Tivo Premiere Review by HT Guys Listener Clayton Arnold

When fate struck and my Tivo HD took an unexpected dirt nap, I was on the verge of cancelling my Tivo service after long love affair with the company. After a few twists and turns with Tivo customer care, which I won’t get into in this review, I ended up with a brand new Tivo Premiere.  A couple of weeks later, I have had an adequate amount of time to form an opinion.  Let’s dive in, shall we? THE HARDWARE The box is fairly recognizable.  Though, it is considerably smaller when put next to the old Tivo HD box.  So small, in fact, that it will likely rest near the top of you AV stack instead of the bottom or you may risk a wobbly component system.   Overall, it is a fairly attractive piece of gear that won’t make you go running for the tinted glass on your entertainment center.  The back panel serves up the expected inputs.  In addition to HDMI and Component inputs, eSATA, Ethernet, optical audio, Ethernet, and two usb ports are available.  A single cable card is the main attraction on the back panel.  I suspect that single-stream cable cards are nearly extinct, so I won’t complain here.  Having grown used to the front loading Tivo HD cable card, I find the change to a rear-loading slot a bit disappointing.  Theoretically, once installed, the chances of having to remove the cable card is pretty slim.  But, if one ever decides to cancel cable in lieu of OTA, yanking the cable card out of the box to return it to Comcast or the like is just that much harder. There is an array of colored lights across the front panel of the box that indicate things such as when a recording is taking place, the box receives an IR signal, or the steady green “everything is ok” light.  Not much of a departure from the previous models.  I am beginning to think that a small info panel, much like the Series 3 had, would be a welcome feature.  I appreciate the simplicity of the lights-only, but I feel like there could be a little more “pizazz” there. The standard Premiere, which I own, has a 320 gig internal, non-user replaceable (or thou shalt void thy warranty) hard drive.  The XL model comes with a 1 TB drive, a size that I feel a little more comfortable with considering the weekly amount of HD programming I am accustomed to recording.  Taking into account how very cheap storage is these days, 1 TB should be the standard size for the premium experience that Tivo is promoting.  With the inclusion of the eSATA port, the user can add expandable storage. Alas, Tivo has maintained the position that you may only use the WD My DVR Expander line of external drives.  As you might expect, one pays a premium for the right to add a hard drive to the unit.  But, in a pinch, it is nice to have the option to add storage to the Premiere.  One other bummer is the lack of built-in wifi.  Hopefully, your home is equipped with Ethernet.  In my case, I have an Ethernet switch running to powerline adapters.  This combo serves more than just my Tivo, for slightly more than the $70 bucks you’ll pay for the wireless N usb adapter.  THE REMOTE Tivo redefined remote ergonomics with the introduction of the peanut shaped remote back with the Series 1.  It just feels right.  Harmony parodied this shape and feel with the 880 and 890 remotes, giving the Tivo remote even that much more validation.  That said, the remote that ships with the Tivo Premiere feels cheap.  It honestly feels like a step backward in build quality from previous offerings.  The remote looks nice.  It has a high gloss piano black finish, nice button layout, and it is pretty light.  It still feels like the right shape, ergonomically speaking.  And they have added some small touches, like the back side of the remote has lateral “ribs”, giving it a bit of a tactile, non-slip feel.  It would have been a big plus to include the backlit remote at no additional charge.  I have not used the new Qwerty Tivo remote.  It is a great idea with some of the new UI stuff that is going on inside the menu system.  I’ll expand more on that part later.  But the fact that it is going to cost, should I choose to buy it, about $90 additional, kinda takes it out of the running.  I will likely just stick to my Harmony.  Hmmmm, let’s add up the potential cost so far.  Retail for the Premiere XL = $500, the wireless N adapter = $70, Qwerty slide remote =$90, and let’s assume that you’ll buy a lifetime subscription on the box as I did, add another $400.  All in so far, about $1060.   If you opt to add 1 TB of external storage, be ready to pony up an additional $120.  Bringing the tally to $1180. Ouch! THE SOFTWARE By far, this is the biggest change in the Tivo platform.  It is a very nice update that takes Tivo in the right direction, modernizing a UI that was starting to feel a little long in the tooth.  I have found that some of the more appreciable changes are the small things.  For instance, having a live TV window in the upper right hand corner while navigating the menus is great.  The addition of HD menus, at least on the surface, is nice.  But, if you go digging very far into the menus, the old standard def stuff rears its’ ugly head again.  The new UI is based in Adobe Flash.  And despite a new dual-core processor, I feel that navigation is a bit sluggish at times.  And, as I just previously mentioned, the new UI is only skin deep.  The old UI is still there, it is just utilized on fewer menus.  But, I must emphasize that it is a nice improvement. Then there is the other obvious UI addition of the Discovery Bar.  This is an aggregate of show recommendations.  I can appreciate what it is, but it isn’t something that I see myself using.  Ever.  I do very much like the addition of a hard disk space indicator.  It was always guesswork when trying to determine if I should start watching and/or deleting shows to make room on older Tivos. Again, a simple, but very nice touch Tivo!  Searching for content has the added benefit of simultaneously giving you offerings from your cable provider, Amazon VOD, Blockbuster, and Netflix.  So if you have a hankering for some Back to the Future action and it isn’t airing anytime soon on Comcast’s lineup, Netflix comes in and saves the day.  Or, Amazon for that matter, but why would you buy from Amazon if you have Netflix?  Nice to have options though, right?  Additionally, you can get cast and crew information about shows and movies.  A nice touch that I find myself liking more and more.  SUMMARY The Tivo Premiere is a very nice DVR.  It is a massive jump ahead of the Scientific Atlantic or Motorola DVR offerings that are usually dumped on you by your cable provider.  But, it is only  an incremental step ahead of where it was five years ago.  Hell, it really hasn’t evolved much over the Series 1 with the exception of premium cable support.  The decision one has to make is based on value.  Is the Tivo Premiere a value, or at least enough of a premium experience that they are willing to shell out some heavy cash.  I want to love Tivo so much.  And sadly, I probably do love Tivo more than I should.  I really want them to succeed.  Truly, I feel that Tivo is missing the boat a little bit.  Companies like Apple, Boxee, Roku, Google, and Microsoft seem to have a much better idea of where the average user’s viewing experience is heading.  It will be with broadband content from the likes of Netflix, Hulu, Revision 3, the TWIT Network, Vudoo, and others.  In the future, I see myself with an antenna for network content such as sitcoms, news, and sporting events.  I will turn to a Roku, Xbox, Apple TV, or Boxee Box for access to Netflix, Hulu, or other online content.  I have realized that 90% of what I watch is on Network, AKA freely available, television.  The glaring hole in my personal (potential) lineup is HBO’s True Blood and Boardwalk Empire, both of which have sucked my wife and I in.  Sad, I know.  That would be a big deal, a few years ago.  Not now.  I can rent these shows on Apple TV a day after airing.  In order to maintain relevance in the future, Tivo has to not only continue to be the de-facto standard when it comes to recording live television, but it has to embrace online content more fully.  Right now it feels like a sideshow that is half-baked.  Being that it has been four years since the introduction of the Series 3, I have to ask myself what has Tivo been doing?  The hardware is barely incrementally better.  Barely.  The software is on the right track, but feels more like a beta experience that should have launched to testers around the time of the launch of the Tivo HD.  It isn’t a revolution and a complete rebuilding of the Tivo experience.  A dark horse rival that Tivo should become increasingly worrisome about is Microsoft (As if Microsoft were somehow an underdog in much considering there size, right?).  They have a better, more mature UI in Media Center.  God knows why it hasn’t become more popular.  But they also have the Xbox 360 that is becoming a better media box all the time.  The 360 just needs a cleaner, more polished UI that serves the gaming side and the media side of things in one coherent presentation.  The combination of a Window 7 Media Center with Xbox 360 as an extender could become a better option.  The install base of Windows machines and Xbox 360s is surely much, much bigger than Tivo.  If that ecosystem ever hit nirvana status, game over.  The one saving grace of this whole situation is that they (Tivo) are still, currently at this moment, better than what most people have.  And, more importantly, the offer of a free Premiere on contract will suck in a new group of users that might just drink the Kool Aid as I have.  Time will tell if I am even remotely close to correct on this.  But, my feeling is that Tivo’s long term income will come in the form of patent infringement cases rather than subscriber fees.