Tivo - My 2 Cents (JethroUK)

  1TB space is great

   I have loads stuff on mine (lot in HD) and still only used 30%

It's great being about to record & keep a whooooole series from beginning to end until you're ready to watch it, in order, in your own time

  Who needs catch up when you got a whooopin 1,000 gigabytes of space

  OMG!! no reminders - never used them myself and even better:

  Tivo has 3 built-in hi-def cable tuners and can record on all three at the same time

  Buffers 60 min on each of the 3 tuners so if you decide to record a programme half way through it will record it from the beginning (unlike your aging VCR or V+  box)

  The new menus are very nice red graphics 

 Guide view shows 8 channels at a time

   Some menus are imported low res screens with no video view in the corner wass all that about?

  Still low res even after software update

  Suggests VM/Tivo haven't got any programmers so support looks like being poor

  You can set up recording remotely via internet or on your mobile 

  I’ve tried both and it works a treat

   Tivo has some HDMI handshake issues affecting some brands of TV

  Soft touch remote

 nice ergonomic shape

 main buttons are bigger and better laid out

 much more responsive than V+

 Can programme it to control your TV volume, source & on/off

  I have got used to just pressing ‘TV’ to exit recordings but it needs sorting

  After fast rewinding (or forwarding) press ‘Play’ and it automatically skips back a few seconds if you over shoot which is great

  Has skip button to jump forward/backwards # minutes 

  button only ‘skips’ if you are already FFWding which is strange, if you’re not FFWding it just FFWds # mins??

  You can give programs ‘thumbs up/like’ or ‘thumbs down/don’t like’

   As it learns your taste it will record things (Suggestions) it thinks you’ll like.

   Suggestions only use temporary disc space and so dont reduce your total available recording space

  In case of a clash it might record a suggestion instead of a planned recording. You can switch off suggestions if it causes a problem

  Above your recording menu is a suggestions bar showing other programmes you might like

  you can select these too and read about the series including the history and set up a recording

  Stacks of ‘info’ about programmes, actors, current showing on TV or VOD, history of series, when it was first shown, directors, etc 

  You can set up Wishlists which are brilliant 

 Set up to find any ‘space/planets/universe’ progs on any channel and save this wishlist

You can just save the wish (Xmas films) and just 'view it' whenever you feel like and click to record any thing you like on the list or you can set it to auto-record *everything* it finds

I have one wishlist set up to record several "Detective" series (Columbo OR Sherlock OR Poirot OR Cadfiel)

It records these programmes whichever channel they're on and these are all saved neatly to the same folder

Have another set up to record all "Clint Eastwood - Films" (including 'films' excludes documentaries, etc)

Have another wishlist set up to record "Lexx" if it ever comes on again

 You can have as many wishlists as you like

  If a programme appears both on SD channel and HD channel you can't control which version is recorded

by default wishlists are recorded from "Audibly Disabled" channels (poor SD) on main channels BBC1, 2, ITV , Ch4, Ch5

Frankly can't see this ever getting fixed

  You can ‘Search’ for programme, film, actor by typing in search words 

 It searches not only the EPG but all VOD content and even known background info (actors, etc)

  Someone spotted this screenshot shows a music video (Justin Bieber) in the search results when it actually does not search music on demand

   This is further frustrated by the fact that there is a gazillion music videos and scrolling through them all manually is simply not an option - rendering Music On Demand virtually useless

 VM have not acknowledge this so I cant see them fixing it - so if you're a music video fan this is a serious issues

  You can ‘browse’ by genre  - just choose Films>Westerns or Programmes>Nature and if finds 100’s entries with full info on the prog and recording options

  Should be an option to ‘browse’ for “All Movies” – & not forced to specify just “Gay & Lesbian Movies” 

  I have set up “All films” as a wishlist

   No Red button! which is on the ‘to do’ list– but a real deal breaker for anyone who uses it 

    I understand Red button will have lot more functions than it does at present

(like a choice of 8 matches/games instead of 3)

  EPG also goes back in time and you can play any programme stored on catch-up

In this example the actual time is 19:00 and programmes prior to that are available on catch up 

 I never even knew of this feature and just noticed the EPG scrolls backwards & clicked an old programme at random and it started playing which was simply brilliant

   Setting series link is too long a process if you need to amend padding

   Does not drop padding on sequential recordings causing it in some cases to hijack your viewing tuners just to record padding twice!

It's caused when you add padding to the end & these 2 programmes end up running sequentially:

BBC1 9:00 - 10:05
BBC1 10:00 - 11:05
ITV 10:00 - 11:05

You'll see that for 5 minutes at 10:00 - 10:05 it needs all three tuners and in case of BBC1 it's recording the exact same thing twice and using 2 tuners to do it but Tivo is not yet smart enough to figure that out yet . Not rocket science to drop padding between sequential recordings, sorta hoping VM will fix this too

   Pause button is huge, bright yellow and smack in the middle of the controller, Play/Pause button should be one and the same button. Pausing may have been a big feature 10 years ago but it’s not anymore

  You can watch You Tube videos on Tivo which is nicely integrated into the rest of the interface (‘see You Tube clips on this movie/actor/programme’)

   Since update new You Tube application has been installed and  its constantly buffering and the screen goes blank (not my report but everyone reports the same)

Can't login to new YT app (no favorites, etc)

Quite simply - just doesn't work

  Since Tivo is totally menu driven (doesn’t use colour buttons for options much) then bringing up a menu should always be default behaviour for ‘OK’ button (i.e. not ‘change channel’ with a programme being aired leaving you wondering how to do anything else)

If a programme is being aired when you select it from the EPG then just add ‘watch now’ as default option to the menu (e.g. OK OK) 

  Currently you have to press ‘record’ on a program being aired to access any additional "info" which is bizarre.

  Recordings library listing screen should display more information

At only 30% full Tivo list over 150 programmes which is great, but quite clearly Name & Date is not enough information 

  No New, Part - Viewed, Viewed information?????????

Essentially information when you have 1TB of programmes at different stages

Current Tivo listing of 8 episodes of Come Dine With Me:

How it should be displayed with 'essential info’:
 

Ideally the user should be able to choose what info appears in the listings just like windows (series, episode, etc)

  You can continue to watch recordings (or delayed/paused TV) when you go into a menu which is great 

  Sometimes when you go back to full screen it switches to Live TV instead of back to the recording

  Tivo can play ‘a group’ of recordings, in date order which is great

  However it does not remember where its up to (no method to Resume play for groups)

You can of course resume playing a single recording by just pressing 'Play'

  You can display just your favourite channels on EPG by pressing Blue button

  Shame Tivo didn’t take this opportunity to allow you to ‘choose/add’ your favourites (for that you’ll need to dig deep in the settings menu)

  You can record from radio & even set up series links

  on playback of radio shows the FFW & REW exhibit mysterious behaviour

Lot of the problems are very basic and doesn’t reflect over 10 years experience in the PVR business

  I understand there is a big fix due in September to address most issues

Is it worth £3 month extra?

  I'd pay that for just for the search/browse facility (in fact I bought an online one to use with V+)

  I'd also pay it again for the wishlists

  .....and yet again for 1TB drive

  ....and again for 3 tuner record

                Luvvin it!!!