TiVo speed - not good enough?
 

I am a bit disappointed with the speed of using TiVo currently. I accept I am essentially a beta tester, but has anyone got a clue to if the hardware is capable of running much faster? I get the impression that it is, but shoddy firmware is holding back its potential.

Thoughts?

Re: TiVo speed - not good enough?
 

My tivo is running perfectly fast but l don,t know how other customers views are on this.

Re: TiVo speed - not good enough?
 

I'm hoping that the next update will bring some speed, the doughnut is getting pretty boring at the moment, I'm running at 75% capacity used

Re: TiVo speed - not good enough?
 

News Flash:
Doughnut animation causes a rise in doughnut sales!

Where are you seeing the issues?
Are they in specific areas of the software? or is global?

Re: TiVo speed - not good enough?
 

I have to admit my doughnut intake has been higher while waiting for TIVO to populate the My Shows screen :D

Re: TiVo speed - not good enough?
 

Den,what assumptions are you making to state your TiVo is running perfectly fast?,you can not be using a Sky HD box as a comparison as you stated you have never used one,this would be the nearest bench mark to base a speed test on as a V+ box does not have the same capabilities as a TiVo box,your thoughts please?

Re: TiVo speed - not good enough?
 

In 2011, I would expect that pressing the Home or My Shows button, from any screen, would be as fast as the Start Menu appearing when you click the Start Button on a Windows PC - ie instant. This isn't the case for ANY PVR, it isn't just limited to TiVo.

Re: TiVo speed - not good enough?
 

But it is with Sky HD,there appears to be no lag through the menus and changing channels is instant.

Re: TiVo speed - not good enough?
 

Its more like opening a folder that is filled with up to 1TB of files that have metadata grabbed from the internet every time you view them.

Re: TiVo speed - not good enough?
 

Perfectly put Jameseh.

Re: TiVo speed - not good enough?
 

My Sky+HD planner populates pretty much instantly.

Re: TiVo speed - not good enough?
 

See also #8 above:)

Re: TiVo speed - not good enough?
 

Exact cause of slower speeds in my view, network queries/updates of data causing delay, clear area for optimisation so lets see what next software update does.

Re: TiVo speed - not good enough?
 

It makes no difference if the folder is empty or full - there is still slight lag.

Re: TiVo speed - not good enough?
 

what do you mean by "slight", please?

Re: TiVo speed - not good enough?
 

Try it yourself.

Watch some TV. Press 'My Shows' or 'Home'. It doesn't appear instantly. Quickly yes, instantly no. It is the case with almost all PVRs - but it shouldn't be in 2011.

Re: TiVo speed - not good enough?
 

I would say around 4 seconds before the My Shows menu appears for my Tivo. Slower than V+ I had.

Re: TiVo speed - not good enough?
 

to be fair TiVo is doing a hell of a lot more than Sky+HD or V+HD boxes, so you can't expect everything in a instant... It's pulling information from everywhere.

I've had a play around with a Sky+HD box at my sisters and I wouldn't say it was instant either. It's generally fast and nice looking, but fairly basic compared with TiVo in features.

Re: TiVo speed - not good enough?
 

You may Sky HD is basic but at least it does the basics well,unlike IMO TiVo,which failed to live up to its reputation and hype,and as far as I can tell it continues to disappoint a lot of customers.

Re: TiVo speed - not good enough?
 

l will second that.

Re: TiVo speed - not good enough?
 

I have to agree with DF. However, I do hope the next update brings some kind of speed improvement. Overall, I'm happy with TiVo.

Re: TiVo speed - not good enough?
 

I have, and it takes a second or two.

"Slight" is subjective, which is why I asked - a second or two doesn't bother me, but to some people 0.5 of a second is too long. To have instant response would require, imho, all the info it gets from the network to be cached on the box, and then people would complain that it wasn't up to date...;)

Re: TiVo speed - not good enough?
 

Speed on my TiVo:

Live Tv > Guide 600ns
Guide page down 200ms
live TV > My Shows (fully populated, 77% used) 3.5s
My Shows page down (cold) 1.5s
My Shows page down (warm) 500ms
Live TV > Home 2.3s

Re: TiVo speed - not good enough?
 

There is a vocal minority that are having problems and post on the VM forum. If there was major issues i'm sure this forum would be flooded with complaints.

Re: TiVo speed - not good enough?
 

7 seconds here.

It wouldn't have to (so often) if data like images were cached.

Its not just on the VM forum, there's threads on DS and comments on Twitter about the performance (or lack of). Lack of speed has also been mentioned in several reviews (including Trusted Reviews and CNET).

In my experience, my TiVo was dog slow at around 70% capacity. Its speeded up a tad since then, probably because I've deleted loads of stuff and I'm at around 53%. Most people seem to report that the more you've recorded, the slower TiVo is. I'd hate to see the performance at 99% recording capacity.

Re: TiVo speed - not good enough?
 

In my case the amount recorded hasn't affected the speed of my box, in the past I have been as high as 86% with no slowdown.

Re: TiVo speed - not good enough?
 

You do really need to get out more mate:D

Re: TiVo speed - not good enough?
 

Nothing wrong with being a Mathematician.:D

Re: TiVo speed - not good enough?
 

Any chance of you making a quick video of you using Tivo's menu? I will also supply a video of my Sky HD box so we can compare?

Its just if Tivo is as fast as you say it is then I may get one as the one in Telfords VM-Store is so slow they have stopped using it and they now use a v+ AGAIN.

Also I know someone with a Tivo an there is really slow. Infact if you can't provide a video I think I will video my friends. Just use your mobile phone to take the video.

I know from previous posts that your mobile phone can take video.

Re: TiVo speed - not good enough?
 

are you still here? :rolleyes:

Re: TiVo speed - not good enough?
 

Exactly Sky HD and Tivo are very different boxes and for the want of a better term the Sky HD box is pretty dumb and is simply a PVR.

The Tivo is doing so much more and constantly pulling metadata when you explore a show. All these whiz bang features will come with a bit of overhead. So it takes 3 seconds to display my shows big deal.

The EPG is lightning fast way faster then the V+ ever was. I agree that there are a few places where they can improve so hopefully in future we will get more performance enhancements.

Re: TiVo speed - not good enough?
 

Regardless of the metadata it is pulling, I still believe that with todays technology that TiVo should be much faster. I still think that poor firmware is holding it back.

Oh and bring out the bloody qwerty keypad, or an app to control TiVo fully already!

Re: TiVo speed - not good enough?
 

These boxes have to be made at a price, if cost wasn't an issue then you could have all singing dance machine. But to keep it realistic they have to skimp on things.

They still have yet to get the second core to work and I am sure that the code could do with a lot of tidying up. The only time the box really annoys me is when it is recording three HD shows, navigating My shows can be very slow then.

Re: TiVo speed - not good enough?
 

Unlike navigating a data and graphic rich website which is instant?

I don't buy that at all, as mentioned above, it is all down to costs.

Re: TiVo speed - not good enough?
 

I *have* had mine at 99% recording capacity and saw no difference in the speed to when it's below 50

Re: TiVo speed - not good enough?
 

I'm sorry but I can't. ;)

---------- Post added at 23:31 ---------- Previous post was at 23:29 ----------

This is what happens when you work from home. :angel:

Re: TiVo speed - not good enough?
 

Yes l have to agree with you on much of what you say and it can only get better.

Re: TiVo speed - not good enough?
 

You are not comparing like for like.

With the website, it is "one size fits all"; with the TiVo box, each individual users' information has to be updated with the appropriate metadata and data for the programmes they have on the box, each time they record something.

Now I am sure this could be improved, by caching info (if they don't do it already) and then only looking for changes in data, and uploading that, but it is not the simple task you make it out to be, imho.

btw, you say you "don't buy that at all"? Is that statement based on technical knowledge, or just an opinion?

Re: TiVo speed - not good enough?
 

Similar to how Google personalises your search results based on your Google preferences and search history then? Or how facebook displays information relevant to you when you are navigating the site?

Caching is not needed, better specs on the box and headend are required - but as I already stated, it boils down to money.

Technical knowledge (and common sense re keeping costs down).

You are very defensive, but I am speaking of ALL set top boxes (as I have already mentioned in previous posts) - it is not limited to TiVo.

Re: TiVo speed - not good enough?
 

How large a file do you think the "metadata" is? Tivo has a 10Mb connection with its own dedicated modem.

The speeds which large files can be shifted around these days and your excuse that Tivo is slow because it needs to fetch data do not add up.

Its not fetching video files,its text with maybe a jpg.

Re: TiVo speed - not good enough?
 

Thank you for the ad hominem attack - not sure which part of my post was 'defensive' or what I was 'defending'....

You seem to have higher expectations of technology and coders than I have, and comparing Google engineers with TiVo engineers is like comparing Man U with Bradford, imho - poles apart in scale and funding.

Whilst it would be nice to have sub-second responses, it doesn't ruin my day not to have them - ymmv.

Re: TiVo speed - not good enough?
 

Caching is needed!!! That's the only way TiVo is every going to hit the instant milestone. (by instant i mean 150ms and less).

Re: TiVo speed - not good enough?
 

It also has to search for the data and the metadata - you are talking about multiple searches across multiple files and their many indexes, imho (unless, of course, you know more about the TiVo database and index structure than I do, as I am just going on general data warehousing principles...).

Re: TiVo speed - not good enough?
 

You seem to be making things up and twisting peoples words (hardly a good impression to give as a member of staff on this forum) - so it is a pointless debate. You have your opinion, I have mine.

Re: TiVo speed - not good enough?
 

That would be where I said and you responded with btw, I am not a "member of staff" - I am a volunteer (who doesn't work for VM) who helps moderate this forum (once again, you resort to ad hominem attacks).

Re: TiVo speed - not good enough?
 

The TiVo companion app needs a new firmware drop before it can be released. When that happens the other network remote apps will work too, like Peanut Plus (http://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/peanu...422349681?mt=8) not especially useful you might say but it does give you a full query keyboard on your iPhone. ;)

Re: TiVo speed - not good enough?
 

Sorry, I still can't see where I compared Google Engineers to TiVo engineers which is what you claim.

Re: TiVo speed - not good enough?
 

You can hardly compare Virgin Media a small cable company that serves 50% of the UK with Google who are worlds biggest search provider have billions in the bank and have obsence size data centres to handle their traffic. The same goes for Facebook the scale of these two dwarf TiVo and Virgin by quite some magnitude.

Re: TiVo speed - not good enough?
 

Re: TiVo speed - not good enough?
 

My point exactly. It is not comparing engineers. What I said was against the claim that TiVo is 'pulling personalised data from everywhere and therefore there will be a lag'.

---------- Post added at 15:04 ---------- Previous post was at 15:02 ----------

My dedicated server can manage it just fine, never mind Google or Facebooks datacenters.

Re: TiVo speed - not good enough?
 

Who do you think write the code and design the hardware?

That would be engineers (software and hardware) - Google are proud of the fact that the highest status in the company is to be an engineer; every one else supports them in their tasks.

And does your dedicated server have to handle millions of requests frequently and repeatedly?

Point of information - Google R&D budget is over $3 billion, TiVo's is around $60 million (but the good news is that it will be increased by $25-$30 million this year).

Re: TiVo speed - not good enough?
 

It's worth remembering that the build on consumers boxes isn't an indication of the speed of the current internal software builds. ;)

Re: TiVo speed - not good enough?
 

No, because it doesn't need to. Can it handle what is required of it - several millions requests per day (a single page could consist of 100 requests - database, page images, the page itself etc)? Yes. Can Google handle what is required of it? Yes. Can TiVo handle what is required of it? I would say yes - but it is the hardware in homes holding it back. Data is fetched instantly - it is the displaying and rendering that is slow.

You are still defending TiVo whilst missing the point that I am talking about ALL set top boxes. Could you maybe explain to me why a 'dumb' PVR, for example, a basic Freeview recorder also suffers from slight lag? Is it because it has to load data constantly whilst loading the recorded programmes page? No. It is down to cost of the components used.

I could use a £1000 PC as a PVR and everything would be instantaneous - but I choose to use a TiVo (and V+ before that, and a series 1 TiVo before that). For a 'premium' product, the UI experience should be much smoother navigating between screens.

Re: TiVo speed - not good enough?
 

That's certainly correct ;)

Re: TiVo speed - not good enough?
 

:)

Re: TiVo speed - not good enough?
 

;)

Re: TiVo speed - not good enough?
 

How much faster are these "internal" builds you talk of? ;)

Re: TiVo speed - not good enough?
 

Not allowed to say :angel:

Re: TiVo speed - not good enough?
 

I hope that the update can bring the speed of the HD UI inline with that of the old SD sections that still remain. (getting rid of the SD menus in the process would be the icing on the cake)

If that happens, along with all the other changes/new features planned in the new firmware, I will be a happy chappy :)