Tivo Quality is Slipping

Tivo Premiere XL 

1 - While watching live TV I used the Pause button to leave the room and not miss anything. Ten minutes or so later I returned and started Play. Very quickly afterward the Tivo switched channels without warning! It seems that it needed the tuner for a scheduled recording. Normally the viewer gets a warning to switch or cancel. In this case the unit being paused is apparently not factored into the switching logic. Not cool.

2 - While watching a recording, if you use the left arrow it returns you to the program menu. That's great. What is not so great is that there is a glitch flash of video/audio along the way. My older Tivo units never did this.

3 - On my older Tivo units when you used the Back button, you could use the Advance button to move you to the previous tick mark (similar to what it does when using the Forward button where it moves you to the next tick mark). This does NOT work in the Premiere XL. In fact it switches from Back (rewind) to Play mode...arrrggghh.

Mar 21 2013 update:

Well, it appears that Tivo fixed #3 above as that problem is gone and this Tivo now acts as its predecessors did. Bravo for Tivo.

4. However, the Season Pass Manager has this terrible habit of resorting the todo list in real time. Every time the user leaves the SPM, they have to WAIT for this sorting process which, on my Tivo, takes minutes. This is a process which should be done in the background--period.

5. How can they make, what is essentially a Linux computer take so long to boot? Recent problems with a cablecard have necessitated many power cycles. These literally take 10 minutes to complete. There is something terribly wrong with their boot process. It needs to be fixed.

August 31, 2017 update:

TiVo released the new Hydra User Interface which is a complete "fail". It's all about them and nothing about the end-user -- oh, you were fooled by the "user interface" part. Please find "HarryKerryJr" in New Tivo Hydra Interface for a good summary of how bad it is. 

The Anti "Please Wait" League

The most often repeated, phrase written by software programmers must be "please wait" or "please be patient". It is almost impossible to use your computer on a regular basis and not see these phrases multiple times per day.  

It is basically an instruction from an anonymous source telling you, the user, what you should be doing at some point in time. And it is presumptuous at best.

Progress bars, task counters, percentage complete counters, log entries along with words about what is happening and reasonable estimates of how long it will take are welcome and useful. Other indications of progress, like which file is being processed are reassuring and informative. Animated GIFs are NOT useful or wanted.

What I, as the user care, to do while some computer process is running is really none of the programmer's concern. I could take a break, get a cup of coffee, use some other computer application, use yet another computer etc. You get the idea.

If I never see the words "please wait/be patient" ever again, it will be too soon.

Noisy PVC Vent Pipes

Our new house was built with a high efficiency furnace and hot water heater. Both were vented with 2" PVC pipe. Unfortunately the pipes were hung with "normal" drain-waste-vent (DWV) "J hooks" like the ones you find at the "big box" stores. These hangers were not intended for use with venting systems that see large temperature swings. Consequently the hanger/pipe connections make a lot of noise as the pipes heat up and then cool off.  The hangers are attached to the joists of the floor above which makes the house structure a "sounding board" for the connection noise. I even contacted the manufacturer of our original "J hooks" and they said their product was not approved for this use!

Fortunately there is a good answer if you still have physical access to the "J hooks". Warwick Hanger makes a great "J hook" with a hinged top piece so that they are not "spring loaded" around the PVC pipe. It's called the "Glide Lock J Hook" . I purchased a box of these and then lined most of the surface of the "J hook" that touches the PVC pipe with self-adhesive felt. Then I replaced all of the "normal J hooks" with the new ones. And that is the end of the noisy PVC vent pipes.

Saleae Logic as USBee ZX

I liked the Saleae Logic physical device, but the USBee Suite software better. Given my experience, this is possible. Mike Chrisco did some really good work in his “USBee SX/ZX Hack”. My starting point was a Windows 7 Pro 64bit system with USBee, Saleae and Cyprus software already installed. It took me a while, but here are the things I found unique along the way:

The version 3.4.7 of CyConsole that I used ONLY works with the CyUSB.Sys driver. So I had to edit the CyUsb.inf file. Using the “Cypress CyUsb.sys Programmer’s Reference” I added “%VID_0925&PID_3881.DeviceDesc%=CyUsb, USB\VID_0925&PID_3881”(without the quotes) to sections [Device],[Device.NT], [Device.Ntx86] and [Device.Ntamd64] and “VID_0925&PID_3881.DeviceDesc="Saleae Logic"” (without the outer quotes) to section [String]. Then using section “Windows Vista and 7”, reinstalled the CyUSB.sys driver for the Saleae Logic device (note that the system must be rebooted with “Disable Driver Signature Enforcement” for the driver to work with CyConsole).

Then I followed the steps in “USBeeSX/ZX Hack”. Note: the verifcation read string for the Saleae unit is "C0 25 09 81 38 00 00 00". Next I rebooted the system, checked that the device was recognized as the USBee ZX, started up USBee Suite and captured the first data of an I2C exchange.

No other testing has been done yet, but at least it functions as a logic analyzer. Big thanks to Mike for his trail-blazing work.