TiVo Mini service fee?!?!

[silvarios]

Relatively happy with my SimpleTV as DVR, but there are definitely some limitations with the service and generation 1 hardware. Figured I'd research the latest TiVo options to see if they had anything similar that could match my current setup -- one single tuner SimpleTV, plus multiple Roku boxs, plus WAN streaming options.

Cheapest 4 tuner Roamio seems pretty decent. $200, but requires a TiVo Stream to access content out of my home. Okay, that's another $130 (or $400 total if I get the Roamio Plus with integrate Stream). Unfortunately, the Stream doesn't support Android nor any set top boxes connected to the TV. Okay, that's out.

TiVo Mini could be the ticket for single home, multiple TV use. That's $200 for the Roamio and another $200 for two TiVo Minis. So $400 for the hardware, plus the $400 lifetime fee. Okay, that's $800, but perhaps worth it if it lasts at least four years. Wait, there's a fee for each mini? Either $6 month (with a minimum of one year required!!!!) or $150 for lifetime? That's either another $12/month or $300 up front!!!

So the mini is out as well. That leaves me with a Roamio for $200 and another $400 for lifetime fee that can't stream to other boxes in the house, nor can it stream to devices outside the house. However, the extra three tuners are a nice touch. Please tell me I'm doing these calculations wrong????

What's the actual best bang for your buck TiVo deal at the moment. Anything decent for $300 or less with lifetime?

[Speedy]

Yup, TiVo is expensive. I decided to just bite the $bullet$.

I'm new to TiVo, having just taken delivery on my TiVo Roamio Pro this past week (I have not even opened the package.) Retiring my two RePlayTVs, which have served me well for over a decade, motivated by Charter and its forced roll-out of cable boxes (August 26 deadline.) Bill in NC (!thanks!) mentioned taking a chance with an eBay deal which has since ended. I also bought a warranty on the Roamio because if the box fails I would lose my 'Lifetime' subscription, too. Two Minis (w/'Lifetime,' no extra warranty because the warranty cost the same as the Roamio's) and two slide remotes.

Order Summary
-------------
Product Description Qty Item Price Tax Total

TiVo Package, Product Lifetime 1 $ 300.00 $ 0.00 $ 300.00

TiVo Roamio Pro 1 $ 399.99 $ 29.50 $ 429.49

3-year extended warranty 1 $ 39.99 $ 0.00 $ 39.99

TiVo Mini Bundle, Product Lifetime 1 $ 124.01 $ 0.00 $ 124.01

TiVo Mini (RA9200) 1 $ 49.99 $ 3.69 $ 53.68

TiVo Mini Bundle, Product Lifetime 1 $ 124.01 $ 0.00 $ 124.01

TiVo Mini (RA9200) 1 $ 49.99 $ 3.69 $ 53.68

TiVo Slide Pro Remote 1 $ 34.99 $ 2.58 $ 37.57

TiVo Slide Pro Remote 1 $ 34.99 $ 2.58 $ 37.57

--------------------------------

Order Sub Total: $ 1,157.96

Shipping: $ 0.00

Tax: $ 42.04

Order Total: $ 1,200.00

>>>>>>>>

I saved $531.29 over TiVo's on-line store retail including tax and my eBay bid of $35.

You might try posting on the For Sale & Free Items forum seeking an earlier generation TiVo.

[Bill in NC]

yeah, for multiple TVs you want to buy the reseller code off ebay so you can get lifetime Minis (up to 4) for $174 each.

might as well buy 4 and resell any extras on ebay.

Then add the 6-tuner Roamio Pro w/ lifetime for $699.

or the 4-tuner base Roamio w/ lifetime for $449 (but the base Roamio doesn't have a MOCA bridge, so you'd need to buy that separately).

for a single TV where you don't need multi-room support just buy a used Premiere w/ lifetime off ebay or tivocommunity.com forum.

[Forrest]

Tivo was clearing out new Premiere's in April for $49.99 and bundled a wireless N adapter at no charge. I picked one up and pay $12.99/month for the service (multiservice discount).

What is your plan - streaming to multiple TV's in your house (how many) or Tivo access outside your house?

FYI there are free computer programs that let you extract Tivo recorded shows to other devices ctivo and pytivo

[silvarios]

Forrest wrote:
Tivo was clearing out new Premiere's in April for $49.99 and bundled a wireless N adapter at no charge. I picked one up and pay $12.99/month for the service (multiservice discount).

That's a good deal.

Forrest wrote:
What is your plan - streaming to multiple TV's in your house (how many) or Tivo access outside your house?

Three at my place and two at my mom's. The all TiVo setup is not feasible.

Forrest wrote:
FYI there are free computer programs that let you extract Tivo recorded shows to other devices ctivo and pytivo

That could make the setup work. Extract recordings and dump into Plex Media Server. Use Plex to accomplish the multi location and device streaming. I would need a single TiVo if that's the case.

[Forrest]

Before you buy the Roamio(s), do further research on ctivo and pytivo at the tivocommunity.com

I noticed the ctivo page claims compatibility with the Premiere and older Tivo's, and pytivo was released a few years ago.

In my opinion - there's nothing like Tivo's ease of use and reliability. If you ever decide to leave cable, all the shows are still yours (though protected content requiring cable card decryption may not play).

[silvarios]

Hmmm. Now you have me concerned. If I can't extract the recordings, the one TiVo plan wouldn't work either. Suppose I'll stick with my single tuner Simple.TV recording OTA and then streaming my mom's one soap to her place. $100 one time charge. Oh well.

Thanks again.

Edit: To clarify, I don't have cable, just my mom. Figured I could set up a compatible DVR and then get pristine recordings and drop my current antenna based DVR setup. Guess not?

[Forrest]

Didn't mean to scare you, but since I don't use ctivo or pytivo myself - didn't want you to be disappointed if it didn't work.

I don't have cable either, but still think Tivo is the way to go. You may want to try a used Premiere to get your feet wet.

I just checked the SimpleTV website think you'll be impressed by what a Tivo can do compared to the SimpleTV.

[silvarios]

Yeah, my SimpleTV is pretty basic when it comes to the core features of recording (one tuner, not terribly sophisticated recording options), but it does tie into all the Roku boxes I already own and can stream across the net to other locations. Pretty powerful for the $100 investment put into this setup. Already owned the Roku boxes, the external drive, the antenna, etc. Just wish Simple.TV had enabled local archive for the gen 1.

Suppose I could grab a gen 2 dual tuner next time it drops down to $150 or less and add it to my existing lifetime sub. Might be the cheapest way to go. TiVo seems like it should be really, really useful, but the outlay in cost is always a bit too steep for me to do more than tip my toe in the TiVo pool.

[Diana]

I dipped into the TiVo "thing", and this is what i found.

Yes, the TiVo service fees are rather steep. I have the third generation box with two tuners, and the premier (4 tuners), both with lifetime subscription. I found that TiVo gave me a discount (about $100 or so) on the second lifetime subscription since I already had one of their products.

I bought the first one about some five years go or more and found that two tuners quickly enough filled the drive. It is possible to add an external drive to the system to get more space; however, the way the software deals with this is the "marry" the two drives into one and if the external gets disconnected and the TiVo loses it, it is quite possible to lose everything that was on the drive. When the drive is reconnected and the TiVo recognizes a drive is there, it wants to re-marry the drive, and in the process you will lose all data previously stored with no way to get it back. How could this happen? A storm comes through, and you lose power. The external shuts down, and doesn't reboot before the TiVo comes back online after the power is restored--instant "divorce". A UPS is recommended for the whole system to prevent this from occurring.

I could just watch and then delete the shows (now that's an idea), but there are some shows that I would like to keep. Content protected shows, such as your cable channels with the exception of local network content, cannot be transferred using iTiVo or cTiVo (and probably pyTivo as well) since the copy-protected flag is set at the time the show is recorded. This used to be a software flag, but in the Series 3 and above (these are the ones that record HD) it is hardware (a chip on the motherboard). A Hauppauge HD PVR will encode video streamed through it, so there is a way around the copy-protection flag, but it only can do this as the video is streamed (in real time), and it requires a capture device (a computer to store the file) on the other end. I use the Eye-TV app to do it.

I got the second TiVo about a year ago. The software is less clunky, and the internal drive is bigger. It is faster than the old one. The old one would buffer about an hour of video on whatever channels the tuners were set for; if you change the channel, it dumps that buffered video. The new one only gives me 30 minutes of buffered video per tuner. This is convenient as if you are into a show and suddenly something comes up that requires your attention, you can record the show from the beginning (as long as it is within the buffered time-frame).

It goes by the cable channel line-up as it is received from the mothership (either through the cable company or whatever). If the line-up of shows changes, as sometimes happens with live sporting events, the TiVo may not be able to keep up, especially if something gets postponed. If it goes long, you can set the TiVo to record longer at the time you setup to record the show. Supposedly you can change this one the fly, but I found that I could not add more time to the end after the show had started without going to the schedule and telling it to record the next however many shows on that channel. During playback, you would have to remember which shows you told it to record and in what order to be able to see your recording in some kind of sequential manner. I wish it would refresh the show schedules more often to prevent this, but it is possible to miss something simply because it was not listed properly in the show schedule. This is a problem often-times originating with the cable company, and not TiVo. TiVo updates (I think) about once a week. Shutting it down and restarting does NOT make it go find the updated channel line-up; you will end with the same wrong one as before. It would help if TiVo would update the line-up more frequently, though.

There is an active hacker community around the TiVo. Check out dealdatabase.com/forum for more information. I have been considering sending in my Series 3 for modification, but first I need to get the shows off. Once that flag is set, there is no way to un-set it.

All-in-all, I'm happy with the TiVo. I'm able to stream media through it (think upload a file to the box) though I haven't done that yet. It's stable and I've had remarkably few problems with it. Netflix, Hulu, You-tube? stream through the TiVo.

Any other questions you think I may be able to answer, let me know.

Diana