TiVo loyalists have waited a long, long time for this. The
Premiere is marketed as the DVR to end all DVRs, and unlike those plain-jane boxes served up at your local pay-TV provider, there's actually a decent amount of ingenuity within TiVo's freshest set-top box. Unfortunately, those good intentions didn't really lead to a beautiful implementation, and we found quite a few bones to pick
during our time with it. Make no mistake -- TiVo's still charging a small fortune for the privilege of using its user interface and hearing its bloops and beeps, and frankly, we expected more for the premium. Are you in the same boat? Couldn't disagree more? We're anxious to see how you'd retool the Premiere if given the opportunity, and what you'd do differently now that you've been relying on it for the past couple of months. Go on, comments are waiting for you.
posted April 23rd 2010 10:04PM
How would i change engadget? I would get rid of these posts...
@Darth Vadar
Imposter
@Darth Vadar use your death star?
@Darth Vadar
Obvious impostor is obvious.
@Darth Vadar BANISH HIM!
@Lord Vadir
Really people? Stop riding "Lord Vader's" nuts. He has that character. Come up with some other person to impersonate (or actually be O_O).
@Lord Vadir
Another impostor, really? This is why we can't have nice things!
@SolidSnake
Edit: obvious impostors are obvious.
LAME
I'm stuck with my cable companies DVR set but would this be worth upgrading to?
@asdr24 well, it definitely a step up from cable co dvr, but worth it? It depends on how much you are willing to spend for the upped experience.
@asdr24:
There is absolutely no doubt that this would cost you more upfront, but there is also absolutely no doubt that it is worth it. Cable company DVRs, no matter which company or what they are, suck. They are slow, fugly, and a cumbersome to work with. TiVo is a dream when it comes to DVRs.
I do think they could have done better with the premiere, but I'll take it any day over some cable company DVR, even if it costs more upfront.
@Jordan
what about a moxi DVR ?
I could really use one of these! Tivo is God's gift to man!!!
@Mike Vick
Yeah... 10 years ago.
@Mike Vick You can watch dogfights whenever you want now.
@Son Goku
On Youtube.
@Devin
1. Responsive .. gotta friggin' use it
2. Consistent HD UI across the board
3. Either you charge monthly fees or discount the hardware
It's a pain to get a cable card installed already, you are really pushing yourself to extinction. This coming from a Tivo user for 5 yrs.
pal :)
It would be nice if it could record 4 streams at once. Also access to Hulu and other webTV sites.
@MacBandit
Streaming is the future. I want on demand TV!
Unlimited external storage. DLNA support. Streaming support.
Add Boxee to it. Or XMBC. Basically, add capabilities to play streamed media files, with a beautiful UI that scrapes IMDB or other sources for meta-data.
Then its perfect.
@mrod305 Oh...and add apps. Like, Boxee-stle apps. Basically, my dream machine is a Boxee-box + TiVo all in one.
@mrod305 Mine too hopefully xbmc will get there on it's own then you just pick up something like an atom nettop with whatever tuner you need.
@mrod305 TiVo can stream most files using Streambaby. It does it especially well on the Premiere.
@mrod305 Or Popcorn Hour works too
A monster Intel dual core processor & hardcore graphics chip. Seriously, I had a pre-order all set for a Premiere and then I saw a demo and then a benchmark putting it up against a stinking iPhone 3GS and guess which processor is faster? The frickin iPhone!!!!
Give me a break! For $800.00 I want future-proofing and WICKED speed. Interface sluggishness I already paid for in my existing TiVO HD XL.
AND they have no Season Pass migration capability, and no other real features of interest.
Needless to say, I cancelled my order.
It'll be a long time before they get another dollar from me. Their next super-duper Premiere whatever will need to scream and do circus tricks to pull another dollar out of my pocket after the massive disappointment the Premiere turned out to be.
Of course at their current rate of innovation, that next attempt won't be until 2023 anyway, if the still exist.
Over and out. Penny stock here they come!
I've always found the Tivo interface very cumbersome. It's as if they tried to hard to make it cute, and forgot to make it simple.
I actually enjoy using my cable company's DVR more than I ever enjoyed using a Tivo.
I do miss my ReplayTV unit :(
1)Remove CCI protection and allow any program recorded to be shifted onto another device.
2)Unify "old" interface and "new" interface.
3)Remove the 12 month mandatory subscription early termination fee.
4)AllowLifetime subscriptions to move to new devices.
For the $499 they're asking?
- At LEAST four tuners
- A redesigned OS (I'll take the one we saw, but please -- you HAVE to get it running at least as well as the current OS. Cache data if you have to -- just get it running in an acceptable fashion.
- Standard Wi-Fi
- Better preferential scheduling of HD.
- Easier transferring of content over to mobile devices, laptops, etc.
@devron
Im with you 100%
1. HD UI everywhere
2. 100% compatibility with Comcast, I would like my Video OnDemand thank you.
TiVo is great! We have four, BUT and a real big BUT!! It is a monster pain in the ass to get the cable company to get a card working. First card, it's a no-brainer, second card: cable company can't figure out why it's not working (even though I told them what the problem was 5 times!!, TiVo told me what to tell them and they still couldn't do it!!). Third card, no problem. Fourth card?? Repeat of second card. TiVo has to eliminate the cable companies. Not one of them, ALL of them. Cable companies are so stupid about the products they sell.
TiVo, get RID of all cable companies (and dish companies too)
Is it just me? TiVo's bloops and beeps always make me think of Nintendo and Super Mario World. I dont own a TiVo so I've never been able to compare, but the Big N. is usually what comes to mind when I'm working on a TiVo.
@7r1ck13:
It's just you
@Devin
How WOULDN'T you change the TiVo premiere?
Oh, jeez, where to start? Drop the subscription fee. It's expensive enough. 4 tuners, true multiroom with a unified recording list across all devices in the house, automatic archiving to a PC, NAS or server with on board transcoding for portable devices. Tivo can't decide whether they want to be friends or competitors to the cable companies, but the cable companies aren't doing Tivo any favors, they should throw down the gauntlet and start offering the sort of extras that we know cable isn't keen on. If I could copy my recorded TV onto my phone that had been automatically transcoded that would be a huge value add.
@mmaestro Some of that TiVo can do now assuming the content isn't flagged. While TiVo Desktop works okay, you can also check out KMTTG and PyTiVo which are two of the most popular options.
All of my shows transfer to my server if I haven't watched and deleted them after a certain amount of time using KMTTG based of automatic transfers I setup using show titles and keywords. You can even go a step farther and automatically re-encode the .TiVo files in another format using FFmeg.
I would rethink my revenue model. Probably stop selling hardware and try to license the software to set top box and blu-ray player manufacturers. Let them make the hardware. They are better at it anyway.
Consistent UI, not having a slow UI, fixing the freezing issues (they already have with 14c).
More tuners because two just isn't enough.
I wouldn't change it. I would destroy it. Pay a monthly fee for what my computer can do for free. Rediculous.
Open the TiVo platform and make it possible for folks to easily develop apps for it.
Also, built in wireless would have been nice!
More thoughts at:
http://www.techofthehub.com/search/label/TiVo
Better UI that would work with Comcast so I wouldn't need to use Comcast's shitty interface for onDemand and such.
Get it for DirecTV.
@the bandit
Agreed about the DirecTV HD DVR. I have one and am happy with its interface. It's not as fast as the Series 2 TiVo from back in the day, but other than that its fine by me.
I would add pip, a $250 price tag, free transfer to portable devices. Also, there is a compay called, Moxie, there dvr can do multi room viewing without buying a second dvr. To incorperate something like this that would be great too, the HD os would be nice, but not a must.
.... One other thing, realtime scheduling on TiVo.com would be great.
I would change everything except for how it looks...
Unlike everyone else commenting here, i actually OWN this unit--Premiere XL. I like it very much. I upgraded from a Series 3 HDXL. This one lets you record 2 HD shows at once, and watch a third, allowing the normal pause, rewind etc on the third. I love the unit partly because of Cablecard. No more rat's nest of wires, no separate tuner, snappy and reliable channel-changing. The backplane/processor is finally fast enough to manage a terrabyte of video without a laggy interface--unlike my Series 2 DT that I'd upgraded.to 320GB. For all of the folks suggesting WiFi, consider transferring 10 gigabytes (2 hour s of HD) over CSMA WiFi. WiFi is slow and unreliable, particularly when transferring to other wireless clients/TiVos. Run a wire. I'm happy not to have to have paid for an integrated WiFi Adapter that I wouldn't use. I like the new 30second skip function--makes it trivial to skip commercials. I like the back lit remote with an improved button layout (select in the middle of the directional rocker). The online scheduling & ToDo list is vastly improved over what I saw with my HDXL. The bottom line is that TIVO is still the best DVR on the market by a wide margin, and this TiVo is the best one yet. They've jacked up the processing power to enable them to 'evolve' the feature set with far more flexibility. Tivo has always evolved their feature set over years but they were very limited because older generation of units which were more ASIC driven--with very little general-purpose processing power for things like new and evolving web technologies. Maybe a HULU app will show up in the future--maybe even rendering network-attached non-MPG video streams. They're poised with this newest generation of hardware with multi-core general-purpose CPU's. It seems likely. Even if they don't this is still the best-of-breed DVR. Sell your old one on eBay. You'll get good money for it if it has a lifetime subscription. .
@karlfife 802.11n would allow instant multi-room HD streaming, rather than copying the ENTIRE show from one Tivo to another which is ludicrous and far from instant.
Not everyone wants to run CAT5 all over their house.