Category Archives: technology

I haven’t blogged an update about the TiVo saga in over a month.  Crap.

Right now, I am up and running wth the original hard drive (40 hours (really 15 or
so if you don’t want it to look like crap)).  I haven’t seen any lockups since
switching.  I haven’t had time to install the busted HD into a box and run diagnostics
on it to see if its time for an RMA.

I am seeing some of the problems that other users of the 7.x software are seeing,
including VERY slow menu transitions and VERY long pauses when switching channels. 
It makes you wonder just how well they screened their beta testers.  TiVoToGo
has also been very flaky.  The desktop software gets very confused if a transfer
gets interrupted.  I have had to manually delete temp files and kill processes
on several occasions to get it’s brain unscrambled.

It was dead again this morning.  It locked up while recording a show.  After
rebooting once again, I could tell that it had only recorded 3 minutes of video before
crapping out.  This weekend I will try and revert to the factory hard drive and
see if that resolves the problem.  If it does, this will be the 3rd drive that
has gone bad in this box in less than a year.

Another issue I found is that the Tivo desktop software is completely unstable when
the target Tivo is having stability problems.  When the DVR is locked, the desktop
software completely falls apart.  It locks up and has to be killed with task
manager.  It doesn’t repaint the gui and overall is a very unprofessional job. 
Someone needs to read a book on multithreaded programming.  In my opinion, assuming
a reliable network connection as a prerequisite for your GUI not sucking is a poor
design choice.

I finally got the update.  It’s installing now.  I was beginning to believe
that it was never going to happen.

Ok, this sucks.  One of the things they don’t tell you when you sign up for the
priority list is that you have to go into your account settings on tivo.com and enable
your DVR for transfers.  Mine was set to not allow transfers.  I changed
the setting, but it will take up to 24 hours to take effect, AND my tivo needs to
connect to the service AGAIN to get that command.  If they would have said something
when I signed up, I would have had over 2 weeks to make the setting change on Tivo.com. 
I’m not impressed.

After 3 forced refreshes, I finally can connect.  I’m transferring my first show
now.  Initial estimate is 35 minutes for a 30 minute show at best high
quality over 802.11b.

Here’s another complaint:  Don’t even think about rebooting while you’re transferring
a file.  That’s right, there is no download resume capability.  I was about
90% done transferring a program.  The Sonic MyDVD trial software required a reboot. 
Not thinking, I let it happen immediately.  When I got back up and running, my
transfer had automatically started from the beginning.  Crap.

Update:

I think version 7.1 may have signalled the death of my Tivo.  I’ve had to power
cycle it 6 times this evening.  I can’t keep it running for more than 10 minutes
at a time without it locking up.  Time to look for alternatives.