Moving from Hopper to Tivo

[lparsons21]

And if you already have a Tivo Dvr already, its actually $129.99 instead. I basically got my second basic Roamio for free by paying 129.99 upfront for a years service.
The refurb was made in Oct 2014, the new in box was made in Dec 2014. The refurb was spotless inside, it had a Seagate 500gb made in Sept 2013- no big deal, I replaced it with a 2 TB WD made Dec 2014 anyways

Since the annual and monthly service fees come with essentially an extended warranty as long as you keep paying the fee, I don't see a downside to a refurb.

And I noticed that $129 deal too, but as a new user I'm not elgible for it.

 

[osu1991]

Well after mother nature held my mini up in Dallas for a day, it came today. Not sure I've got Moca figured out. I had the Roamio Basic plugged into a gigabit switch in media cabinet and took mini to my office and plugged into gigabit switch there, but was getting v70 error.

I had one actiontec moca adapter that I plugged into the router and connected to the OTA line in and OTA line out but I couldn't get it to work. I'm not familiar with the Moca and maybe I need a 2nd Moca adapter, anyway unplugged everything and had Roamio call in again and then tried Mini on ethernet again and this time it connected and finished setup and is working well.

Guess I will tape a new coax and cat6 cable to the existing coax in master bedroom and pull it back to media closet, my knees are not up to crawling thru attic to run cat6, that is why that room is not already wired. The rest of the house I was able to wire from the floored part of the attic without crawling around.

 

[lparsons21]

I got my Tivo Roamio Plus on the military deal which I had been told was a refurb. I didn't care, but after examining mine, it looks brand new and performs quite well with the internet stuff I've been doing as I impatiently wait for Mediacom to come out Monday afternoon and pull the filter, install and activate the cablecard.

In the meantime, I set up the Netflix, HuluPlus and Amazon apps so I could get a feel for it. Lots more fiddly than either Hopper or Genie, but then it is more like a Media Center PC than it is a cable/sat DVR though it does that too. Search is system wide meaning that if you search for a show it will give results from wherever it finds it and lets you know where it is. I suppose that means that One Pass should be able to do that too.

I also have Playon/Playlater and have installed the open source pyTivo which allows me to get HD recordings from Playlater and SD (480p) streams from Playon. I've been told that doing HD streams via pyTivo and the other open source app (streambaby) isn't possible at this time. The good part is that the SD is MUCH, MUCH better than either D* or E*'s. Since this works so well, and the streaming isn't HD anyway I'll probably cancel my HuluPlus and just get my Hulu needs filled via Playon. The SD is just that good!

The UI is almost all textual in nature. No channel logos, at least on Mediacom, no tiles. You can see previous to current listings in the cable guide which is OK I suppose. The guide is 2hours and a little wide which is better than D*'s but worse than E*'s.

 

[osu1991]

Yeah, no channel logos with Cox either, at least not without a cable card. Our locals are still unencrypted with internet access, so I connected the Roamio via Cox to see what the cable looked like, before going back to OTA on it. A few of the locals are apparently SDV and needed the tuning adapter and cable card

 

[osu1991]

refurbs on sale at woot again. $99 for a Roamio Basic

http://www.woot.com/offers/tivo-roamio-hd-digital-media-player-2

 

[jayn_j]

Be careful on the terms. You will still get hit with the 1 year commitment. This is TIVOs attitude with any new or extended subscription. I bought a used Roamio last summer and had planned to update from my Premiere that I have had for 3 years now. They were requiring a 1 year commitment for the box which had already fulfilled its commitment. Solved it by going lifetime, but it seemed a bit cheesy to me. I mean, the box had fulfilled its commitment. I had fulfilled my commitment, so why was I being hit up again?

 

[lparsons21]

I think I read of others that had that same issue with the commitments.

I looked at the Woot deal and decided that instead of $99 for the Basic, I could do just as well with the Plus for the same $99. But my deal has a 2 year commitment which I'm OK with and knew going in.

 

[jayn_j]

I think I read of others that had that same issue with the commitments.

I looked at the Woot deal and decided that instead of $99 for the Basic, I could do just as well with the Plus for the same $99. But my deal has a 2 year commitment which I'm OK with and knew going in.

Sounds good. The only thing with the plus is that it doesn't have ATSC tuners, so you are locked into your local cable company with it. I chose the basic so I can cut the cord and reconnect at will.

Adding the big disc is trivial as in plug and play.

 

[lparsons21]

Sounds good. The only thing with the plus is that it doesn't have ATSC tuners, so you are locked into your local cable company with it. I chose the basic so I can cut the cord and reconnect at will.

Adding the big disc is trivial as in plug and play.

I thought about the Basic for the same reason you bought one. But around here, even with a tall antenna, getting solid reception is 3 of the big 4, well those and the religious stations. Everything else is twitchy and the CW is a definite no go.
And I record a lot, so the 6-tuners in the Plus fit the bill better.

 

[lparsons21]

Mediacom came and installed the cablecard and set the service up. Excellent picture in both HD and SD, the SD being very much better than either sat service provides.
After they left I worked with OnePass a bit. Recording series and such on the Tivo is quite fiddly, but most of that is because it searches on more than just the cable channels.

 

[mike123abc]

I just disable the streaming/purchase option when setting up a pass so that it just does TV.

That being said, the other day it found all the earlier seasons I had access to on a series via Amazon Prime...

 

[lparsons21]

I just disable the streaming/purchase option when setting up a pass so that it just does TV.

That being said, the other day it found all the earlier seasons I had access to on a series via Amazon Prime...

I think that's what I will do too. The "my shows" is getting pretty cluttered with mostly streaming stuff.

 

[mike123abc]

I think that's what I will do too. The "my shows" is getting pretty cluttered with mostly streaming stuff.

I can see how it is useful if you "find" a series in the middle and there are a lot of back episodes that you could be interested in on Netflix or Amazon Prime. The issue of course is that I am smart enough to go look there anyways, and do not need them displayed in "my shows".

 

[lparsons21]

I've gotten most of my timers/series on the Tivo from the Hopper. Just need to burn off those series I'm behind on that I can't get via streaming at the moment. And either keep the Hopper until Banshee (Cinemax) is finished or sub to Max on Mediacom, probably end up doing the latter as Strikeback will be coming up in a bit.

The series I'm behind on with Hopper that have streaming availability I've got OnePass setups for including the streaming, so those should be good to go. Then I can clean up the OnePass entries that have lots of streaming but that I also get on cable.

One show I'm behind on was giving me fits. HuluPlus shows Haven as Web Only and I can't get it on the Tivo from there. But late last night while futzing with Playon/Playlater I found it had the SyFy website so I set the recordings to get it from there instead.

 

[mdavej]

Lparsons,

I enjoy all your posts. But I have to ask how you can bounce around from DirecTV to Dish to cable without getting hit with ETFs, un-recouped equipment costs and such. Tivo alone is probably a grand. Isn't all this switching pretty costly?

 

[lparsons21]

Lparsons,

I enjoy all your posts. But I have to ask how you can bounce around from DirecTV to Dish to cable without getting hit with ETFs, un-recouped equipment costs and such. Tivo alone is probably a grand. Isn't all this switching pretty costly?

Glad you enjoy them.

First, yes Tivo can be very expensive but doesn't have to be if you are flexible and willing to get factory refurbs vice new units. In my case the Tivo Roamio Plus was $99 with a 2 year commitment for Tivo fees. Since I can get those 2 years @$150/year that's right in line with say a Hopper.

Here's the link to do that: https://www.tivo.com/shop/promo/zero-down-factory-renewed-roamio

Or the military deal, which is literally the same : http://www.tivo.com/military

Note that you have to find out about those because they won't show up at TiVo.com except by direct link. And buying a refurb from Tivo is a pretty safe bet. You pay the annual vice monthly and save about $7/month and with either annual or monthly service fee you get a service agreement to cover hardware failures you might have. Note you don't get the service agreement with 'lifetime service fee'.

As to ETF's, well most of the time I've juggled the subs around so that 1st year subscriptions take care of all the ETF cost and usually left money over afterwords. Not always, but with one exception I've never had it not do that. The one exception was the most recent one, but it was a planned setup and I knew going in what it would be. Both D* and E* have made the 1st year deals so sweet you actually can switch every year and at worst break even.

This time, shifting from E* to Cable will work out to about $120 to E* for ETF as I have a $10/month ETF with them because of a Dish 'n it up deal. But counting what I paid for the Tivo, the Tivo subscription fee and the cable/internet fee, I'll save over $400 so a net gain of about $280.

Note that if you have lots of TVs and receivers/DVRs it won't work as the upfront hardware fees would eat up the savings and maybe even more depending on how many units you are talking about. In my case it is one unit which is always free with both D* and E*.

 

[mdavej]

Thanks for the link. Nice deals. If I went back to Tivo, I'd probably go with the Roamio Plus with lifetime so I could do Mini's on my other TVs. For now I'm going to stick with cable, Windows Media Center and my 5 Ceton Echoes as long as I can. That's essentially free besides the hardware costs and the cost of my programming package of course.

My parents are out of contract with DirecTV, so I've been considering switching them to cable and Tivo as well. But every time I call to cancel, they sweeten the pot.

 

[lparsons21]

Yeah, they sure do quite a bit to keep you. D* more than E* in my experience.

I got the Roamio Plus myself, I thought the drive would be big enough and if it isn't, swapping bigger one in isn't all that daunting though it would result in all new setup routine to get things right. Or I could add an external HD.

 

[osu1991]

Tivo costs a bit, but it's really the only thing out there that is plug n play. I get tired of being phone/text/live tech support for everyone in my family.

I've spent quite a bit the last few weeks. My 3rd Roamio Basic is supposed to be here today. With taxes and shipping, I've paid $104 each for 2 refurbs and $112 for the 1 new one. $399 each for 2 lifetime subs, not sure what I'm going to do on the 3rd one. I'm going to give it to my dad and probably just leave it in Las Vegas at our condo, for when he or I am out there. I'm undecided whether to ship the 3rd one out to Vegas this week or not. My dad will only be out there for another 4 weeks before they come back to Oklahoma for a couple of months.

I have one Mini 2 I ordered last week, that is setup in my house via ethernet. It's supposed to be 75 today, so I am going to try and run ethernet in the attic to the 1 room in my house where I don't have it and where I want to leave the Mini.

My mom is in love with the 1st Roamio I got and that I left for her to use.

I've reduced my Dish bill by $40 a month, so it won't take long to recoup the investment. The Tivo and mini gives me access to streaming and OTA recording, which is what I use most now and 1 sat box on main tv will give me access to the very few shows I watch off of it and access to ESPN and FS1.

 

[lparsons21]

It really is plug and play! One of the simpler boxes I've set up. And after playing around with it for a few days before cable TV was installed I got a real good feel for the streaming parts of it. Adding the TV service and setting up OnePass was interesting and fiddly, but does a good job.

I installed pyTivo on my media computer which gives me access to my Playon/Playlater media server from the Tivo. That works quite well too though the transfers it does don't show up in My Shows inside folders as other shows do, just single line listing for each show transferred from Playon/Playlater.