|
Maneki Neko posted:Yeah, I have yet to run across any copy protected shows. God knows TiVo isn't perfect, and no doubt plenty of people would be happier with different hardware. But sitting on the couch driving an XL4 with the iPad app still makes me feel like Zeus hurling thunderbolts down from Olympus.
|
#
?
Mar 3, 2013 20:32
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 27, 2024 11:32 |
|
|
Lazlo Nibble posted:Gotta join the chorus on this. If you're running into copy-protected shows on a regular basis, it's your cable provider loving with you. With the series 4 boxes, copy protection is less of an issue because you can stream between boxes and to iDevices. You can't copy shows to save them, but I'd wager being able to watch shows in rooms other than where they were recorded is the bigger draw. I'll also say that some providers are catching up or even passing TiVo in the usability and overall niceness factor, but they are still the minority.
|
|
#
?
Mar 3, 2013 23:43
|
|
|
Don't get me wrong, I vastly prefer my Tivo to the alternative from the cable company but that's more the fault of Comcast for being terrible and having had their "next generation" box in testing for five goddamn years
|
|
#
?
Mar 5, 2013 20:24
|
|
|
qirex posted:Don't get me wrong, I vastly prefer my Tivo to the alternative from the cable company but that's more the fault of Comcast for being terrible and having had their "next generation" box in testing for five goddamn years Yep. It's like FDR and Churchill thinking "gee, that Stalin isn't the nicest guy around, but at least he's no Hitler." It sucks that there's so little competition in the cable-owned STB space (now that Arris bought Motorola's STB division from Google, it looks like it's just them and Cisco now) and it doesn't matter anyway because cable companies make the purchasing decisions and not end users. It's a recipe for zero innovation. All TiVo has to do is suck a little less and we will still buy their stuff.
|
|
#
?
Mar 5, 2013 21:28
|
|
|
kitten smoothie posted:It sucks that there's so little competition in the cable-owned STB space (now that Arris bought Motorola's STB division from Google, it looks like it's just them and Cisco now) and it doesn't matter anyway because cable companies make the purchasing decisions and not end users. It's a recipe for zero innovation. I don't think the hardware is the problem, the issue is so many cable systems push poo poo software to the boxes. TiVo's hardware has never been that great.
|
|
#
?
Mar 5, 2013 22:49
|
|
|
Based on my experiences with other DVRs if I had to give up my Tivo I would gouge out my eyes and then yours too. Although it would probably be smarter to do yours first.
|
|
#
?
Mar 5, 2013 22:59
|
|
|
qirex posted:Don't get me wrong, I vastly prefer my Tivo to the alternative from the cable company but that's more the fault of Comcast for being terrible and having had their "next generation" box in testing for five goddamn years Yes, it is quite sad that in order to out innovate Comcast all Tivo had to do was literally release ANYTHING in the last 5 years other than some screenshots from a trade show.
|
|
#
?
Mar 6, 2013 19:42
|
|
|
I have a Charter Motorola box in my bedroom and it is just loving awful. It holds like 10 HD shows, doesn't appear to be expandable, and the interface is ten times worse than Tivos somehow. I am frustrated that there is just no alternatives. I adore my Tivo, but the company could be doing so much more.
|
|
#
?
Mar 12, 2013 06:51
|
|
|
Philthy posted:I have a Charter Motorola box in my bedroom and it is just loving awful. It holds like 10 HD shows, doesn't appear to be expandable, and the interface is ten times worse than Tivos somehow. I am frustrated that there is just no alternatives. I adore my Tivo, but the company could be doing so much more. Charter has their own gimped Tivo boxes. Not sure if they've rolled them out yet or not. From what it sounded like talking to the guy, it's basic Tivo and no other streaming services but I could be wrong.
|
|
#
?
Mar 12, 2013 15:58
|
|
|
Actually Charter ended that program awhile ago, if it was even active. It was never offered in my area of Worcester, MA. But according to the TiVo website, it was a TiVo premiere box with Netflix disabled but had OnDemand. It seems like every time a cable company tries to incorporate a TiVo box, it does it in a trial market then never leaves it. I remember when series 2 TiVos were out, there was something coming with Comcast that never materialized. Even though the Premiere box has its own issues, it's leagues ahead of Charter's own DVR.
|
|
#
?
Mar 12, 2013 16:24
|
|
|
Engadget review of the Mini.quote:Like other recent TiVo product releases, the Mini will require the promised updates -- including dynamic tuner allocation for live TV, and support for Amazon and Netflix -- before expectations can be met. Given that 3 years after it was released, my Premiere still bounces between the HD & SD user interfaces depending on what menu options you pick, I'm not really going to hold out a lot of hope for these updates to actually shake out.
|
|
#
?
Mar 13, 2013 01:26
|
|
|
I've stayed on the SD menus since I got my Premiere, and I'm just fine with that.
|
|
#
?
Mar 14, 2013 15:32
|
|
|
After being Tivo-less for a while, I think we are going to give it another try. Our current DirectTV is expensive and only SD and local channels are super flakey. I'm sure we could pay them more to make it better, but we realized we don't watch many cable channels anyways, and we are out of contract now. Our current condo actually gets great OTA reception, so we are planning to use the Tivo for OTA only... a bit of overkill, but not too expensive really. I'm just shocked that Tivo Premiere still doesn't have built-in wireless. That's pretty sad for 2013. And I'm not paying $60 for a wireless adapter, for something that could cost Tivo a couple of bucks to build in. I guess I'll dig up my old router from the closet. 500 GB hard drives also seems to be cheaping out, and that's the brand new Premiere. I guess some things don't change much in Tivo land.
|
|
#
?
Mar 25, 2013 16:05
|
|
|
It is really amazing and ballsy to charge $60 for a wireless adapter when someone like Roku can sell a whole product with wireless integrated into it for $50.
|
|
#
?
Mar 25, 2013 16:08
|
|
|
From the Premiere FAQ page:quote:Why haven't you built a wireless adapter into TiVo Premiere? I just picked up a Wireless Game Adapter for maybe $20 to plug into TiVo's ethernet port rather than pay the ridiculous $60 for TiVo's adapter. Also I think that if I had bought TiVo's wireless G adapter, I'd be ok with not ever using it again if the newer models came with built in wifi.
|
|
#
?
Mar 25, 2013 16:33
|
|
|
The rear end thing about it is the requisite piece of silicon is probably already included in the SoC by default and all they really need to do is wire it up to an amp and an antenna. It's a virtually no cost addition. The real reason is simply that they want to sell an accessory with a high amount of margin.
|
|
#
?
Mar 25, 2013 16:45
|
|
|
I was going to ask how Tivo justifies including wireless for free in the new Tivo mini for $100. But that box doesn't even support wireless at all. WTF. Again, it's 2013, not 2003. I shouldn't really be surprised at Tivo making stupid hardware moves at this point.
|
|
#
?
Mar 25, 2013 17:21
|
|
|
smackfu posted:But that box doesn't even support wireless at all. WTF. Again, it's 2013, not 2003. At this point all I can think is that their management has been too busy to notice the rest of the electronics industry for the last decade. If they sold a tivo mini with wireless for $200 that would probably sell better because for bedroom systems and stuff the focus is on not having to plug in 5 things. I think this is one of the things people like about the Apple TV, just a normal power cord (no brick) and an HDMI cable and you're in business. Between the tuner requirement, no wireless and a service fee I'm not sure why they bothered.
|
|
#
?
Mar 25, 2013 23:54
|
|
|
What kind of money can a used 2-tuner Premiere with lifetime get these days? I think I want to sell one of mine.
|
|
#
?
Mar 26, 2013 05:20
|
|
|
qirex posted:Between the tuner requirement, no wireless and a service fee I'm not sure why they bothered. From my digging, it seems like this thing was made for DirecTV, as their competitor to Dish's Hopper/Joey system, and then it was turned into a retail product. Since it's really intended to use coax via MoCA for the networking, it just sends the raw TV data stream around, which is too much data for most wireless networks to handle. It matches up pretty perfectly to the Joey, actually: http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2403071,00.asp The service fee seems like the big misstep though. It's only subsidized by $50 when they sell it for $99, and it's not clear what that $6 a month is even getting you. smackfu fucked around with this message at 14:36 on Mar 26, 2013 |
|
#
?
Mar 26, 2013 14:33
|
|
|
kitten smoothie posted:What kind of money can a used 2-tuner Premiere with lifetime get these days? I think I want to sell one of mine. Have you checked ebay?
|
|
#
?
Mar 26, 2013 15:07
|
|
|
chemosh6969 posted:Have you checked ebay? No, I'm dense, and that did not even occur to me. This is a little nuts, they're going for $450 or more. kitten smoothie fucked around with this message at 15:34 on Mar 26, 2013 |
|
#
?
Mar 26, 2013 15:32
|
|
|
FYI, only the Tivo 4s will apparently support MPEG4 on Verizon FiOS, so it may be a similar situation on other cable providers. So, I would say now is the time to shed Premiere units, before MPEG4 is in wide use on MSOs. I know Verizon is ramping up the use of MPEG4 in the next few months or so.
|
|
#
?
Mar 26, 2013 15:35
|
|
|
At least where I'm at, Charter is only now beginning to move analog channels into MPEG-2. I imagine it'll be beyond the useful life of any Premiere before they go to MPEG-4. I'm keeping one of my two Premieres for OTA. The other one is getting replaced with a Chromebox I got free from Google I/O last year; I recently put XBMC on it. I added some decent plugins and discovered XBMC is awesome for stuff like Amazon on-demand for me and the wife, and scads of PBS stuff for the kid - at this point if it can't be had from Amazon or OTA then we don't watch it. It's pretty amazing how some open source stuff that originally was for watching Linux ISOs on the Xbox has evolved to now be a better showing in a lot of ways than what TiVo's been delivering lately. kitten smoothie fucked around with this message at 15:59 on Mar 26, 2013 |
|
#
?
Mar 26, 2013 15:53
|
|
|
kitten smoothie posted:No, I'm dense, and that did not even occur to me. This is a little nuts, they're going for $450 or more.
|
|
#
?
Mar 27, 2013 15:04
|
|
|
smackfu posted:I shouldn't really be surprised at Tivo making stupid hardware moves at this point. I think they're getting into the whole moca thing, which is cool I guess but shows the whole cost thing is a disingenuous answer given that way less people know of / make us of it. Way more people would use wireless.
|
|
#
?
Mar 28, 2013 04:55
|
|
|
Dogen posted:I think they're getting into the whole moca thing, which is cool I guess but shows the whole cost thing is a disingenuous answer given that way less people know of / make us of it. Way more people would use wireless. While I agree with the sentiment, the simple fact is that wireless just doesn't have the bandwidth to support more than one stable stream if both tivos are wireless. Throw in some distance, a laptop, or a few smartphones and you'll have a stuttery experience. If one TiVo is hard wired, things improve a noticeable amount. Expecting average consumers to be able to troubleshoot nit picky wireless performance problems and fine tune their setup is probably not what TiVo is going for. I have a moca setup and it's pretty much a "just works" deal with no performance issues.
|
|
#
?
Mar 28, 2013 12:55
|
|
|
Brock Landers posted:While I agree with the sentiment, the simple fact is that wireless just doesn't have the bandwidth to support more than one stable stream if both tivos are wireless. Well, not a raw stream, but you can certainly stream 720p MP4 video over wireless. I do it from iTunes to my Apple TV everyday. Yes, you would probably need a dedicated video encoder chip, but that's nothing new for Tivo.
|
|
#
?
Mar 28, 2013 21:35
|
|
|
Brock Landers posted:While I agree with the sentiment, the simple fact is that wireless just doesn't have the bandwidth to support more than one stable stream if both tivos are wireless. Throw in some distance, a laptop, or a few smartphones and you'll have a stuttery experience. If one TiVo is hard wired, things improve a noticeable amount. Expecting average consumers to be able to troubleshoot nit picky wireless performance problems and fine tune their setup is probably not what TiVo is going for. I have a moca setup and it's pretty much a "just works" deal with no performance issues. It's true, I was running wireless g on one and the other was bridged using wireless n. I switched the one that was bridged over to the moca setup (installed because ps3 wireless sucks) and can once again stream hd recordings between TiVos.
|
|
#
?
Mar 31, 2013 15:19
|
|
|
Looks like this thread might be dead, but I'll try asking anyway. I was recently forced to switch to Comcast from Uverse and hate pretty much everything about the Comcast HD DVR box. Is TiVo worth investing in? Couple of quick questions that I want to make sure my cable company/TiVo weren't lying about. 1. Does the TiVo Premier 4 supports WiFi out of the box? I was told it does by TiVo. 2. Is it possible to get Comcast On Demand if I use a TiVo box? I was told you can by Comcast. 3. Is it possible to access Amazon Prime Free Videos through TiVo? I was told by TiVo you can. 4. $300 (after tax) +$15 seems like a hefty investment for a cable box. Are the features/UI/usability functions really worth the price of entry? Any advice is appreciated. I really hate the Comcast box, but am not sure if I want to go this route or the Windows Media Center route.
|
|
#
?
Apr 19, 2013 18:25
|
|
|
Bugamol posted:Looks like this thread might be dead, but I'll try asking anyway. I assume you just have the lovely Motorola DVR that Comcast hands out? Did the X1 platform actually ever make it out anywhere? 1. No, just ethernet, although sometimes they run bundles with the wifi adapter. It does have MoCA integrated if you prefer to use that instead. 2. Yes, it works for me, although I prefer the interface on the Xbox 360, so we just end up using that instead 3. Yes, it does have an Amazon video app on it, but again, prefer the interface on the 360, so we use that instead. 4. Unless you really need 4 tuners, there's always the regular premiere, a refurb from Tivo.com or you can hold off and keep an eye on woot, they periodically show up there. Maneki Neko fucked around with this message at 18:40 on Apr 19, 2013 |
|
#
?
Apr 19, 2013 18:36
|
|
|
Maneki Neko posted:I assume you just have the lovely Motorola DVR that Comcast hands out? Did the X1 platform actually ever make it out anywhere? Thanks for the info and quick response. I will have to weigh the pros/cons. I'm not sure which box I have but it overall is pretty lacking. I was very happy with the Uverse DVR box and as such am even more disappointed by the Comcast one.
|
|
#
?
Apr 19, 2013 18:45
|
|
|
Bugamol posted:3. Is it possible to access Amazon Prime Free Videos through TiVo? I was told by TiVo you can. Unless they've changed it the Premiere, you can't access Prime Videos through the Tivo. Stuff that you purchase or rent can be accessed, but not the free stuff.
|
|
#
?
Apr 20, 2013 01:26
|
|
|
Bugamol posted:$300 (after tax) +$15 seems like a hefty investment for a cable box. Are the features/UI/usability functions really worth the price of entry? If you only have cable TV because it comes with the apartment or it was just ten bucks more a month on top of the Internet connection you'd be paying for anyway, probably TiVo isn't worth the premium. If you have cable TV because you really want to watch shows from cable TV, and have more than a handful you care about following, and want to be able to watch them with a minimum of bullshit, it makes a lot more sense. I've been on TiVo since the first-gen Philips (on XL4 now) and still love it as a DVR. The current GUI is slick and effective, and like I said a few posts back, driving the box with the iPad app feels like being the God of Television. It's great always having a pile of stuff to watch that you know you're looking forward to watching, and it just works out of the box without a bunch of screwing around. That's the real selling point, I think—getting all the bullshit setup and maintenance out of the way so you can get on with watching the two seasons worth of Venture Bros. reruns that stacked up while you were busy doing other things. (Xfinity OnDemand's TiVo support is region-by-region so if that's a deciding factor be sure to double-check that before you decide anything. But if it works in your area it's faster and easier to find stuff through the TiVo interface than the Comcast/Xfinity one.) If you care a lot about streaming the argument for TiVo is a lot shakier. Integration of streaming and the main TiVo GUI is hit and miss—searches will find stuff on OnDemand or Amazon but if you want to look for something on Netflix you have to go off to Netflix Land, where the interface takes forever to fire up and is slow and clunky when you get there. The supported provider list is minuscule, and TiVo doesn't seem to be in any hurry to beef it up. We picked up a Roku 3 a few weeks ago so we could get MLB.TV and once we tried it we moved all the rest of our streaming over immediately. The GUI is much much faster (especially noticeable on Netflix), search works across more providers, and the selection of sources is literally an order of magnitude better (pretty much anyone can set up a channel that can play on the Roku, it even has its own little mini video darknet). And feeding content from my PC to Plex on the Roku makes the Home Media interface on the XL4 feel like browsing the web with Netscape Navigator 4. I think the difficulty TiVo has integrating other content sources like this is the biggest threat to their long term viability.
|
|
#
?
Apr 20, 2013 06:17
|
|
|
Recycled Karma posted:Unless they've changed it the Premiere, you can't access Prime Videos through the Tivo. Stuff that you purchase or rent can be accessed, but not the free stuff. Sorry, just took a look, you're right. They do have some small free section, but it appears to be mainly previews. No access to your instant queue or anything. Lazlo Nibble posted:(Xfinity OnDemand's TiVo support is region-by-region so if that's a deciding factor be sure to double-check that before you decide anything. But if it works in your area it's faster and easier to find stuff through the TiVo interface than the Comcast/Xfinity one.) As Lazlo said, if you have any other streaming device, it's almost certainly going to be better than the apps on the TiVo. The Netflix app seems roughly comparable to the super barebones and slow ones from the first gen of bluray players for example, hence why we use the Xbox for anything that's not watching live/recorded tv. I ended up going tivo vs a hd homerun setup mainly because I'm fairly busy and didn't want my wife to have to jump through a bunch of hoops to watch tv. In the (hopefully near) future I'm hoping ip gateway boxes or IPTV will replace the current cable setup and we get a lot more software based options.
|
|
#
?
Apr 20, 2013 17:53
|
|
|
Does anyone have any experience with the TiVo mini? I'm moving soon to an area with Comcast from Charter, and figured I'd use my Premiere 4 for the living room and was looking for something for my bedroom. As I understand it, Comcast gives the first cable card free, but then charges $8 for ones after that. I'm not especially thrilled about the TiVo mini $6 fee since its pulling everything from my Premiere anyway, but if I were to go with a full premiere box, it's an extra $13 for the TiVo and $8 from Comcast. It seems like a TiVo mini is my cheapest option, aside from maybe just renting a Comcast box. I can't seem to find how much that might be.
|
|
#
?
Apr 20, 2013 23:10
|
|
|
You can access Comcast On Demand through a TiVo? Would this perhaps work for Mediacom's on demand stuff too? We could get it through the Mediacom DVR but that thing was a steaming pile of poo poo otherwise. If this is possible where would I set it up?
|
|
#
?
Apr 22, 2013 06:38
|
|
|
Golbez posted:You can access Comcast On Demand through a TiVo? Would this perhaps work for Mediacom's on demand stuff too? We could get it through the Mediacom DVR but that thing was a steaming pile of poo poo otherwise. If this is possible where would I set it up? http://www3.tivo.com/products/tivo-walkthrough/tv-source/cable/tivo-comcast/
|
|
#
?
Apr 22, 2013 13:53
|
|
|
Recycled Karma posted:Unless they've changed it the Premiere, you can't access Prime Videos through the Tivo. Stuff that you purchase or rent can be accessed, but not the free stuff. I was really annoyed by that, but then this weekend my TV firmware updated and I can see the Prime videos there now, and they look great. Maybe they'll come to Tivo as well.
|
|
#
?
Apr 22, 2013 14:23
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 27, 2024 11:32 |
|
|
Golbez posted:You can access Comcast On Demand through a TiVo? Would this perhaps work for Mediacom's on demand stuff too? We could get it through the Mediacom DVR but that thing was a steaming pile of poo poo otherwise. If this is possible where would I set it up? Not currently, although apparently Mediacom is planning to roll Tivo out to it's customers anyway, so presumably it will work at some poing: http://pr.tivo.com/press-releases/mediacom-selects-tivo-for-next-generation-whole-h-nasdaq-tivo-0935290
|
|
#
?
Apr 22, 2013 15:21
|
|