TiVo Service ending on 31 October 2017

Forums › TiVo › TiVo Service ending on 31 October 2017

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | ... | 68

8041 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#1728702 2-Mar-2017 09:20

UI is a field that no one wants to spend money on these days.

The marketing drive for features does tend to clutter the UI up, with necessary extra levels to include all the fancy features.

Tivo did well for just plain not offering you much. I found a lot of the TIVO interface a bit crap, but it worked fundamentally because it was simple for the most part.

Ironically other manufacturers would do better if they offered simple UI modes to their gear.

I'm deciding now if I'll even bother replacing the TIVO. With unlimited broadband, we watch very little live TV, and the shows that we do watch are very likely to be on the on demand catch up options such as freeview +

This feels like it's going to go the way of the Tape, CD, compact cameras etc which have just served their purpose but are no longer required.

Has anyone ever tried the manual recording setup on a TIVO. My first reaction is f that! I can't shake vibes of setting a VCR to record back in the '90s. I have no desire to return to that level of using a TIVO. Presumably the recordings won't get a useful name either. Yuck.

old3eyes

9119 posts

Uber Geek

Subscriber

#1728703 2-Mar-2017 09:21

Got my email today. Sad but not surprized. Wonder if the TiVo will still run as a tuner (My TV has no digital tuner) and manual recorder or will it stop completely when the EPG runs out?? I have an old Dish TV DVR at home . Guess I'll have to get that out and see if it still goes. Has a terrible Freeview UI though..

Regards,

Old3eyes

Jaxson

8041 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#1728709 2-Mar-2017 09:26

old3eyes:

Wonder if the TiVo will still run as a tuner (My TV has no digital tuner) and manual recorder or will it stop completely when the EPG runs out??

Yes tuner wise it will still work as it does now.

You'll just get no smart features anymore, such as booking a season pass etc, as the EPG won't have any information and the TIVO unit won't know when any programs are on/supposed to start etc.

It's like it's been disconnected from the world, abandoned, alone, scared, frightened, confused...

ZKDWF

5 posts

Wannabe Geek

#1728713 2-Mar-2017 09:29

In regards to that query about can the TIVO still work after 31 October?

I remember a few years back, when I lost the EPG or TIVO connection for about a day, that I could record whatever was on the current tuner, but it only recorded for a set time limit (was it 2 hrs? ... not good for sports events)

So, basically, the TIVO will become a 'dumb' Freeview recorder with no awareness of what it is recording. It will blissfully record what is on the tuner until you say stop, or the time limit is reached.

DMCM

78 posts

Master Geek

#1728715 2-Mar-2017 09:29

Jaxson:

old3eyes:

Wonder if the TiVo will still run as a tuner (My TV has no digital tuner) and manual recorder or will it stop completely when the EPG runs out??

Yes tuner wise it will still work as it does now.

You'll just get no smart features anymore, such as booking a season pass etc, as the EPG won't have any information and the TIVO unit won't know when any programs are on/supposed to start etc.

It's like it's been disconnected from the world, abandoned, alone, scared, frightened, confused...

And I presume with no current EPG, you won't even know what you are watching or recording, or at least the Tivo won't be able to provide that. Waaaaaaaaa.

Groucho

524 posts

Ultimate Geek

#1728716 2-Mar-2017 09:34

I can't add anything here that hasn't already been said. Suffice to say I'm not surprised but still gutted and earlier contemplated a second bereavement day this week. The UI despite being around since 2009 in my opinion is still the best when compared to other PVR's I've seen including MySky. The unit itself again given its age still is a pretty responsive device.

+1 from me for a community EPG hack. Perhaps it could be hosted on Amazon AWS and still not have the outage issues we've had recently haha.

tdgeek

29740 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#1728717 2-Mar-2017 09:35

TiVo End of Service

The TiVo Service is what delivers electronic programming guide data to your TiVo device each day, so without it, there will be no electronic programming guide after 7 days, and the following features will stop working:

Season Pass recording functionality;
WishList recording functionality;
TiVo Suggestions recording functionality;
TiVo Genie remote scheduling functionality.

If you are using your TiVo device with an old analogue TV to convert and receive digital channels, this will still work, and you will still be able to record items manually if you know the start and approximate end time for each program, but it will be a lot more difficult to do without the Electronic Programming Guide.

Finally, you won’t be able to run a Guided Setup or Clear & Delete on your device, as it will not be able to get past the network connection step. We do not recommend running your TiVo beyond the life of the TiVo Service, as only minimal features will be available for use.

The last point looks like it will brick it.

Equinox IT

Cloud spending continues to surge globally, but most organisations haven’t made the changes necessary to maximise the value and cost-efficiency benefits of their cloud investments. Download the whitepaper From Overspend to Advantage now.

CM123

11 posts

Geek

#1728720 2-Mar-2017 09:40

I agree. I think the UI on Tivo is great and I can't believe how bad other DVRs UI is. (Come on Apple!)

I hold Hybrid Services responsible for the failure of Tivo in NZ and Australia. They didn't invest nearly enough in promoting it when it first came out, hence the user base was low. It wasn't clear from the advertising that Tivo was Freeview capable. Caspa & Quickflix was so half hearted and clunky on the old, outdated Tivo boxes that were offered for sale here. Just look at the US Tivo site to see how far ahead they are compared to us. It's a real shame.

DMCM

78 posts

Master Geek

#1728721 2-Mar-2017 09:41

Groucho:

I can't add anything here that hasn't already been said. Suffice to say I'm not surprised but still gutted and earlier contemplated a second bereavement day this week. The UI despite being around since 2009 in my opinion is still the best when compared to other PVR's I've seen including MySky. The unit itself again given its age still is a pretty responsive device.

+1 from me for a community EPG hack. Perhaps it could be hosted on Amazon AWS and still not have the outage issues we've had recently haha.

But is it even worth it? The components will probably start to fail on (my) 6 year old device in the reasonably near future - I mean, how long is the HDD going to hold on for?

I already replaced my remote twice - in the end I settled on a Harmony.

CutCutCut

1039 posts

Uber Geek

#1728723 2-Mar-2017 09:43

I knew this day would come, but so sad.

benz1

51 posts

Master Geek

#1728728 2-Mar-2017 09:50

Is MySky a practical alternative, albeit on subscription? Does it comes anywhere close to Tivo?

surfisup1000

5288 posts

Uber Geek

#1728730 2-Mar-2017 09:51

CM123:

I agree. I think the UI on Tivo is great and I can't believe how bad other DVRs UI is. (Come on Apple!)

Maybe the heart of todays issues is the freeview systems OTA MHEG epg feed?In my experience the freeview epg feed data is buggy (unless it is the device i am using), limited/poor quality show metadata, and limited to only a week in advance.

Perhaps, they need to add a proper feed which contains all known future epg data with decent metadata to allow for things such as series linking and more detailed show data, in a format that is transmitted every couple of hours ... the compressed data would only be a few kb surely. Nothing!!!

So, many of todays issues are a result of poor planning?

Not sure how they transmit freeview but given it is a digital transmission surely it would be easy to slip in a few extra kb of epg data!!! What do i know though.Maybe epg's would still be poor.

Regarding the UI, maybe an android based UI would be good!!

surfisup1000

5288 posts

Uber Geek

#1728732 2-Mar-2017 09:53

benz1:

Is MySky a practical alternative, albeit on subscription? Does it comes anywhere close to Tivo?

Mysky was as good --- at least before they made the fonts hard to read. At the time i dumped mysky, the changes they made caused the UI to slow down and it was harder to read onscreen text.