The Official AVS TiVo "Series4" Premiere topic - Page 7

fingernail gently at the edge. comes right off




I'm with aaronwt. People even leave the stickers on their phone screens! They think it's some extra protection they're supposed to leave on. It's for shipping, people! You're supposed to enjoy your equipment in its native state, not with packaging on it. Bugs the crap out of me.

I hope he takes off all the plastic strips from all eight TiVo's lol

hey does anyone have the link to the video where the Tivo exec was going through the interface? It was a few days after unveiling I think, and I can't google it anywhere.

They finally came in today. It looks okay (I left the clear sticker on the strip). You can't tell it's there unless you're within inches of it. Now to begin the long setup process.

I wish i lived next door to aaronwit so i could help him play with his new toys!

Ugh. Just got off the phone with Time Warner after to trying to get my card to work with the new TiVo. I don't think the guy had any idea what he was talking about. Now I have to wait until Sunday for someone to come out here.

Call the back and ask them to do a "Staged Hit" on your cablecard. If you get someone who knows what that means, I hear it works.

I looked up the # for "tier 3" support, who transferred me to cable card support, which took me through the same process as the first time I called. Both told me to unplug the TiVo, so that was twice that I had to wait the 10 minutes for it to restart, but that didn't fix anything. The channels appear for like 2 seconds, then freeze and a message pops up that it's not authorized. Guess I'll have to wait. What a pain.

I imagine on Sunday the guy is gonna come and just read the numbers off the screen and it'll be up in seconds. I wonder why I can't just do that myself.

I had something similar happen with Comcast. When I called, they would "hit" it and all would be well for a short while then I would lose the digital/encrypted channels. I had a tech come and he fixed it. He said it was either one of two things:
1. He replaced the Mcard (this was probably the cause).
2. He said the the techs on the phone had neglected to enter into the system the fact that I am using a TiVo. Apparently there is something a bit different they have to do for TiVo installations. Might just be a Comcast thing.

I set up four of my boxes last night on FiOS only. Everything about them has been faster than my S3/TiVoHD boxes. I setup three boxes concurrently and all the boxes took under one hour from plugging the power cord in to finishing the service update and having full access to the box. I even had guide data for all my channels through Saturday morning so as soon at the Service update was finished I was able to set up some Season passes for the shows I watch on Thursday night and Friday.

The Premiere has been an excellent upgrade. Everything with it has been better and/or quicker than previous TiVos(Although if I had to gripe about anything, it would be the cable card slot being on the back again. But with the reduced depth it has to stick out so it has to be on the back.)

And yes, the first thing I did, after taking the Premiere out of the plastic bag, was to remove the plastic strip on the front.

haha

Have been cogitating over replacing the TivoHD when my current subscription expires in July, with the Premiere.
The Kmttg transfer rates are reported to be a lot faster but with TWC San Diego setting the 'copy never' flag on almost every cable show, except local broadcasts and for those I always use OTA where HDCP is not an issue.

The best approach seems to be:
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showp...postcount=1898
to exploit the analog hole.

This requires playing the Tivo program in real time but is still faster than a KMttg transfer which runs about 1.5 hours for a 1 hour show with the Tivo HD.

Have read the bfdtv guide and appreciate his efforts as always.
Would appreciate suggestions from posters, especially about the HDCP/DRM problems so many of us are confronted with.

That ain't so bad.

But lacking DLNA/UPnP media share playback? THAT is kinda weak.

BTW, how practical is it to run on, say, Comcast for unencrypted ATSC (for local channels and basic tier) and use multiroom to view stuff recorded on another Tivo that already has cablecards?

Actually, I'd _really_ like a satellite viewing box that didn't even bother with a HDD and tuners, just a multi-room-viewing box, that you can simply browse the 'mothership' with and stream its recordings.

I've read about the options of adding addtional storage to TiVo devices and I guess I'm still not 100% sure what my options are.

Specifically, I am wondering if I have to purchase the WD My DVR Expander from TiVo or whether I have the option to purchase from other retailers. The price is almost half what TiVo is charging. The link below is for the offering from one retailer and in the description it says its "verified compatible with TiVo HD Digital Video Recorders". Do you think it will work with the TiVo Premiere?

Thanks

http://www.buydig.com/shop/product.a...u=WDG1S10000VN

It depends on which tivo box you have, from what I understand, if you have a tivo HD then you do have to buy the WD expander because of the eSATA connection. I have heard the new Premiere does not require the WD because it has usb connectivity.

And on that same topic, I would love to hear what users think of their new premiere. I have an older series 2 upstairs that works flawlessly but a cable co. DVR downstairs that is about to be shown the door, I am [i]this[i] close to getting one and would love any and all critiques.

One question I specifically want to ask is HD capacity, on the older analog boxes there is an "up to 80 hrs." record time but only 37 with best quailty. Is a 45 hr. box 45 hrs.?

The Premiere has E-sata also; the usb ports on it are only for the wireless G adapter and phone adapter. It does not matter where he buys the WD tivo extender as long as its the tivo dvr-extender model; just don't buy any e-Sata external drive, tivo won't guarantee it works even WD ones.

that's fine also amazon carries it. you don't have to buy from tivo as long as its the tivo dvr extender model.

HD (and digital OTA/cable) for the Premiere is "around 45 hours", and is pretty firm because it's recording bitstream and not compressing like your series 2. On the XL model (1TB) it's 150 hours. If you record the analog channels on cable and select the different levels of compression, you'll squeeze much more recording time.

I got the non-XL model, and once I got over the unfinished nature of current software, it's a nice machine that will only get better. It's too bad that the current interface is so half-baked - only two or three commonly used menues are in HD, and none of the banner or display overlays are HD. But apparently in the next couple weeks Tivo will roll out a more finished interface. There's no caching of the menus, so as you scroll up or down, the items displayed are constantly being re-drawn and there's some lag in navigating. Not terrible, but still feels like "testing version" of the UI and not the next best thing.

Another thing noticeable out-of-the-box is setup time can take a couple hours to get everything up and running, and re-booting the machine can take 5 to 10 minutes.

But on the good side, the thing operates wonderfully as a dual-channel DVR. The integration of Netflix, YouTube videos in searches, or to complement searches, is really cool. Oh, and Blockbuster and Amazon rentals are always a couple clicks away if you do the pay-per-view. And if the current odd mix of SD and HD menus (and the slightly laggy and pokiness) of the UI bugs you, there's an option to turn on the "classic view" which is Tivo's Series 3 all-SD menus, and those fly.

All in all, it has a lot of potential. If you need that replacement DVR now, the Premiere is a good choice as long as you understand it was pushed out the door not-quite-finished, yet still very serviceable.

Any specific question, feel free to ask!

Thanks for the info DaverJ, as soon as I think of a specific question, you'll hear it first. As you can see by my previous posts I still have much to learn. Anything has got to be better than what I have now.

I've set up seven of my eight Premieres since Thursday. All setups took under one hour and that time also included the Service updates.

The Premiere is easily the best and fastest TiVo I've owned since I first got TiVo in 2001.
I has definitely been worth the upgrade.

Every feature I've used on the seven Premieres has been faster than it was on my nine S3/TiVoHD boxes.

I'm not a fan of the discovery bar. I already know what I want to watch, and don't need any suggestions from TiVo, but I don't really feel like going back to the classic interface.

I do like that it now does 1080p with Amazon. Saw The Blind Side yesterday, and it looked pretty good.

I really haven't even noticed the discovery bar. All the info I'm looking at is in the lower part of the screen.

I'll have to make an effort to try and look at it. But for me, it's unobtrusive since I don't even notice it.

This is my first DVR and so I am very new to it and still learning how to do things efficiently. But I have to say that I find that searching for shows is easier for me from the web rather than using the TiVo. Yesterday I was on the TiVo looking at Sienfeld episoldes of which there are many. I wanted to get a snapshot of what the episode was about before choosing to record.

I seemed to have to go through several screens to get a description and then to the point I could record. And the screen changes seemed relatively slow. Then when I went back a screen to the episode list; it took me to the beginning of the list. So I had to scroll down the episode list several screens to get to the place I left off (it didn't return me to my previous location in the list). That took forever.

I went online and found a very nice episode list to include a description and I could simply record with one click. I'm sure I will learn shortcuts over time but right now I find the web to be the best way to search for shows that I may wish to record.

You can also use a USB keyboard to speed up typing with the Series 4.
For me I don't do much searching for shows so the regular remote works for me.

aaronwt, are your tivo's the 45 hr. model? And if so, do you feel there is enough space on the HD? I am on the fence about getting the XL model instead of adding an external HD. I am not sure I would use the slider remote on the XL because I don't normally text but the backlit feature would be nice.

The slider isn't out yet, and doesn't come with the XL.

I would get the XL over trying to add an external if you need more space. The externals have been known to have issues after a couple years, and it's also an extra failure spot. I've had one and it seemed to slow down my Tivo after a couple years. Plus the price difference is about the same as just getting an XL to start with. Better to have all in one, IMO.