The Official AVS TiVo "Series4" Premiere topic - Page 73

The ads I've seen in Win8 are on the last page of the Bing 'Metro' apps-and I think they've dropped them from some apps. Try lauching the Bing Finance app and swiping/scrolling to the last page.

Well saying there are adds in Win 8 is a little miss leading. The operating system is not delivering adds to your screen, the apps are and the apps with adds are nothing more than web pages in a specially formated full screen presentation. So unless you find adds on web pages unusually nothing new.

We live in a capitalist society and capitalism is all about selling something and to sell pretty much anything you have to market it which means advertisements anywhere and everywhere they can. I don't like adds any more than anyone else and I am sure people buying TiVos certainly have avoiding adds on there list of why they bought a TiVo, but the reality is the only thing you can do if you don't like it when a company uses a product to market other products is to not buy their product. Frankly I will take capitalism and advertising over communism and the Government deciding what is produced for me to buy any day.

I've seen apps running commercials for TV shows, and other apps that are just ads. I didn't spend a lot of time with them.

But I agree with you. I'm all for capitalism and competition. All I need to know now is where can I get a comparable machine to a TiVo or an operating system comparable to MS? If you think we have a free market system, you're sadly mistaken.

I love Windows 8 (after I installed the free ClassicShell) and have yet to see an ad in 3 months. We must be using very different tools in that environment if you're seeing commercials. I have to admit that if I found the OS starting to pop up ads on its own, I'd be just as pissed as you are. That is one reason I hate Gmail... it targets you with ads based on your browsing.

I hated the idea of adds in Tivo when they first arrived, but they are the most unobtrusive commercials you'll ever see. That is the way ads should be! I have to say that if that is what it takes to keep Tivo afloat - I'm all for them. .

I honestly haven't seen much of this but then I don't use allot of the native Win 8 apps, and use Firefox for my default browser.
I agree from a consumer's point of view capitalism only works for us if there is adequate competition and to have and maintain competition in viable markets will ultimately require gov rules and enforcement. Your 2 examples are actually fairly interesting.

There certainly is a viable market (demand) for computer operating systems, we do have several choices, Apple's OS, Chrome, various flavors of Linux, and various flavors of Windows, but I agree Microsoft was allowed to do things that were way to anti-competitive the worst in my mind was making computer manufactures pay for windows license regardless if they put windows on the PC or not, but honestly after the DOS days the only alternative that might have competed with windows was IBM's OS 2. However that is all changing it is fairly clear that within a few years mobile and computer operating system will converge (win 8 is the beginning of that for Microsoft). Right now I would say it is clear there will be at least 3 players (Microsoft, Apple, & Google) plus there could be several others like Blackberry, Ubuntu, and Mozilla. As phones and tablets become more powerful there is going to be very little reason for many people to have a desktop computer, when you want to work at a desk with a large monitor, keyboard, and mouse we will be "docking" our phones and/or tablets and Microsoft will not own the operating system market anymore.

Now DVRs are somewhat different, I am not sure there really is a viable market for a Stand Alone DVR, part of this is attributed to the fact that the FCC has not forced the issue and forced all pay TV providers to come up with a good universal solution for decryption. At this time third party DVR providers are locked out of Satellite and AT&T U-verse systems and forced to use cable card and tuning adapters with cable, which has resulted in Stand Alone DVRs becoming a niche market that is so small we are lucky there is even one player left.

Actually capitalism is the reason there is no DVR market. Capitalism is supply and demand and as there is no demand from the consumer for DVRs then there will be nobody supplying them. Sony tried in 2005 with the DHG but sold only a small amount and ended up fire selling the rest just to get rid of them.
I went with my friend yesterday to return something to Walmart and the guy behind us was returning a Tivo. I asked what was wrong with it and he said he thought that he could hook it up to his cable feed and get free tv. He didn't realize that he had to get a cablecard, then subscribe to the channels, and then pay a monthly or one time fee to Tivo. Since people like him are the major majority in this country, then there will be no DVR market.

I saw that they don't mention those facts on walmart.com. The question has been asked on Walmart's TiVo page and answered, but nobody reads that. I wonder where the returns will end up?

I was wondering the same thing. Since the guy was behind us I don't know what he told the girl behind the counter as to why he was returning it. If this happens a lot then I would not be surprised that the Tivo will be no longer sold at Walmart especially in the poorer areas like ours. He also did mention that he had no internet access which he said it will cost more money. I don't think DVRs will become mainstream because there is to many services required to use it. People think these are like VCRs when they buy them but find out quickly that you can not plug them in and start using them. I wish I had a dollar for every person who bought something and never read the box or the manual, I would be a trillionare.

If you need an investment partner, I'm in.

I try to keep tabs on the price of the Magnavox SD DVDR series. If you enter "tivo" in the walmart.com search field it brings up the three TiVo units and the three Magnavox units. The Mag was first on the page until last week. It's a strange world.

Not all DVRs use the TiVo model; some of them do work like VCRs, so it isn't strictly true that DVRs require too many services to use them. They won't become mainstream because their many components are essentially as expensive to produce as computers, and people don't want to buy them at the price point companies would have to charge to turn a profit on the units themselves. TiVo bypasses that problem by making its money through subscription fees and advertising, but selling VCR-style DVRs would require the manufacturer to make its money during the initial sale of the hardware.

Well kind of, there is actually a strong market for DVRs, about 40% of all households have a DVR that is over 40 million DVRs so pretty big and strong market. What there isn't a market for is a cable only DVR that requires you to also rent a cable card and use a tuning adapter and can take days to get setup. The bottom line is people want a DVR that is easy to setup like a cable or satellite DVR, plug the cable in and it works with a short setup, not one that requires you to jump through hoops like you have to with a stand alone (third party) DVRs. Price can also play into this but in my area TWC DVRs are not cheaper than TiVo but of course TWC does everything possible to make it difficult to use a Tivo..

The cable company DVRs are also required to use cable cards(at least the ones put into service after a certain date a few years ago). But those cable cards are also pre-installed.

And they don't need the stupid, buggy tuning adapters for those unfortunate enough to have TWC etc.

They also support bi-directional communication for those who want capability of ordering VOD services.

I think you stumbled on the main problem is that every thing made now is like a computer. My A/V receiver, OPPO, TV all have software that needs constant updating in order to work. In the case of my OPPO BDP 83 is looks like there is a hardware limitation with the decoder chip that might circumvent any firmware patches in the future to fix compatibility issues. So now now instead of using a product for years until a peice of hardware fails, like VCRs and DVD players, devices are now being render obsolete because they are either left to wither on the vine or the hardware put in them is no longer compatible with newer software. So on top of the cost to manufacture a device, the companies also have to continue spending money to update software in the devices. Just look at the problems with some of the recorders that are being talked about in the HDTV recorder threads. There is just to much involved now to make a simple device function properly.

Unfortunately this is almost impossible anymore as it will be expensive to produce a device that will work with a cable company feed. Pretty soon all cable companies will encrypt their entire lineups so any device will need some decryption hardware built in. Also the devices will have to support tru2way in order to get some type of working guide and also have the ability to decode an MPEG 4 stream as cable companies are already starting to move in this direction. The only device that has all these capabilities is the Tivos so I do not see how it would be possible for somebody to produce a lower cost device that would work. The consumer will also have to be willing to pay up front for the device. Renting a DVR is cost affective to most consumers as it is a small monthly fee in their cable bill and most do not mind paying it. People are looking for convenience with out hassles.

The reason for the tuning adapters is the Tivo has no hardware inside of it to communicate back to the headend so the tuning adapter does this. Once the cable companies start using IP for the return path the Tivo will be able to do this through its internet port and no longer need the adater. The one thing that gets lost on everybody is that cable and satellite companies a privately owned closed looped systems and are not free to use. Any hardware made by any CE manufacturer will have to be made to fit the specifications of the cable or satellite systems. This is where the costs come in. The CableCard was devised by the cable industry for this purpose. Also cable does not share the same modulation scheme as the OTA providers as they did with NTCS so now the tuners have to be designed to meet both modulation schemes. Going forward it looks like the Tivo will be the only device capable to meet the standards so don't look for any cheaper alternatives.

You may have stumbled upon the paradoxical nature of consumer electronics these days, in that people seemed to prefer the reliability of devices that "just worked" and required little maintenance, yet they now also expect such devices to have so many features and abilities that the simplicity of yesterday's electronics is no longer enticing. Yes, a VCR was a simple and reliable device, but people expect their DVRs to have so many extra functions compared to a VCR that any company making a DVR with a similarly limited feature set would be an instant subject of ridicule. Of course, there is no law that says devices running complicated software must also be rife with bugs; alternative DVR options equipped with more competently written firmware could be far more reliable than they are, but it seems only novice programmers and beta testers are tasked with bringing these products to market.

As for updates, I would submit that they are not always as necessary as you suggest. Most products will continue to funciton without the latest firmware, and the fact that software constantly asks to retrieve updates does not mean that it constantly needs updating. Even before the days of Internet-connected devices that could retrieve software updates, updated electronic devices were constantly being introduced to keep the wheel of consumerism turning (You don't have a Hi-Fi VCR? How passé!); the introduction of Internet-based software updates has just accelerated the arrival of devices' planned obsolescence dates. Just because something is obsolete does not inherently detract from its usefulness, and as long as a device in its current state performs all the functions its user desires, updating it is unnecessary, especially if said update provides no added desirable functionality.

I would add to this that it is the 20 to 30 year olds that expect all these features but want to pay little or nothing for them. This group thinks that there must be an app to control everything and probably spending most of their waking hours playing with their phones. This is the age group that the industry is marketing to. The 40 to ? year olds are the ones having the biggest problems with all the changes. Bear in mind there are tech savvy older people but they are a small minority of the population. Try explaining how to change the input on the tv as they never heard of this. These are the group of people who never figured out how to set the clock on their vcrs yet. Trying to explain to these people that they need an internet connection to use certain features on their tv is also alien to them. They blame this on the cable company as they think it is them trying to squeeze more money out of them. As I said to Joe Kustra seilling Tivos at Walmart maybe a bad idea because most of the customers have no clue as to what is required for them to work. They are conditioned to think you take them home and hook them up like the old vcr (old school plug and play= hook cable feed to, plug into outlet, and turn on and use).

As fo the updates I think it is Blu ray that is the most problematic as the security keeps changing which in order to get the disc to play the player will need a firmware update. I been at the HD game since 2004 and I am starting to accumulate an increasing number of devices that no longer can play newer titles. There is some titles that my OPPO BDP 83 have trouble with the sound which OPPO says requires mediatek to do something but they decided not to becasue the chip is out of production. I also picked the wrong side in the format war debacle so I have that orphaned hardware/software laying around. There is the earlier Tivos that will not work with MPEG 4 compression, which the cable industry is changing to so these devices are going to be rendered obsolete because of a hardware limitation. I think that all this tech was rolled out to early instead of waiting until some of the standards were finalized.
I also agree with you as I would like to know who is writing the software for these things and if these people are college educated. If so then it doesn't speak to highly of the colleges that handed them the degrees and for what price. The ePVision PHD-VRX fits into this category.

If I'm not mistaken, the UK was in the process of switching to MPEG-2 for their DTV system, but they ended up halting the transition and revising the standards to make their DTV transition employ MPEG-4 instead. I rather wish the US had done the same thing, and OTA here will now be stuck with MPEG-2 for a long time, most likely. I wasn't aware that certain TiVo models couldn't decode MPEG-4. That would be a rather serious limitation for pay TV users, although even among devices that support the base profiles, MPEG-4 compatibility isn't universal. I don't know of any hardware players that can handle 10-bit AVC, for example.

Got a TiVo Premiere. Set up was about 1.5 hours for the first 24 hours worth of grid.

I have a lot to learn about it.

I am OTA only and both tuners so far seem fine, both clear and sharp on all the stations so far; but have not explored that too much.

Also went through the HuLu Plus demo downloads. Very blury picture there; not at all razor sharp and smooth like the OTA. If that is all they can do for that, that won't work.

The automatic set up selected 1080i for my plasma. So everything sent to the plasma is changed to 1080i. Is there a way to set that too AutoMatic Native mode. Send the picture to the Plasma the way it comes in?

Thanks.

Settings->Video then check all the boxes. This (as the info/help button says) will pass everything as received.

Been awhile since I did it but yes you can chose native out. Think it's under video in setup menu. Select each resolution you want it to output.

That is true but funny. Funny because they are marketing to the demographic with the least amount of disposable income. Some day they will come up with an orgasm-app for their phones and tablets, at which point the streets will empty and the human race will slowly fade away.

That's good. Down with Siri - up with Soma.

Just make a clean break from your past.

I'm OTA and run my TiVo native to my plasma because I think the plasma does a better job scaling 720 to 1080. The down side to native is that there is an HDMI handshake every time you change the channel to tell the TV what resolution is incoming. That makes channel surfing pretty slow. You can press the channel advance several times in rapid succession and skip over the intermediates to get where you want to be. I find it better to get used to bringing up the guide and surfing by reading the listings, then selecting the channel to go to with one click.

YMMV

I started with Native but switched to 1080i fixed for faster channel changes, a while later I didn't like what I saw with 480i and mostly 720p upconverted to 1080i by my Tivo so I switched back to native. I'm back to 1080i fixed again because a) I mostly watch 1080i channels and b) I really detest the long delay when changing channels and going into the menus. Also with my older Tivo HD in native if I'm watching a SD channel my guide will also be in SD and somewhat hard to read.

I will look for the "info/help" tommorow, I have missed it first time through and never found "native"

There was a separate line that said something like 1080p at 24frames pass through? I guess that is for NetFlix and Amazon?

Native is a older Tivo option, with the Premier to get native you check all the resolutions listed and yes 1080p/24 would only be for streaming.

Like jjeff said, there is no native. I never hit the info button until today. Getting to page two of the help was fun also.

I set it to 1080i like everything else except my BD and the Mag. Slow HDMI switching on my TV.