Dynamic tuner allocation means being able to handle the number of available tuners changing in real time.  And having the conflict logic for what to do when, say, all four tuners are in use and someone tries to use Live TV on the IP STB *right now*.  Do you allow the IP STB to kill a recording like changing the channel on the XL4 would prompt?  Do you pop a warning on the XL4 itself?  Both?  TiVo is considering the usability aspects of the different possibilities as they decide on the final design.But it did raise a question in my mind, which I’ve sent to TiVo and hopefully they’ll let me know the answer.  The question is this…What if I set up four recordings manually – not SPs or ARWLs.  But say ‘Record this episode’.  Four recordings all in the same time slot – so all four tuners are used.  Then I go and try to reserve two tuners for IP STBs.  What happens?Specific, fixed recordings like that aren’t dynamically rescheduled in the current system, like SPs and ARWLs can be.  Does it give you an error when you try to reduce the number of tuners?  Warn you of the issue and ask which recording(s) to kill?

Appears to me that TiVo has designed something to avoid certain corner cases, but has found those corner cases confronting it anyway.  If I set up recordings on my Elite ahead of time assuming 3 tuners, and then I come in and take one of them away for IP STB use, what will happen?  Will it spend half an hour going through its recording schedule after I designate the tuner and pop up messages to me about recordings that are now not possible?  Or send me emails?  How is this different from doing dynamic tuner allocation again?

Regardless, an acceptable solution for the moment.

Time to get working on the XL6…

In theory that would work, but TiVo didn’t say anything about any plans to do this.  I think the real focus on the market is on consolidating all of those tuners into one box and having non-DVR thin clients in the other rooms, rather than having multiple DVRs.  There are a lot of benefits to this – one M-Card & Tuning Adapter (and CableCARD & TAs are still the biggest source of problems, by far), HW economy – a four or six tuner chip costs less than multiple two tuner setups, one main SoC, one drive, etc.

But it is also a much thornier issue, conflict wise.  With the IP STB dynamic tuner allocation is only for Live TV – because that’s all the IP STB needs a tuner for.  So there is a human in the loop to handle conflict resolution.  Just as if the XL4 is recording four things today and you want to change the channel – you decide if it is OK to cancel a program right there, in real time.

But for DVRs to cooperate and schedule recordings they’d have to be mutually aware of their schedules. How can A know B will have a tuner free when it needs it?  These decisions aren’t made in real time, they’re made in advance based on the SP priority.  And knowing whether or not you can record a particular program at a particular time effects all of the other conflict resolution decisions.

If one unit was a master and the other slaved to it, so all of the decisions were made in one place, it would be easier.  But then most of the second unit goes to waste.

Basically the problem is less complex when you’re just concerned with Live TV and a human interacting in real time.  But once you want to do a pool of shared tuners across multiple devices, you have to get into shared conflict resolution, and things can become non-deterministic.

I don’t expect TiVo to do this, it is just too much work for too little market return.

Even ReplayTV, which had shared scheduling, left the hard decisions up to the human.  They never really had this pooled tuner concept – recordings on A used tuners on A, and recordings on B used tuners on B.  The human could just push a recording request from A to B if A couldn’t handle it.

If TiVo does anything in this area I expect it to be more cooperative scheduling.  A says “I can’t record this, could you do it for me B?”  B schedules the recording, and then when you want to watch it on A it is streamed over via MRS.  Each unit handles it’s own conflict resolution, the request from A is just like a person asking for a new recording.  And B can always say no if it is booked up.  And it something changes B notifies A and A figures out when & how to reschedule.  It’d be a much more direct evolution of what they do today, not in real time.

Of course, TiVo hasn’t indicated they’re doing this either.

And you can opt not to reserve any tuners and just not use Live TV on the STBs – which is what I plan to do.  I don’t use Live TV, so I won’t miss it at all.

The one bit of further bad news – or really a clarification – is that you MUST have an XL4 (Elite/Q) to use the IP STB.  While it will MRS from a Premiere or Premiere XL, setup requires an XL4.  Because setup on the IP STB amounts to just ‘pairing’ it with the parent DVR, and it inherits all of the settings.  And at launch only the XL4 supports this pairing – so only the XL4 can support IP STB setup.  QED.

But if you have an XL4 the impact is much lower than it seemed to be initially.  You can have multiple IP STBs and you only need to reserve tuners if you want to use them for Live TV.

If the pool is available, why can’t a second Premier grab an extra live tuner if one is needed?

Thoughts?

And you can have more IP STBs than reserved tuners – they form a pool shared by the IP STBs.  If you have one reserved tuner and three IP STBs – any *one* of those STBs can use Live TV at a time.  The other two would display some ‘resource unavailable’ message.

When you reserve a tuner, or two, for use by IP STB units for Live TV they’re basically a ‘pool’ set aside for that use.  So you could have one XL4 and three IP STBs in a home, and reserve just one tuner.  Then any *one* of the IP STBs could access Live TV at a time – using that single tuner.  The other two IP STBs would display some kind of ‘resource unavailable’ error while the third is using the tuner.

The person I spoke with at TiVo’s booth today said he believed the IP STB would give up the tuner when placed in standby mode and that it would also detect the TV being turned off when using HDMI and free the tuner.

Note the tuner(s) you reserve for this IP STB Live TV use are *always* reserved and even if NONE of the IP STBs are using the tuner it can NEVER be used by the XL4 for anything – recording, Live TV, etc.

But, again, this is just in the initial release.  TiVo will be moving to dynamic tuner allocation in a future update and this all becomes moot.  Once that happens the IP STB will grab a free tuner from the TiVo DVR only as needed.

The IP STB’s purpose is to eliminate the need for additional TiVo DVRs in other rooms.  The idea is you have on XL4 as your main DVR/content source, and then IP STBs for other TVs in the home.  You have the same TiVo interface, you’re just pulling the content off the XL4 – or directly via IP from streaming services.  If you schedule a recording you’re doing it on the XL4.

Note that you *MUST* have an XL4 to use the IP STB at launch.  Even though it can access content from the Premiere & Premiere XL via MRS it *requires* an XL4 as setup is handled by ‘pairing’ with the parent DVR – which is only XL4 at launch.  Without an XL4 you can’t setup the IP STB.  This will change in a future update when they added dynamic tuner allocation and add support for the full Premiere family.

I suspect you’re not happy to hear that.

The IP STB’s purpose is to eliminate the need for additional TiVo DVRs in other rooms.  The idea is you have on XL4 as your main DVR/content source, and then IP STBs for other TVs in the home.  You have the same TiVo interface, you’re just pulling the content off the XL4 – or directly via IP from streaming services.  If you schedule a recording you’re doing it on the XL4.

Note that you *MUST* have an XL4 to use the IP STB at launch.  Even though it can access content from the Premiere & Premiere XL via MRS it *requires* an XL4 as setup is handled by ‘pairing’ with the parent DVR – which is only XL4 at launch.  Without an XL4 you can’t setup the IP STB.  This will change in a future update when they added dynamic tuner allocation and add support for the full Premiere family.

I suspect you’re not happy to hear that.

The IP STB’s purpose is to eliminate the need for additional TiVo DVRs in other rooms.  The idea is you have on XL4 as your main DVR/content source, and then IP STBs for other TVs in the home.  You have the same TiVo interface, you’re just pulling the content off the XL4 – or directly via IP from streaming services.  If you schedule a recording you’re doing it on the XL4.

Note that you *MUST* have an XL4 to use the IP STB at launch.  Even though it can access content from the Premiere & Premiere XL via MRS it *requires* an XL4 as setup is handled by ‘pairing’ with the parent DVR – which is only XL4 at launch.  Without an XL4 you can’t setup the IP STB.  This will change in a future update when they added dynamic tuner allocation and add support for the full Premiere family.

I suspect you’re not happy to hear that.

The IP STB’s purpose is to eliminate the need for additional TiVo DVRs in other rooms.  The idea is you have on XL4 as your main DVR/content source, and then IP STBs for other TVs in the home.  You have the same TiVo interface, you’re just pulling the content off the XL4 – or directly via IP from streaming services.  If you schedule a recording you’re doing it on the XL4.

Note that you *MUST* have an XL4 to use the IP STB at launch.  Even though it can access content from the Premiere & Premiere XL via MRS it *requires* an XL4 as setup is handled by ‘pairing’ with the parent DVR – which is only XL4 at launch.  Without an XL4 you can’t setup the IP STB.  This will change in a future update when they added dynamic tuner allocation and add support for the full Premiere family.

I suspect you’re not happy to hear that.

The IP STB’s purpose is to eliminate the need for additional TiVo DVRs in other rooms.  The idea is you have on XL4 as your main DVR/content source, and then IP STBs for other TVs in the home.  You have the same TiVo interface, you’re just pulling the content off the XL4 – or directly via IP from streaming services.  If you schedule a recording you’re doing it on the XL4.

Note that you *MUST* have an XL4 to use the IP STB at launch.  Even though it can access content from the Premiere & Premiere XL via MRS it *requires* an XL4 as setup is handled by ‘pairing’ with the parent DVR – which is only XL4 at launch.  Without an XL4 you can’t setup the IP STB.  This will change in a future update when they added dynamic tuner allocation and add support for the full Premiere family.

I suspect you’re not happy to hear that.

The IP STB’s purpose is to eliminate the need for additional TiVo DVRs in other rooms.  The idea is you have on XL4 as your main DVR/content source, and then IP STBs for other TVs in the home.  You have the same TiVo interface, you’re just pulling the content off the XL4 – or directly via IP from streaming services.  If you schedule a recording you’re doing it on the XL4.

Note that you *MUST* have an XL4 to use the IP STB at launch.  Even though it can access content from the Premiere & Premiere XL via MRS it *requires* an XL4 as setup is handled by ‘pairing’ with the parent DVR – which is only XL4 at launch.  Without an XL4 you can’t setup the IP STB.  This will change in a future update when they added dynamic tuner allocation and add support for the full Premiere family.

I suspect you’re not happy to hear that.

The IP STB’s purpose is to eliminate the need for additional TiVo DVRs in other rooms.  The idea is you have on XL4 as your main DVR/content source, and then IP STBs for other TVs in the home.  You have the same TiVo interface, you’re just pulling the content off the XL4 – or directly via IP from streaming services.  If you schedule a recording you’re doing it on the XL4.

Note that you *MUST* have an XL4 to use the IP STB at launch.  Even though it can access content from the Premiere & Premiere XL via MRS it *requires* an XL4 as setup is handled by ‘pairing’ with the parent DVR – which is only XL4 at launch.  Without an XL4 you can’t setup the IP STB.  This will change in a future update when they added dynamic tuner allocation and add support for the full Premiere family.

I suspect you’re not happy to hear that.

The IP STB’s purpose is to eliminate the need for additional TiVo DVRs in other rooms.  The idea is you have on XL4 as your main DVR/content source, and then IP STBs for other TVs in the home.  You have the same TiVo interface, you’re just pulling the content off the XL4 – or directly via IP from streaming services.  If you schedule a recording you’re doing it on the XL4.

Note that you *MUST* have an XL4 to use the IP STB at launch.  Even though it can access content from the Premiere & Premiere XL via MRS it *requires* an XL4 as setup is handled by ‘pairing’ with the parent DVR – which is only XL4 at launch.  Without an XL4 you can’t setup the IP STB.  This will change in a future update when they added dynamic tuner allocation and add support for the full Premiere family.

I suspect you’re not happy to hear that.

The IP STB’s purpose is to eliminate the need for additional TiVo DVRs in other rooms.  The idea is you have on XL4 as your main DVR/content source, and then IP STBs for other TVs in the home.  You have the same TiVo interface, you’re just pulling the content off the XL4 – or directly via IP from streaming services.  If you schedule a recording you’re doing it on the XL4.

Note that you *MUST* have an XL4 to use the IP STB at launch.  Even though it can access content from the Premiere & Premiere XL via MRS it *requires* an XL4 as setup is handled by ‘pairing’ with the parent DVR – which is only XL4 at launch.  Without an XL4 you can’t setup the IP STB.  This will change in a future update when they added dynamic tuner allocation and add support for the full Premiere family.

I suspect you’re not happy to hear that.

The IP STB’s purpose is to eliminate the need for additional TiVo DVRs in other rooms.  The idea is you have on XL4 as your main DVR/content source, and then IP STBs for other TVs in the home.  You have the same TiVo interface, you’re just pulling the content off the XL4 – or directly via IP from streaming services.  If you schedule a recording you’re doing it on the XL4.

Note that you *MUST* have an XL4 to use the IP STB at launch.  Even though it can access content from the Premiere & Premiere XL via MRS it *requires* an XL4 as setup is handled by ‘pairing’ with the parent DVR – which is only XL4 at launch.  Without an XL4 you can’t setup the IP STB.  This will change in a future update when they added dynamic tuner allocation and add support for the full Premiere family.

I suspect you’re not happy to hear that.

The IP STB’s purpose is to eliminate the need for additional TiVo DVRs in other rooms.  The idea is you have on XL4 as your main DVR/content source, and then IP STBs for other TVs in the home.  You have the same TiVo interface, you’re just pulling the content off the XL4 – or directly via IP from streaming services.  If you schedule a recording you’re doing it on the XL4.

Note that you *MUST* have an XL4 to use the IP STB at launch.  Even though it can access content from the Premiere & Premiere XL via MRS it *requires* an XL4 as setup is handled by ‘pairing’ with the parent DVR – which is only XL4 at launch.  Without an XL4 you can’t setup the IP STB.  This will change in a future update when they added dynamic tuner allocation and add support for the full Premiere family.

I suspect you’re not happy to hear that.

The IP STB’s purpose is to eliminate the need for additional TiVo DVRs in other rooms.  The idea is you have on XL4 as your main DVR/content source, and then IP STBs for other TVs in the home.  You have the same TiVo interface, you’re just pulling the content off the XL4 – or directly via IP from streaming services.  If you schedule a recording you’re doing it on the XL4.

Note that you *MUST* have an XL4 to use the IP STB at launch.  Even though it can access content from the Premiere & Premiere XL via MRS it *requires* an XL4 as setup is handled by ‘pairing’ with the parent DVR – which is only XL4 at launch.  Without an XL4 you can’t setup the IP STB.  This will change in a future update when they added dynamic tuner allocation and add support for the full Premiere family.

I suspect you’re not happy to hear that.