCEPT during video playback when an info banner, playback bar or other graphical UI element is overlaying the video, in which case the first press of the clear button would simply remove all UI elements and a second press would exit the app. (Perhaps there should be a "Do you wish to exit? Yes/No" confirmation screen if the clear button is pressed during video playback.)

6. Make sure the info button when pressed during video playback brings up a banner which, at the very least, tells the name of the movie or show/episode being watched, along with the playback/time elapsed bar.

7. Make sure the channel up and down buttons move the "cursor" up or down a screen-full of menu options at a time when in the menu screens of an app, just like those buttons function in the native TiVo menu system.

8. Make sure the thumbs up and thumbs down buttons allow for ratings of titles within apps where this is allowed, such as assigning one to five starts for a title in Netflix. Netflix doesn't currently allow this but Pandora does.


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## joblo (Jun 5, 2002)

NashGuy said:


> 5. Make sure the clear button exits the app and takes you back into the TiVo menu system from whatever point you are in the app.


*NO!!!!!*

This is the most infuriating thing in the apps to me, because I'm accustomed to using clear to get rid of the program progress bar when I freeze frame a TiVo recording, etc.

I want the apps to do THAT when I hit clear, not kill the whole app without warning.

We don't need "clear" as an app exit. The TiVo button already goes to TiVo Central from pretty much anywhere in the system, including the apps.



> (Perhaps there should be a "Do you wish to exit? Yes/No" confirmation screen if the clear button is pressed during video playback.)


*YES!!!!!*

PLEASE.

Absolutely definitely, if clear must function as an app exit, it should have a confirmation dialog.

The rest of your suggestions are all good, though.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

I'm with joblo. I hate when I hit clear to try and get rid of the pause bar in Netflix and it exits the app without warning. At the very least they should have an "are you sure" prompt.


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## NashGuy (May 2, 2015)

Hmm. I've never used the clear button to get rid of the progress bar, only to delete recordings from My Shows and to exit apps. There needs to be uniformity, so either the clear button exits all apps or none at all. Honestly, I feel like there's a bigger issue here with the weirdness of TiVo's buttons/command system but it's all quite established at this point, so new TiVo users like me just have to deal with it. In the past, I've used DVRs from Dish, U-verse, DirecTV and a Sony DHG-HDD250; there was very little learning curve in using any of them but TiVo is a different animal. Once you learn its quirks, its OK, but who would ever intuit that hitting the zoom button will take you out of the menu system and back to live TV? Or that hitting the live TV button will switch you to a different channel? Why isn't there just an exit button for exiting menus and apps? There have been times when I literally could not figure out how to do what I wanted to do while looking at the screen and all the buttons on the remote. Frankly, that *never* happens to me while using any kind of software or gadget. On the whole, I really like TiVo but I think if the UI and button system were being designed from the ground up in 2015, it would be somewhat different.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

Live TV doesn't take you to a different channel it cycles the tunners. So you can have all 6 buffers going and switch between them by hitting Live TV. It was more useful back when they only had 2 tuners, but it's still nicer to do it this way then using the menu in the little popup overlay.


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## jrtroo (Feb 4, 2008)

Tivo tried to force content providers to build apps the tivo way. Nobody came to the party. At about the same time the providers began to rebrand their apps to be consistent across interfaces.

So, unless tivo somehow begins to hold much larger sway in the marketplace, it will not happen. Would be nice, no doubt. Especially the clear button.


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## NashGuy (May 2, 2015)

Dan203 said:


> Live TV doesn't take you to a different channel it cycles the tunners. So you can have all 6 buffers going and switch between them by hitting Live TV. It was more useful back when they only had 2 tuners, but it's still nicer to do it this way then using the menu in the little popup overlay.


That's good to know. But this is another case where TiVo has seemingly mislabeled the button. Why call that "Live TV"? For instance, last night I was watching a show and I was running, say, 20 minutes behind live. I hit the Live TV button thinking that would keep me on that channel, just take me to the current feed. It did not. It switched me to an entirely different channel -- I guess it cycled me to another tuner. Anyone coming from virtually any other DVR/cable box in the US would have had the same expectation as me. Perhaps the button should be "Cycle Tuner".

Anyway, as to the original topic, yes, I doubt TiVo will gain the sway necessary to have all the major apps designed to a matching TiVo look-and-feel specification but at least some of my suggestions above are so basic that they would make sense for those apps not just on TiVo but other platforms too. I would think all of those things could be done with just slight tweaks to the current apps' code. In fact, the current TiVo Netflix app has most of those suggestions already implemented.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

Holding down the skip button will jump you to the end of the buffer. (->|) 

A lot of these button names go all the way back to the original TiVo which only had one tuner and no preview window when in the menus. The functionality of the TiVo has changed a LOT over the years and they've tried to cram as much of it onto existing buttons as possible. Both for simplicity of design and to appease existing users upgrading to newer units.


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## jrtroo (Feb 4, 2008)

Live TV has always bumped you directly to live tv from the menus. Tuner cycling was an added feature.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

Does that change if you have the little preview window showing? (I don't like it so I turned it off)


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## trip1eX (Apr 2, 2005)

How about a button to clear a show from your favorite's list?


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## NashGuy (May 2, 2015)

trip1eX said:


> How about a button to clear a show from your favorite's list?


Not sure what you mean. On both the My Shows list (recordings and streaming shows) as well as the OnePass Manager list, the Clear button will delete an item from the list.


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