My experience with Tivo
 

My installation went ok, even though the installer was not looking forward to it, it was his fourth installation and the others had been difficult, luckily mine went ok.

So to its use, well my initial reaction was disappointment, picture quality was awful in comparison to my V+ box. On SD its like looking at the screen via a lens covered in Vaseline (misty and soft).

HD is better but not as sharp as the V+ box. The recording function is very involved, how easy it was on the V+ box just to highlight a show and press the yellow button done in seconds (simples), now with the TiVo box I have to select the show then set up a series link, then configure the series link (yawn) take about 3 mins to do it.

The menu system is clunky, with seconds lapse when hitting the home button between the sound and picture on full screen being updated on the mini screen (awful), if you hit the guide or home button whilst viewing a Sky channel then the mini screen is disabled (bizarre).

The secondary menu levels are in a misty SD format (again Awful). I have 3 days left to change my mind and at the moment I am leaning towards getting my V+ back. The TiVo is not worth the activation fee and its a crime to charge extra £3 for the awful picture.

I would advise others to wait until its been around a few months and these problems have been sorted as its inconceivable, that Virgin will not improve this TiVo service. It has vast potential but at the moment it is not even close to the quality of the V+ Box.

Re: My experience with Tivo
 

Hi and welcome.

Sorry to hear you are not enjoying the TiVo experience. The SD menus are designed that way as TiVo have yet to update them to HD. In the USA they have been begging for that to be done for ages.

Personally my SD and HD picture quality is great and I have no issues. It is a strange one as sone people are happy with the pq and some are saying it's terrible compared to V+.

I personally would not turn to the v+ as I like the extra functionality of TiVo and dont mind the small issues are will eventually resolved.

Re: My experience with Tivo
 

Well yeah. Tivo is more intelligent than V+ so it needs a little more to set it up. You can actually set up a one-off recording or SL in two "clicks". You don't have to fully modify the SL straight away if you don't want to.

Re: My experience with Tivo
 

****** "You don't have to fully modify the SL straight away if you don't want to.[/QUOTE]"******

__________________________________________________ _________________________________________________

Well I accept that, but the default settings on a series link is to record 10 episodes, and to start and end recording on the exact times,

Now on V+ it was possible to set a global time lag before a show and after a show say 2 mins before and after,

To do this on TiVo you need to go into the series link and manually set these choices on every recording

I dont want 10 episodes to be recorded on anything so I have to change it on every recording

I want my recording to start 1 minute before the program starts and 1 minute after it ends, so again I have to set these parameters on every recording an it takes time

I believe this is a backward step, why make something difficult on new technology ? when it was so easy on the old technology ??

Re: My experience with Tivo
 

I wasn't there for the install but my wife said the installer was friendly and efficient.

You might want to take a look in the VM tivo community as someone with the pq issue said that VM came out and made adjustments and the pq is now OK. Personally I don't have any problem with the picture quality.

The missing Sky mini screen is to do with a contract issue which is now resolved. It will be added at some time in the future.
Luckily you have a week to preview the box and then can get your money back. I have only had the tivo for three days but so far I have no issues and the 1Tb drive and three tuners alone make it worth it for me. Everybody has different priorities though.

Re: My experience with Tivo
 

Well said:D

Re: My experience with Tivo
 

So far my experience is very very good.

Re: My experience with Tivo
 

Correct, and for most shows (not on 101-107) this is fine

True.

For now. Global Padding should be available by the Autumn if not sooner.

Huh? That's the max number it will keep assuming you don't delete any. What's the problem?

99% of my SL have no padding at all.

I agree and, like I said, this feature will be added soon.

Re: My experience with Tivo
 

Ok I accept that Virgin TiVo is in it's early stages and will improve, but I still find the PQ hard to accept, most of the problems I have I can just about put up with, believing that improvements will happen,

Its not as if we have these boxes as a free upgrade from V+, we are paying £149.95, and £3 pm, so we could reasonably expect the product to have been polished and to be at least as good as V+,

I have a few more days to decide if I will stay with it, and appreciate, the forums input,

Re: My experience with Tivo
 

When I first got Tivo, I set up around 25 series links. Even going in and changing recording options, it was far quicker that setting that many up on the V+. Yes, it was easy just pressing the yellow button, but on my V+ it took ages to process it after that.

I do think it would be good for tivo to remember the last used settings in recording options, as I use pretty much the same settings each time, and I suspect others do too?

Re: My experience with Tivo
 

Good point :tu:

Re: My experience with Tivo
 

I do think it would be good for tivo to remember the last used settings in recording options, as I use pretty much the same settings each time, and I suspect others do too?[/QUOTE]


Yes I agree, or the option to set up global permitters for the recording settings,

My TiVo box is now suggesting and recording stuff, I have to go into each one and set the options that suite me

One good thing though to get around this I have set my last 6 recording using my laptop and the on line guide, this was good as my family were watching the box, and I was setting up recordings remotely as they watched

So I have found a feature I like :-)

Re: My experience with Tivo
 

I had to go into my TV settings and fiddle with them a bit after changing from V+ to TiVo. I'm finding little difference with the TiVo SD/HD on my Samsung TV, and only minor 'softness' on the SD channels on my Panasonic with TiVo. I 'do' see a difference but not as much as I thought based on some posts, and certainly was MUCH better after I tweaked some TV settings.

also have you tried altering some of the TiVo settings (ie 1080/720 etc) to see if they help?

Re: My experience with Tivo
 

""Thanks for the advice, I to have a Samsung, I have altered my brightness,contrast, and sharpness, this as made a difference, so I can see an improvement


No not tried that, I had assumed the TiVo box had selected the best output, the engineer advised me not change this setting as it may mess up the box, so I didn't,

Im not sure if the TiVo box upscales the picture, i.e.:erm: if you have a 720p TV and set the box to 1080p would it upscale ?

Re: My experience with Tivo
 

I'm really not overly technical minded so not sure how it all works, but I went into the display area of the settings and let it run a test for my TV. It set them both to 1080 as that was what they were capable of, but showed they could also run at all the other 'levels' as well. I left them both at 1080 only. I know some with the picture problem have enabled both 1080 and 720 and that has seemed to make a difference with their SD showing in 720 (I don't understand it, just passing on the info that I've seen others say has helped).

Hope it helps you :)

Re: My experience with Tivo
 

If you have a 720p tv set it to 720p and panel too

Re: My experience with Tivo
 

There is clear evidence that the SD on the Tivo box leaves something to be desired there are complaints all over the shop dont try to be hoodwinked by certain people who do not think there is a problem when there certainly is.

Re: My experience with Tivo
 

What evidence?

Re: My experience with Tivo
 

I certainly agree with that, and must admit I have been surprised that my comments have been dismissed so easily :erm:

---------- Post added at 23:23 ---------- Previous post was at 23:16 ----------

I am looking at the evidence right now,

After fiddling with the setting on my TV for some time now the SD picture is still poor,

And not anywhere near the quality I had with my V+ box using the same TV

Although I accept that what I am saying will not be popular with the converted, it is a problem for me, I had thought that I may get some help on this forum :(

Re: My experience with Tivo
 

yep theres a few on here that will not hear a bad word said against Virgin and tivo is getting like that too

Re: My experience with Tivo
 

Some feel that because they cannot see a problem others should not see problems either.

Re: My experience with Tivo
 

And some feel that because they have a problem then everyone must have a problem.

Re: My experience with Tivo
 

yes I am getting that message loud and clear :rolleyes: Thanks

Re: My experience with Tivo
 

Don't worry Ken , I read forums for both sides of the story and like to read individuals opinions. I'm currently a VM customer but my main TV service is Sky however I would consider TIVO in the future so find all thoughts helpful to read.

Re: My experience with Tivo
 

Ken is just relaying his problems nothing else.

Re: My experience with Tivo
 

Actually Ken I dont think thats correct. It does seem like there are two camps of people one camp tries to say TiVo is the holy grail and the other side try to make it out to be the Devil. However the vast majority are magnanimous.

Clearly some people have problems with TiVo and some do not. You have and that should be investigated by VM. I dont think its a generic problem with TiVo though and probably a bad batch as there seems to be, although I havnt carried out a poll, more people happy with the sd pq than unhappy.

That dosnt mean that there isnt a problem with some installations.

Regards

John.

---------- Post added at 23:48 ---------- Previous post was at 23:47 ----------

I was quoting you, who does not own a TiVo, not Ken. Ken has a valid opinion on TiVo, you do not as you have no experience with one.

Regards

John.

Re: My experience with Tivo
 

Thanks for the comment, my experience with TiVo is as my posts,

It has tremendous potential, and I can well understand how folk would support it fully, but for me having a decent picture is a fundamental requirement of any TV system, particularly bearing ming the outlay required to get TiVo

Think I'll leave it at that, its been interesting, but at the end of all this I still have my reservations about TiVo in its current stage of development :rolleyes:

Re: My experience with Tivo
 

Have you asked VM to swap the box out to see if the pq is different? Or check your signal levels? Of course this should have been done on installation, but that is variable to put it mildly.

Regards

John.

Re: My experience with Tivo
 

Hence why he reads these forums to find info regarding TIVO :D

Re: My experience with Tivo
 

What video settings do you have on the TiVo Ken? And what is the resolution of your TV?

Regards

John.

Re: My experience with Tivo
 

No I do not have a TiVo, because all new Tech has problems, I prefer to wait and let the tech be shaken down. I like things to work as they should, not have to wait for things to be added at a later date.

Re: My experience with Tivo
 

my TV is 720p and my TiVo setting are 720p

Re: My experience with Tivo
 

just 720p? Nothing else? Is that straight 720p or 720p wide? Sorry for all the questions;) Do you still have the V+ connected upto a tv somewhere?

And last question, do you have the video set to panel on the TiVo?

regards

john.

Re: My experience with Tivo
 

Same for me, interesting posts Ken.

Re: My experience with Tivo
 

I got my Tivo installed on Friday and I wasnt too enamoured with the PQ after it was installed, but I went into the settings and changed the Resolution from 1080i to 720P and it made one hell of a difference. Now I would have to say that the PQ is better than it was on the Sammy V+. And this is with a near 5 year old Samsung LE32M86BD TV.

Re: My experience with Tivo
 

l say what l think whether its good or bad on this forum and everybody knows that.

Re: My experience with Tivo
 

But how do you quantify and investigate a subjective issue like PQ? It's pretty-much impossible isn't it?

Re: My experience with Tivo
 

I suppose only the installers will know who see many tvs set up with tv...

Re: My experience with Tivo
 

Will know what? Only the customer can tell if they like it or not. Hence the problem :)

Re: My experience with Tivo
 

There is no doubt about that Denphone. And long may you continue to do so.

I don't see people who have the box getting flamed for negative comments. Tivo owners are trying to help them if they can. Apparently though being helpful means you get criticised for saying tivo can do no wrong.

At the end of the day people need to research tivo before they get the box. There are some features still missing like red button. To some keeping their old V+ in another room is an acceptable alternative, to others it wont be. Then if you decide to get one you have 28 days to return it according to the documentation that came with my contract. 28 days should be plenty to decide whether you want one or not. If you still don't like it send it back. Simple.

Re: My experience with Tivo
 

Ok John
Thanks for the reply my TV is 720p wide screen, the TiVo box set itself to 720p and resolution at 16.9 widescreen

The engineer told me not to mess with those settings as it may upset the box so I have not messed with them

I have no idea what the panel is, so can't answer that one

I appreciate your time on this and in truth that is what I came on the forum for some help, :)

I didnt want or need to get involved with any pro or anti TiVo stuff at all, I am just relating my experiences for others to see thats it thats all :rolleyes:

---------- Post added at 08:57 ---------- Previous post was at 08:53 ----------

Are you sure about this? :confused:

Customer services say I have a 7 day period to evaluate the box and return for a full refund :)

After this time I have no right to refund, :mad:

Re: My experience with Tivo
 

My thought on the tivo are l think its a excellent box with a few things that need to be added in future and a few little bugs that need to be ironed out and as you say they have 28 days to decide whether they want it or not but a word of warning is that all boxes sold by Virgin will increasingly be tivo boxes in the future.

Re: My experience with Tivo
 

Good for you Ken. Hopefully those who have had tivo longer than us can help you. You don't have to keep the box anyway. Whatever anybody says all opinions on tivo are welcome especially from those who do own the box.
Your main issue seems to be pq. If forum users can't help you with this your next port of call would be to phone VM and complain. A user with this issue on the VM community forum says that VM sent an engineer out and made some adjustments and his pq is now acceptable. VM have also said in that forum that they are investigating why some users have this issue. Personally I have no issues with pq. HD is at least as good as the V+ and sd about the same.

---------- Post added at 09:19 ---------- Previous post was at 09:06 ----------

I got two letters with my contract. One was a letter stating my statutory right to cancel 7 days after receiving the letter. The other letter states. "If you have added a new service , that service is also covered by our 28 day money back guarantee, so if you want to go back to the way things were that's no problem".

Re: My experience with Tivo
 

Hello, yes you are correct it is the PQ that I find to be my problem, all the other stuff I can either get used to or it will be fixed :rolleyes:

The more I use the box the more I see it's potential

I like the fact that I can set up recordings using my Laptop even when my box is on Standby :tu:

And I can, and have, set the remote to control all my system, TV and AV, meaning I now use 1 remote instead of three :tu:

I do appreciate the many helpful posts and DM's I have received, :erm:

Re: My experience with Tivo
 

Yes it's also good that you can set up recordings with your laptop without interrupting someone else's viewing. That should save a few arguments in my house.
BTW I have edited my last post to reply to your question about the 28 day guarantee. I am assuming though that tivo is classed as adding a new service.

Re: My experience with Tivo
 

Thanks for that,

I never got a contract, I booked the installation by phone, got a date, the engineer rang me 30 mins prior to install, he installed it, nothing else, no letter, no contract, nothing ,

Although a lady did ring me after the install to see if it went ok, it was
durring this call when I told her of my PQ problems, that she told me I had the 7 days to change my mind

Hope your right I will look into it as it will give me more time to make my mind up, Thanks again

Re: My experience with Tivo
 

I hope I'm right as well Ken. :)
It seems unequivocal in my letter. Hopefully someone can confirm whether it is 7 or 28 days?

Re: My experience with Tivo
 

Yes l am not sure whether its 7 or 28 days but someone will tell us on this forum but l have no intention of giving up my tivo now but some people might.

Re: My experience with Tivo
 

Not wishing to prolong this, but it seems that PQ is a real problem for more and more of us,

As the rollout of TiVo gains pace more and more customers are reporting exactly the same issues as I have at link below

http://community.virginmedia.com/t5/...ty/td-p/460293

I may just have made my observations on the wrong forum, I believe Virgin will correct this if its possible for them to do so, my experience of Virgin as always been good

Re: My experience with Tivo
 

You haven't made your observations in the wrong forum Ken. In fact it has been discussed in this forum. The mystery is why some have this issue and many do not. I have no idea why that is. If as stated in that forum that someone has got VM to make adjustments and his pq is now OK then it isn't, in his case anyway, an inherent fault with the tivo box. If I had this issue I would phone VM and tell them to fix it or take the box back. Or at least ask them to extend the guarantee, if possible, to as long as it takes to overcome this issue.

Re: My experience with Tivo
 

Perhaps a few more people would like to vote, now that more people have TiVo....
http://www.cableforum.co.uk/board/11...ompared-v.html

Re: My experience with Tivo
 

I don't have a TIVO however SD on the Sky+HD box varies vastly depending on what SD channel your watching , some have notoriously low bit rates.

Re: My experience with Tivo
 

My samsung V+ is brill with SD, my panasonic plasma, although being a cracking HD set is not that fussed about quality scaling sd content, even some of the lower bit rate channels, itv2 etc look better on the V+ than the internal freesat/freeview hd channels. With this in mind i won't be giving up my sammy anytime soon.

Re: My experience with Tivo
 

I still have a Samsung V+ however only now on free TV and can't really fault the PQ , however some channels are just low bit rate poor quality.

Re: My experience with Tivo
 

I have done direct comparisons with my Tivo and samsung V+ connected to the same screen, on SD the Tivo is Worse, Superbikes on Eurosport for example I could not read the text on screen, the V+ was fine.
This was with all resolution settings although 576i was OK.

The differences are there for some people.

I remember way back when the Pace Twin came out, It had the exact same complaints, Pace fixed it quickly with a Software update

Re: My experience with Tivo
 

He's oh-so-wrong. The whole point of having user settings is so users can adjust them. If you weren't meant to adjust things they would be hidden in the engineering screens instead.

Experiment with the settings and see what results you get. If it's worse, just put it back as now.

You haven't posted in the wrong forum. We're looking at the issues reported. (I work in TV Development at VM)

Re: My experience with Tivo
 

I wouldn't give up my TiVo now, it fits my needs so much better than the V+ did in so many ways, however it is clear the SD PQ is worse than the SA V+ that preceded it.

Re: My experience with Tivo
 

And Samsung v+ unfortunately


Just hope VM can do something about it

Re: My experience with Tivo
 

l am sure they will.

Re: My experience with Tivo
 

I would say SD Eurosport is one of the biggest challenges though as the source is generally pretty lousy. GP3 on Eurosport HD was leaps and bounds ahead of GP2 on British Eurosport that was SD only.

Re: My experience with Tivo
 

"You haven't posted in the wrong forum. We're looking at the issues reported. (I work in TV Development at VM )"



Thanks for that encouraging reply,

I suppose we are all on a learning curb, installers, support staff, and users,

Using advice from this forum and from DM's, I have got my HD picture looking ok, I tend to watch only HD in the main so hopefully, I can stick with it

Once again I appreciate all the replies I have received

Re: My experience with Tivo
 

To say that a vast majority say there is nothing wrong with the SD on Tivo and a very small amount of people have problems with the SD on Tivo is ridiculous,there is a far bigger round of people who are not happy with the SD quality than you are saying,if you want the evidence look around its not difficult to find.

Re: My experience with Tivo
 

Care to post some stats to back that up?

Perhaps those who are happy are simply not posting to say so becasue, well, that's what people do. ie only post/complain when something is not right, rather than when everything's fine.

PQ is a personal and subjective issue anyway so who's to say who's right and who's wrong?

Re: My experience with Tivo
 

Hi
Just as a follow up to my original post and after much help and advice by the forum and by DM's , through many tweaks I seem to have got my HD picture right, I think as good as my old V+ box, although its difficult to remember it now, well at least I have stopped complaining so it looks as if it is ok now :)

As for SD well that is still very poor, still like looking at the picture through a lens smeared with Vaseline :td:

I try to keep on HD only, but when I can't, I grin and bear it as you do :rolleyes:

I will be sticking with my TiVo box as the more I use it the more I "get it" just hope that in the future VM fix the SD PQ quality, I have confidence they will,

Thanks all, Im off to watch my TiVo box now ;)

Re: My experience with Tivo
 

I didnt say the vast majority where happy and I didnt say a very small amount of people where unhappy. If you check the Tivo support forum its split 50 50 between people who are happy with the pq and people who arent. Sort out the signal levels seems to improve the pq.

Heres two qoutes from one person over there: Maybe of some help to you Ken

This is his initial thoughts

"I just switched from Sky, and the picture quality on most SD channels is really terrible. I'm pretty technical and have some experience in the DVR building area, so I don't know if maybe these observations tie in with anyone elses experience or understanding...

1. There is an element of this that is down to the TiVo upscaling badly. This is confirmed by the fact that if I set the video output of the TiVo to 576p only (so all the upscaling is being done by the TV), the quality of SD channels increases noticably (to the point where they are at least comparable to Sky). Unfortunately this is not a "solution", because then the whole interface and all the HD content is output at only standard def.

2. It is not *all* down to the scaling, because one of the main problems that I see (especially noticable on scrolling text on the BBC News channel for example) is a lot of compression artefacts around the edges of the text (i.e. "macroblocks"). Now my first assumption was that the stream coming in from Virgin was very compressed, but based on the fact that people here are saying that reverting to a V+ box gets better quality, the only remaining explanation that makes sense is that on TiVo you are not seeing the live stream even when you watch live - it is compressing/storing the stream and then you are watching the output of that process.

On the upscaling front, I guess it comes down to whether they scaler is hardware or software. If it is software, and if there is enough CPU headroom on the box, then it is conceivable that they could push an update that would improve the quality, but if it's a hardware scaler then we're permanently screwed. The only light at the end of the tunnel here is that i think it must be a software scaler, just on the basis that I can't imagine a hardware scaler ever being that bad

For the compression - that's just irritating. They've given me a box with a *terabyte* of storage, there's absolutely no need to be heavy handed with the compression. You'd seriously hope that they could either flick a switch to turn down the compression (at the expense of the amount of TV recordable of course), or at least give the option to change the quality settings.

Out of interest, for anyone who switched from Sky - the reason Sky doesn't have these problems is that the Sky box just records the exact incoming bit stream, and then plays recordings back in exactly the same way they were coming in live - TiVo on the other hand has to reconstruct the incoming stream into a displayable format, then recompresses itself, so it is inherently going to be a little lower quality than Sky.

And to the people on these forums who are blaming the old codecs used for the problems - that's not really a fair argument. Newer/better codecs allow for better picture quality at any given level of compression, but there's nothing about the old ones that is inherently going to give you a worse result, it just means that you are going to have a larger file size to get the same level of quality.

Now I have the extremely difficult choice of having to decide which is more important to me - TiVo features, or Sky quality (in which case i've only got a few more days in the cooling off period to get Virgin to get rid of the TV service).

I suppose I could stick with Virgin TV now and get them to take the TiVo and give me a V+ box, but i've heard fairly bad things about the usability of the V+ box, and I wasn't actually unhappy with Sky - I only moved because of TiVo. Anyone in the same position?"


And after an engineers visit:

Ok, interesting development/s. The Virgin engineer found that the (signal strength?) was way out of acceptable tolerance (whatever he was measuring, he said that it should be between -2 and -15, and that he found mine to be +5). So he fixed that. I also did a "connect to the virgin network" thing in the settings/network menu, which i'm guessing maybe among other things checks for firmware updates? (just a guess, but whatever it did it took frickin' ages to download something). I also rebooted the box for good measure.

The result of these three things (the engineer's change, the update and the reboot) is a really significant improvement in SD quality, definitely in general clarity of the picture, but I swear there are also fewer compression artefacts. I'm not saying that the level of compression changed somehow, but anyone would notice the difference. I have photos of some of the artefacts on BBC News from before, and they are barely visible now.

I don't know which or how many of these actions contributed to the difference (and i'm kicking myself for not having noted the software version beforehand). I'd love to think that a firmware update happened / made a difference, because that means that Virgin are actively improving things all the time, and makes me optimistic that some of the other minor niggles (some menus not in HD, the ~3sec delay to get the Home screen up, the occasional missed keypresses where the interface doesn't keep up with you, the stuuupid PIN situation and the long hangs when editing some series links for example) might well get addressed too.

Anyway, i'm definitely much happier, and definitely going to stick with Virgin/TiVo.

NickO - Good to see you guys read your forums and take notice. What's the proper/preferred mechanism for reporting non critical bugs and feature requests? If I keep calling customer service about them they're just going to think i'm a crazy person. "

So some hope there for you MrOliver;)

Regards

John

Re: My experience with Tivo
 

Thanks John,

Although I am getting used to the soft misty look, (not)

Bit like the old black and white movies, Casablanca and all that, " of all the bars in all the world" etc..... :erm:

Re: My experience with Tivo
 

Have to say what is wrong for some people with Tivo is definitely not subjective. The reduction in clarity of the picture is obvious for those affected, the mystery is why it affects some which I estimate is a good 10% of installs.

You see posts from new Tivo installs every day on here and VM support forum with comments about the negative picture as well as those who say it is fine. If it was based on posts it would be more like 50/50 but those with installs where they are happy are unlikely to post as those who see a problem so more like 10% I would say.

Only VM would know for sure but by viewing both the threads on cable forum and also the 2 on the VM support forum on this subject, there is an issue here which just cannot be ignored.

VM are looking into this though, NickO from VM on the Tivo support forum has said they are investigating and comparing Tivo with V+. He will report when they have completed their investigations.

I read a post elsewhere by somebody who had an early Pace (I think, would have to hunt to confirm) box install and that had a poor PQ at first until they did a software update, so there is light at the end of the tunnel and I still wonder if accurate signal frequency/strength is a factor.

Personally, I find the SD PQ now as something I can live with, not as clear as the V+ and there is definitely a mist like or softening affect even on HD on my Tivo, rather than the crystal clear excellent picture on V+. But the gap is not that great now with TV adjustments to say the TIvo has to go like others have done and overall I would say the benefits outweigh the PQ issue I see, plus feature issues/usability (as I see it) improvements required.

Re: My experience with Tivo
 

I am going to get a HDTV by the end of this year; hopefully. Given that it's my first one, how will I be able to tell if it's a good or bad picture? Also, how can I tell it's the TV and not my bad eyesight?

Therefore it's all subjective.

Based on anecdotal evidence at best. Hardly a reliable figure :)

More made-up stats.

Have never said any different.

Fair enough.

Re: My experience with Tivo
 

Any finally, how do you reply only to parts of a post as I cannot work that out!!!

Re: My experience with Tivo
 

Make sure you put this at the front of the text that you want :

[QUOTE=Perfect Choice;35232572 ]

Then add this at the end of the text that you have selected? [/QUOTE ]

Hope this helps?

Do not leave a space before the ] at the end of each?

Re: My experience with Tivo
 

Thanks, will try that next time.

Re: My experience with Tivo
 

Make sure it is the person that you are quoting and not yours:erm:

Re: My experience with Tivo
 

Understood, thanks.

Re: My experience with Tivo
 

Pretty much everything I want to watch these days is in HD anyway !

Re: My experience with Tivo
 

So you are happy then:confused:

Re: My experience with Tivo
 

SD quality is as good on my Tivo as the V+, if not a little better

Re: My experience with Tivo
 

My SD is fine.
I did a comparison with Freesat (excellent signal) and the Tivo was better.
Same sort of difference I found with the V+ and Freesat.

Re: My experience with Tivo
 

Have the update, SD quality is same for me. Best test is to see the Sky Living logo top left of screen on the channel, it's blurry. On V+ it was crisp.

When I say same, I mean same as it was before update, I.e. Blurry, washed out and grainy.

Re: My experience with Tivo
 

As l say my experiences have been very good but not everybody is the same.

Re: My experience with Tivo
 

When you have V+, then connect a TiVo and immediately see the SD picture has less definition and clarity, I would say that is pretty convincing. Of course it is subjective - but I would reckon that more people would prefer a crisper picture with more detail than one which looks soft, out of focus and lacks fine detail. If that isn't the case then HD is well and truly doomed.

As with any test, it is only fair if one thing has been changed. In this case V+ replaced with TiVo.

Re: My experience with Tivo
 

With all the talk of slowing down, sluggish TiVo's with the dreaded 'red circle of doom' I'm starting to wonder if I've been seduced (or tricked if you're cynical) by the massive 1TB drive which I may never be able to exploit properly. I'm at only 17% space used and I'm now seeing an increasing number of delays including freezes requiring a reboot.
If some users TiVo's are performing so poorly when only 20% full what is 75% or more going to feel like?
Right now the 500GB TiVo is looking a lot more attractive.
Can anyone here post a really high figure for disk space used while also having a 'quick' TiVo? Maybe we need a poll along the lines of 'My TiVo started to slow down when it reached XX%' ?

Re: My experience with Tivo
 

There is a thread over on the VM TIVO Community Forum about this and NickO has said that his is at 65% and has not slowed down:

http://community.virginmedia.com/t5/...wn/td-p/482887

Re: My experience with Tivo
 

Any comments now, Mr Waring? Lol!

Re: My experience with Tivo
 

About what? Some have said they are happy with it well before today. Are they wrong? No. They're happy. Therefore it's still subjective. All they're doing is improving it.

Re: My experience with Tivo
 

VM has admitted there is a real issue with the SD picture quality, not a subjective one. Fortunately it looks as if it can be solved in a future firmware release.

Too late for me, but good news for those who have the poor picture quality issue.

Re: My experience with Tivo
 

Yes, but before they did the picture was perfectly acceptable to a lot of people. Therefore it wasn't a huge a problem.

Re: My experience with Tivo
 

We have two - both at around 50% (one slightly over and one slightly under) and I've not noticed any slowing down. Makes me wonder if it's by area or a faulty batch of boxes....

Re: My experience with Tivo
 

And mine is going very smoothly.

Re: My experience with Tivo
 

Mines only 12% full and its quite sluggish.What i cant understand is how comes the TV guide is so fast, paging down in an instant.But my shows,tv on demand,music on demand and everything else takes forever to page down through stuff displaying red rings all the time.

Re: My experience with Tivo
 

Mine is at 15% started getting red circle when accessing my shows menu,

Scrolling through shows is very bad red circle all the time, have started to delete stuff now in an effort to keep it it below 15%

Seem to be a bit of a waste to have a 1TB disc ,

The rest of the menu's are fine, TV guide very fast, it's just the my shows selection that as the problem at the moment but keeping it below 15% makes it manageable,

As I say bit of a waste of a 1TB disk at the moment

Re: My experience with Tivo
 

Possibly because whilst the former is all local (ie on your Tivo) the latter (ie OD stuff, etc.) is delivered down the cable from VM.

Re: My experience with Tivo
 

My tivo is on 31% and I've got six pages of shows and over one hundred recordings (in folders) and the my shows isn't particularly slow. Usually I see the red circle for a second or two but I just tried and there was about a 4-5 second delay to bring the first page up and no red circle. Once the menu is up it is reasonably fast to go from one page to another. I videod the process if anyone is interested.
My point is that in my case anyway, filling the drive up doesn't slow the tivo down and on the community forum it has been stated that it's not a known issue although slow ondemand menus is (though unrelated to how full the drive is).
I should add that my shows is probably the slowest menu on my tivo. Hopefully with further updates that will get faster to although that remains to be seen.

Re: My experience with Tivo
 

We've found a problem for some customers, yes. It only seems to affect a select amount and the majority are more than happy with picture quality on SD channels. :)

Re: My experience with Tivo
 

Agreed, but likewise there is a sizeable minority who have been affected and for some it has been so bad in their view to return Tivo boxes, which is bad PR for VM. The sooner it is fixed the better.

Re: My experience with Tivo
 

VM took the feedback seriously and investigated it. The outcome is there is an issue for some and that will be fixed. :)

Re: My experience with Tivo
 

The important thing is that people who know what they're looking at didn't give up and accept that PQ is subjective, and pushed their opinion until some bright spark realised how to measure the problem and report it in full detail.

Sometimes it's easy to think you're the only one seeing a problem and just give up. My family couldn't see an issue, but for me it was plain as day.

Re: My experience with Tivo
 

When you say it's a problem for some customers do you mean that not all boxes are affected or that not all customers notice the problem?

Re: My experience with Tivo
 

Yes:D

Re: My experience with Tivo
 

Well, if you don't notice it, then it's not a problem I guess. All customers should see improvements once the fix is in place.

Personally never saw any problems on my Sony Bravia TV. :)

Re: My experience with Tivo
 

Right that's what I thought. Thanks :)