A while ago Amazon and TiVo generally released the linking of Amazon's Unbox to TiVo DVRs. They also gave $15 credit with the link, so I decided it was worth trying. I quickly found a show that had been canceled last fall after only 3 episodes, and discovered the next 4 were available on Unbox, and labeled as TiVo compatible.
The quality on them is indeed good. It's not DTV quality, but definitely better than the normal TiVo best quality (which is OK, but not great). There was much less macroblocking, which is probably the most annoying part of watching normally-recorded content. I wouldn't say it's DVD quality, but part of that is likely due to the fact that the best quality output on the Series 2 is s-video. Overall I was thinking the service was sorta cool (although a bit overpriced for download-only).
Then I hit the 3rd episode I tried to download (Smith: Six if anyone cares). I went back online and saw it wasn't listed as allocated to any device, so chose to download it again. Unfortunately it appeared to start online, but never appeared in my Now Playing list, and eventually went back to not allocated in the library online. I tried again and contacted Amazon's support, who responded it appeared to be downloading, and to just wait. They also said it could be available space (unlikely as I had over 50 items in my Recently Deleted), and if I have further problems contact TiVo. Never mind that TiVo pointed me at Amazon for any issues related to downloading.
A while later I went to try again and respond to the fact that it timed out that time as well, and discovered that it's no longer listed as available on TiVo. Off the note went to support, asking why it's no longer listed, if it is related to the problems downloading, and when it will be listed again. The response I've received says it's not currently available (I got that - it's why I submitted the note), how to tell if something is available to TiVo (they must not have looked at the history, and thing I just picked something not compatible with TiVo), and how to view it on a PC (of which I don't have any compatible one, because other than TiVo their DRMed system is rather limited).
So at this point I haven't bought anything since I hit this issue, as I'm debating what to do depending on the outcome. I'd be OK with it if they were up front about it and said the original encoding had issues and they needed to resolve it. This whole replying with barely-related canned answers isn't atypical from my other interactions with Amazon's support. For physical products they seem to have things streamlined, and any problems get resolved quickly despite the canned answers. If they can't handle issues other than fixing a shipment or issuing credits though, I'm not sure this will be a service that's really usable. And that's not even considering that the downloading process was effectively equivalent to saying they shipped, and then when checking because it didn't arrive having them say it hadn't been shipped (no errors or indications it had previously been attempted). It'll be interesting to see how (if) this gets resolved.
Sounds like most level 0 help desk workers...
Although I think that the concept of the Unbox on TiVo is pretty darn sweet. I'd like to know how this all plays out for ya.
It's actually online support, so they should be able to pass it along easily, or spend a few minutes looking.
Online support is just a level 0 help desk worker who isn't on a phone call. They'll probably be just as disconnected from the rest of the technical people.
Technically it's Customer Support and not even Tech Support, but either way, even if other places do similar things, it's bad customer relations to have a first level of support that doesn't know what's going on (or doesn't take the time to find out). And when it's online vs phone, the excuse of "not making the customer wait on hold" doesn't even apply.
My only experience with Amazon has been negative. I tried to order a book for class, and for about two months it said it would be shipping "soon." Every once in awhile, I would get an email that said, "Oh, oh, just kidding. We will ship it next week." The last of these notices came in November, which was get it or fail time for me.
I finally wrote an angry email asking whether or not they were ever planning to send it because if they weren't it would be great to know now rather than later. They responded that they couldn't send something they were waiting for their suppliers to send them (which is not, in fact, what they told me to begin with--they made it sound as though their warehouse was merely backed up, not that they did not have the physical book at all, not that their book possession was only a theory at this point rather than a provable reality). They offered to upgrade my shipping, which was laughable considering that they had been promising to send it "next week" for eight weeks. I cancelled the order and bought it from a Barnes and Noble store for more money. I got the last copy they had. Then I found out that the book was out of print, which was not its listed status on Amazon.
Moral of the story: Amazon is great unless you are having problems. Then they like to play the "Nothing is our fault and there's nothing we can do to fix it" card. Good luck with your TiVo issue, though. I hope they figure it out.
The topic came up at lunch today, and the same thing happened to that person. And he has a friend that works at Amazon who was complaining about their service. It's unfortunate they've built this reputation, but it's apparently not having a large enough effect on their sales to make them fix it.
As an update, yesterday the program was again listed as TiVo compatible, and it appears to have downloaded successfully. Finally...
Copyright ©2000-2008 Jeremy Mooney (jeremy-at-qux-dot-net)
I'm sure when you called, you're just getting level 0 help desk grunts. Those folks aren't told anything. When I worked as one, whenever an outtage happened, we'd have to contact the higher levels and find out what's going on. In the mean time, we got pounded with calls asking us the same questions.
You're probably right that it was taken down for encoding issues, but even so, they'll never tell the front-line phone desk jockeys that.