It does seem to skip a lot of ads, but not all. Mostly I see house ads for other things on Hulu, but occasionally, I get a real ad. They must not be selling enough ads spots these days.
Moving from Hopper to Tivo
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It does seem to skip a lot of ads, but not all. Mostly I see house ads for other things on Hulu, but occasionally, I get a real ad. They must not be selling enough ads spots these days.
I got a good deal from Charter on a double play that wasn't much more than internet alone. I'm going to keep it until the end of the MLB season and then cancel before the 1 year promo price runs out. The cable guy will be coming this afternoon but I'm a little skeptical that he will know what he is doing. Everyone I have talked to at Charter when I was talking about doing this didn't understand that you can use a Tivo instead of their box. I was told several times that no one does that before I got to someone who knew what I was talking about. I would like to know a little bit about the installation process in case it's as rare for their tech to work with Tivos as it is for all of their phone support and sales staff.
From what I've read, I'm supposed to run the guided setup with Charter as my provider before the tech arrives. That way video will come up on the screen sooner. Does anyone who has switched from OTA to Cable on Roamio basic have any tips for me? I'm hoping it is as simple as unplugging the Tivo, putting in a cable card, plugging in the tuner adapter, booting the Tivo back up, and having the tech pair the cable card to my account. Anything special to know about the tuner adapter setup?
From what I've read, I'm supposed to run the guided setup with Charter as my provider before the tech arrives. That way video will come up on the screen sooner. Does anyone who has switched from OTA to Cable on Roamio basic have any tips for me? I'm hoping it is as simple as unplugging the Tivo, putting in a cable card, plugging in the tuner adapter, booting the Tivo back up, and having the tech pair the cable card to my account. Anything special to know about the tuner adapter setup?
It looks like Charter has a group that specializes in TIVO/Cablecard. I found this group with TWC and it saved hours compared to my first experience.
TIVO provides a nice page with links to each cable company's specialists: http://support.tivo.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/2747
TIVO provides a nice page with links to each cable company's specialists: http://support.tivo.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/2747
Thanks. I'll look into that if the installer seems to be having trouble.
Edit: I'm also thinking about upgrading my hard drive to 2TB. Is there an easy way to copy the recordings on my existing drive over to a new one.
Is this a R
This used to be free, but they now charge for it.
Putting a 2 TB drive in a Roamio is trivial. Just plug it in and it formats itself.
If you have the older Premiere, you need to format the disk externally. There are programs available at TIVO community or there is some guy there that will sell a pre-formatted 2 TB disk.
Oh yeah, put in the 2 TB disk before the guy gets there with the cablecard. Some of the pairing data gets stored on the disk and people report you may have to re-pair if you change HDD.
Is this a Roamio? If so, you can capture and store the current programs on an external PC using the TIVO desktop plus program: http://support.tivo.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/1202
This used to be free, but they now charge for it.
Putting a 2 TB drive in a Roamio is trivial. Just plug it in and it formats itself.
If you have the older Premiere, you need to format the disk externally. There are programs available at TIVO community or there is some guy there that will sell a pre-formatted 2 TB disk.
Oh yeah, put in the 2 TB disk before the guy gets there with the cablecard. Some of the pairing data gets stored on the disk and people report you may have to re-pair if you change HDD.
Thanks. It is a Roamio. I will buy their software and get it taken care of. I'm comfortable with the physical process. I have built several computers with multiple storage drives and aftermarket coolers and I upgraded the hard drive in my PS4. I just wasn't sure about keeping the recordings I already have.
Unfortunately I won't be able to switch the drive before the installer arrives. He is coming in about an hour and I haven't ordered a new drive yet.
I got it all setup and it was relatively painless. The worst part was the installer constantly questioning why I would want to use a Tivo instead of "a DVR" even after I explained it to him several times. He had a bad attitude about it from the start because he didn't understand what a Tivo is and he claimed that they are always a terrible experience to setup. He also claimed that Roamio's don't work with their tuner adapters and insisted that I would be missing channels.
I had already done the guided setup for Charter before he arrived so there was none of the waiting around he was used to. From a wiring standpoint all he had to do was put in a splitter before my cable modem that is located in the same entertainment center as the Tivo. Then it was as simple as plugging in the cable card, plugging in the tuning adapter, and calling to read them the activation numbers. If he wasn't there complaining about how bad it would be I could have done the entire process in less than 15 minutes. The only thing I needed from him was to climb up the pole and remove a filter. Charter apparently requires professional installation even if you don't have a filter though.
When we plugged the tuning adapter in it popped up with a message saying that the tuning adapter doesn't have a security thing necessary to use with the Tivo and it needed a firmware update to fully work. The guy practically yelled "I told you it wouldn't work" as soon as he saw it. About 1 minute later it had already downloaded the necessary firmware update on it's own and started working perfectly though. I loved how quickly he shut up as we tuned to all the channels he said wouldn't work. He also told me I would only be able to use two tuners at a time so I quickly recorded 4 HD shows that happened to be on to shut him up again.
He ended up turning something that should have taken a half hour including the filter removal into an almost 1 and a half hour experience by constantly trying to talk me out of my "junk" Tivo Roamio.
I did order a 2TB drive that should be here Friday. I'm kind of dreading installing it though since it sounds like I will have to pair the cable card again after I do it. If the number of Charter employees I have talked to over the last few days with 0 knowledge of Tivo is any indication that could be a nightmare. Thankfully Jayn posted that link to people who are supposed to be trained on Tivo setup so maybe I can avoid that.
I had already done the guided setup for Charter before he arrived so there was none of the waiting around he was used to. From a wiring standpoint all he had to do was put in a splitter before my cable modem that is located in the same entertainment center as the Tivo. Then it was as simple as plugging in the cable card, plugging in the tuning adapter, and calling to read them the activation numbers. If he wasn't there complaining about how bad it would be I could have done the entire process in less than 15 minutes. The only thing I needed from him was to climb up the pole and remove a filter. Charter apparently requires professional installation even if you don't have a filter though.
When we plugged the tuning adapter in it popped up with a message saying that the tuning adapter doesn't have a security thing necessary to use with the Tivo and it needed a firmware update to fully work. The guy practically yelled "I told you it wouldn't work" as soon as he saw it. About 1 minute later it had already downloaded the necessary firmware update on it's own and started working perfectly though. I loved how quickly he shut up as we tuned to all the channels he said wouldn't work. He also told me I would only be able to use two tuners at a time so I quickly recorded 4 HD shows that happened to be on to shut him up again.
He ended up turning something that should have taken a half hour including the filter removal into an almost 1 and a half hour experience by constantly trying to talk me out of my "junk" Tivo Roamio.
I did order a 2TB drive that should be here Friday. I'm kind of dreading installing it though since it sounds like I will have to pair the cable card again after I do it. If the number of Charter employees I have talked to over the last few days with 0 knowledge of Tivo is any indication that could be a nightmare. Thankfully Jayn posted that link to people who are supposed to be trained on Tivo setup so maybe I can avoid that.
Does charter have a cable card hot line? TWC does, and I have called to pair my TiVo cablecards as needed, quickly and painlessly.
Also some tuning adapters really only let you record 2 switched video channels at the same time. You should try to see if you can do more than 2 of those. It does not really come into play much since the most popular channels tend not to be switched video, so it is unlikely that someone would want to record more than a couple at any given time.
Also some tuning adapters really only let you record 2 switched video channels at the same time. You should try to see if you can do more than 2 of those. It does not really come into play much since the most popular channels tend not to be switched video, so it is unlikely that someone would want to record more than a couple at any given time.
Unfortunately Charter doesn't have such a hotline. I've paired about a dozen cards with Charter. Could take minutes or days. Luck of the draw. The last tech that came to my house was eager to learn from me and wanted his system to be like mine when he saw what it could do.
Ceton has said that all TAs and cards in all US systems now support at least 6 streams as of last year. I record 6 simultaneously on my system routinely without issue.
Ceton has said that all TAs and cards in all US systems now support at least 6 streams as of last year. I record 6 simultaneously on my system routinely without issue.
I have the Motorola TA. From what I understand that one works with 4 SDV channels. I think I read that there is a Cisco model that only works with 2 SDV channels at a time. I did test to make sure all 4 tuners would work at once on a combination of HBO, Cinemax, and Showtime channels because those were the ones the installer said wouldn't work.
I would test recording 4 SDV channels but I can't seem to find a list of channels that are on the switched video system. Everything I read just says it depends on the area.
Nobody reads anymore. I posted the TIVO pointer to the cablecos back in response #143
If you unplug the tuning adapter, you will get an error on the TiVo (I think V53) on any switched video channel. It is a brute force method to identify SVCs in your area.
My Moto TA does 6 at least on any and all channels.
Anyway, the TA isn't the limiting factor, it's the cable card. All the TA does is request a channel be put in the the stream, doesn't matter how many since the requests are done in series.
Bottom line is you have nothing to worry about. The installer doesn't know what he's talking about.
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Been an expensive 2 weeks, but I got my 2nd Roamio for myself earlier this week. Got one of the $99 deals from Woot. I moved all my OTA timers to it and deleted them from my 722. I checked yesterday and at the end of the week I only had 5 shows on 3 channels recording from satellite and I didn't even use the 722 until today and that was for Nascar on FS1 because our weatherguys/gals went nuts on the OTA stations because of the abundance of snow we got. Now of course the 1 room where I was going to put a mini is not hard wired for ethernet, will have to do that or go with moca.
I think I'll sell the Sony Ps/4 Dish is sending me, and use the money to get a base Roamio with Lifetime service. That way I can go either OTA or use a cable card with Charter if need be. That almost sounds evil to do that with a Ps/4 Dish is giving me, lol, but hey, you gotta do whatever you can to not spend so much money these days.
Dish is no longer the cheapest provider, and Charter has changed their ways completely since post bankruptcy.
Dish is no longer the cheapest provider, and Charter has changed their ways completely since post bankruptcy.
For the last 18 months I had Dish I use an antenna and TiVo to record all the locals, just used my Dish DVR to record non OTA stations. I had a 922 and it was buggy, it would lose recordings if it had too much to do, I assume they have fixed it up by now. It really was interesting to see that my OTA was much more than my cable programming. I had a *LOT* of cable timers, but since cable channels can call 6-12 episodes a season, where broadcast is 22-24, it became quite obvious that I mostly used OTA, when they were on separate devices.
Expensive here too, 2 Roamio basics, one Mini V1, one Mini V2. Just waiting for the stream to become available from a reputable seller for msrp or better.
You can get refurb Tivos directly from Tivo. Here's the link:
https://www.tivo.com/shop/promo/zero-down-factory-renewed-roamio
They have various deals offered. I got the Roamio Plus for $99 with a 2-year subscription requirement. The listed price of the subscripton is $19.99/month, but if you get the deal and pay that first month, and then within 30 days change the subscription to annual, you get the subscription for $149.99/year.
Since a Tivo is worthless without the subscription, I thought the deal was wonderful.
https://www.tivo.com/shop/promo/zero-down-factory-renewed-roamio
They have various deals offered. I got the Roamio Plus for $99 with a 2-year subscription requirement. The listed price of the subscripton is $19.99/month, but if you get the deal and pay that first month, and then within 30 days change the subscription to annual, you get the subscription for $149.99/year.
Since a Tivo is worthless without the subscription, I thought the deal was wonderful.
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
If you have a Premiere already and it has been active for 3 years, they will offer lifetime for $99 on that box. People over on TIVOCommunity have reported that they have been offered the $99 lifetime deal on units they recently purchased. So, the deal might be to find an old Premiere (or better still a series 3 HD) for cheap and then update to lifetime.
The reason I say the series 3 HD is that the Premiere is known to have a weak tuner. The Roamio is much better, so I would only recommend aPremiere to someone who has a solid OTA signal.
The reason I say the series 3 HD is that the Premiere is known to have a weak tuner. The Roamio is much better, so I would only recommend aPremiere to someone who has a solid OTA signal.
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