Wednesday, February 26, 2003

 
DO ALL TIVO SUBSCRIBERS HAVE ME TO THANK?
External link:

I was one of the first Tivo customers, and early on, I answered their request for suggestions for improving their service. They never replied, but they implemented almost all of my suggestions.

Actually, even back in 1999, these ideas seemed pretty obvious, I thought. Then again, maybe, if it weren't for me, they'd never have happened. Who knows?

If you don't have a Tivo, you probably won't find this very interesting, and you might want to skip this very long blog entry.

Date: Wed, 22 Sep 1999 01:35:31 -0400 (EDT)
From: David D.
To: help@tivo.com
Subject: Suggestions for improving the Tivo Software even more

I was very pleased to get your recent email announcing your welcome
improvements and inviting further suggestions. I have used Tivo for just
the last three weeks, and I already don't know how I ever got along
without it.

Having used and relied upon it, I do have the following suggestions for
improving Tivo's software:

1) Currently, when you change the channel with Tivo while watching live
T.V., the half-hour buffer is erased. This seems both annoying and
unnecessary. It is particularly frustrating when I'm watching a show
behind real time, and then Tivo needs to change the channel in order to
record another program. I must then chose between not seeing the end of
the show I was watching or not recording the program I had scheduled. I
don't understand why my Tivo must require me to make this choice.

2) When I look up a show by name, I really wish there were some way to see
not just the very next time that show will be on, but the times after
that. This would be great for helping to resolve conflicts. For example,
if I want to tape "Sex and the City" on HBO, but I have a conflict, I
could press a single button and find out when the identical episode will
be repeated, and record that broadcast instead.

3) Along the same line, currently, when a new season pass conflicts with
an old one, one of those season passes must be canceled. I would far
prefer it if both passes could be saved, but Tivo would ask me which
season pass should have a higher priority. That way I could have a season
pass to a cable show that's repeated several times a week, but have it
occasionally pre-empted by a show that's only on once a week.

4) Finally, I think Tivo should alert me when a season pass conflict
arises that was not apparent when the season pass was set. For example,
the WB show "Felicity", to which I have a season pass, has just moved from
Tuesday night to Sunday night, and is now opposite "the Simpsons" and
"Futurama", to which I also have season passes. Looking at "Tivo's To Do
List", I see that my Tivo has resolved the conflict by deciding to record
Felicity and not the other two shows. I think it should have recognized
the conflict, and alerted me to it, so that I could decide for myself how
to resolve the conflict.

I hope these suggestions don't sound too negative. I really do love
having my Tivo, and I think it's a great product!

Best regards,

David Danzig

---Tivo implemented the first three suggestions---

Date: Thu, 14 Oct 1999 17:30:44 -0400 (EDT)
From: David D.
To: help@tivo.com
Subject: Suggestions for improving the Tivo software

I am a Tivo customer, and I recently wrote you with some suggestions on
how to improve the Tivo software. I didn't get a response, but I hope
you've found my suggestions useful, and that you'll consider implementing
them. I've included them below, along with a few new ones. Please let me
know whether you find them helpful, and if you plan on implementing any of
them.

5) One matter of great concern to me is the status bar at the bottom of
the screen which says how long the program is, and how much has been
recorded, and how much has been played. I am concerned about getting
"screen burn", because this item is so often on the screen. Screen burn
occurs when an image is displayed too long on a screen, and the reverse
image becomes permanently visible even when the image is gone. Large
screen rear projection TVs are particularly susceptible to this
phenomenon. The main reason I am concerned about this for the status bar,
is that it stays on the screen when a program is paused, which can be for
an unlimited period of time. Advancing the program a frame gets rid of
the status bar, but sometimes I forget to do that, and I'm sure it never
even occurs to many Tivo customers. An obvious solution to this problem
is for the status bar to be automatically removed from the screen after a
few moments when the program is paused. An even better, though more
complex, solution would be for the entire image, including the status bar,
to alternate between the regular image and its photonegative image. That
way, screen burn will be impossible, since all the pixels will be
displayed in equal amounts, over time.

6) This is a very minor problem, but it seems so easy to fix, that it
would be a real shame not to do so: When I set a manual recording of a
program which I had already scheduled, Tivo reports a conflict. For
example, suppose I had told Tivo to record Sunday's new episode of the
Simpsons, by choosing it from Fox's daily schedule. Then, I later decide
to set a manual recording of the Simpsons every Sunday. Tivo will tell me
that I have a conflict with my previous recording. In actuality, of
course, there is no conflict, since these are both commands to record the
same show.

7) Finally, I want to re-emphasize my suggestion number 2) below. I think
the single best thing you could do to improve Tivo is to show every
scheduled broadcast of a show when it is chosen by name, instead of just
the very next showing. As I wrote below, this would be great when the
first broadcast is in conflict with another show, and the same episode
will be on again, as with many cable series and movies. But it would also
be really great for talk shows and syndicated shows. For example, I have
most, but not all, episodes of the Simpsons, Newsradio, and Friends, three
of my favorite shows, each of which is on multiple times throughout the
day on a different channel from the other two. It is very tedious to go
through the schedules of the three different channels, looking at the
program descriptions of each episode, to see if it's one that I haven't
seen, and should tape again. I can't tape them all, since some of these
shows conflict with each other. It would also be very useful for taping
talk shows, which I might only want to watch if there's going to be a
particularly interesting guest on. Adding this feature would literally
save me hours every week. Please, consider adding this feature.

Very best regards,

David Danzig

[quote of original message snipped]

---Tivo implemented suggestions 5 and 7---

This is The Official Record. 12:23 AM
link to this item: http://www.creamy.com/blog/2003/02/do-all-tivo-subscribers-have-me-to.html


Check for older comments: Archived comments on item #90376448