Anyone who loves gadgets or new electronics has been burned before.  You shell out your hard-earned cash for the “latest and greatest” widget and rush home, only to find that it doesn’t perform as promised or hold up for more than 6 months before it stops working.  In an age of smart phones, universal remotes, netbooks, HD video cameras, etc. this can be an expensive and frustrating occurrence.  Luckily, this digital age also provides us with the internet and the ability to research before we head out to the big-box, retail electronics store.  The trick then becomes weeding through the information and determining if the article/site is an advertisement or an honest review of the product in question.

Over the last few weeks, I have written several articles on my switch from DirecTV to a TiVo Premiere setup.  Yesterday, I received a series of questions from one of my readers (thanks Dave) and thought that the answers to his questions would make a great article.  This way, everyone would benefit from the responses and maybe begin asking some questions of their own.  His questions and my responses are outlined below.

Before We Start

Full Disclosure: I was not paid to write any of this about TiVo, DirecTV, Amazon, Blockbuster, YouTube or the shows/movies in question.  I am simply writing about my personal experience and have not been compensated (in any way) by any of the companies listed.  On this site (JumpstartMyPC.com) I do have advertising from several companies, including Google Ads, Amazon and TiVo.  The Amazon and TiVo advertisements are pay-per-click programs that I signed up for to help with the cost of running the site, but in no way influenced my comments or suggestions within this or any other article posted within the JumpstartMyPC blog.

Q&A

Question 1: You must comment on how the Premiere combines (or doesn’t) OTA recordings with available streams. In other words, is there a single Now Playing list that shows you everything you could watch? (Like you had with DirecTivo.) Or do you have a Now Playing list that shows the things Tivo has grabbed from the antenna, but some OTHER kind of list to show you what episodes are available on Amazon iTunes or whatever. And if it’s two (or more) different lists, isn’t that a pain?

• There is one list of recorded programs under the “My Shows” area.  Any OTA recordings and Amazon Video on Demand downloads that I have purchases appear there.
• Netflix movies and TV shows must be accessed from the Netflix menu (separate area).
• I have not tested the Blockbuster feature personally, so I cannot speak to where those recordings show.
• It’s really not a pain at all.  It would be nice to have the two lists combined, but I am sure there is a reason for the separation and it doesn’t cause me any frustration.

Question 2: What about searching (“Wish Lists”)? Can you set up an actor (say) wish list and have all the available Amazon or Netflix streams featuring that actor show up? Or would you see only the shows in the online schedule for your OTA stations that happened to have that actor? If the latter, isn’t that a bit of a loss of function?

I wasn’t sure about this one, so I set up a test.  As it turns out, with groups enabled (folder view), actor wish-list recordings do show up under the actor/actress name instead of the program name.  Within the folder, the program name does appear.  These programs (Lucy Liu example below) are from the OTA signal only.  Any Netflix or Amazon programs would have to be found via a manual search.

Actor Wish-List Recordings Example

Question 3: Does the new Tivo still voluntarily record “suggestions” and are they only from the antenna? Or can it snag “suggestions” from other sources?

Suggestions are still part of the TiVo experience, but seem to be from the cable/OTA source only.  I honestly don’t look in the TiVo suggestions area very often.  What I do like about the new interface is that the suggestions are in their own folder and not mixed with the other programs.  If that was a part of the older versions of the software, I don’t remember.  On my HR10-250 (DirecTV/TiVo DVR) I turned that off long ago.

Question 4: You mention Youtube, but what about other internet streaming sites, esp. Vimeo and Mevio (which are typically of higher quality than Youtube). Can you use Hulu for broadcast episodes?

There are currently no other options for these types of internet streaming sites.  You can choose to pull down video podcasts from a predetermined list of options, but that is the only option other than YouTube.

Question 5: What kind of data connection do you have that can handle 1080p streams from Netflix, which are of higher quality than DirecTv’s MPEG4 streams? Can you watch such a stream live, or do you have to let it buffer-up ahead to avoid stuttering?

Using a high-speed internet connection from Comcast, D-Link 802.11n router and CAT6 cabling, I am getting some super-fast feeds to my TiVo Premiere units.  Without fail, I get the maximum number of bars and HD icon in the “quality bar” area.  With the ability to fast-forward and rewind (via lower resolution images) and locate Watch Instantly movies and television shows via the TiVo Seach feature, the Premiere experience far surpasses the experience of watching Netflix via an XBOX 360 or PS3 (I have tried both).

I have only experienced the “stuttering” a few times while watching Netflix programming via the TiVo Premiere.  Honestly, out of the hundred hours (give or take a few) of TV shows and movies that we have watched, I think we may have experienced this less than 5 times and even then, it was only for a second or two.

Netflix Streaming in Full HD

Additional Info

Dave (our reader who submitted the questions) asked some fantastic, specific questions but did not hit on a few topics that seem to grace every other review of the TiVo Premiere DVR.  I thought I would take a quick moment to comment on my experience with these “issues.”

Issue 1: The new interface is slow

Yes, there are times when I click a button and have to wait for a few seconds before the unit responds.  Is this frustrating?  Maybe to some people, but I am willing to wait a few seconds here and there.  From what I have read, the hardware within the Premiere unit is not being utilized fully yet.  Maybe these speed issues will become a thing of the past as new updates are released.  The thing that matters to me is the viewing of my programs.  I have not had any problems there.  They play back perfectly and the fast-forward, rewind and 30-second skip functionality is as smooth as silk.

Issue 2: The New/Old Experience

Many have criticized TiVo for mixing their new menu system with the old menu system.  For example, if you select the menu option to view the programs recorded on another TiVo unit, there is a pause and then you are taken to a screen that looks like it was from a TiVo Series II or HD.  The words are still there.  The options are still fully functional.  I can still see my programs and choose to copy them over to the unit I am on.  In other words, there is no loss in functionality, just some cosmetic issues with the flow of the menus.  Personally, I don’t think it is a big deal.  Sure, it would have been nice if all of the menu options were in the new interface, but how long would we have waited for this hardware to be released.  I am not complaining.

Issue 3: Room-to-Room Copy vs Streaming

Want to view a program in your bedroom but it was recorded in the living room.  You can do that if you own 2 Premiere units.  Some have complained that this is done via a copy of the original program and not a stream of the content from the other device.  Personally, I don’t think it is a big problem.  It might be if you had a slow connection between the two units and your router, but I opted for CAT6 cabling between all of my devices.  For me, I click once to begin the copy and once more to begin watching the show (as it copies).  That is as good as streaming to me.  You might just want to avoid the wireless option if this is something that might bother you.

Related Articles

• Cancel Your Cable/Satellite and Save Money While Adding Functionality
• Buh-Bye DirecTV, Hello TiVo – How I Ditched Cable
• Buh-Bye DirecTV, Hello TiVo – How I Ditched Cable – Part II

Tags: Actor, Actress, Amazon, Blockbuster, DirecTV, Hulu, Netflix, OTA, Premiere, PS3, Season Pass, TiVo, TV Pass, Video on demand, Wish List, XBOX 360, YouTube

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 22nd, 2010 at 10:01 am and is filed under TiVo & DVR Tech. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.