Tivo fucking sucks

The BBQ Pit
41

Have they changed TiVo lately? (alas, I don’t have it, but a former boyfriend does). Because as I recall, you absolutely could record by time and/or channel. And you could choose to record just one episode of say “Law and Order” OR you could get the Season Pass.

Out of the few TV recording software programs I’ve seen, I prefer the TiVo menu and format.

And for what it’s worth, even with glitches, it beats the ever loving HELL out of the alternative. It’s been a year and a half since I lived with my boyfriend, and I still miss it. (and him too :D).

42

DirecTiVo is indeed different from regular TiVo, and worse in many ways (e.g. no LAN connectivity, which means no Home Media Option). But it does have one big advantage: you can record two shows at once.

If the recording options you need aren’t there, consider selling the DTiVo and buying a standalone unit. It can control your satellite box through infrared, or over a serial connection if your box supports it. If you have MP3s or photos on your PC, you’ll be able to view them over the network, and you can copy shows to your computer with TivoToGo. You can lower the video quality to save space, although it won’t look as good as what you’re recording now, even on Best Quality.

43

aHA!

Thanks for enligtening us. Or at least me. I did not know this. As I just got a job in my normal field (yay no more gym rat manager crappy pay and crappier treatment for me), I had planned on treating myself to a TiVo unit. Now I’ll know not to accept the DirectTV one.

44

I would happily sacrifice the home media option, which is meaningless to me, for the ability to record two shows at once.

But I have cable, drat it.

45

You could just get a second box. :wink:

Comcast’s DVRs can record two shows at once too, but I don’t think they stand up to TiVo in other aspects.

46

Oh, I’m tempted. Especially right now with the deal for a free box with a lifetime sub. Very tempted indeed.

TiVo owns my soul.

47

OK. I played around with my Tivo last night. Here are my findings.

The suggestion of viewing upcoming episodes and then picking one to record to get a channel specific recording does not work. The season pass still records on all channels and not a specific one. This is true even if I do a search “by channel” to find the show, or if I search by show, or whatever. So, there simply isn’t any way to record only new epsides of a show that airs a lot like Law and Order.

I tried many times to set up season passes for “The Simpsons” and “Family Guy”. For some reason, my Tivo refuses to record these programs at all. When I go to the To Do list none of them are listed as upcoming. It’s like it doesn’t know they are on. The only way to record these shows is to use the manual record by time option and hope the time of them does not change.

Setting up a season pass using any variety of options still means that it only keeps the old episodes. If I say to record five episodes and use the Keep Until “When Space Needed” option, it will record five and then stop. Newer episodes won’t get recorded. So shows like O’Reilly and The Daily Show just can’t be recorded because the space alloted gets filled up with out of date episodes within a day or two.

The To Do list has a calendar of upcoming and past shows that the manual says can be used to find why something was not recorded. This basically doesn’t work at all. My mystery shows like The Simpsons just don’t get listed on it at all, even when I have a season pass set up for them.

I read the manual cover to cover. It’s almost comically useless. There’s nothing in there that helps me at all.

From what I’m seeing the “Season Pass” option works so poorly it isn’t worth dealing with at all. I’m thinking that the record by time option should be used for repeating shows, and anything that gets moved will just have to be missed.

Picking a single show to record with the guide does seem to work, except for certain shows like the Simpsons. I might use this to record stand alone things like movies.

This is really disappointing because I don’t think I can cancel DirectTV because I just signed a two year contract. I’m not going to spend hundreds of dollars to get a new Tivo, because I have no reason to expect that it will work any better. If I get another brand that doesn’t suck like Replay TV I will have to pay for the unit and a monthly fee, which doesn’t make sense since Tivo is free with Direct TV.

Basically Tivo fucked me. I’ve got a piece of shit that doesn’t do what I want it to, or even what it’s own manual says it can. Tivo fucking sucks. Another company along the lines of AOL. Spend money on marketing, but not on the product. Since it’s in a growing industry that everyone wants they are getting a free ride even though they have a shitty worthless product.

48

The problem with this is that DirectTV gives you a Tivo for free. To buy one costs big bucks.

I’d recommend getting Dish Network. They have a proprietary DVR that they make. It’s got twice as much hard drive space as the free Tivo’s Direct TV is handing out and the software is much, much better. They give it to you for free when you sign up. It can record on two channels and is far easier to use than Tivo.

There are problems with Dish Network, though. The hardware breaks. My DVR crashed randomly one day. My reciever on my Dish broke also. They send you out a replacement, though, in a few days. Their customer service sucks. They screw you when you move. I liked the service and wanted to move it to my new house. They wanted to charge me a bunch of money to move and I still had to use my same existing equipment. That’s why I went with Direct TV. They are happy to give you new equipment free to join up. Sadly, many companies these days are stuck in aquisition business models. They care a lot more about getting new customers than keeping existing ones.

Obviously, I should have stuck with Dish Network.

49

Wow, your TiVo is not the same as my TiVo. I have never experienced any of the problems you list.

Perhaps you live in an area where the guide info isn’t particularly good? Or maybe you have a really old unit?

I, along with others on this thread, can attest that TiVo in general does not have the problems you list.

50

If that season pass appears in the Season Pass Manager, and you can see the upcoming episodes, those episodes should be listed either in the main To Do list or the recording history.

If they’re not in either list, that sounds like a bug, and someone on the tivocommunity forum has probably run into it unless your unit is just defective.

A standalone unit should work better, if you’re willing to subscribe. They run on different hardware and software from the DTV units, and IIRC, they also use a different source for the listings (DTiVo gets them from the satellite). Better listings might prevent all those duplicate episodes from being recorded.

Sorry to hear about your bad experience. Mine has been the opposite, but I just have a regular TiVo with analog cable. I upgraded it from 40 to 140 hours, installed a telnet server and some other utilities, and I’ve been using it to make DVDs since long before TivoToGo came out.

51

No, that’s not true.

Right now you can get one free with a pre-paid year of service (that’s about $155).

I realize $155 is more than nothing, which is what you paid for your apprently crap Directivo. I wouldn’t call it “big bucks” for service+hardware though.

52

The other possibiliy is that there are other things on the To Do List that conflict with The Simpsons and Family Guy. Check Season Pass Manager and see where everything is on the priority list. The DirecTivo does have two tuners, so that should greatly cut down on conflicts, but it’s worth checking on.

53

I’ve got DirecTV with TiVo. The only Season Pass I think I have is The Simpsons. I set it to record first-run shows only, and it has been several weeks since the To Do list has shown any Simpsons scheduled. I guess I just assumed they were in reruns.

It occurs to me that if you have a Season Pass that is acting like a loose cannon with your L& O shows, you could simply scroll through your channel program guide and select each episode to record. This will ensure that the episodes you picked will record, but there doesn’t seem to be any reason to expect this strategy to correct the sub-optimal aspects of the Season Pass, Under the circs, I would be inclined to cancel the Season Pass entirely.

Another thing that strikes me is that you do not mention having attempted to contact DirecTV’s customer support line by phone. A real-time troubleshooting session could yield valuable results.

Of course, if your major damage is simply that you don’t have a service whose architecture is tailored to what strikes you, personally, as intuitive, you could always start your own satellite TV/DVR company and have your engineers design it the way you want it to be.

54

Debaser , I’m sorry for the problems you’re having. I’m even more sorry that some of my fellow TiVo enthusiasts are taking it out on you for being a frustrated consumer. You’re in a sticky situation: Your product contains hardware from one source (unknown), software from another (TiVo) and relies on data from a third (DirecTV). Early on, TiVo made clear their relationship with DirecTV: it’s all on their head. Despite this, I hear it can be really hard to get help.

Even though you came here to rant, you’ve been a good sport about fielding our suggestions. So, I have one more. My favorite source for TiVO info and help is a website - http://www.tivocommunity.com. It’s not sponsored by TiVo, although a few employees contribute. It’s run by enthusiasts, and I’m sure if you browse around a bit, and post your issues, they’ll try an help. I’d keep the ranting here, though. :wink:

I did quite a bit of searching there yesterday, for you. I didn’t find anyone with your exact problem, but I did note some similarities. With regards to your TiVo not recording any Simpsons or similar, my first instinct is to look at the source for those shows. Is it the DirecTV feed? or a local station through antenna? Just my brain in troubleshooting mode, I don’t even know if that’s supposed to matter.

As far as overexuberant recording, I still think it’s bad guide data from DirecTV not recognizing repeats…and for that, manual recording is the best.
Personally, I never got into Satellite. I had DirecTV for awhile in an apartment-it was a community feed. Despite multiple dishes, the feed was so finicky in bad weather, I swore as soon as I could get cable I’d never go back. I haven’t, and picked up my TiVo later. One thing I regret - only DirecTV TiVo’s support High Def television. For now.

Anyway, I hope this doesn’t turn you entirely off of TiVo’s…away from the bad DirecTV releationship, they’re really pretty good.

Did I make it through an entire post without typing DirecTB yet? :smiley:
InkBlot
:eek:

55

If there’s a conflict, the lower priority show should still be listed in the recording history (recording futurey?) as “won’t record”. At least that’s how mine works.