Tivo Menu Screen Shots

[Chris Blount]

With the pending release of the HD DirecTivo, I thought I would post some pictures of the menus in the Tivo system in case you haven't seen them before. I captured these last night from my own Hughes DirecTivo. The HD DirecTivo will pretty much have the same navigation menus plus the HD functions.

These pics can be found elsewhere on the net but I thought I would post my own to give you a more personalized touch. Also, when I get my own HD DirecTivo, I will be posting a complete review along with pictures relevant to the HDTV functions.

1. First, shown here is the DirecTV Central list. This is basically the home menu of the Tivo.

2. The Now Playing list is the list of recorded shows you have on your hard drive. The dots next to the program name are symbols of whether or not the recording is subject to deletion if the drive fills up. The green dot means that the recording is protected and the yellows are warnings that the recording could be deleted. The "Tivo" button is a Tivo suggested auto recording.

3. The next three pics are the three various on-screen user selectable banners while watching any program.

[Chris Blount]

1. The showcases menu allows you to browse various featured programs. Kind of like a summary of what's on. When you go in and start browsing, it's very easy to select a program to record that interests you.

2. The Pick Programs To Record menu is where you look for things to record or to have the Tivo look for you.

3. The Search By Title menu. Self explanatory but the great thing is that each time you enter a letter in the search field, a listing of shows with those letters gets listed on the right side (not shown here) until you find the show you want.

4. The Wish List menu is where you place custom search key words so the the Tivo will find shows containing the words and/or record them automatically.

5. Tivo Suggestions menu shows what programs will be recorded automatically based on your viewing habits. This feature can be switched off. I personally like this feature and find it works quite well.

[Chris Blount]

1. The Record By Time/Channel menu shows different ways you can find programs you would like to watch or record.

2. The Record Time/Channel is basically a way to manually set a timer. As you can see, it's quite easy and self explanatory.

3. The Season Pass Manager shows what passes you have set up on your system.

4. The To-Do list shows what programs will be recorded in chronological time. I use this list a lot to see what will be recorded over the next couple of days or weeks. The double checkmark means it's a season pass, a single checkmark would mean it's a one time recording (not shown).

5. The Setup Menu is used to setup the Tivo and do various maintenance tasks or change your preferences.

[Chris Blount]

1. The Test Signal Strength screen is pretty easy to figure out but I wanted to show it anyway in case you haven't seen it. As you can see, you can select transponder or satellite to run your tests.

2. I wanted to show what the on-screen guides look like. The first is the Tivo style text guide.

3. This is the DirecTV grid guide. As you can see, they both show the same amount of channels but the Tivo style text guide shows farther into the future and is much faster.

4. This is where you would select which guide you would like to use after pressing the "Info" button.

5. Last but not least, this pic shows the Recorder & Phone setup menu.

I know this is a very quick rundown and is in no way complete but for those thinking about switching to a Tivo or the HD DirecTivo, this is what you will be working with. It's very easy to navigate the system and there are single key shortcuts to make your way around quickly.

Hope this helps and thanks!

[gbailey]

Have you heard if they will be doing any work to speed up the DirectTV style guide in the HD Tivo release?

On current DirecTivo systems this menu is painfully slow and is so slow you're almost forced to use the other guide. I prefer the DirectTV style guide but won't use it if they haven't done any work to improve its performance.

[Chris Blount]

Have you heard if they will be doing any work to speed up the DirectTV style guide in the HD Tivo release?

On current DirecTivo systems this menu is painfully slow and is so slow you're almost forced to use the other guide. I prefer the DirectTV style guide but won't use it if they haven't done any work to improve its performance.

The Tivo guys are working on speeding up the DirecTV guide but from reports that I have seen, not soon enough for HD Tivo. On the other hand you never know what will happen over the next few weeks. :)

[SParker]

Chris I applaud you or whoever decided to make a new forum for us Directv HD Tivo owners (well soon to be) :D

[Chris Blount]

Chris I applaud you or whoever decided to make a new forum for us Directv HD Tivo owners (well soon to be) :D

It's my pleasure. The HD Tivo is going to be a great receiver. I would suspect this forum will get pretty busy once they start hitting the shelves. I'm looking forward to doing my review.

[jdspencer]

Oh I can see a contest brewing. :)

Between this and the one on TiVo Community, to see which one gets the most visits.

[Chris Blount]

Oh I can see a contest brewing. :)

Between this and the one on TiVo Community, to see which one gets the most visits.

Nah, doesn't really matter. As long as people get the help they need. :) Of course, it's always good to have more than one place to go. ;)