Customer Reviews

Nero Liquid TV [Old Version]

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(26)

 

 

EDIT: 9-27-2010 - I've been informed that Windows 7 is not supported and that development of the software has stopped, so now that I have Windows 7 this software is now completely useless to me.

EDIT: 9-JAN-2009 - I just got Verizon FIOS and a new cable box. Since the cable box is newer than the software, the software can't change the channel and is thus unable to record shows, so it is now a useless brick.

EDIT: 16-MAR-2009 - After waiting over two months for Nero to reply to my tech support email I decided to try again to fix the problem myself. I discovered after installing from the CD that it was upgrading to the new version as recommended by Nero that broke the software's ability to change channels on the cable box. This means that I can never upgrade the software to resolve such tasty issues as these problems covered in the release notes for the new version:

"Resolved error that deleted all recorded shows"

and

"Fixed system shut down when attempting to delete a show from Now Playing"

and

"Resolved Service Expired: Stuck on incorrect service message - Blocks access to application"

Furthermore, there's no way to delete a Season Pass, so once you've created it, you're stuck with it forever, even if the show is no longer on the air.

Yes, these are all critical failures that I can never have the fix for because upgrading the software makes it useless.

This software is utter garbage and Nero's technical support team is loaded with fail and useless.

I could call them on the phone if I wanted to pay $2 a minute to fix problems that are not my fault.

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EDIT 19-MAR-2009:
Dear Josh,

thank you for your e-mail.

We were able to reproduce the problem in the meantime.
We are working full speed at a solution to this problem and will implement this in the next update of Nero LiquidTV.

Nero LiquidTV update page:
[..]

Sadly we have no means of offering a patch or a workaround to solve the problem in the meantime.
We apologise for the inconvenience.

Should you have any further queries, please do not hesitate to contact us again.

Best Regards

Sven Bolz
Nero Support
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EDIT 21-MAR-2009

In their latest email response Nero's support team indicated that they do not have any intentions in the near future of releasing a product update to resolve the channel changing problem.

Given that the last update has been on the website for over six months and has not been pulled even though installing it completely breaks the software, I'm not looking forward to an update anytime soon.

Unfortunately because this product is sold as "software" it can't be returned to the store if it's been opened, so I have a $200 product that I can do nothing productive with other than throwing it in the trash.

EDIT: 29-MAR-2009
The problem with the IR blaster was fixed with a new release of the software. However, now none of the shows on TV match the guide, so I can't record any shows: Any show I schedule for recording is recorded at the wrong time. Also, all of the Guide data is wrong and the channel banner shows show info for a show that is not on at that time. Nero tried to fix the problem by pushing a lineup change but then the channel banner displayed NO INFO AVAILABLE on every channel.

EDIT: 07-ARP-2009
After 34 emails and over six months of waiting, I was given a Beta version of the Liquid TV software that displays the correct Guide data and records shows at the right times.

This resolves all of the issues I have been experiencing with the service. However, I discovered Tivo service cannot be transferred to LiquidTV so you have to cancel your Tivo account, which may result in an "early termination" fee. I also discovered that when I signed up for LiquidTV, the Tivo account was not automatically terminated so I was being billed for service I was no longer using.

I called Tivo to resolve the issue but the CS agent I spoke with refused to resolve the issue (cancel the account with no early termination fee and refund the double billed service). I had to request a supervisor and wait on hold for ten minutes. Then I had to explain the situation again to him, after which he resolved the issue.

The only remaining problem with the software is that the Tivo remote only works when the Liquid TV software has focus, so if you're browsing the web and you have the Liquid TV software going, you have to switch away from your web browser to the Liquid TV window before you can control the Liquid TV software with the remote.

I installed it on my primary PC in my computer room with the following spec. Asus P5B deluxe mobo, Q9550, 4GB DDR2-800, nVidia GTX 260. Recording on a Seagate 7200.10 500GB SATA2 HD and watching on a Dell 2709W.

Setup. Fairly straight forward. Insert CD, Plug in USB tuner, decline window driver search and click tuner driver on the CD. Once that is done. Install the Liquid TV software and you are almost ready to go.

Launch the application and you are greeted with a first time setup menu much like any other Tivo product. Setup the remote, enter zip code, your Tivo subscription code, select the tuner you want to use and go thru channel scan and you are good to go. (I'm using the same OTA antenna that I use for my HD Tivo)

Operations. The Tivo remote work pretty good and make it seems like operating any other Tivo product. Live broadcast look decent but not as good as the HD Tivo or the built-in tuner on my Sharp 46" LCD. I would say it's better than DVD but nowhere near that of the other units. I have a 1.2GB 720p mkv file for the Terminator Sarah Conner Chronicles season opener that have more picture detail but maybe slightly less frame rate.

I did a recording of the 10PM Law and Order and the result is about the same compared to watching live. I check the recording file and the 1 hour show took up slightly over 6GB. that is pretty close to what a standalone unit will take. With that much data, the picture should be very close to that of a SA unit but it's not.

I also have some minor tearing on full screen live and playback. That issue seems to be software related as the recorded file plays just fine using media player. Hopefully this will improve with future updates.

The only thing that I think could cause the lower quality is the USB tuner. I have the older ATI HD tuner card in the same PC although I have not used it since I went to a nVidia video card. I can see if it still works and if it gives a better picture. (it's been a while but I think I have seen better picture from the ATI when I had it running). Maybe some of you with a better PCI tuner card can give the trail version a try and see.

I also tried multitasking with it running in a window box. At one time, I have Eve Online (MMO game), Googletalk, Firefox and a download ongoing at the same time. There were some minor pauses and out of sync when I'm switching between apps and such but it's ok in general. I did have one CTD while setting up a season pass though. I have not have a chance to watch the complete 1 hour recording so I don't know if the pause and out of sync was carried over to the recorded file.

In conclusion. I'm a bit disappointed as the picture quality is nowhere near that of a SA HD Tivo box or the built-in tuner on a HDTV. However, The Tivo software and remote make operation just like a SA Tivo which is so much better than any other HTPC solution I have tried. I'll probably keep it as it's relatively cheap and hopefully the software will improve over time. I'll even be willing to invest in an better PCI tuner card if it turns out that they can improve the picture quality.

I received Nero Liquid TV | TiVo PC as a birthday gift. I am a long time TIVO user and I love it to death. I am also a computer software professional for over 25 years. I installed Nero LiquidTV on a Sony VGC-LV190Y HD PC/TV computer. TIVO on your PC is a great concept, but this product just doesn't work. The installation was not easy, but I finally got it to work, sort of. It crashes and closes when you try to delete a season pass. You may be able to write programs to a DVD, but not in a format that most DVD players can read, so what good is that ? And their technical support is absolutely useless. I think their job description is to stall, annoy, frustrate, and do whatever it takes to make people stop asking them for support. And forget about a refund. They said they won't give a refund unless there is a technical problem with their product - which is exactly why I was asking for the refund in the first place !!!!! Don't waste your time or your money on this product.

A huge disappointment!

I really hope that this software gets updated and the problems fixed, but as of now (2/2009), this works like half-baked beta software.

I really wanted to love this software because I love Tivo, but this software doesn't deserve the name.

I bought this product and recieved it the day before thanksgiving. I installed it and put in my Tivo service number on the disc. It said it was an invalid number. I called tech support the day after thanksgiving. They answered and about a minute after they said "please hold for the next available representative then they said "good bye" and hung up on me. Customer service did the same thing. The software offered a 30 day free trial so I signed up for it. it worked for 3 days and then said my trial was over. I then finally got through to customer service after being on hold for 40 minutes. He suggested I download the latest version from the website and try that. I did and it still said my tsn was invalid. I called customer service back and only waited 10 minutes this time. He said that I have to speak to tech support. I explained my problem and he said "they probably aren't in yet" I said it says they are in 9 am to 8pm est and it was 10 am est. His response was "they probably aren't in yet". I called them back and this time i was on hold for 1 1/2 hours with them continually adding time to the hold time. They first said 5 more minutes and at the end said 30 more minutes. unfortunately I had to leave for work before they answered. Keep in mind that I only have 10 days from when I registered to recieve free tech support and they weren't open the first 4 days. After that they charge 1.52 per minute for tech support.

I've bought about 1 trillion dollars worth of products from Amazon and this is the first product that made me feel the need to write a review.

My daughter has always raved about her regular Tivo and I thought that this product would be a good alternative for me. I bought the product before it was released. Bad move.

I'm not a computer expert but I consider myself more technically inclined than a "typical" consumer. To make sure I had the hardware to support this application, I bought a new desktop (Quad Core processor, 3 GB ram, HDMI video card, large hard drive etc...).

This product is terrible. The software is cumbersome to set up and re-set up. I have uninstalled and started over several times in the past few months in the hope that I could make it work acceptably for more than a few days at a time. It is also very user unfriendly when it comes to making changes to the setup.

As of Feb. 2009, Nero has done one software update since the original release. The product released in October and the update was in late November. Judging by the software's current performance and user unfriendliness, they need another gigantic update.

I don't know much about TV tuners. Maybe the software's interaction with the supplied Hauppauge WinTV USB tuner is contributing to some of the problems. I've pretty much accepted that this isn't going to work for me and gone back to using a VCR to record programs. The quality of playback is about the same and the reliability is many many times better.

As of this writing, I agree with all of the other 1 star reviews.

If you need a DVR, I recommend that you look elsewhere.

I have worked on PCs since they first came into existance and I have loved Tivo from its early days. As a Directv customer I hated that the relationship between the two caused me to have to use Directv DVRs instead of Tivos. Seeing Liquid TV/Tivo released for PC was a dream - which is now a nightmare.

I've wasted days of time trying to get this work with a dedicated Media Center PC - both with Windows Vista and Windows 7. I think I had it change channels once for a day or so and then it went back to not changing channels at all. I have the Liquid TV remote and IR Blaster so I am not trying to make 3rd party products work.

I will go back to using Microsoft Media Center and consider this a wasted purchase and hope that Directv and Tivo get back together as they announced last year.

I'm a long-time fan of TiVo and have owned many TiVo standalone units over the past 5 years. I've been using Microsoft Vista Ultimate's Media Center for the past year, and was looking forward to "upgrading" to a true TiVo experience.

I'm pretty good with computers, but even I was confused by the setup process. There's no step-by-step setup instructions, and it feels like someone took three completely separate products and stuffed them in a brown box and shipped it to you; you have no way of knowing what to hook-up first. The hardware drivers for the USB tuner (which comes in a separate box and has no instructions for using it with Nero's Liquid TV at all), don't get installed when you click "Install Drivers" on the CD-ROM, and for some strange reason are installed during the TiVo software install.

Poor documentation is the least of the problem; I've been using a DirecTV with Microsoft Media Center for years without a problem. With the IR Blaster positioned in EXACTLY the same place, Nero's LiquidTV cannot change the channels.

Calling Nero's customer support reveals that you have to pay $150 PER MINUTE to speak with anyone. An email to their support team went unanswered for three days, when they finally responded with a generic form letter asking for more details on my PC's specs. Useless.
A call to TiVo, which has fantastic customer support, revealed that the IR blaster hardware is made by Nero, and you have to call Nero for support.

I've ordered a serial-to-usb cable to try and circumvent the IR blaster altogether, but I'm very dissatisfied with Nero's lack of support. All-in-all, it's probably not worth all this effort, and I should just stick with a dedicated standalone TiVo.

For now, I'm back using Media Center and hoping I'll get this thing working eventually. Either that, or it was $160 down the drain.

First off, I am pretty good with computers. We have a whole network and serve set up in our house. I love my regular TIVO and I have been waiting for this product to come out for some time. Bottom line, it doesn't work.

Beware, you have to pay for phone tech support if you want it, even to deal with setup issues. The e-mail tech support is horrible. It has been over a week and I still don't have a resolution. It takes about 48 hour turnaround time between e-mails, and all they do is say they need more information each time. For any product there should be free tech support, or at least for the first 30 days. Especially when the product is brand new and obviously full of issues. Also forget on-line help. You can download the same manual that comes in the box. The manual is useless for troubleshooting.

The computer we are using the program on is a brand new acer, that has a dual core 2.5 ghz process and 4 GB of memory, and is running vista. There shouldn't be any issues regarding the system's ability to handle anything we throw at it. All other programs, video, etc work great. Even the TIVO desktop program and streaming HD quality movies don't have a problem. The LiquidTV on the other hand is worthless.

So I went through the whole set up process. The adapter can't seem to pick up our Verizon Fios TV service, nor can the program connect to our TIVO HD box to even transfer TV shows. As far as live or recorded TV, we just get freeze frame static. As far as transfers, the program keeps saying that the connection with the TIVO box was terminated. The Media Access Key is certainly set correctly, so there shouldn't be an issue. Our network connection is fine, and our other computers with the TIVO desktop software connect and download from the TIVO HD box just fine.

So I can't transfer TV shows, record or watch live TV with the Nero LIQUIDTV. The product is useless. I have given Tech Support over a week to figure out the problem. I have received slow responses, and ultimately Tech Support has been no help whatsoever. I am going to return the product. It is such a shame because I really wanted this product to work, and it is a great idea. THAT BEING SAID, DON'T WASTE YOUR MONEY!

I first emailed nero and asked if it will work on Windows 7, they assured me it will and an upddate will be out shortly after 7 ships. The software installs fine but I can't activate it with the number provided, tech support can only suggest uninstalling and reinstalling which was a waste of time as is this app. When it did work the picture quality was terrible - worse than vhs yet my picture is 100% digital.

On another note this software requires a subscribsion to TIVO to use it, so you have to renew to use the recorder, that's another Fail in my book. I really just wanted a way to capture video and didn't need TIVO for this. It appears Windows Media Center can use the hardware so I'll just go that route and never buy from Nero again.