When will TiVo Australia stop treating it’s customers like idiots?
Posted Wednesday, November 9, 2011 at 11:44 am by Jason Cartwright
In a press release from Hybrid TV, they have announced a new 1TB model of the TiVo. Don’t be fooled people, the TiVo XL is nothing more than an upgrade from the 320GB to a 1TB hard drive. Once again the TiVo returns to Harvey Norman (and Joyce Mayne) as an exclusive for A$699.
What’s disappointing is that Hybrid TV not offering a completely new model. Thanks to the wonderful world of the internet, TiVo fans know that we’re getting left behind in Australia. TiVo in the US, has released two new models since Australia got it’s first.
The latest of which is TiVo Premiere Elite, containing 4 tuners, 2TB HDD, new hardware and software design and support for mobile apps. The updated UI is build on flash and features improved speed, search functionality and access to a bunch of online services like YouTube, Picasa, Photobucket and Podcasts. Essentially this is the TiVo we should be getting in Australia, but sadly aren’t.
Lift your game Hybrid TV, it’s insulting that you don’t understand that we know what’s happening in the rest of the world. Clearly it’s easier to sit back, wait for hard drive prices to drop, slowly increment the storage in a device that was released in the US on September 12, 2006.
Please spend the time to licence the TiVo Premiere Elite for Australia, do the local customisations and do the right thing by your fans and your customer-base in Australia will flourish.
More info @ Harvey Norman
Head of TiVo Australia leaves for the US, future looks grim
Posted Saturday, September 3, 2011 at 8:42 pm by Jason Cartwright
Director of TiVo Australia or Hybrid Television Services (ANZ), Robbee Minicola has left Australia, and is already back in her home country of the USA, after working internationally for 27 years. She confirmed this with a post on twitter a few hours ago. Her profile description listed her as the “TiVo mad leader working towards building the best TiVo experience in AU and NZ”.
TiVo in Australia hasn’t exactly been booming with poor sales numbers, lack of updates and models and downsizing to skeleton staff. With the head of the company, TiVo’s future in Australia becomes even more bleak. As an owner and fan of TiVo, its incredibly frustrating that TiVo is being left to die like this. There has now been multiple models and updates released internationally that have not made it to Australia.
What has always puzzled me about TiVo is its lack of partnerships and bundles with television manufacturers. Consumers have embraced HDTV’s over the past few years in a massive way, so bundling a discounted TiVo would have been a great way to drive sales. One hope for TiVo fans is that Australian licencee of TiVo, would be acquired by someone who has the resources and passion to make TiVo a success in Australia. Fingers crossed.
What the hell is going on with TiVo? Big outages scheduled.
Posted Thursday, July 28, 2011 at 7:13 pm by Jason Cartwright
In a service message to TiVo owners in Australia, its been revealed there’s some major outages on the way. Normally service outages are scheduled for the early hours to minimise impact on consumers. Strangely these TiVo outages are during the day and will occur over almost a week and last between 7 and 12 hours.
It’s being labelled as scheduled maintenance, but this will be the most significant outage since TiVo launched in Australia. While the device / service could do with some much needed upgrades, past experience tells us that’s unlikely to be the case.
Scheduled Maintenance
Please note we will be carrying out routine maintenance on the TiVo Service and CASPA Service on the following days:
Wednesday, August 3 – 10am to 5pm (AEST)
Thursday, August 4 – 10am to 5pm (AEST)
Friday, August 5 – 10am to 5pm (AEST)
Monday, August 8 – 8am to 8pm (AEST)
The following services will be unavailable during those times:
- CASPA On-Demand
- My Account
- TiVo Genie
- TiVo Activations
- Games & Showcases
We apologise for any inconvenience caused.
TiVo to lose Sony Music content, June 27
Posted Friday, June 24, 2011 at 6:48 pm by Jason Cartwright
In an email to TiVo subscribers, news arrives that Sony Music content will no longer be available on TiVo. Starting from the 27th June 2011 the content loss also extends to Bandit.fm content. While the reason why the Sony Music content is being pulled still remains a mystery, what is clear is that TiVo is going backwards in Australia.
No new models, features or updates are being released and now content is beginning to disappear. While the US version of TiVo are enjoying Series 4 devices with a much improved flash-driven HD UI, and iPhone/iPad apps, Australians are left out in the cold with Series 3.
While its doubtful that many consumers bought the TiVo for its IP-delivered media (still SD), any loss of content or functionality sends the platform in the wrong direction. On the 27th of June, the content will disappear automatically.
Read the full message @ TiVo
Sorry North East VIC, I made you rescan your channels
Posted Wednesday, March 2, 2011 at 6:01 pm by Jason Cartwright
Since the start of February 2011, I’ve been unable to get the GO! channel and guide data for GEM had stopped updating. As TiVo is my set-top-box / PVR, I turned to TiVo support for assistance on the issue and emailed them on February 18th. Strangely not everyone in the area experienced the issue. Fast forward 2 weeks and finally a response from TiVo arrives in the inbox.
Hi Jason,
Apologies for the long delay, we have been investigating this issue since 4 February. Channel 9 has doubled up on triplets in your region and this has caused this cross-wiring and loss of EPG data. Channel 9 acknowledged the issue on 16 Feb and have promised to implement a fix tomorrow morning. The data should be available on the TiVo as of this Friday.
I am very sorry for the long delay in the fix, it was a struggle to get Channel 9 to even believe there was an issue in the first place. Thank you for your patience.For any future enquiries related to this issue please reply to this message leaving the reference number in the subject.
Regards,Hybrid TV Level 3 Support
WIN are trying to market this as an ‘upgrade’ but in reality the required re-scanning is just a fix for this issue. Affected channels include WIN, GO! and GEM.
You can check out WIN’s Rescanning guide PDF for details of how to perform the ‘upgrade’ for your TV/STB.
More @ TV Tonight
TiVo EPG update. Up to the minute guide data (if supported)
Posted Thursday, February 24, 2011 at 3:07 pm by Jason Cartwright
It’s finally here ! An update to TiVo’s electronic program guide (EPG) arrives today ! This means that changes will be reflected ‘up-to-the-minute’ rather than half hour increments previously. If your TiVo has ever recorded the wrong program, this was likely the reason why. Stations frequently re-schedule or cancel programs at the last minute and with TiVo basing its recordings on guide data this creates a frustrating issue for users.
The following networks: Seven, Nine, Ten & ABC will now all display scheduled program start and finish times that are “up-to-the-minute”.
