As subscribers to Tivo's service we recently "upgraded" our 4 year old Tivo HD DVR to a Series 4 Premiere. Upgraded is their phrase not mine. Having done computer upgrades for years and even cross platform upgrades between Windows and Macs “upgrade" is not really the word you're looking for. More appropriately, buying a new Tivo and transferring existing service to it is a great way to waste a couple of days of your weekend.
A rough transfer to a Tivo Premiere:
- If you have shows recorded on your old DVR and "upgrade,” you have to maintain service on the old DVR in order to access the shows on the old DVR over your local network.
- If you attempt to maintain service for the month so you can transfer recordings to your new DVR expect to sign-up for a contract. Tivo will not allow you to extend service as a gesture of good will. In fact Tivo’s sales and support staff laugh when you mention to them that you would like to maintain both DVRs on the account for 6 hours.
- My new Blu-Ray player has a USB port and I can watch movies on it. My Tivo Series 4 has a USB port and they've disabled any functionality outside of extending user input interfaces... meaning if you copy all of your old shows (in Tivo's proprietary format) to an external hard drive via Tivo Desktop on a computer, when you plug the drive into another unit you can not access those shows.
- Their new user interface is abysmal... if they didn't provide you with the option to use the old interface you would likely throw your Tivo into an abyss.
When the new Tivo arrived I had already researched the massive failure on Tivo's part (I've been a long time user of Tivo so I've come to expect failure). I had a few major hurdles to overcome.
- I had to transfer my cable card from my existing Tivo to the new Tivo. Since it's locked by the cable company to prevent theft or copying I had to contact them and walk through the painful transfer while I tried to explain what we were doing.
- I unplugged my old Tivo from the ethernet connection so it would not call the mothership to find out it was no longer loved. I thought I had it fooled. When I removed the cable card the machine went into a panicked state and did everything short of mandating that I contact the Tivo service to reset the Tivo. Luckily I restarted the Tivo by unplugging it and the behavior went away. It of course was unable to watch live TV because of the lack of a cable card, but I could at least get to the main navigation again and watch the already recorded shows.
- Since I had unplugged the old Tivo I was able to plug it into a local network (not connected to the internet) and access it with Tivo Desktop. I was after several hours of experimenting able to finally get the Tivo Desktop Service to successfully copy all of my recordings from the old Tivo.
- After copying my old recordings from the old Tivo I figured I would show them on the New Tivo by streaming them over the local network. For about 20 seconds my workstation showed in the "Now Playing" list on the new Tivo. I could browse the list of videos from the old Tivo. When I selected a video the Tivo said "This video is no longer available." Then the server disappeared from the New Tivo's interface. I have not successfully connected the Tivo Series 4 Premiere to the Tivo Desktop Plus application since.
- Online during my research I noticed on the Tivo website there was a feature to transfer the Wishlists and the Season Passes. This data is not “saved” on their website, it’s simply read from an activated unit. At the point a unit becomes deactivated, all data on the Tivo website is removed.
Since I’m a member of the Tivo Advisors committee, they never really give us a chance to indicate what we want from their service, they’re only interested in what type of car I want to buy, or what type of movie I might be going out to see. So here are my recommendations to make the user experience for Tivo customers much better.
- When you offer users an “account” that they can use online to schedule their programs, keep a copy of this data. Since it pertains to your users, this account info should NOT disappear or be tied directly to a unit.
- Users should be able to setup profiles. Most users expect that they can record things. If a family of three has three different people, they likely have 3 different interests. It’s in Tivo’s best interest to maintain information on these 3 interests so they can use the demographics for their marketing practices.
- Stop locking your machines. It’s running a crippled version of Linux. Everyone knows this. Let people use the devices. You’re much more likely to have happy customers if they can actually use the machines they’re purchasing rather than having them set like bricks when a new Tivo comes out. No, I will not punish someone else I know and give them my old Tivo.
- Learn about who your users are. If most of your users are using Apple products, then make your units work like Apple products do. Make it easy for them to download updates at their wish. Make it easy for them to connect to the machines on their local network to get stream their local content.
- Stop putting ads in the main list. The whole reason I have a Tivo in the first place is so I can filter out ads. The last thing I want is MORE ADS.
- The Tivo recommendations are bad. Take a hint from Netflix. Let people provide you with their likes, then you can suggest shows that way based on shows that other people like similarly. Don’t recommend something to someone because a company pays you to. This comes across as less helpful, and more advertising.
