TiVo Premiere review

When we first heard rumors of new TiVo hardware back in April of 2009, our imaginations started racing. The current TiVo HD and HD XL have been the best DVRs on the market for their entire three-year run, and while they've received significant feature updates in that time, the overall experience of using a TiVo simply hasn't kept up with the explosion of online content and the revised viewing habits of consumers -- in fact, the interface has remained largely unchanged for nearly a decade. So while the actual TiVo hardware has actually gotten smaller and simpler, it's the software that's received a substantial makeover this time around -- it's migrated to Flash, and the main elements have been totally redesigned for HD displays and the invisible integration of online video services. Is it enough to keep TiVo afloat in a sea of cheap cableco DVRS? It is worth upgrading from an existing TiVo HD? There's only one way to find out -- read on for our full review.

Tivo Premiere unboxing and hands-on

Hardware and installation

Externally, the $299 TiVo Premiere we were sent for review isn't much to write home about. It's thinner and shorter than the HD, and the front face is almost completely black apart from the TiVo logo, power and record lights, and an output-format button. Around back there's a single CableCARD slot, cable and antenna RF inputs, two USB ports, an Ethernet jack, and an eSATA jack for external storage, as well as HDMI, component, and composite video outs. You still have to shell out for the USB WiFi adapter, which is unfortunate considering the Premiere's $299 price tag.

After TiVo's Jim Denney made an video appearance at the Intel Developer Forum last year, we were sort of hoping to see this new generation of TiVo hardware move to the hot new Atom CE4100, but no such luck -- the Premiere stays true to TiVo's roots with an embedded Broadcom SoC running Linux, although the main parts of the TiVo interface runs on Flash now. The updated interface comes with some increased system requirements -- which is why it won't run on Series3 boxes -- and the new hardware is much more powerful than before. It's actually a dual-core system, although TiVo's only using a single core at the moment due to stability issues. A update rolling out sometime in the very near future will enable the other core and hopefully speed up the interface, according to TiVo -- but more on that later. The system is Energy Star-certified and whisper-quiet; we never heard it make a sound.

We'll be blunt and say the revised remote is a bit of a disappointment. It's made out of a glossier plastic, and it feels extremely insubstantial in the hand. TiVo remotes have long set the standard for design and quality, but this one almost seems like TiVo KIRFed themselves -- although we're told the only real change is the plastic used. The $499 Premiere XL comes with an updated version of the Glo remote from the Series3, but what we really want is for the hot QWERTY slider remote to be packed in the box -- the interface is based on search now, and it needs a serious text input solution. Too bad: it'll run between $50 and $100 when it comes out later this year -- we're told the fall, but it could be sooner.

While TiVo's certainly made strides in the interface department, the out-of-the-box experience with the Premiere is still the same halting process as ever -- if you're a new owner, chances are you'll need a visit from the cable company to get all set up with a CableCARD and have it activated, and that's always fraught with peril. We can't blame TiVo for that, since so much depends on your cable company, but a little more hand-holding for new customers might have been nice -- setting up a new TiVo for the first time isn't exactly plug and play.

What's baffling to us is that there's no benefit to being an existing TiVo owner, at any level. You can't just swap boxes in place, for example -- the tip of the power connector has changed. More importantly, you'd also better be prepared to lose all your shows and recording preferences, since there's no backup or restore options here, and be ready to spend some time on the phone getting the cable company to re-pair your existing card to the new hardware, since it's not automatic -- most of our channels worked after we just stuck the card in and booted up, but premium channels were broken until Comcast activated our unit. TiVo tells us they'll put up some better information for existing TiVo owners online shortly, and there might eventually be some provisions for backing up Season Pass and WishList settings online in the future, but for now there's nothing.

Once you do get everything plugged in and set up, you still have to drill through something like 35 settings screens, and wait for channel data and software updates to load. (We still don't know why TiVo doesn't include programming the remote's power and volume buttons in the initial setup.) All in all, you're looking at an easy hour or more -- make sure you bring a book or something.

TiVo Premiere installation process

Software, interface, and service integration

TiVo's really hyping up the new Flash-based main interface of the Premiere, and for good reason: it's much sleeker than the decade-old TiVo UI we've come to know and love / hate, and offers far more search, discovery, and content integration options than ever before. The most prominent feature of the new UI is the "discovery bar," which intelligently populates based on what you're looking at -- it'll show you related new shows while you're looking at your recordings list, and featured content based on user trends and highlighted promotions on the main screen. You can also customize the discovery bar and pin shows to it, and you can tweak it so you get better recommendations.

TiVo Premiere interface gallery

TiVo says that the Premiere's interface "blurs the line between broadcast and broadband" by showing content from online service providers like Netflix, Amazon and Blockbuster right next to traditional broadcast content, and that's certainly reflected in the interface -- at least at the top level. The idea is that every content source is treated equally, so if you're searching for a show or movie you're presented with several ways to get it -- for some content that means you'll have your choice of recording it, streaming it from Netflix, renting it from Blockbuster, or buying it from Amazon. You can also switch services off selectively, so if you only want to see movies that stream from Netflix you can set that. It's a great idea, and when it works it's extremely convenient, but we saw things glitch out a few times -- searching for Californication showed icons for Netflix and Amazon on the results page, but no streaming options were displayed when we opened the listing, even though the show was in our Netflix queue. How content is listed also affects the results -- Netflix lists Food, Inc. as "Food, Inc. (2008)," so it wasn't combined with the main result for the movie. Getting all these little details right will be critical to making this system useful -- otherwise you might as well figure these things out manually. There are also lots of pre-sorted and curated categories in the Browse TV & Movies section, so it's easy to find romantic comedies, or only look at specific sports, or easily record all of the AFI Top 100 movies that come on. It's all very nice, but it's also extremely click-intensive, a feeling intensified by the overall lagginess of the system.

Let's talk about that lag for a moment, since it's inescapable: it feels like the entire UI reloads every time you do anything. The primary culprit is the context-sensitive discovery bar, which disappears and reloads entirely from screen-to-screen; it's annoying to the point of uselessness. TiVo says the Premiere doesn't cache images in memory in order to keep RAM usage down, but that doesn't make it any easier to deal with -- besides, RAM's cheap and this entire interface needs to be loaded up and ready to go at all times. Even the first-level menus load in slowly, and they're an entirely local affair -- there's no reason for the same six options under "Find TV, movies, and videos" to take a second to appear every time you select it. It gets worse when you actually try and use the new browse features; not only do the icons and content take measurable amounts of time to load in, the discovery bar reloads itself every time you drill down a level to present more context-sensitive info, so it really feels like the whole UI is blanking out with each click. TiVo says that enabling the second core in the future will speed everything up, since the backend is multithreaded and it'll be able to pull in all this data faster, but right now things are super slow, and it's a major hindrance to using the Premiere. You have to be patient enough to get to what you want, and that undoes the entire premise of tweaking the interface around content discovery -- you can't be spontaneous while you're constantly waiting for graphics to load.

Overall, though, the new UI is a dramatic step forward, and once it runs fast enough we'll have no desire to look back. Which is why it's so maddening that the old UI is still just a click away -- TiVo's only redone what it calls the "high traffic areas" of the interface like TiVo Central and My Shows, while the Settings and the Season Pass manager are still the old apps. The system hands off between the Flash-based UI and the older style are fast and mostly seamless, but this isn't nearly the whole-hog makeover you'd expect -- in fact, you can just turn off the new interface entirely and just use the old-style menus. TiVo says it's working to redo the entire interface over time, but for now the Premiere rather uncomfortably straddles two different worlds; the home screen might be futuristic and information-rich, but you still set Season Pass priorities using the same interface that debuted on the very first TiVo in 2001, and it still locks up the entire system while it resolves conflicts. That's unacceptable in 2010 -- let's hope TiVo moves it to the background when it enables the second core.

On demand, commercial skipping, and moving video around

The complete failure of tru2way means that TiVo simply can't support the vast majority of cable on demand services, so you should be ready to give those up if you decide to pick up a Premiere -- unless you're an RCN customer and you have undying faith in the promises of corporate executives. RCN customers will actually be able to get TiVo units directly from the company, and on demand content will simply show up in searches and listings just like Netflix or Amazon -- and the player interface should look similar to those services as well. RCN is scheduled to roll out TiVo support sometime this year, but there's no date -- given TiVo's checkered history with cable companies, we'll believe it when we see it.

TiVo DVRs have long featured a secret command that enables 30-second skip, but the Premiere does away with it -- instead, there's a 30-second "scan" that moves forward in about a second by default. It's not as quick as the skip, but it's effective, and we're sure it's keeping advertisers happy, so we'll accept it as a fine compromise between the functionality users want and the demands of content providers. We're also hoping there's another secret command to enable the skip somewhere, of course.

We're huge fans of iTiVo and Vuze, which enable you to get shows off your TiVo and put videos back on it, respectively, and they worked with only minor incident. iTiVo was actually just fine, but Vuze got a little confused as to where it was serving files and lost the connection at one point. We continue to wonder: why isn't this functionality enabled or supported by TiVo out of the box?

Wrap-up

It's been three years since the TiVo HD first arrived and just about a year and a half since TiVo first started beta testing this interface, and after using the Premiere for a day, here's what we want to know: what the hell has TiVo been doing all this time? The new UI is excellent, but it's only skin deep, lags like crazy, and accessing any deeper functionality requires a resolution switch and a fallback to the old interface. The major content partnerships have been in place for a year now, and the interfaces used to access them haven't been updated in any significant way beyond integrating the search results. There's still no support for cable video on demand -- it'll work on RCN eventually, but the rollout doesn't have a firm schedule yet and our experience waiting for Comcast TiVos doesn't exactly fill us with hope. The slider QWERTY remote that should have shipped in the box isn't ready yet and will require a Bluetooth dongle. There's no built-in WiFi. Multiroom viewing support is still extremely minimal, and there's no multiroom recording support at all. Nothing has changed as far as watching your TiVo from a PC, either on your local network or remotely, and there's no support for transcoding recorded shows to a mobile device automatically. Speaking of mobile devices, you know something's gone terribly wrong when both DirecTV and Comcast have robust iPhone apps for remote DVR scheduling and TiVo's got... nothing. We can go on -- hell, we could simply reprint our open letter to TiVo from last April, since the Premiere just barely addresses its main points.

TiVo tell us the Premiere as it stands right now is a total reboot of the company's foundation; that more powerful hardware combined with the extensible Flash platform and an interface that merges broadcast content with broadband will enable the company to attract a new breed of consumers in the years to come. That may be so, but it's what the company manages to build on that foundation that matters, and we'd recommend hanging back on buying a Premiere until the software has been revved a few times, or at least until you can buy the QWERTY remote -- that's going to change the experience more dramatically than anything, and if TiVo manages to enable that second core and speed things up while you wait, than so much the better.

Let's step back from specific product recommendations and think about the big picture for a second, though. TiVo has almost always defined itself as the shining alternative to garbage cable company DVRs, so much so that its customers willingly give up video on demand to use its more reliable and flexible recording interface. But TiVo's also historically been the only real alternative -- no other company has ever entered the mainstream DVR market with a great product at scale and at a competitive price, and that means TiVo's never had to really compete against anything except its own extremely popular products. That's a recipe for timid incremental change, which is exactly what the Premiere feels like -- TiVo says it's reinventing the DVR, but all it's really done from a consumer perspective is add some nice new (slow) menus to the TiVo HD. The problem is that moving at such a snail's pace has allowed the cable companies to catch up and consumers to move on; if cheap / free cableco DVRs were TiVo's greatest existential threat of the past decade, the combination of cheap / free / good cableco DVRs and the online-only content customer might be the fatal blow of this one. The Premiere is the DVR we wanted two years ago -- TiVo's challenge will be to make it the DVR we want two years from now.

[macman1745 Posted Mar 25th 2010 12:09AM]

What have they been doing for the last 5 years

[MasterCKO Posted Mar 25th 2010 12:21AM]

Come on man, that is some weak ass sauce, TiVo.

[vansmack Posted Mar 25th 2010 12:26AM]

"you still set Season Pass priorities using the same interface that debuted on the very first TiVo in 2001, and it still locks up the entire system while it resolves conflicts. That's unacceptable in 2010"

Couldn't have said it better myself. Actually, much of this article was well stated and direct. Nice work Engadget.

I left TiVo 7 years ago to work with DirecTV to build a better product. Having now moved and am forced to used cable, I'm already regretting my return to TiVo and my Premiere's haven't even arrived yet.

This is half baked at best. I used to expect more from TiVo, now I'm not the slightest bit surprised. You were once great...

[Crazy J Posted Mar 25th 2010 11:02AM]

@vansmack
Now if only Engadget was this objective when it comes to "All" brands and products... (wink)

We can only hope... one day...

[djman Posted Mar 25th 2010 12:31AM]

Tivo really disappoints here. I just got a Tivo HD about a year ago, giving up my FIOS DVR (moxi), thinking I was moving into a solid brand with a solid UI and rich features. Instead I find myself wishing I kept my old DVR from Verizon. Then I hear about Premier hoping for more, and now that I see what they have done, it is clear that Tivo is not the experience I wanted it to be. Is it really that hard to get an interface correct? I guess so. The new DVRs from MOXI look good though. Real good. www.moxi.com

[dougnh Posted Mar 25th 2010 7:58AM]

I had a TiVo series 2 and I've been using a Moxi for several months, even upgraded to 3 tuner I also have 2 MoxiMates. Watching regular TV with a Moxi is great. At times the interface is sluggish but livable. Face it, you're spending more time watching TV than messing with the UI. Having said that probably once a week I wonder why they didn't add a little juice to the processing.

What I think Moxi is missing is the stuff other than TV. No NetFlix (unless you have a pc with PlayOn, if you have all Macs you're stuck). Watching DLNA video is ok so long as you don't want to rewind, fast-forward, or resume watching a movie you've stopped. It has web browsing using a version of Opera but it takes so long to start the browser it's not worth it.

I think TiVo is close. Too bad it's a slow pig and the ui is not completely new. I wonder when someone is going to get this right...

[kompulsive Posted Mar 25th 2010 12:53AM]

ohhhh...neat, but i think i'll just wait a bit longer and get a popbox. popcorn is where it's at folks. let's be honest.

[mannydigital Posted Mar 25th 2010 1:10AM]

Tivo is a piece of crap..

[trainwrecka Posted Mar 25th 2010 1:30AM]

Dear Apple,

Buy TiVo and show 'em how it's done.

Thanks

[philt56 Posted Mar 25th 2010 1:43AM]

How does the boot up time compare with the HD models? If I unplug and plug back in, does it still take as long as an HD? > 5 minutes

[bushi Posted Mar 25th 2010 3:30AM]

Well I guess a highly laggy interface will bring back the tivo nostalgia for some. But 'only' reworking the major interface areas (season pass need not apply?)... um hello but what sort of lazy half assed have baked UI redesign is that anyway...lame.
I guess if it was fast and slick and not just powerful under the hood everybody would just figure they hired a cable company OEM to retool for them. Oh wait, maybe that would have made more sense.
Fail.

[nsp16 Posted Mar 25th 2010 5:13AM]

Lots of valid points here, but one (semi-) correction. I don't know about iPhones, but Tivo certainly does have a Blackberry app that allows scheduling from anywhere. It doesn't do everything their web interface does, but it works fine.

[Onazuka Posted Mar 25th 2010 8:48AM]

I replaced my TiVo with Apple TV years ago and I am so much happier!

[greenmonkey Posted Mar 25th 2010 9:07AM]

We're happy with our TivoHD (minus the twice I had to restage it due to corrupted HDD).

What this should have had was DLNA support so that I don't have to use PyTivo along with TVersity, a new interface that is FASTER, and an updated (and free!) Tivo Desktop software so the wife can transfer files to her ipod easily.

This should have been a very good unit. Instead, we get laggy flash and a box that can't use its second core yet? Seriously? I'd understand programming problems with a dual-core setup 3 years ago, maybe? But now? Programmers have been writing dual-threaded stuff for years now.

[jedi Posted Mar 25th 2010 9:22AM]

The fact that they killed 30-second-skip is a pretty big show stopper right there.

Given their recent direction, I can't say I'm surprised really.

[caribousteaks Posted Mar 25th 2010 9:33AM]

Man o man talk about sad engineering. A brand new product using 5+ year old coding and resolutions?! Laggy like crazy! What were they thinking!? Have the engineers been eating too many doughnuts or what? I love Tivo, have owned bunches of them, but this is lame. How could they think this was an acceptable debut? How could they think we wouldn't criticize it? I mean the resolution sucks on some of those back screens, and the reloading everytime is down right deal breaking. All I can say is I really really hope they come out with software updates soon that solve all this, because right now it just screams DON"T BUY ME YET!

[biggbrother Posted Mar 25th 2010 9:41AM]

I love Tivo.

But it's going to take a lot to convince me to turn in my FIOS Multi-Room DVR. Even though a show is recorded in my living room, I can go up to my bedroom and watch it there. Plus the interface is pretty good, though not as good as Tivo.

I just see too many add-on fees and asterisks with Tivo nowadays. WiFi is an extra cost. Qwerty Remote is an extra cost. Bluetooth dongle is an extra cost. No instant mult-room viewing. Not even a 30 second skip!! Even my FIOS box has a 30 second skip! What, Verizon isn't afraid of the advertisers?

I'm pulling for Tivo, but Tivo is not a charity, so I'm not giving them my money for nothing.

[BenD Posted Mar 25th 2010 10:01AM]

@biggbrother

The FiOS DVR only has 160GB HDD and a non functional eSATA port. On top of that you can only use one DVR in the house if you want to do the multi-room thing. So this means your entire house is limited to 160GB and 2 tuners? Really that works for you?

[cypherx Posted Mar 25th 2010 3:39PM]

@BenD The Tivo also has 2 tuners. 320GB in the base model right? My Motorola DVR from Comcast has 320GB also. eSATA is coming on both Verizon and Comcast. It's supposed to be rolled out by the end of the year.

I don't think anyone gets it. I think the only option is a Ceton tuner on WMC7 and a house full of extenders. Unless that home gateway option proposed will come to reality. But then again, how many tuners are in the home gateway? Can you have more than one in a household? At what cost? Too many unanswered questions.

This market sadly even in 2010, is in it's infancy.

[Jakejd Posted Mar 26th 2010 1:24PM]

@cypherx
You missed the point. With the Verizon whole home DVR, you can only use ONE unit in the entire house. Ergo, 160GB and 2 tuners for ALL TVs in the house. (So, 3 TVs = 2 tuners, 160GB (no ESATA)).

But you can have 1 Tivo, EACH with 2 Tuners and 320GB, for every TV in the house. (So, 3 TVs = 6 tuners, 960GB (plus ESATA)).

And don't hold your breath for Verizon to enable ESATA -- they've been promising that since their first DVR.

[Icehawk Posted Mar 25th 2010 9:42AM]

"We're huge fans of iTiVo and Vuze, which enable you to get shows off your TiVo and put videos back on it, respectively, and they worked with only minor incident. iTiVo was actually just fine, but Vuze got a little confused as to where it was serving files and lost the connection at one point. We continue to wonder: why isn't this functionality enabled or supported by TiVo out of the box?"

Uh, they have had Tivo Desktop as a free app for at least the last 3 years that allows this... I just wanted a damn speed boost!

[hbbyboy Posted Mar 25th 2010 10:07AM]

With the release of CableCard tuners that anyone can put in any system, I see my use of the Tivo limited at this point. As a matter of fact I will be switching from paying the yearly subscription fee for Tivo to the monthly. I plan to watch the reviews/forums of the Ceton and SiliconDust HDHomeRun tuners and will make the switch to them as soon as it looks like the bugs are worked out. That would save me the Tivo subscription fee and I can do whatever I want with the WMC hardware.

[powermatt Posted Mar 25th 2010 12:24PM]

@hbbyboy

I've got my InfiniTV 4 pre-ordered right now. I'm done with Tivo the instant I can swap the M-card in my series 3 to the WMC PC that I have waiting for the end of May (I'd dump them now, but I really don't want to have to get an M-card again). I would say that a good portion of Tivo subscribers are the type that would not be daunted by putting a pci-e card into a PC. Once Ceton, Silicon Dust, and maybe Hauppauge get cablecard tuners on the market, Tivo is going to loose a large chunk of their subscribers.

[groberts1980 Posted Mar 25th 2010 10:12AM]

I can't imagine anybody wanting to upgrade to this before they enable the second processor core and make some software updates to this thing. Personally I'm still waiting for DirecTivo, so I won't be getting this anyway.

[trainwrecka Posted Mar 25th 2010 10:26AM]

I just can't believe they did all the hype to release this. This looks like a product that should be previewed at CES in it's current state. A Flash redesign? If the processor hogging habits of Flash on the desktop is any indication, I'm not shocked at how laggy this thing is.

[Freakhead Posted Mar 25th 2010 10:37AM]

I don't think Tivo has any money. OTherwise they could afford to hire some more programmers to get things done and/or better programmers.

They are like that small neighborhood electronics store trying to compete against Best Buy, but are painfully obviously slowly losing the war. That's how I see Tivo.

They are trying to hold on. But it's a war whose outcome was never in doubt. It's just a matter of when Tivo loses. Not if.

[OlsonBW Posted Mar 25th 2010 10:54AM]

Microsoft's product sucks big time. My sister-in-law and her family has it. They WAY overpaid for Windows Premier or whatever the top end version of Windows costs. Plus they way over paid for what the computer is that they got. No. I'm not a Microsoft fan. It's because of their products. They just aren't very good. They need to get rid of Balmer and get a CEO that isn't a joke. Trying recording two channels at once while watching something you've already recorded. I've watched it fail at their house over and over again.

TiVo needs help. Desperate help if this is the best they could come up with after all this time. The saddest part is that I really haven't found anything that is as good and I've been looking for quite a few years. Nothing has as good of a Season's Pass along with dual tuners (record two shows while watching another).

I've owned TiVo devices for over 10 years starting with DirecTV TiVo units, which were actually the best, considering what else was out at the time and how much time they've had to improve things. They are doing a horrible job of updating their software. And Flash? You have to be kidding me. Why move to flash? There is nothing out there on the internet that is crashing browsers more than Flash. I don't think I need to say anything else.

I didn't mind the old menus except that the items for anything other than TV felt like obvious add-ons.

Viewing things from another source other than cable should be imbedded so that it looks just like another channel. That includes watching tv shows/movies or even pictures or music from my computer. Everything should appear to be just another channel to TiVo, not a different menu option.

It's not to late to junk Flash. Get rid of it now since what the Premier has is half baked anyway. Junk it, go back to the old menus and imbed all other "sources" into what are now channels.

As for those "recommendations", that is the first thing I turn off with any new TiVo for the same reason I fast forward through any commercial I'm not interested in. I'M NOT INTERESTED IN THEM. They are just more crap along with all the rest of the crap trying to clutter up my life. My DVR of course should UNclutter, not add clutter.

TiVo. You are still the best but are quickly losing ground. QUICKLY! Get rid of Flash. It's slow. It's buggy. The interface should be so fast that it appears almost before I click on a button.

PS: Your remotes are getting worse and worse. Whatever idiot you have that is coming up with these new remotes including the new plastic, FIRE THEM. FIRE THEM and delete any reference you have to that person ever having worked there. If that means firing the CEO, then do it. Get rid of them now, yesterday, remove all traces from them and go back to the remotes from five years ago and quit screwing things up. Jeez!

[Mouretsu Posted Mar 25th 2010 12:20PM]

@OlsonBW

I built a HTPC using Windows 7 and four digital tuners. I can record four shows at the same AND watch a recorded show without any lag or problems at all. I've never had my HTPC crash. I installed ONLY programs related to its use as a HTPC and nothing else. So it's not windows on your sister's machine, it's the machine or the programs they've installed on it that aren't working cohesively like they should.

[OlsonBW Posted Mar 25th 2010 1:44PM]

@Mouretsu - Which means you had to buy a dedicated computer, and monitor, and mouse, etc., to do this? That would a lot more expensive than a TiVo unit, plus you don't get anywhere near as good of a Season Pass manager.

[jedi Posted Mar 25th 2010 10:38PM]

@OlsonBW

You can get a cheap PC for $200. Infact, one of my Hauppauge 1212 tuners runs off of just such a machine. It even has enough "muscle" to be a display machine as well. I use MythTV but I am sure that MCE has the same "record anywhere and play anywhere" capabilities that MythTV or Sage does.

Once you add in the prices for those absurd subscriptions (lifetime or not) it is the Tivos that are now absurdly priced.

PC hardware has caught up to Tivos domain and passed it by.

Using a dedicated PC to replace a $700 bit of consumer electronics is not that hard really.

[zeitgeist Posted Mar 25th 2010 11:22AM]

HR20-100 FTW.

[zingerhill Posted Mar 25th 2010 11:25AM]

I am sad. I canceled my pre-order of the Premier XL.

[Patriot Posted Mar 25th 2010 11:27AM]

Good review but Uhm, What about Moxi? Lesser known, yes but I find their products, including network access superior to TiVO.

[BenD Posted Mar 29th 2010 6:18PM]

@Patriot

We've reviewed the Moxi before.
http://hd.engadget.com/2009/06/22/moxi-hd-dvr-review/

[jasonkburden Posted Mar 25th 2010 12:02PM]

I miss my ole DirectTV Tivo... Better than any crappy DVR I've had on cable or even the new DirectTV DVR's. I think I may invest in one of these after reading so many good things on them. #smish

[ackthbbft Posted Mar 25th 2010 12:10PM]

OMG, when something flash-based is accessed, you have to sit through a loading time? Say it ain't so!

Or, to put it another way... Duh'r!!

Sorry, but what little lag I saw in the demos was more than acceptable.

[ackthbbft Posted Mar 25th 2010 12:12PM]

@ackthbbft

Oh, and I never want to sit through another loading time for any flash-based content (such as these video reviews) on Engadget ever again, since they are obviously under the impression that there should not be any such "lag".

[Mikerman Posted Mar 25th 2010 12:48PM]

Been looking to upgrade my Toshiba TiVo Series 2/DVD combo., but really have no desire to move to what clearly is a laggy beta product. And then additionally pay significantly extra, more than half the product cost, for the new remote, wifi access (do many homes really have a convenient ethernet connection in the bedroom or living room?), and bluetooth dongle, all of which should come with the box to begin with.

I like TiVo, have owned it for years, and even been a beta tester for the company. But from what I continue to read, the Premier is just embarrassing and a disservice to consumers--it still is a half-baked beta product, not a new (and even exciting, despite the TiVo spin) consumer product ready to be issued. Maybe someone at TiVo actually is listening to the reviews, and they'll take a few months of concerted effort to get it right, and make this what it should have been.

[harjon456 Posted Mar 25th 2010 1:28PM]

Ouch, that option to choose Canada at the beginning of the setup process adds insult to injury. As far as I know, there is one and only ONE cable company in the whole country using cable card and that's in Uxbridge Ontario I think. A town of like 10k people. Plus you have to rent a tivo hd from them instead of owning your own and just renting a cable card. I suppose I could use the Premier to pull the 2 channels off the air available in my area, but for all practical purposes this box is useless in Canada.

Epic Fail again for TiVo.

[cypherx Posted Mar 25th 2010 4:00PM]

I'm surprised that Tivo is rushing this unfinished product to market. What's their rush anyway? Why not wait until they can release a FINISHED product. It only took them 10 years to redesign "part" of the UI. Really, what's going on at Tivo?

So right now I have Comcast. They are the only provider available to me (Trees block out the view for D* or E*, and there's no other wireline providers). Comcast has an extensive library of HD-VOD and SD-VOD, which I have to say we've been using more and more lately. It's content we've already paid for, as part as our high tier premium subscription. We have the top subscription which includes HD-DVR, Phone and Internet under one package price, along with all of the premiums.

Ok so their DVR UI looks like it was designed in 1995. Yeah, that's one huge negative. However, functionality wise, it's easy to use and they've added a few new features recently. My IPhone can now program the DVR from the new Comcast app. Our recordings are now organized in folders. It finally remembers the last 28 days of recording history to prevent re-recording shows you may of already watched and deleted. I'd have to say it's getting there. The biggest gripe is the ugly 4:3 user interface. So that has me looking to alternatives... What are my realistic alternatives?

Moxi. Interesting concept. Not sure how I feel about the heavy push on that crossbar interface. There's a ton of confusion as to how the "Moxi" button operates. Sometimes it's a back button. Some times it's more like a home button. It's just awkward. Plus it's a decent chunk of change for something you don't know how long it will be around. Especially for those multi room bundles.

Media Center. This looks promising once the Ceton and SiliconDust cable card tuners are available. This is the most likely route I'll take. Still a bit of an upfront cost for me personally (need to upgrade some hardware and also buy the $400 card). But one concern is, say the wife is watching TV on the 360 extender, I'm working on the PC and need to reboot it. There goes her TV. You know Microsoft after all these years hasn't figured out how to install updates or certain programs without requiring a restart. Plus this is the most complicated and costly of the solutions.

Tivo Premiere - I can't see why I should pay $299 for something that's still as slow as my Motorola DCX3400 DVR, PLUS a monthly fee to Tivo, when this is just not feature complete. It's a lot to ask for to get an unfinished product. I'll continue to watch how it evolves, but as of right now, Tivo Premiere is a NO WAY in my household. Maybe Tivo will come up with something that changes that... and I encourage them to try and do so. But sorry Tivo, right now your getting nothing from me.

I just don't see much in this 3rd party DVR, media center market at this time. Perhaps when software developers no longer have to pay the $80,000 to CableLabs to certify their UI, when the hardware developers already paid their $80,000... maybe the market will open up a bit. Maybe the proposed home gateway solution will be the answer to open things up.

I just want one box that does cable video on demand, hd recording with a beautiful easy to use and quick user interface. Is that too much to ask for? Ideally I want to get this from my provider. That way if it breaks, I can swap the unit out for a new one - no questions asked. The current cable DVR has come a long way with the features I've mentioned above, and my latest one has 320GB hard drive in it. It's just *not* quite there yet... much like the Tivo. So I might as well stick with what's included in my premium package deal.

Come June time frame, I'll seriously consider the Ceton route. As long as it sounds to be a dependable solution that has wife acceptance factor built in.

Until then, it's Comcast DVR + Laptop with BOXEE.

[derspiess Posted Mar 25th 2010 4:43PM]

I had low, low expectations for this Tivo, and it didn't even meet those. I've had a Series 2 DT since 2005 and got rid of my cable company DVR in 2008 in favor of a TivoHD-- still no regrets on that, but I'm not sure how long I'm going to stay with Tivo.

[malexandria1 Posted Mar 25th 2010 6:36PM]

Here's the problem Tivo sucks, but there's no viable alternative. I've had a Tivo Box for a few years - never used it, but after awhile I get sick to death of my crappy Cable HD boxes ALWAYS failing. I had a Time Warner HD Box when I was in New York a few years ago - AWFUL, the last year I had a Fios HD Box, again Awful - to add to it's awfulness it didn't even show most of the HD Channels I was paying for.

I had the Verizon guy out to my house at least 10 times in the last year. I finally got fed up and used the Tivo HD with a DVR Extender and it works like a charm. No more freezing, pixallation, dropped recordings, it just works.

With that said I think TIVO's service sucks! It's slow, buggy, slow, I don't find it all that intuitive, I had to hack the remote to get the 30 second skip to work. If the box looses power for a split second it'll take 20 minutes to reboot and in my house the Heater causes the split second power lost at least once every few days. I also hate the fact that I never know how much space I have on my DVR - it's just a really big peeve of mine. And I hate the fact that my stupid cable card doesn't let me use OnDemand - even though I'm paying over $100 a month for cable.

I had one of the Original ReplayTVs back in the day and that still remains the best DVR I've ever had.

[malexandria1 Posted Mar 25th 2010 6:38PM]

@malexandria1 Oh and both those awful HD DVRs where Motorola boxes. If your cable system uses them, run far away!

[cowboydren Posted Mar 25th 2010 7:28PM]

Watching the integrated search in action has gotten me to reconsider the Premiere as a viable option for cancelling my Dish subscription. The fact that there are still only two tuners is a major turnoff, but if I can use Vuze to push content onto the TiVo, maybe it's not so bad.

Why aren't cable companies more TiVo friendly? The Premiere and the Moxi blow the doors off of anything from Cisco or Motorola; no ifs, ands, or buts. TiVo should provide a VOD API and whatever registration/encryption services the cable company "needs" to have, so that TWC, Comcast, or whomever have their VOD content pop up next to the Netflix and Amazon content. It can't be that hard, Cable...