TiVo Community Forums Archives - Newbie complaining again.

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Newbie complaining again.
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Posted by: dsallison

This is for all the newbies out there (those of you with extensive knowledge of software or TiVo upgrades will probably take great pleasure in picking it apart).

Okay first of all - I have a slight issue (my personal issue) with the term "Hacking". In these days a person known as a "hacker" is someone in my view that is intent on disrupting the internet, or stealing a service or product from another individual or company. So let me just say my personal preference would be to refer to any type of upgrade as just that an "upgrade". When I bought a personal computer and installed a second hard drive I was not considered a "hacker" I was just "upgrading or expanding" the PC. Plain and simple I have not attempted to steal a service or a product - I am a consumer - not a hacker.

Second - for those of you about to attempt an upgrade of the drive space to your TiVo unit. Find a recent copy of Hinsdale's how-to, read it, highlight it and then follow it. I have absolutely no clue if hinsdale is one person or a group of people, but the how-to is dead on - for almost every type of modification you would like to make. Time and time again, there are posts from someone that didn't find an exact match - or skimmed the instructions and winged it, or just plain missed a step. They are usually noted by the phrase "Help - bad upgrade". Okay you were able to follow the "Quick Set-up" when you upgraded your PC and added an Ethernet card, but there really is no "Quick" set-up for a TiVo upgrade (which I will actually de-buff here in a few minutes).

Third - I am a long-time Phillips SA TiVo user; for those of you with direct-TV...Great, for those of you with Sony...fabulous. I personally like Phillips Stand-Alone units (I have three).

Okay - here are my notes on TiVo life.
1) I wish I had found this site "before" I purchased a unit. Okay Phillips and TiVo you got me with the 30 Hours of storage on the box. It's truthful, but are you really marketing your product to people who record cartoons? Put the real numbers on the box, 30 Hours on the box is gonna get me 7 or so hours of real storage.

2) If all upgrades went well - this site would not exist. Consider that before you charge into an upgrade with the same attitude you had when you added a radio to your sister's car and reversed the back left and right speakers. Okay in PC terms, when you (and I) "upgraded" your PC to add an Ethernet card and then spent the next nine hours trying to find the Windows installation diskette to copy that missing file.

3) Nothing anywhere on this site is going to tell you how to steal service, so if that's your goal - go build your own website. You've probably got about a week or so worth of web-time before you get a knock on your door with a Sheriff holding a little peice of paper.

4) If you post a question - get ready for some expert advice, and some replies from people who still have their TiVo in the box. If the advice is "delete everything", get a second opinion - you may just need to repeat the Guided set-up or power-cycle the unit.

5) If you have read the Hinsdale how-to, and do not feel 110% sure that you "understand" it, ask a question before the upgrade - not when you are stuck at the 'Power up..waiting' afterwards. The second point to this is that being good on a PC, and being good inside a TiVo box are really two different things (PC's are designed for 'consumers') - PC's usually don't have exposed power supplies that can knock you off your feet if you touch them (TiVo's - at least the Phillips unit..does). By the way, that is also in the Hinsdale How-to.

6) I had to dream that TiVo would market their product much like DELL, you order a base unit, add memory, add a bigger drive, in-house repair, Ethernet card, etc - and in a few days you get your unit - and you have "not" voided a warranty.
Okay Phillips, Sony and the others never saw the benefit or had a business model that made it worth their while. Point is you can basically get that today from websites like Weeknees, TivoJoe or many others. So if you are not comfortable with doing the upgrade...don't...pay a couple of bucks, let someone that can upgrade a TiVo in their sleep do it and be okay with the fact that you didn't buy the showroom model.
From what I have seen, these places that sell a unit already upgraded or will upgrade yous for you - have done about a thousand upgrades. They test the unit back to front before they ship it to ya', and when you sit down and figure it out - it's worth it. Okay here's a quick example: Unit $250, Drive $100, Bracket $10, Torx $5, CD with the program to format the drive $10. Now your time, all this stuff is not a Mirco Center - you have to wait for it in the mail (pay the extra $50 bucks and buy the upgraded model).
Odds that you are going to screw something up...1 in 50. Odds that $250 unit is now junk 1 in 100. Odds that your girlfiend's TiVo with a lifetime subscription is gonna get stuck at Power-up - 1 in 5 (if it's your own tivo it's 1 in 50).

Okay I have upgraded a 312...skimmed the instructions, no back-up - went for it..got lucky and it's a 120 plus unit and still works great.

I have upgraded a 2nd 312 unit with a pre-formatted unit drive (which was the easist upgrade ever). Got a bracket, got a pre-blessed drive - it came with a video on the how-to, cover off to upgraded 15 minutes.

I have a 3rd unit an ungraded 612 that was purchased with extra memory, extra storage. It's actually my favorite - why... because I can't win in Vegas. Point is...I got lucky I took my winnings from the two upgrades and walked away.

For all of you looking at a Power up error - how lucky are you feeling right now (oh that warranty is really great now too isn't it).

For those of you that thought you had upgraded everthing, and every coulple of days get some wacked out error - great job - saved bunches didn't ya (I'll see you in the return line - trying to get a replacement unit so you can try again).

For those of you that skimmed the instructions, no back-up and got away with it...doesn't work in Vegas - so don't blow the kids college fund on double zero or the horse named "Lucky Upgrade". Consider yourself blessed and walk away...or wait, like me for the day when you get the error at power up.

I think this is a wonderful site (still wish it was well known before the initial purchase). Best answers to the dumbest questions - and I have had more than my fair share of dumb questions.

Someone one out there has had the same error (or question) you have - and people here are great about answering us newbies (and not laughing when they do it...usually). I think the term "hack" of a TiVo box is questionable at best - but hey - it'll never change.

I think TiVo has a little to learn about customer service and loyalty (initially they were incredible), now not so much.

If you are a pre-series 2 owner- sorry you might as well go outside and put another coat of wax on the Gremlin - great car - but notice how no one ever says they own one except to other Gremlin owners. Phillips and Tivo have your money, and you have service until it breaks...deal with it. The trade-in offer is over and it's not coming back - you and I have been dismissed.

Okay my final point, did you ever join a Gym and pay a lifetime service fee - I did (fell for that one too). What you notice is after a while they have no new income, since everyone paid lifetime, and now you have a lifetime membership to a Gym with the same weights it had in the 70's. Lifetime service is a great idea, and for a few years works - but in the end what you get is a lifetime subscription for a Series 1 that is sitting in a closet because their has not been a service upgrade in years, and it has no clue how to change the channels on your new cable box.

Am I upset - okay a little - at who? I have no real answer. Tivo - for a great idea, that you lost site of. Phillips/Sony for marketing a box for people that watch Nick Jr and Cartoon network.

What do I want - a real-life sized unit available in the stores (with honest real consumer packaging). A service that doesn't cost by the unit - but by the household. A service that is reasonable on a monthly basis...10 bucks a month for guide data and $19.95 a case service calls....lick me.

I want to be able to subscribe to a guide service ($10.00/month for a household I'd buy that...but per unit..come on). I want to be able to toss that unit in the trash after 3-4 years when the Series 3 comes out (I did it with my 2 head VCR - I did it with my Pentium II PC also when the Pentiums 4's hit the market).

I would like to be able to take everything that I did in the old unit (Season passes, thumbs up, etc) - upload it to a service (so I don't have to risk breaking my PC and TiVo in the same day) and then down-load it to my new unit (charge me $5 for upload/down-load).

If you don't want me inside the box - stop putting me inside the box.

In closing - TiVo is the best appliance in my house. I love the service, I love the convenience, heck I even love the remote. My kid loves the little TiVo cartoon (Tivo 0) - I play it once or twice a week...on request.

What I don't like is the general attitude that Series 1 people are Gremlin owners (not from this website, but from Phillips, Sony and TiVo). What I don't like is the business model that makes Phillips and TiVo treat me this way. What I don't like is the term "hacker" that is associated with another person that didn't know that 30 hours really means 7. What I like is the fact that hundeds of other people that didn't read the box - will read my questions and answer them.

For one last time - about to do an upgrade...really? Don't feel bad about buying the upgrade - sleep is priceless. Phillips, Sony and TiVo - you have me as a consumer, and you probably always will - but go back to business school and get a degree in something that tells you how to sell, service and support a product for more that 4 years. I drive a '92 car..why? because it's "paid for"...that's all I want...you have my money know treat me like someone that paid your salary.

Okay - stepping down off the soap box, and basically just feeling better about having 3 working (okay 1 is a little busted) TiVo's with lifetime service, running on a UPS with surge protected modems. In 2025 someone somewhere in TiVo support is gonna take my $19.95 for a question about a "working" Series 1 (hopefully about guide data - so they will have to bring someone out of retirement to fix it).

Final note - and a reminder...love the unit, love this site - hate the old marketing and hate the new management.

Posted by: smark

O....K.....

Posted by: MikeekiM

quote:
Originally posted by dsallison
I want to be able to subscribe to a guide service ($10.00/month for a household I'd buy that...but per unit..come on).

I agree... Did you know that DirecTV's pricing model is precisely that?

TiVo guide date for $4.99/month (or free if you subscribe to their highest level of service) regardless of the number of DirecTV TiVo receivers in the household...

Posted by: dsallison

I had no clue, but it sounds like they learned from TiVo's early mistake. I'm sure I'll go to Direct or whatever is wizz-bang at the time, when cable gets to too expensive.

Posted by: Robert S

The etymology of 'hack' is quite complicated and sorely abused by the mass-media. It derives from the culture at MIT where students regularly pull creative and not (very) destructive pranks - for example repainting a campus building with a dome to look like R2D2 - that are referred to as 'hacks'.

When these people moved into the non-corporate computing world they used the term 'hack' to refer to anything really cool that they'd done with a computer. Sometimes this involved using computing resources that one wasn't, technically, entitled to. The point is, although hacking /might/ involve unauthorised access, the intent was not to be destructive. This is a subtlety that seems to have been forgotten.

Those who understand the lingo prefer the term 'cracker' for the person that's normally described in the media as a 'hacker'.

So, what is 'TiVo hacking'? Well, in the early days, adding a larger hard drive was something that was not part of the normal use of the TiVo, so getting it working was a pretty good hack. With the modern tools, there's no creativity required to add a bigger hard drive, so the term 'hack' is less appropriate.

However, things like TiVoWeb and the CallerID modules qualify as hacks. They make TiVo do something neat that its makers never intended.

I disagree with your assertion that the Series 1 TiVoes have been abandoned. Whilst it's true that new software is not being developed for them, the database of IR codes for STB's is a separate thing. Certainly over here new codes are issued as new boxes come on the market.

I have a feeling that TiVo understands the issues raised by offering lifetime subscriptions. Although people on here know how to keep their Series 1's going indefinitely, I assume that the TiVo population as a whole has a life-expectancy and the lifetime sub price is based on that.

If more people than anticipated are prepared to put in the extra work to keep their old TiVo running (I see a lot of posts from people who see a problem with their T-60 or DSR as an 'excuse' to buy an HDVR2) then the lifetime option might be made more expensive or even withdrawn.

This is fairly standard stuff for a business launching a new product or service.