Don't knock the alternatives.....

[socrates]

I do find it a little sad that some postings still feel it necessary to condemn out of hand all Tivo alternatives. Its just not necessary - the Tivo was a great piece of kit and the alt epg team have done a fantastic job keeping it going but the fact is things have moved on. I'm happy to accept that Tivo still does some things better than say the Humax HDR T2 I now use but the converse is also true. After I switched I did miss the Tivo, hardly surprising after 11 years or so, but now its clear that many of the things I initially thought were worse were actually just different.

Suggesting that features such as multiple tuners are just a crude substitute for the Tivo's superior search and wishlist functions are frankly nonsense. I frequently find that the programmes I most want to watch are on at the same time, again hardly surprising given that broadcasters are competing for the same audience. There may be repeats within a day or two which the Tivo would pick up but often there is not. Twin tuners mean this is not an issue.

It reminds me of the early computing days. My first home computer was the Commodore Amiga which like the Tivo was so far ahead of the rest ( advanced graphical interface, reliable multitasking in only 500k memory etc ). But poor marketing and lack of development meant it was left behind though even today there are wistful enthusiasts dreaming of a comeback.

I think fondly of the Tivo but I'm happy with my Humax.

[mrtickle]

Suggesting that features such as multiple tuners are just a crude substitute for the Tivo's superior search and wishlist functions are frankly nonsense.

Non sequitur. One is not a substitute for the other, unless you're only talking about a small subset of PVR use: recording the programmes you already know about in advance. TiVo should have taught you that a PVR is supposed to be far more than a digital replacement for a VCR. Forget suggestions for a minute: TiVo simply is just better at finding programmes to record - how is anything going to replace my automatic Actor and Director wishlists? Particularly movie Director wishlists - good luck doing those by hand.

My only personal grumble now as the years roll on is a new one - the 4:3 menus and the SD resolution. But it'll do for now - and when the time comes I will still use a TiVo to create a ToDo list, to enter into whatever I'm using to make HD recordings. Alternatives just miss too many of the programmes my TiVo finds, in parallel tests.

The tuners thing is a separate issue. If you're talking about TiVo only using its unique episode Ids and 28-day rule filtering, to let you record get an alternative showing of a programme which clashes (eg on a +1 channel using two SPs) - and your new PVR now lets you avoid the clash - I'd say you're coming at the issue from the wrong direction. I still need any replacement to have unique episode IDs and the ability to not re-record the same thing twice so that I'm not swamped with duplicate recordings of things it's supposed to be matching. It may be the case that the new PVR isn't matching legitimate episodes properly, not recording them (and you don't know they are missing). Try setting up the equivalent of a Wishlist for "How It's Made". A TiVo will find and record from Discovery, Discovery +1, Discovery Quest, Discovery Quest+1, Discovery Science, Discovery Science+1, DMAX, DMAX+1 and get not a single duplicate, from well over 200 showings in the next week. Another PVR would either miss a load or record too many and fill the disc. Just doesn't cut it.

wistful enthusiasts dreaming of a comeback.

LOL. Only Pete77 had such fantasies. It's a 13-year old piece of hardware, no longer in production.

I think fondly of the Tivo but I'm happy with my Humax.

All the best.

[ByTheCringe]

- the 4:3 menus

Bit puzzled by that. I have 16:9 menus, and had them on the last TV too. Is this a function of the telly then - I must admit I can't find a menu within TiVo. Actually, they're not 16:9, they're "WIDE", now I come to look, but the odd lozenge in place of a circle is no problem. Ah, just thought though, I don't have any pictures through my TiVo, and I guess that might make you select something different to me to get the aspect ratio right...

[mikerr]

the Tivo was so far ahead of the rest [...] even today there are wistful enthusiasts dreaming of a comeback.

LOL. Only Pete77 had such fantasies. It's a 13-year old piece of hardware, no longer in production.

-Thomson made less than 100k tivos total.

Now with 1.3 million VirginMedia TiVos in use and still increasing, they've already made a pretty successful comeback in the UK

[DX30]

- the 4:3 menus

Bit puzzled by that. I have 16:9 menus, and had them on the last TV too. Is this a function of the telly then - I must admit I can't find a menu within TiVo. Actually, they're not 16:9, they're "WIDE", now I come to look, but the odd lozenge in place of a circle is no problem. Ah, just thought though, I don't have any pictures through my TiVo, and I guess that might make you select something different to me to get the aspect ratio right...

It is down to the TV settings. When in Now Playing etc the TiVo outputs a 4:3 picture over the scart.

Personally I have my TV set so 4:3 programmes display with black bars down the sides and keep the original aspect ratio, so the TiVo menus do the same. If you hate black bars and prefer using one of the TV stretch modes to view 4:3 programmes the TV will stretch the TiVo menu's in the same way.

[ByTheCringe]

Thanks, DX30. I remember now, when I bought a widescreen telly, having to stretch things a bit and overscan to fill the screen when showing TiVo pictures. And back then, I put everything through TiVo. Must be a bit of a problem mixing stuff from other boxes these days.

[mrtickle]

"having" to fill the screen?! Sacrilege I tell thee. Original aspect ratio for everything Yes, if you're seeing TiVo's menus fill anything other than 4:3, you're distorting them .
I take your point that the TiVo UI survives the stretching treatment without looking too bad, although it's not just the odd circle (lozenges for you, as you say!) but also the thumbs, SP circles, and poor TiVo himself in the top corner must look like a big fattie.

On a related note as I mentioned in another thread I've been experimenting with changing the standard TiVo font to make it narrower so that longer programme titles don't get truncated so much. (Other attempts in the past involved switching to an alternative font which happened to be narrower, but they lost the star movie rating characters and the accented characters.) The real font must look quite fat stretched out. I've just done a test and switched from the normal font to my test 80% width font, and then stretched the normal 4:3 [12:9] TV image to fill 16:9 - looks pretty good.
I chose 80% as that was still readable on a standard TV but obviously 75% width text would end up at the same size when it was stretched out horizontally to 16:9, but with more space for everything. Hmm. Worth considering.

[ByTheCringe]

... poor TiVo himself in the top corner must look like a big fattie..

Ah, but he becomes a widescreen TiVo! LOL

[socrates]

Suggesting that features such as multiple tuners are just a crude substitute for the Tivo's superior search and wishlist functions are frankly nonsense.

Non sequitur.

That was rather my point!

Actually the custom firmware for the Humax does provide similar search and wishlist functions to the Tivo though of course it really should have been built in from the start. And it still depends on the quality of the epg data which is variable on both platforms.

When I first heard Tivo was coming back to the UK I looked forward to the opportunity to get the Tivo software on a modern hardware platform - but then it became clear it was a cable only option so no chance in my area. At first it sounded like a repeat of the ill fated Sky deal but I'm glad the numbers are starting to stack up. Even if I'm never able to return to Tivo it may push the others to raise their game.

[mrtickle]

Yes, I believe the re-design of the SkyHD EPG in 2009 was a direct result of the announcement of TiVo's deal with Virgin. Unfortunately the strategy seems to be make up for a poor PVR with catch-up services, rather than to address the reasons that the PVR didn't make a recording for you that you can watch. I say "unfortunately" because it soaks up bandwidth and the programmes are delivered to your home twice, and the public have lapped it all up.

[excoriated]

and the public have lapped it all up.

and even paid for a subscription for it ! A salesman's delight.

[socrates]

I say "unfortunately" because it soaks up bandwidth

That seems to be less of a consideration now - if anything the thinking seems to be "why bother with recording and broadcast media - just stream what you want when you want it". Might seem fanciful with UK broadband speeds but I was listening to a BBC report recently saying that in Singapore with average speeds of 100 MB hardly anyone uses broadcast media. Even with my 4-5 MB I can watch a film via Netflix while someone else is browsing or checking email. Interesting that Netflix put out all episodes of its "House f Cards" remake in one go - no need for scheduling.

So maybe the R part of PVR will become obsolete and we'll just want something to help us find what we want even when we don't know what that is.

[mrtickle]

Yep - but we are in the UK, and it is indeed fanciful
(I actually meant "soak up" with regard to the cost: with ISPs back-tracking on unlimited usage and imposing usage limits, imposing traffic shaping and all manner of restrictions, then to squander part of that precious monthly limit on a TV programme to make up for the fact that your crappy hard-disc recorder didn't find it and make a recording of it, is a bad work-around to the problem! That's even without the situation of a family with multiple people wanting to watch different programmes in different rooms at the same time - something that was easy in the past)

[socrates]

Yes, but the government promises us all unlimited superfast broadband any day now and they wouldn't lie would they?

But seriously, if that day does come then I do think recording at home might come to seem a little quaint. Certainly at present watching all TV via broadband is not remotely feasible, though you can see by the way the Gov't keeps flogging off bits of the spectrum that they wish for that end even if unprepared to support the means.

For the moment I think a balance of recording and catch up is sensible. I've been using BBC iPlayer via the Humax, Netflix via Apple TV and occasional iPlayer radio via iPhone for a few months now. I reckon the internet TV usage is probably 4 - 6 hours per week. I've just checked and my total usage is under a quarter of my download allowance.

[excoriated]

For the moment I think a balance of recording and catch-up is sensible.

The only time I've ever had to use catch up was when the Sky box switched itself off. I have no other need of it.

I agree with the other poster using catch-up is a complete fail of the PVR. Especially if it has 2 tuners and STILL failed to record something I wanted to watch.