Comments on: TiVo Comments On Netflix Stability And Other Issues

By: MegaZone

MegaZone — Sun, 14 Dec 2008 22:29:15 +0000

Patrick – it is almost certainly not a processing power issue. The S3 and HD both have dedicated hardware decoders, they aren’t like PCs using software on a generic CPU. The Netflix streams don’t even come close to maxing out the capabilities of the decoders in the TiVos. ATSC and digital cable HD are more taxing than Netflix.

Tim – Yeah, sounds like either corruption or a hard drive problem. Sorry to hear it.

By: Tim

Tim — Sun, 14 Dec 2008 21:18:33 +0000

Probably unrelated but to the Netflix stability but….This happened last night. My son was watching a movie on Netflix. The movie stopped and went right to live TV. I went to Tivo Central and the selected VOD. The TiVo locked up on “Please Wait” for around 15 to 20 min. I did a power cycle. When it booted back up it wouldn’t go past the “Almost there” screen for about an hour. I called Tivo and the had me do the same thing, a power cycle with out the wireless adapter connected. Exact same result, the “Almost there” screen. The guy said to let it sit overnight and try it again, he said it’s rare that, it works but I gave it a try. Again, “Almost there” screen for about an hour. Good thing it’s still under warranty. I’m starting an RMA.

By: Patrick

Patrick — Sun, 14 Dec 2008 14:07:00 +0000

I gave it another go yesterday and it was definitely better – I didn’t get booted to the menu or live tv, but it did stop to rebuffer a few times (watching a 4:3 B&W movie). I then watched another movie on Xbox with no rebuffering (color 16:9 letterbox). When it has rebuffered on the Xbox in the past it seemed to be smart and automatically downgrade the quality to prevent future rebuffering rather than attempt playback at the same rate – though some could argue the Tivo handling of trying to always play at the best rate is preferred. I also prefer how XBox handles aspect ratio when viewing on 16:9 and it has a better/snappier interface (which isn’t really a surprise given what’s under the hood).

So, for now, I think I’ll be sticking with Xbox for Netflix streaming. Maybe it’s time for an upgrade to the Tivo CPU to give it a bit more horsepower? Does the Tivo HD have more processing power than the Series 3?

By: Tim

Tim — Sat, 13 Dec 2008 11:55:19 +0000

I would think that it’s more to do with Tivo’s decoder than netflix. But, I suppose it could be both in some circumstances. I’ve been watching the 10 episodes of Carrier on my xbox 360 without problems. When I tried resuming the one I was watching on the Tivo, the audio was delayed by 5 seconds or so. Of course, back on the xbox it works fine.

By: Patrick

Patrick — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 15:57:30 +0000

Thanks for passing on the update. I’ll give it another go over the weekend (a number of movies in my queue are expiring on Jan 1, so I’ve got a bit of watching to do!)

By: JohnG

JohnG — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 14:03:05 +0000

I have a TivoHD and a S3. The TivoHD is working beautifully, the S3 doesn’t load the movie. The screen goes dark until I exit the screen. The fast forward works fine. I’ve rebooted and even reloaded the Service Update. I’m looking forward to the fix as the S3 is in the living room

John G.