Long suffering UK TiVo users have taken another blow, their units have stopped offering TiVo Suggestions. The UK users have operated for years without the availability of new hardware or even any software updates. Their Series1 units still run software release 2.5, behind even the US Series1 units. And now TiVo Suggestions has stopped working as well.
This appears to be linked to a changed in the format of the guide data, according to a post by TiVoPony over at TiVoCommunity. Apparently the data format ran out of room for new program IDs and TMS had to expand the format. The suggestions feature in the old 2.5 software is tied to the native TMS data format, and the change in the DB format has broken the feature. It would take a software update to fix, and according to TiVoPony“an update for those boxes is not in the cards.” So it sounds like this is a permanent loss.
Hopefully the rumors of TiVo re-launching in the UL with DVB-T hardware are true and the TiVo faithful will have another option soon. (It would be nice of TiVo to offer some kind of upgrade incentive discount for those who’ve stuck with the Series1 unit all this time.) And with Nero LiquidTV | TiVo PC launching in Europe in 2009, that may be another option for the TiVo faithful in the UK.
Picked up from BLORGE.
