New TiVo OS Update Removes Unofficial Premiere-to-Premiere Streaming

Posted on Saturday, July 23, 2011 by MegaZone

TiVo Logo A recent TiVo OS upgrade on the Premiere accidentally enabled Premiere-to-Premiere streaming support, for at least some users. We’ve known for a while that TiVo is working on this for new devices, but the feature is not yet complete and was not intended to be released. This was evident in the number of quirks, glitches, and bugs experienced by those who played with the streaming support.

Well, play time is over. A new TiVo OS update, 14.8b, is rolling out and it appears to kill the unofficial streaming support, pulling it back behind the development/beta curtain. Since it was never officially released it isn’t really removing functionality, but that’s cold comfort for users who have been using it. They’ll just have to wait for TiVo to complete development and make the official launch, which is expected later this year as it is required for the ‘whole home’ DVR functionality of the TiVo Premiere Elite and TiVo Preview.

Try to be patient and don’t reach for the pitchforks and torches just yet. TiVo was damned if they did and damned if they didn’t. The feature was plainly rough and incomplete, and not intended for public consumption. If they left it out there they would have to deal with the users complaining about the problems, even though it wasn’t an official feature. If they pulled it back to complete work out of the public eye they’d upset those users who have been using it. Since the feature was only of use to those with multiple Premiere units in the home, it is likely not a large number of users impacted by the removal.

Reported in the forums at TiVoCommunity, via EngadgetHD.

About MegaZone

MegaZone is the Editor of Gizmo Lovers and the chief contributor. He's been online since 1989 and active in several generations of 'social media' - mailing lists, USENet groups, web forums, and since 2003, blogging.    MegaZone has a presence on several social platforms: Google+ / Facebook / Twitter / LinkedIn / LiveJournal / Web.    You can also follow Gizmo Lovers on other sites: Blog / Google+ / Facebook / Twitter.
This entry was posted in TiVo and tagged , , , , , . Bookmark the permalink.
  • Rojcowles

    I played with it a little bit but only to stream Tivo Podcasts from one Premiere to the other as we can do MRV, no CCI bit, , and then only because I could.  Even then it did seem a bit flaky so no big loss here. I did also try and stream an Amazon VOD movie from one to the other but that, reasonably enough, was blocked from streaming as well as MRV.

  • Rojcowles

    I played with it a little bit but only to stream Tivo Podcasts from one Premiere to the other as we can do MRV, no CCI bit, , and then only because I could.  Even then it did seem a bit flaky so no big loss here. I did also try and stream an Amazon VOD movie from one to the other but that, reasonably enough, was blocked from streaming as well as MRV.

  • http://twitter.com/davezatz Dave Zatz

    “TiVo was damned if they did and damned if they didn’t.”

    Except it was mostly hidden. They should have left it be.

    • http://twitter.com/sbiller Sam Biller

      They should release it in a public beta allowing any interested Premiere user to sign-up for it. This would be a win-win for TiVo in my view.

      • http://www.gizmolovers.com/ MegaZone

        I think you guys are being too harsh.  Remember, this is in development, and I doubt TiVo did this update just to kill the feature.  It is clearly incomplete.  What if the current level of implementation has serious issues – what if it has memory leaks that cause crashes or cause other failures, like a failure to record because some runaway process steps on something else?  There are any number of legitimate reasons they could have turned it off – including it not being deliberate, but that it being on in the first place is a bug that they’ve simply fixed.

        Deliberately making it available in any form requires it to meet some minimal level of functionality and ensuring it doesn’t cause broader problems.  We know it was buggy, users who played with it reported a number of bugs.  But we don’t know how bad those bugs might be – users only see the surface symptoms, or may not associated other glitches with this feature, thinking them unrelated.

        We got a glimpse of what they’re working on, and it seemed to work so-so.  But that doesn’t mean there weren’t serious issues with it being used in the current state that we just don’t know about.

        In the end, it was clearly not ready for prime time – and given the bugs reported by those who used it, not even ready for a public beta.  It seems to be alpha, maybe early beta, and I don’t have a problem with TiVo taking it back into the shop to do more work before letting the public have a go at it.