Hands On TiVo OnePass

by

Just a few weeks back I had lamented TiVo seemingly being lapped by “the lowly cable company” and Dish’s “binge bar” in sensibly stringing together episodic television à la Netlix. Not to be outdone, and as alluded to in patent filings, TiVo takes it to a whole ‘nother level with OnePass:

OnePass is a powerful feature that lets you organize and watch all episodes of a specific show, whether they come from TV, video on demand, or streaming services such as Netflix, Hulu Plus, or Amazon Instant Video. Available on Roamio and Premiere Series DVRs, OnePass gathers episodes of your shows from all available sources, then organizes the episodes by season and displays them seamlessly in one place.

OnePass is expected to hit our units in February with with mobile app integration expected in March. And, while I’m sitting out CES on injured reserve, I take my TiVo blog responsibilities quite seriously and sent Liliputing Brad Linder on a mission to grab us the included visual evidence of TiVo’s Season Pass successor.

OnePass as further detailed by TiVo:

  • Strongest Search – Search for and select your favorite show through TiVo Search
  • Serious Options – OnePass comes with a variety of options including recording and streaming all content, or you have the option of selecting only recordings or only streaming videos to avoid using disk space
  • One Episode or the Whole Season – Across all platforms and apps, you can include all seasons, start with a particular season or only include new episodes
  • Organized Chaos – All OnePass streaming and recorded videos can be found in your “My Shows” section, organized in folders with the name of your favorite show, so the content you love is easiest to find and watch immediately
  • Memory – TiVo will remember which recording you last watched and bookmark the next episode
  • Sorting – TiVo gives you the freedom to organize your episodes by “newest” or by “season”
  • Get More – Save space on your hard drive by leveraging streaming options so you can use the local storage for what you really want to record

87 thoughts on “Hands On TiVo OnePass”

  1. Very cool. From the video, it looks like they were running a beta release from last November. It will be interesting to see how well this really works. I’m also curious to see if this handles / differentiates between Amazon Instant Video and free Amazon Prime streams. I’m also curious to see how other platofrms evolve to compete with OnePass. Clearly, Roku or ATV could do something similar with the large content libraries of OTT video. I have no idea how well the linked patent protects TiVo from other platforms infringing on the idea.

  2. That’s pretty damn cool. Already think the current integrated multicast/OTT TiVo Search is a (mostly unknown) killer app which I find invaluable, but this takes it to a much higher level.

  3. “I’m also curious to see if this handles / differentiates between Amazon Instant Video and free Amazon Prime streams.”

    The current (under-appreciated) TiVo search clearly and usefully differentiates between Amazon Prime and Amazon a-la-carte…

  4. Nice, I could see this being useful if you stream. Of course if you are like me, everything is stored locally on a server so this won’t help you at all as long as TiVo continues to ignore the option.

    Also it wasn’t clear from the video that I could tell, but can only display unwatched episodes? For example if you are halfway through season 3 of NCIS: Los Angeles with it always display season 1 and 2 or will there be an option to see from season 3 on only?

  5. This is a cool feature, but… as a long time DVR user I seldom have shows to catch up on as I’ve recorded them and watched them along the way. So I’ll keep asking for smart ideas like this that enhance the typical TiVo experience by integrating streaming options into My Shows. I’m not trying to tell TiVo how to do it, but something like having House of Cards (via Netflix) show up next to last night’s recording of Family Guy in the My Shows list.

  6. I’m not even a “streaming” user and I think this is a very cool update. It’s nice to see that they’re adding better sort/grouping functionality of shows. I may be in the minority, but I’m so far back on some shows I’ve got 3 seasons to go to catch up. Nice to be able to have the next episode to watch right at the top rather than having to jump to the end and then back up to get to the next show to watch. As mentioned, I will be interested to see not only how they differentiate the free vs pay. It looks like there’s an option to filter out the shows you have to pay for. I hope that’s the case, but we’ll see.

  7. Thanks Chucky. I’ve been using the new Amazon app quite a bit watching Transparent and John Adams (both excellent).

    Now that TiVo has fixed the plumbing (e.g., haxe), I think we are starting to see the ROI of TiVo’s healthy research and development budget focused on user facing features.

    I keep believing that user profiles are somewhere on the roadmap. I view profiles as the single biggest glaring omission from the platform.

  8. Good point brennok. I assumed they were filtering out shows that were watched, but maybe not. I would think that if there’s a filter to only show recorded shows, then it should only show the episodes that are available on the local TiVo, but maybe not. Hope so though.

  9. Ben, that bookmarking patent I linked could cover getting online shows like House of Cards into the NPL. As for my wife and I, we primarily binge at this point and do not watch as we go. So this will be a very powerful, useful enhancement in my home.

  10. Bjdraw,

    I agree for shows that we know we want to watch (e.g., season passes). More and more I find myself trying a new show after hearing or seeing a recommendation. Often the show is already partly aired on linear TV. An improved way to curate this hybrid content is a benefit.

  12. Sam, yeah – we’ve done that quite a bit too and will benefit. Wonder what kind of commission gets on Amazon Instant rentals?

  13. “Thanks Chucky. I’ve been using the new Amazon app quite a bit watching Transparent and John Adams (both excellent).”

    I was massively underwhelmed by the Amazon & Netflix apps on TiVo and essentially didn’t use them, instead switching inputs over to my Roku.

    However…

    Once I really discovered the (incredible and under-appreciated) integrated multicast/OTT TiVo Search & Explore This Show features, I found myself using the TiVo OTT apps much more. I still fire up the Roku when I want to launch the top-level OTT apps to select from my watchlist or do discovery, but more and more, I use the TiVo to go directly to an OTT show, skipping the top-level of the OTT apps.

    Here’s how it works for me. For an example, I use search with my Slide to see which movies of a favored director are available on both mutlicast and OTT, (with Prime clearly identified). And after seeing what there is to record from the multicast for the future, I can directly go to a Netflix or Prime stream, or an Amazon a-la-carte stream with detailed prices usefully displayed inside the TiVo search before heading to the OTT app. And then I can either watch the stream immediately, or just add it to my watchlist. It’s pretty magical, and beats the hell out of the Roku Universal Search, (which I previously thought was amazing), because it includes the multicast, because it includes detailed pricing for a-la-carte, and because it allows you to simply go ‘back’ to your search after heading to the OTT app, which Roku can’t do. (I’ve completely stopped using the Roku Universal Search, even though I still do use Roku for top-level browsing.)

    Exact same deal goes for Explore This Show. You pick out a director or cast member, or for teevee, other episodes/seasons, and voila. Head directly to that thing in the OTT app. (And you don’t even need to bother with the Slide for that.)

    Like I say, it’s pretty damn magical, and my favorite feature on the TiVo. But OnePass should make it far more magical, and take the thing to a whole ‘nother level…

  14. “Bjdraw, I agree for shows that we know we want to watch (e.g., season passes). More and more I find myself trying a new show after hearing or seeing a recommendation. Often the show is already partly aired on linear TV. An improved way to curate this hybrid content is a benefit.”

    Yup. Ben is always correct. Except on this…

  15. Call me a cheapskate, but it is a bummer that are these extras are only tied to paid streaming services like Netflix and Hulu Plus. What about the “ondemand” options like Verizon FIOS or the free episodes available on the major broadcaster websites like NBC.com, ABC.com and CBS.com?

    I’m behind on a particular series from NBC because the TiVo missed recording an episode (maybe due to the elections) and I haven’t bothered to watch the episode via these free services since they aren’t available on my main TV. The content is free, but I can only view it easily if I pay a monthly fee for one of these services?

  16. Presumably, it’ll be linked to on demand integration. So RCN and Cogeco, who rent TiVo directly, will benefit. As will retail customers on Xfinity. But, yeah, those of us with providers (like Verizon) who haven’t partnered with TiVo are out of luck.

    For web site streaming, I just don’t see that happening. Would be nice tho – due to football delays I had a number of partial Good Wife recordings and two episodes we did watch via iPad in bed from CBS’ app (the others were on TV via Amazon Instant). But it does make me wonder what Sling TV might look like a year from now.

  17. I completely agree with Dan and Dave. I kept missing the first 15 minutes of CSI because of football games and had to jump to my PC to finish off the show. It would be nice if the free streaming of the most recent shows (that every network seems to offer these days) could be included. I’d much rather watch the show on the big screen rather than a monitor/tablet.

  18. I figured Ben would be more excited about this since this is one of those features I swear he was always asking for. It sounds like you should be able to exactly what you want Ben. Search House of Cards and turn on OnePass. It should now show up in My Shows next to Family Guy. Of course it sounds like it doesn’t go away once you finish all the episodes so it would remain even if the new season wasn’t out.

    Since you can now search for shows not in the guide, this could be a good way to enable a wishlist for streaming shows. This way with OnePass once they hit streaming they would show up in My Shows.

  19. “I kept missing the first 15 minutes of CSI because of football games”

    Seriously, folks. Is it really that hard to remember to add the appropriate padding to shows on football channels during football season? The issue always hits folks, but it should not be an unforeseen problem…

    (Or simpler still, is it really that hard to move to the EU where there is a regulatory mandate to include a signal specifically for DVR’s indicating when a show really starts, just for this reason?)

  21. Even without OTT streaming subscriptions – I like the “season” organization change. Tivo has never sorted the NPL in “season order” very well – if anything that makes this update a winner in my book.

    I do have a couple of streaming subscription and my wife and tend to wait on new shows for several season before we get hooked – so binge watching seems to be the rule not the exception in my house!

  22. “I’m also curious to see if this handles / differentiates between Amazon Instant Video and free Amazon Prime streams.”

    Also just noticed the OnePass Options screenshot shows an option to include or exclude “Rent or Buy” content…

  23. Not that hard to remember, just a little annoying that’s all. I do like the EU mandate, but I don’t think I’m moving just for that little perk. :)

  24. Ben, “integrating streaming options into My Shows”

    Isn’t that exactly what they have done here? If you setup a season pass for “House of Cards” it should present directly in the NPL and organized in season order – bookmarked based on the last show you watched.

  25. “OnePass is expected to hit our units in February”

    What’s gone so horribly wrong with TiVo’s development process? This has been announced for hours now, and we’re expected to wait and twiddle our thumbs with our olde fashioned, obsolete DVR’s until February? #TiVoFail

  26. I hope that these show up in My Shows, and only when you are not up to date. I really like the idea of having the streaming only shows being able to show up in My Shows so I won’t keep forgetting that I haven’t finished Transparent yet.

  28. “I do like the EU mandate, but I don’t think I’m moving just for that little perk.”

    If you really cared about CSI, you’d find it a small price to pay. Priorities, man. Priorities! (Spoiler alert: science solves the crime.)

  29. Good question on how they’ll handle Amazon. When the app was recently updated for Roamio, you can differentiate Prime versus non-Prime in search.

  32. “I suppose One Pass with Prime v Non-Prime content would be preceded by the Premiere getting that Amazon Instant update [Roamio] owners already received”

    But doesn’t February come before December?

  35. With TiVo potentially now knowing what episodes you have watched, I wonder if this will open up additional recording options. For example I would love to be able to record some shows and only record repeats I haven’t seen. It seems like this could be possible with OnePass if TiVo truly keeps track of your progress on a show.

  36. “And now we know Premiere should get Amazon Instant in February – Margret rocks!”

    Well, that’s obviously very nice for Premiere owners, but I really don’t appreciate Margret stepping on my joke like that…

  37. It seems like the networks are opposed to allowing their free most recent episodes to be streamed via a set top box for free. The networks went out of their way to block google tv devices from accessing the content via a browser.

  38. Assuming it works as promised, this is actually the second _real_ usability improvement for streaming video.

    The first was cross-platform search. Roku had this first, where you could search for “Mythbusters” and it would find that show across Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, Youtube, whatever, and tell you which were free, which were HD, and so on.

    The second is maintaining a central list of stuff to watch, like the classic TiVo now playing list. Until now we’ve all been forced to go into separate apps, each with their own list. This fixes that problem.

    It’s a pity it’s tied to TV. I might actually be interested in a $100 streaming box with this feature. I’m not interested in a $200 box, paying for cable TV, and a $15/month TiVo subscription.

  39. brennok, Also it wasn’t clear from the video that I could tell, but can only display unwatched episodes? For example if you are halfway through season 3 of NCIS: Los Angeles with it always display season 1 and 2 or will there be an option to see from season 3 on only?

    If you watch the video you can see that there is an option to “start from season”. So you could start from season 3 and I assume it would then hide all of season 1 and 2.

  41. “Seriously, folks. Is it really that hard to remember to add the appropriate padding to shows on football channels during football season? The issue always hits folks, but it should not be an unforeseen problem…”

    I think it is because with TiVo, who remembers what day/time/network the show is on. I don’t care about any of that because (as you know) with TiVo if I want to record The Flash it does it automagically. Isn’t that why we got TiVo? I generally don’t get bitten by the football overrun problem but it did happen to me this year because for some reason a new episode of Elementary ran some Sunday. I didn’t think it aired on Sundays. Indeed it doesn’t normally but it did that day. TiVo was smart enough to catch it and record the episode as it was scheduled but not the full episode since the lead in ran long. Also even if football runs long in one market, it won’t necessarily run long in every market in the same time zone due to the game being broadcast. It would be nice if the start/stop data could be sent/updated to TiVo in realtime when the broadcasters modify the schedule.

  42. I’m not interested in a $200 box, paying for cable TV, and a $15/month TiVo subscription.
    How about a $50 box (Roamio OTA), free OTA, and a $15/month TiVo subscription? :)

  43. @Runcifer: No, I wouldn’t pay for that either. I have a bunch of roku3s and a fireTV. They all cost <$100 with no subscription fee. They all run Plex clients and the fireTV even runs Kodi natively, and perfectly! That's TiVo's competition in the streamer space.

    Actually, TiVo's real competition for most consumers is a $35 streaming stick. Which begs the question of whether the market is worth entering in the first place.

  44. “It would be nice if the start/stop data could be sent/updated to TiVo in realtime when the broadcasters modify the schedule.”

    Well, I did offer the easier option of simply moving to the EU to take advantage of that feature…

  46. Will this update come to my roamio OTA? If so, considering the addition of amazon streaming and ever increasing services why in the world do I need my fire tv box at all? The same could be said of other set top boxes. What will the tivo not do that the fire tv does do other than the gaming options? Would it be unwise to return my fire tv to best buy and just use tivo for the same services “one device for all”?

  48. According to Margret, Ben will be able to do exactly what he wants. Create a House of Cards OnePass, and he can even “delete” them as he goes.

    Zach, yes it’s coming to all Roamios and Premieres. The dedicated streaming boxes will always have many more streaming apps available than Tivo will. The choice is up to you whether they’re worth it or not though.

  49. This will be a welcome addition. Now I would love to see season passes (onePasses) for sporting events for a particular team. I’m sure that would be some work to get figured out, but wishlists don’t cut it.

  50. These are the kind of reasons why I’m willing to pay $15 a month for tivo OTA. It is more than a glorified guide. Any word on espn integration yet? Hopefully that will come sooner than later.

  51. I didn’t mean to say I never bindge watch streaming content, just that it is secondary to watching recorded shows.

    And I missed that you can add streaming options to My Shows — I blame Dave, he’s failed as a communicator.

    I’m all for making it even easier to find stuff to watch, and this seems like it’ll add to TiVo’s lead in the DVR space.

  52. Ah, streaming shows within OnePass was clear to me. What wasn’t clear is if I can explcitly say index an online-only show like Alpha House within the NPL as a sort of series of bookmark outside the app (verus picking up or pointing to a few episodes online to augment a linear channel Season Pass). Given Margret’s declaration that this truly does replace Season Passes and what we’ve seen thus far, I’m guessing it will. Also wondering how Wishlists will come into play or not. Hm.

  53. “What wasn’t clear is if I can explcitly say index an online-only show like Alpha House within the NPL as a sort of series of bookmark outside the app … Given Margret’s declaration that this truly does replace Season Passes and what we’ve seen thus far, I’m guessing it will.”

    I don’t think you need to guess. Margaret’s detailed explanation of OnePass makes it clear (to my reading, at least), that you can most certainly do this.

    “I blame Dave, he’s failed as a communicator.”

    I think we need to cut Dave some slack on his abject failures as a communicator, and his newbie-like inability to follow the thread. Being stuck in a full body cast must be working some bad ju-ju on his mental facilities.

    —–

    “this seems like it’ll add to TiVo’s lead in the DVR space.”

    Yeah. By the end of the day, that was my main takeaway. Biggest TiVo innovation in a loooooooong time.

    Now, if the MSO’s would let TiVo in on the authenticated OTT party, (which, of course, they never will), it’d be even bigger…

  54. The worst part of this full body cast is getting to the itch on my thigh with theselfie stick. At least i’s multifunctional?

    (No, I’m not really in a full body cast! However my foot and knee haven’t been doing well. Knee is doing better, foot is still periodically killing me. Working on it… away from CES.)

  55. This is really a great option for Tivo Lovers. Can these shows/episodes recorded via onepass be downloaded using kmttg tool or will have the same copy protected rights we see currently on HBO channels?

  56. So the online versions are just deep linking or bookmarks, not locally copied. Truly recorded content on the DVR should move over in the same fashion it does now. However, a new “premium sideload” feature is coming in regards to HBO and other copy restricted shows that will allow you to download to TIVo app on iOS or Android (when available)… while also deleting the copy from the DVR. Unknown if kmttg would be able to tap into this.

  57. I might be in the minority, but I’d actually like to see an option to download/record streamed shows to TiVo. One of the primary reasons that I don’t use streaming services is I’m too far behind on a lot of shows. If I could record to TiVo when episodes are available (only for shows where I don’t typically stay up-to-date), I’d consider dropping my higher tier cable package and opt for streaming. An even better option IMHO would be to allow streaming subscribers to “mark” episodes that they want to watch later, and allow them to be watched ANY time. Even if it’s outside the 1 or 2 year licensing window. If I can dream a bit, another nice option would be to allow recordings from an “Internet TV” source. Maybe we’ll see that with the reinvention of the cable card into a software-based format.

  58. “I might be in the minority, but I’d actually like to see an option to download/record streamed shows to TiVo.”

    I’d like to fly by flapping my arms, but I can’t because of basic laws of physics.

    You can’t record streams because the streaming companies (sensibly) won’t let you.

  59. Chucky can’t even remember the days, three months ago, when he downloaded Amazon Instant… ;) But, yeah, no one’s gonna authorize us to “DVR” online streams. (Speaking of, I need to catch up with the PlayOn folks – it’s been awhile.)

  60. “So the online versions are just deep linking or bookmarks, not locally copied.”

    Dunno if you’re talkin’ about “on the TiVo”, or talkin’ about the announced OnePass mobile apps.

    Now that I have a good understanding of “on the TiVo”, I’m curious about the details of the OnePass mobile apps, which I haven’t seen described in nearly as much detail.

    Given that, from the little I’ve read about the mobile apps, some version of OnePass will appear on them, it’ll be interesting to see how they handle streaming. I’d strongly assume that when you click on a Netflix or Amazon stream from within the TiVo mobile app, it’ll function just like “on the TiVo” – aka open the relevant streaming app and go to that page.

    Assuming my strong assumption is true, the really interesting topic to me is whether or not TiVo will integrate MSO authenticated OTT like HBO Go and the like into OnePass on the TiVo mobile app. They can’t do so “on the TiVo”, cuz the MSO’s won’t let them have authenticated clients. But on mobile, the MSO’s can’t prevent the TiVo app from doing so. So the option is open to TiVo, if they take advantage of it, which I think they really should.

  61. “However, a new “premium sideload” feature is coming in regards to HBO and other copy restricted shows that will allow you to download to TIVo app on iOS or Android (when available)… while also deleting the copy from the DVR. Unknown if kmttg would be able to tap into this.”

    Somehow, I doubt that desktop options, both official and kmttg, will get to tap into this.

    But, as Dave well knows, it would make me really, really happy if they could…

  62. Finally, I just want to reiterate that, after some reflection, I think OnePass is a Really Big Deal. Or as Joe Biden would put it, a BFD.

    Underneath our noses, OnePass actually begins to make The One Box idea finally come true…

    (OnePass is what everyone had in mind back when they were calling on Apple to buy TiVo – well integrated DVR and streaming. Of course, lack of international standards and MSO hostility made it non-attractive to Apple. But TiVo is actually implementing what everyone had in mind…)

  63. “Chucky can’t even remember the days, three months ago, when he downloaded Amazon Instant”

    I know you’re kidding around, but those (rental) downloads had severe restrictions on how you could use/keep them. You couldn’t use the method to escape windowing schemes, as the poster wants.

    For that exact reason, Netflix and Amazon Prime were never candidates for such a download strategy…

  64. I know, I know, but I can dream can’t I? :) Understand there are a lot of issues with the ability to download a stream. Although, as Dave mentioned, PlayOn is an option. It’s just awfully cumbersome (at least the last time I looked into it…I’m sure it’s gotten much better). Maybe PlayOn could add an app in the abysmal Opera Web Store that would allow us to download streams. Or, skip TiVo altogether and create something for PS4/Xbox One, Channel Master, etc.

  65. Completely agree with Chucky about desktop options. It would be nice if TiVo would create a Windows app, but doubt anything will happen until at least Windows 10 is released. And even then I doubt it. I tried getting the TiVo Android app to work through an Android emulator, but of course it didn’t work, because the emulator was essentially a rooted phone. *sigh* Until TiVo comes up with something better, kmttg will have to do.

  67. “the really interesting topic to me is whether or not TiVo will integrate MSO authenticated OTT like HBO Go and the like into OnePass on the TiVo mobile app. They can’t do so “on the TiVo”, cuz the MSO’s won’t let them have authenticated clients. But on mobile, the MSO’s can’t prevent the TiVo app from doing so. So the option is open to TiVo, if they take advantage of it, which I think they really should.”

    TiVo iOS app gets clever new streaming tricks.

    Very interesting. But still doesn’t fully answer the essence of my mobile OnePass uncertainty:

    If you have a OnePass for Game of Thrones, will the mobile TiVo app include a listing of episodes available on HBO Go, but not available on your TiVo? (Thus introducing significant benefits, but also introducing the confusion of your mobile OnePass lists looking different from your ‘on the TiVo’ OnePass lists.)

  68. Well, finally had 48 hours to play with OnePass, and first of it’s all, It’s Terrific!. Seriously, it gets like 100 things correct, and is, IMHO, the best innovation in the DVR space since the invention of the DVR.

    But… (I like but’s. And I can not lie.)

    But…

    Despite all the things OnePass gets right, it gets a couple of things wrong which annoy me, one major and one minor:

    1) No Wishlist integration. This is a major disappointment to me. Being a movie fan, and specifically an auteurist fan of many directors, I was incredibly looking forward to being able to set up a Wishlist of Preston Sturges, and have all TCM showings recorded, along with display of ‘free’ OTT films. Same with modern directors like Brian De Palma, Roman Polanski, the Coen Brothers, and a score of others. I was expecting recording of HD showings, and display of ‘free’ OTT films. But no…. Wishlists have zero OnePass integration. I really, really, really do hope this on their list of future improvements. Shouldn’t be a mission to Mars to fix, and I can’t see any UX downside.

    2) OnePass has no knowledge of what Amazon content you’ve already paid for. In the great majority of use-case-scenarios, this is no big deal. For example, if you buy an Amazon Season Pass for the current season 24 of Justified, and set up a Justified OnePass with paid content allowed, this will let new episodes magically appear in your OnePass. But, for a bunch of other more fringe use-case-scenarios, it’s a real pain in the ass. For one example, if you set up a OnePass of a show where you have older seasons you’ve bought from Amazon, but are also available from Netflix, and you want to watch the Amazon content for its better PQ, things get hairy. There are mutliple other fringe use-case-scenarios where OnePass having knowledge of what Amazon content you’ve purchased would really help. Less important than the Wishlist omission, and probably harder to fix, but still annoying.

  69. One Month Update With OnePass:

    My big complaint:

    They’ve really got to find a way to get status from OTT apps the way Roku can.

    When I binge-watch a series on the Roku, it’s always cluing me in on where I should be. TiVo, at the same time it introduced OnePass, oddly introduced the exact same feature for recorded teevee! Now it’s got handy status indicators for if you’ve watched episodes of recorded teevee. A very welcome feature! Now it’s as easy to binge-watch recorded teevee on the TiVo as it is to binge-watch OTT on the Roku.

    But if TiVo could leverage the same API’s that Roku can for OTT apps, OnePass could be as good for OTT as Roku is. All on input 1!

    As things stand, if I want to binge watch Better Call Saul, or House of Cards, or The Americans, it’s easier on the Roku.

    ——

    Tons of other items I do enjoy about OnePass, of course.

    Series with both newly recorded and older OTT episodes are nice, of course.

    And while I really do wish movies had OnePass hooks the way they have ‘WishList’ hooks, just being able to manually add single streaming movies you own, are free to you, or have a rental going, is damn nice. Overall, much better functionality with movies than I’d thought I’d have 48 hours in, even if it’s not perfect.

    And a damn Glo with a back button would really make OnePass nicer…

  70. I still haven’t fully dove into it… as Minis are my primary viewing devices, I’m not sure if I have a subset of “remote” functionality or if maybe my hub DVR didn’t get the update? Need to get to the basement and check it out.

  71. “I still haven’t fully dove into it… as Minis are my primary viewing devices, I’m not sure if I have a subset of “remote” functionality or if maybe my hub DVR didn’t get the update? Need to get to the basement and check it out.”

    Dude. You’re really missing out. Even with the things that could be made better, it’s still revolutionary.

    Get it fixed, somehow. (Has it even been rolled out for S4 yet?) Maybe it’s time to get a Roamio. Do you even have the (not OnePass related) recorded teevee watched indicators on your setup that rolled at the same time as OnePass?

  72. I’m on a Premier and it took me awhile to get the update. I finally got it last week and agree it’s a great tool. Outside of the OnePass update, the most useful update to me is the ability to put the oldest episodes at the top of the list. Not a massive time saver, but still nice to go straight to the episode I want to watch rather than paging down several times…especially for shows where I’m 3 years behind.

  73. “Outside of the OnePass update, the most useful update to me is the ability to put the oldest episodes at the top of the list.”

    Yeah. It’s not OnePass related, but they really tossed in a huge number of major improvements to the UX dealing with lists of recorded shows in the same update.

  74. Still haven’t made it down to the basement to reconnect a Slingbox or TV. If I did get a Roamio, I’d stick it in the family room and then unload both my Mini and Premiere XL4 – or at least the XL4. Mini might be worth keeping around for who knows what TV and project. Then again, from purely a logistical standpoint, it’d be much easier to move the Mini. Wonder if they’re planning a minor component refresh for Roamio like Mini 2? (Haven’t seen anything cross the FCC). Also wonder if I’m eligible for the 10yr deal – I may be excluded having previously bought an returned a Roamio. My pal Tim’s current motto is “accept the defaults” – and there IS something to be said for leaving well enough alone. My system currently does exactly what I want it to.

  75. My XL4 hub DVR must have gotten the update Thursday or Friday night as when reviewing OnePass options on a Mini yesterday, they featured way more categories/options as recorded above. Just finished The Fall on Netflix. Will try whatever the next series is via OnePass, although I suspects it’s main value is finding out about a show midstream – some to buy, some to stream, some to record.

  76. “Will try whatever the next series is via OnePass, although I suspects it’s main value is finding out about a show midstream – some to buy, some to stream, some to record.”

    Yeah. That’s the obvious one. But for purely watching a streaming series, I seem to have just received a recent refinement where it now remembers my position in the series, which eliminates one of my above grumbles. So purely streaming series now become much more viable via OnePass. (Dunno if you’ll have that too. My ‘get a Roamio’ suggestion was half-joking, but the half-serious part was that you’ll get updates months quicker. Beyond the bigger hard drive, think of it as a PlexPass for your TiVo…)

    And I dunno if you watch many movies, but adding individual streaming movies is hella nice.

    —–

    And since I don’t auto-update, I just found out this morning that Kmmtg added pretty much full OnePass support a week and a half ago. Woo-hoo! I’d been starting to get worried that the hooks weren’t there somehow. A very big deal, for my usage patterns.

    Unfortunately, they left off the one thing I want most. While a normal Search will return streaming results, just as they would on the TiVo, (woo-hoo!), the Search++ won’t. I really want this feature, as I’m an auteur-oriented cineaste, and thus do a lot of “director” searches. Sometimes I’ve been doing them from kmmtg to check the multicast, but more often I’ve have to use my Slide remote and the TiVo interface to pick up available streaming titles for a director, which is far less convenient. And, unfortunately, that won’t change with this kmmtg update, since they left the Search++ out of OnePass.

    I’m praying that it was just an implementation hassle they’ll include in the next update, and not a permanent issue due to some lack of a hook. It’d really be a massive improvement to my UX.

  78. “How did you know you got an update that fixed it?”

    Didn’t know about any update. Just knew the functionality wasn’t there, (as mentioned upthread), and then suddenly the functionality was there.

    (FWIW, I seem to have received a new update since last night, and all the streaming ‘current show’ settings were reset back to the first episode. So, either this will happen with every update, or they’re still working out the bugs. What I can confirm that I know for sure, cuz I saw it, is that it suddenly started remembering each streaming ‘current show’ setting from day-to-day. That happened sometime within the last week.)

    “What version are you running?”

    As of today:

    20.4.6a.RC1-USA-6-840

    But, as noted, I got another update since last night. (I very strongly suspect that the newest update won’t have removed the desired functionality, but if it does, I’ll post that here.)

  79. After reading your comment, I went and checked. Sure enough, I had a “Pending Restart” so I did and now its working as you described. Thanks!

  80. Chucky,

    when you say “…where it now remembers my position in the series…” can you define what you mean by that? I think I may have tricked myself into thinking it was marking shows as “watched” (or in essence, deleting them from the “my shows” view) after watching them, but now its not doing that again.

    Thanks.

  81. “when you say “…where it now remembers my position in the series…” can you define what you mean by that? I think I may have tricked myself into thinking it was marking shows as “watched” (or in essence, deleting them from the “my shows” view) after watching them, but now its not doing that again.”

    No, that’s not the behavior I’ve experienced.

    The increased functionality I’ve seen over the past week is pretty simple. For example:

    1) Watch episodes 1 through 3 of The Americans through OTT.

    2) Watch some other recorded and OTT content.

    3) Sleep.

    4) The next day, when I scroll through my TV Shows to The Americans and enter the episode list, episode 3 is still highlighted, where I left it.

    A minor improvement to be sure. I’d far prefer TiVo to be able to get info from the OTT services the way Roku can, to be able to offer more detailed info. But still, the minor improvement makes binge-watching much more viable on OnePass than it was before.

    (The same can be said for recorded episodic shows, where position/watched indicators have recently appeared.)

    Rapid and active TiVo UI development! What a concept!

  82. I’ve always simply “deleted” the streaming episode after watching an episode, so I never noticed that TiVo previously didn’t remember the last episode you were on.

  83. “I’ve always simply “deleted” the streaming episode after watching an episode, so I never noticed that TiVo previously didn’t remember the last episode you were on.”

    Never even realized you could do that. I learn something new every day. Seems as if that could be useful, in certain use-case-scenarios, even with the new ‘remember’ functionality.

    (I assume if you want those “deleted” episodes back, you just reset your OnePass subscription…)

  84. @chucky “(I assume if you want those “deleted” episodes back, you just reset your OnePass subscription…)”

    You would assume but when I screwed up and deleted a season of dexter from the my shows list and then found I needed to keep it so my wife could watch them it would not allow me to add it back. Tried everything from modifying the onepass too deleting the onepass and tring to add it back with no luck at all still missing is the season. So I get the evil eye each time she has to go to Netflix itself to watch the episode lol. It has suprised me how much use onepass is getting in my house. If anyone has found a way to get the episodes back please let me know!

  85. I haven’t deleted an entire season all at once, but I have deleted a single episode so I don’t see it anymore. If I want to get the deleted episode back I change the view so I can see the ones I deleted (just keep hitting the red button until you see all showings). To get it back, I just select the episode I deleted, which then takes me to a menu with the option of “Add to My Shows”. You can add back by individual episode or by an entire season.

  86. “You would assume but when I screwed up and deleted a season of dexter from the my shows list and then found I needed to keep it so my wife could watch them it would not allow me to add it back. Tried everything from modifying the onepass too deleting the onepass and tring to add it back with no luck”

    Good to know! Now that OnePass ‘remembers’ your position, that means I’ll just avoid the whole delete idea entirely. (My ‘assumption’ was meant as a question, so thanks for the answer.)

    “If anyone has found a way to get the episodes back please let me know!”

    I’d start by burning candles in the form of a pentagram in front of the TiVo. If that doesn’t work, sacrificing a live chicken while repeatedly pressing ‘thumbs up’ on the TiVo remote generally will do the trick.

Comments are closed.