The Official AVS TiVo "Series4" Premiere topic - Page 36

I bought a refurb Tivo HD off of woot.com a few years back. Never had an issue. I suspect this is due to them being inspected twice in their lifetime.

The hard drive upgrade is very painless (99% automated) and the cost for a 2TB drive is as low as $69 (grabbed one at Fry's). Compare that to what TiVo will charge and go from there... Another option if you aren't under Lifetime is to simply purchase another Premiere. They were $72 at Amazon...

Did a new software update come out today?

yeah, 14.8. I got hulu plus in my shows

+1

TiVo just locked up so I pulled the power cord out and reinserted and during startup I noticed the blue background during the "Almost there" phase of the startup is now light blue on top and dark blue on the bottom. I checked the version and it said 14.8-01-3-746. Saw Hulu Plus as described above.

I get hulu through the Playon premium plugin on my HTPC and Sage media extender. Im sure not going to pay for HuluPlus also. Any way to get the Tivo to see the Playon plugin?

FWIW, I watched one of the sample videos (Cosmos from the 70's) and all I have seen so far are commercials. There is no way in heck Im paying $7.99/mo for more commercials.

Mine locked up after the upgrade as well.

Is it still only SD that way? I know the last time I checked you needed Hulu+ to get HD while through PlayOn it was on SD.

With Hulu+ you do still have commercials but for a typical 42 minute show, which is 1 hour with commercials when broadcast on TV. You get between a few minutes to seven minutes of commercials. With the commercials ranging between 10 seconds and 70 seconds.
I don't mind the commercials except the ones that are longer than 30 seconds.
The more popular shows have the six or seven minutes of commercials. But most of the shows available have much less than that.

For me Hulu+, Netflix, and Vudu all compliment each other since there is little overlap between the three online services. And then I'll suppliment those with Amazon VOD and Xbox Live VOD. And this is in addition to my normal TiVo recordings and Blu-ray Disc titles.

As far as lockups with my Premieres. So far only two out of my five Premieres have Hulu+ even though all five got 14.8U2 right away. But so far the two Premieres that got Hulu+ have not had any issues. All my launch Premieres have also been rock solid unlike some of the problems people have posted about their Premieres.

Yep, still SD only on Playon/Hulu. Main reason I was complaining about the commercials on this show for example, is it was commercial free during its original airing in the 70's on PBS. If you could skip the commercials like you can with a DVR, that would be different.

did anyone's Tivo Premiere lose the Netflix and Youtube icons next to their names in the My Shows list? Happened to both of mine.

Yep. I think 14.8 did it.

Can you download Netflix and YouTube videos? I thought they were streaming only.

I am talking about streaming.......

thanks Charles. That's odd.

reboot fixed it for me (and after first double-checking that I had a working Internet connection)

I would like to gratefully thank b_scott and slowbiscuit again for their help. It has meant a lot to me. I'm happy to report that Tivo did grant me the lifetime membership offer and yes you were right in that they were looking for the date when I bought the Premiere XL unit. Thank goodness that I kept the receipt. Even though I'm in Canada and we are restricted in the things we can do with the unit, it is still a great PVR and I'm enjoying everything about it. I use the unit for OTA signals and here in Toronto we benefit from a great selection of Canadian and American stations. I'm soooo happy now.

glad I could give some advice that helped!

Does anyone have any information about when or if TiVo streaming Netflix will carry closed captions? Supposedly about 30% of Netflix titles now have closed captions, and they (Netflix) are being sued for not providing closed captions on all their streaming.

did they ever claim that the had CC on everything? i don't see how the suit will hold water otherwise.

Technology Notes
Netflix Sued for Lack of Captions on Streaming Videos
By Ryan Lawler, The New York Times/GiGaOM.com - June 17th, 2011

CNN isn't the only company being targeted by rights activists for lack of captions in its video streams; Netflix also is being taken to court over not providing accessible videos for the hearing impaired. In a lawsuit filed Thursday, the National Association of the Deaf (NAD) accused Netflix of violating the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) by not providing captions for most of its streaming videos.

According to the lawsuit, the ADA requires that all places of entertainment provide full and equal enjoyment for people with disabilities. The NAD seeks to classify Netflix's streaming website and associated consumer electronics applications under those terms, making it in violation of Title III of the ADA.

The lawsuit was filed despite work Netflix has done over the last several years to add captions to its streaming titles. It first announced the availability of captions on a limited number of streaming titles last spring, but it has been slow going: In February, Netflix announced it had added captions to titles that account for about 30 percent of all streaming, with plans to expand to 80 percent by the end of the year.

In a statement, Arlene Mayerson, Directing Attorney of the Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund said:

There is no excuse for Netflix to fail to provide captions so that deaf and hard of hearing customers have access to the same movies and TV shows as everyone else Netflix admits that there is no technological issue. For people who are deaf and hard of hearing, captions are like ramps for people who use wheelchairs.

Netflix might disagree with the characterization, as it has been pretty vocal about the technological barriers that exist to adding captions. Two years ago Netflix Chief Product Officer Neil Hunt outlined the difficulty it faced in adding Synchronized Accessible Media Interchange (SAMI) files to its video assets, for instance.

Client support is better now, enabling Netflix to reach PCs as well as the Sony PlayStation 3, Nintendo Wii, Google TV-powered TVs, Blu-ray players and set-top boxes and the Boxee Box. But it still has a challenge in adding subtitles to new devices. While Netflix's iPad and iPhone apps recently added captions, support for other CE devices like the Microsoft Xbox 360 and Roku box won't be available until later this year.

Netflix isn't the only streaming provider that is being hit with such a lawsuit: Earlier this week, the Greater Los Angeles Agency on Deafness (GLAD) and four individual plaintiffs filed suit against CNN for violating California's Civil Rights Act by not providing captions. That lawsuit seeks class action status for all deaf and hard of hearing residents in California, and is seeking statutory damages from CNN parent Time Warner.

The Netflix lawsuit was filed on behalf of the 36 million Americans that are either deaf or hard of hearing. In addition to NAD, the Western Massachusetts Association of the Deaf and Hearing Impaired and Lee Nettles, a deaf Massachusetts resident, were also named as plaintiffs in the suit, which was filed in U.S. District Court in the District of Massachusetts, Western Division.

Netflix has declined comment on the lawsuit, saying it doesn't comment on legal issues.

IANAL, but that sounds bogus to me.


So "captions are like ramps" ...? I don't think the law works by loose analogy. Maybe Netflix should be working diligently to provide the captions for a number of reasons, but I don't think the ADA is applicable. Again, IANAL.

No "new" annual subs, but TIVO will offer to RENEW your preexisting annual sub for $99 annually (MSD). I know that because they just offered me this deal for both of my (2) Premiers, per the onscreen message from TIVO in my messages section. That was the same deal as I had before, $99 annual, but I also bought my TIVOs before the big price drop. The lifetime (MSD) offer is still $399 each, or $798 total for both.

Even if the lifetime deal hadn't gone up $100, that's still a lot of gelt to pony-up all at once, especially when my break-even point would be 48 months. At my age (65) I could be dead in 48 months. I'm really going to have to think about this. Looks like I have 30 days to decide.

.

I now have so many remotes that I really need to get serious about getting a universal. The problem is I keep on trying to find a universal remote that I like, and have had little luck. Have any of you found a universal remote that is as good for controlling the Tivo as Tivo's peanut?

I'm a Logitech Harmony Fan for ease of programming

No.

I use the Harmony One for overall control of everything but TiVo, but still prefer the TiVo peanut for watching TV.

I use a Harmony 880 but for the Tivo the slide remote is superior.

IAAL, but I am not your lawyer, this is not legal advice.

I also happen to be hearing impaired and use subtitles extensively.

The ADA is meant to be construed pretty broadly - HOW stuff happens isn't as important as what RESULTS. It's pretty smart, actually - rather than try to write something to include future changes in technology and what's available and so on, the point is to provide equal access.

That's why a restaurant with a drive-through is equally covered by a board reading back what you've ordered OR a sign saying "deaf/ hard of hearing please pull around for assistance." It's not HOW they make access possible, it's THAT THEY DO, and that they do it without a huge kerfuffle over it. Obviously this is super-duper simplified, but that's the gist.

The point of this isn't so much to say "you don't want to do captions" as it is to say "you need to devote more resources to making it happen on a quicker schedule." It'll settle, and essentially all the NAD wants is for Netflix to make it more of a priority to get captions done. Good press releases all around, yaddayaddayadda.

Personally, I do think more work on subtitles is welcome - it's VERY maddening to find a movie to watch, only to realize it's not subbed yet - even though I know subs EXIST and I've seen them before. This says nothing about Tivo's complete fail of a Netflix client...

DrDon apparently did not like the "mashup" image - I've archived it on different sites and offline now just in case there's some sort of copyright claim or something like that afoot.

Here's what I said originally:

smbaker over at Tivo Community made this great mash-up image of the TV taped together using duct tape, showing the HD interface on one side and the SD interface on the other.

I had included a link to the photo because I couldn't get it to show the picture directly for some reason; clearly DrDon did not like the photo so much that he removed the text entirely. Here's the photo again:

Scheduled 5 sequential recordings of Stargate SG1 from the TWC SciFi channel, a mini marathon.

The first two captured one hour the next only 8 minutes, No 4 20 minutes and No 5 1 hour again.

Anyone seen this kind of failure ?
I doubt the Premiere is to blame, must be the provider.

A user over at TCF posted this modified image pulled from marketing at tivo.com - it's perfect for the current state of the Premiere, half HDUI and half SD...

You might want to contact SyFy and see if they were the cause of problem.

I've seen cut off recordings from the NFL network. The guide data for the NFL network is often terrible, so I've assumed the problem is theirs. For example, the guide will have a show from 7:00 to 8:00 and an episode of NFLReplay I want to record goes from 8:00 to 9:00. I record it, only to find out the NFLReplay actually was 90 minutes long from 7:30 to 9:00.
I believe the guide data comes to the Tivo indirectly from the NFL Network, so the only solution appears to me to be to complain to them.