It's not streaking through downtown Dallas remaking
Matt & Kim videos just yet but
after an uneven start the
TiVo Premiere continues to evolve, this time towards something with even more capacity and (hopefully) less lockups.
ZatzNotFunny mentions a new software update to version 14.1c has gone live this weekend which is intended to fix lockups some customers are experiencing with more revisions promised over the coming weeks and months to address various performance and stability issues. Forum reactions are mixed, with some dropping back to the old UI for more stability and speed but if you're living the Premiere lifestyle let us know how things are going for you. Those still on the outside looking in who haven't been scared off by the growing pains can also consider a few new larger capacity options courtesy of longtime modder/reseller WeaKnees, now ready to deliver units with up to 2TB of storage internally or even externally for those who like it like that -- you know who you are.
posted April 19th 2010 6:47AM
LAG LAG LAG! I feel like I am using dial-up internet on some remote Philippine island in 1999. Every click is a 3-5 second delay and often a complete freeze up! As a big Tivo fan all I can say is the Tivo engineers are SAD SAD SAD! I would never have bought the Premier if I knew it was this bad. Hate the program adds and the small font size menu. Wish I hadn't sold my Tivo 3! Dear Tivo, GET A CLUE, THIS SUCKS!
Go home TiVo
@caribousteaks
After wait months to see the new TiVo, I bought a Moxi a week later. I think that says a lot about the premiere...
For Month now, everytime there were a Tivo-News on engadget, I asked myself how they've done the kerning in the Headline were it says "TiVO" that the i is under the T and the V directly is attached to the T... and then I think it can be done with CSS, but this took some time and and doint think the author setup a span-tag and kerns this one word every time ... and today I selected the text for the first Time and see: there is no kerning at all. Its simply just an small i but the dot is sucked into the cross beam of the T. What a relief...
@Indyaner What browser are you using? It looks how you would normally think it would on Safari (with the i and V not touching anything).
Still might have a lag, but at least now I can use the HDUI without lockups. Let's get that other core moving now!
Call me Paranoid, but I find it strange that all of a sudden my Tivo HD Box has been acting real flaky the last week or so. Doing things like freezing a lot, not automatically resuming play, and stuttering. All since the release of the new Tivo Box. When it never gave me problems before.
@malexandria1 No problems here on a TivoHD; and sadly that sounds like a dying hard drive.
@malexandria1 Very interesting. Mine began the exact same behavior. Missed '24' twice because of it. If it does indeed go on the fritz I have no intention of replacing it with something as underwhelming as the Premiere.
I'm avoiding this particular party, based on a lock-up issue I've been having with my HD .... which TiVo has been ignoring for over a year now.
I will keep my HDXL thank you very much. I am waiting / saving on popcorn hour cablecard support and a nice WM7 box.
My Premiere was crashing daily, then instead of turning off the HD menus, I turned off the video picture in the menu. That seems to have done the trick thus far, no crashes in almost a week.
Now they need to fix NetFlix and YouTube. I am being kicked out of both at random points while watching a video. And with NetFlix, I get "Network" errors when attempting to watch certain shows, but go to my Roku and the same show works perfect.
@architect I turned off tivo suggestions, and it went for like a week without crashing vs like 18 hours. I also found out the reason it crashed like 5 times the day I got it was because my harmony remote had the exit button programmed to it, which will cause it to freeze. Luckily a google search cleared that up for me.
I was actually pissed this weekend because I saw the lights flickering on my tivo then saw it reset and thought it was failing or something. Looking at my software version, I do have the 14.1c so that makes me feel a little better. If this thing is still freezing in a week or so, I'm gonna return it before my 30 days is up. Unfortunately, I'll probably get $50 deducted from the refund thanks to that amazon promotion. Bastards...
Building the menu in flash... not so smart.
Can you use the "classic" menu on this?
@trainwrecka
Yes, you have the option of the HDUI or the classic SDUI.
@trainwrecka yes and actually many people are while the bugs get worked out in the HDUI.
Hopefully this update fixes the almost-daily freezing... hopefully next they'll take a look at the ridiculous response time (lag) while navigating the menu. When I read "lag" in other comments, I assumed they meant processing time for menu selections, I had no idea they meant Press "Arrow Up" - wait 2 seconds - press "Arrow Up" again - just to navigate the menu. I'd also like to see them expand the availability of web content (watch videos from cbs.com etc.) - as I haven't figured that one out yet and they don't make it easy to find (if it's possible). And I think it's completely lame that to get the TiVo to actually do what a reasonable person would expect it to do, you need to spend an extra hundred bucks and buy the network adapter and TiVo Desktop Plus.
I'm new to TiVo, and maybe my expectations for the Premiere were a little high, but I had hoped that these sort of bugs would have been worked out by now. I'm obviously invested in this already, so I'll stick with TiVo and hope for the best... Come on TiVo... *Theme from Rocky* ... You can do it...
I really don't understand this. How could they release such a bad product? I was so close to buying one but I'm sticking with my 10 year old Series 1 (happy 10th birthday in 2 weeks!) .
This is what happens when you rush to put a new product out just to be able to say you have a new procust out. Come on Tivo, get it together! Glad I didn't take the dive and stuck with my old Series 2.
@Drayzthawts How I ended up with 'procust' I don't know but I meant to type 'product'...lol
i JUST bought the premiere hd xl and wanted to throw the box out the window the first day...
basically i just paid 500 for the same exact experience since i had to revert to the old UI to minimize the insanely sick lag times and non-responsive menus...
i was so excited to have that preview window at the top right until i realized the UI was slow as snailmail... seriously. i could have gotten a netflix disc delivered here in manhattan faster than waiting to move to the next menu item.
thanks for screwing me, Netflix. and now that i've sold my Series 3, im resentful.
I was wondering what would put the nail in TiVo's coffin... I think I can stop wondering now.
TiVo outsourced their core development to India & eastern Europe starting in (2006?) The downward slide has been noticeable. Laggy, buggy products, not competitive or innovative.
TiVo, do you NOT understand that you have to spend money to make money? You lost your core team and you will never re-gain the prominent position you once had. You're getting your ass handed to you on the one hand by Windows Media Center PCs, on the other hand by cable/dish companies, and on the third hand ( :-) ) by products that are more feature-rich and cheaper. Not to mention the egregious recurring cost of the monthly fee (even if you buy the life time membership, divide it by 36/48/whatever to still count it as a few bucks recurring cost every month.)
RIP, TiVo. It was a good ride, nice knowin' ya.
Well admittedly the box is not perfect. But moving from a series 2 this unit will record 2 shows at once, has cablecard so the channel changes are much faster (but 1-2 second for me is still not great), it has more storage space, and records/displays in high def. So I find it worth the bucks. I also got a $100 discount for being a prior tivo customer. After selling my series 2, it did not cost that much for the upgrade.
It was a rough and frustrating first two weeks, that's for sure. The new and highly touted HDUI was basically unusable for me with multiple lockups a day.
The lastest upgrade however, has worked fine for me for the past two days - fingers crossed it continues.
I agree that TiVo should have waited a bit longer but I am happy with my purchase. I sold my Series 3 for $550 on eBay and bought TiVo Series 4 (Premiere) for $528 with Lifetime, so pretty much got a new box and got $22 bucks for it. I also like the fact that now I only need 1 M-Card instead of 2 Cable Cards (This will save me another $30 a year in renting fee that TWC was charging me).
I work in QA and I must say there were a lot of bugs in new software at best it was ALPHA caliber software. I just switched to SD interface after 2 days cause I couldn't take slow interface and constant lock ups. SD interface works just like it did with my Series 3, but it is faster. I updated TiVo Saurday night to newest software and I am planning on staying with HD interface from now on.
For now there are NO performance improvements, nothing is faster but bug fixes came through and fixed lock ups and other issue not visible to many users. I will continue to evaluate new build and wait for upgrades. TiVo said another update is coming in May, I hope they will improve performance and start working on switching rest of interface to HD because currently only 35% at best is in HD, rest still runs in SD when you access it.
TiVo did tell us that new software will be build as we go and that we should not be expecting all of it at once. I am not bitter cause I love my TiVo but I do feel that TiVo dropped the ball, current users will suck it up and wait for updates and improvements. New users may not, they will get TiVo Premiere turn it on play with it few days and return it back. It is a bad user experience, especially for NEW users.
If you want to upgrade or buy TiVo you should wait, give them another 6 weeks to workout rest of Major Bugs and hope they improve performance as well as apply HD interface to rest of their UI and once that is done, then go out and buy TiVo but not before that or you will be highly disappointed.
@jkudlacz How did you get such a good deal on the Tivo Premiere that you bought?
@dan4prez312
Tivo gives current subscribers $200 off on lifetime service upgrade.
If you have tivo now you are eligible for upgrade, if you don't you can try to buy a TiVo from someone then create an account and get it setup on Tivo.com once that is done, you will be eligible for upgrade to Tivo Premiere with $200 off, and you can sell that Tivo you just purchased to someone else (but they won't be able to get an upgrade offer, Tivo only allows it once per specific unit ID) Best place to find used TiVo is Craig's List of your City. Good luck.
This is probably the worst new product roll out I've ever seen for a company that had years to develop it. The UI was on the old TiVo systems in Beta for a couple years. There are literally no improvements in the new TiVo system. I can't imagine this company staying in business much longer.
The new UI isn't even system wide. It jumps back and forth from the old UI to new UI constantly depending on what menu has to come up.
Doesn't lock up anymore. Now it just reboots itself. Hey, at least I don't have to leave my couch to pull the plug anymore!
I have no regrets making the switch, from a cable company DVR.
You want to talk about lag, just check out a what the cable companies are putting out there as a DVR.
Missing recordings, splitting 60 minute program into three different menu options, interface freezing while fast forwarding...
Give me a Tivo Premiere any day.
@duster63
I had few days with HD interface after 14.1c upgrade and things are looking up. Sure this fix was mainly for Freezing bug additional updates will happen at the end of the April and then again in May.
I love my TiVo Premiere and think it was a Great Purchase, TiVo will continue to update software and improve their product, something I can't say about any type of Generic DVR box that Cable Company gives you.
I has the original S2, upgraded to the S2 DT and now sit with a TiVo HD. Love the box and the interface. My in-laws started subscribing to Netflix, and now think having a TiVo with streaming would be great. After reading the reviews and watching the videos of the interface I just don't know how simple it is anymore.... and the lag... The constant "loading" and "reloading" would drive me nuts.
@trainwrecka
*have
doesn't my series 3 already have something called "swivel search" that searches across all the known content sources?
makes me sad. i've been a tivo user for ten years and three devices. this box really sounds like a beta ... no wifi, 1/2 finished, slow interface, disabled core, no qwerty remote (which should not be an upsell regardless).
my tivo HD with dual cable cards is working pretty well and i imagine i'll stick with that for at least a few more years, or until it dies on me.
whether flash was a good technical direction or not, it is tragic that they chose it for their new user interface at a time when flash has gotten such a black eye from apple.