Cord Cutting - which box? Some comparisons

[lparsons21]

If you set up the Tivo Edge for OTA then no, it can’t record the History channel and there are no cable/sat replacement apps for the Tivos at all.

But with at least some of the streamers you can DVR any channels they have.


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[lparsons21]

Costs were not my objective either,I just hate wasting money on a service that i get no value from, especially when every cable show I watch was sooner or later going to be on Netflix, Hulu or Amazon after the season was completed.

Then when you add in all the new content that the streaming services have, the majority of it in 4K, the decision was easy, the costs saving is the benefit of being a cord cutter.




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That’s why I doubt I’ll get a cable replacement streaming service. Since I don’t have any real reason to always be current on shows, finding them on streaming services delayed just isn’t a big deal.


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[TheForce]

If you set up the Tivo Edge for OTA then no, it can’t record the History channel and there are no cable/sat replacement apps for the Tivos at all.

But with at least some of the streamers you can DVR any channels they have.


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Thank's Lloyd. My TIVO is mostly for the local broadcast stations anyway. Hopefully the AppleTV will suffice for the Cable/sat channels with the Hulu TV app.

Do you know anything about adding a USB stick, like the Amazon Fire into the USB port of the Tivo? Some time back I recall hearing that was away to add more options to the Tivo.

 

[Bruce]

Thank's Lloyd. My TIVO is mostly for the local broadcast stations anyway. Hopefully the AppleTV will suffice for the Cable/sat channels with the Hulu TV app.

Do you know anything about adding a USB stick, like the Amazon Fire into the USB port of the Tivo? Some time back I recall hearing that was away to add more options to the Tivo.

Tivo does not support any external device, they used to but that was a few years ago.

I was going to buy a Tivo ( before I knew about Tablo) but I read and confirmed with Tivo that they quit supporting external HD in the software, so I decided 1TB was just not enough since we do not watch any series until it is done, we already have 1.5TB worth of material and the TV season is only at the half way mark.



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[osu1991]

I would have recommended pytivo or KMTTG to pull the videos off the Tivo on to external drives, but Tivo has broken that function on the Edge. TivoTed on Tivo Community Forums, has said they will look at it, but it's not a priority to fix, since that function was deprecated a while back. It still works on older Tivo's though.

I have one more month left on my bundle package with Cox, then I'll switch my Bolt to OTA along with my Roamio OTA and just use YoutubeTV and Philo when I want them. My Bundle price is a wash currently with going OTA and internet streaming, but I imagine the cost will work out in favor of dropping the bundle after the rate increases are announced from Cox.

Many people have said they like the Channels DVR software that records the TVE streams onto you local hard drive, but not all networks have live streams to record as part of the TV Everywhere logins. So far YoutubeTV and Philo have worked very well for my needs.

 

[harshness]

Do you know anything about adding a USB stick, like the Amazon Fire into the USB port of the Tivo? Some time back I recall hearing that was away to add more options to the Tivo.

Like the ATV, all of the sticks plug into an HDMI port, not a USB port. You can use an STB's USB port to power a stick but that's about as far as compatibility goes.

 

[TheForce]

Tivo does not support any external device, they used to but that was a few years ago.

I answered this in the other forum, but expanding on that, I use the DVR dynamically, meaning I record a show for later viewing and delete it. I only archive movies in my juke box system which has many hard drives for storage. I have 6 drives hubbed for 2K movies and 2 drives for UHD content. But TV shows, never archive them.

And you are incorrect about the Edge not supporting external hard drives. No, not on USB 2 or 3 but rather you can buy a TIVO Edge with an eSATA port for adding an external. However, I didn't pay extra for that option as I don't need it.

 

[lparsons21]

Unless they changed something a lot that eSATA port will only work with one drive/enclosure setup and it isn’t available anymore.


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[osu1991]

I haven't kept track of the Edge forum on TCF, but I haven't seen any threads pop up about anyone tearing it apart and putting a larger drive in it yet. The only esata upgrades I remember seeing for the BolT/Roamios involved using an enclosure and the internal esata port on the motherboard, not the external rear deck esata port.

I put a 3T in my Bolt and Roamios, but after the Bolts HDMI port went out and the other the tuner went out, I just left them stock this time. The Roamios still perform great with the 3TB drives in them.

 

[lparsons21]

Tivo only supported one drive/enclosure combo. It was a 1TB drive and hasn’t actually been available for a long time. It would add storage to the Tivo and worked on Roamio and Bolts. I can remember reading posts about trying other drive/enclosure combos, but they all failed to work.
These days the only way to expand the storage space on a Tivo is by replacing the internal drive.


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[TheForce]

Unless they changed something a lot that eSATA port will only work with one drive/enclosure setup and it isn’t available anymore.

I'm not sure where the expansion port is located as I decided I didn't need that large a storage for what the TIVO will do. But the company that had made these available is WeakKnees. They were also the ones years ago that made the permanent subscriptions available which Tivo now does on some models. You had to purchase the system from them to get the lifetime subscription. I used to own two of them from WeakKnees. Tivo acknowledges the add-on exists for HD expansion but they are quick to say their warranty no longer applies to those DVR's with the expansion. In the old days, Tivo system required a special formatted drive that WeakKnees sold. Traditional formatting was the proprietary secret which is why many failed to get their drives to work.

Technology is what obsoleted my early Tivo's. One was my father's but under my account.

I do have to ask what I am missing. Based on what programming the TIVO can DVR, what is the reason you all need such a large storage capacity? 300 hours of HD from the local broadcast stations seems excessive.

 

[Bruce]

I do have to ask what I am missing. Based on what programming the TIVO can DVR, what is the reason you all need such a large storage capacity? 300 hours of HD from the local broadcast stations seems excessive.

For us since we binge everything I want to make sure to have enough space to last until the end of the season, after we watch then they will be deleted.

I wrote before that my 8TB might be too much, but I used it since it was just sitting in a box since I bought it on sale during Amazon Prime Day ( last year) for $59.






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[TheForce]

For us since we binge everything I want to make sure to have enough space to last until the end of the season, after we watch then they will be deleted.

I wrote before that my 8TB might be too much, but I used it since it was just sitting in a box since I bought it on sale during Amazon Prime Day ( last year) for $59.

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You mean you binge weekly TV shows at the end of the season like NCIS etc? We just watch them at least 22 minutes late so we can skip commercials and then delete the show. I can see how you could use up all that hard drive the way you do. It's a good plan for times between seasons when the show is in season break. We usually watch more movies and binge other series on Netflix and AP between seasons.

 

[Bruce]

You mean you binge weekly TV shows at the end of the season like NCIS etc? We just watch them at least 22 minutes late so we can skip commercials and then delete the show. I can see how you could use up all that hard drive the way you do. It's a good plan for times between seasons when the show is in season break. We usually watch more movies and binge other series on Netflix and AP between seasons.

Yep, right now all we watch is Netflix, Prime, Disney+ and Hulu, then summer time watch the OTA Network shows we have saved, then when Fall comes repeat the cycle, the main reason we binge on everything is my wife has memory issues due to her Parkinson’s, it is easier for her in retaining when we watch everything at once, but I have found that I prefer watching things this way.

We also subscribe to the other streaming services for a month once a year to binge on series there, like Star Trek Discovery, this year we will wait till Discovery is done, then binge both it and Picard then drop CBS All Access, since I am retired I have time to watch.

But not NCIS, yech.


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[TheForce]

But not NCIS, yech.

LOL! My wife enjoys NCIS but I just enjoy our time together. I'm former Army, but the show is entertaining.


I got the new TIVO in today. Had a bit of an adventure setting it up. Wouldn't let me set up an account. After several tries, I called their tech support and discovered they still had me on file from decades ago. Anyway after getting my father's name removed from my account and cancelling the old TIVO my activation went through.

It's working very well and it is plenty fast. Does a nice job with Netflix too in 4K 60fps and HDR movies. PQ is about equal to my Apple TV 4K. Going to do a test this evening on some local TV shows.

Merry Christmas to all those who are celebrating tomorrow.

 

[schneid]

Well I don't' do fruit but have the others and was with DirecTV for 23 years. Don't see the Nvidia Shield Pro 2019 mentioned. I am not sure how it can be beat. I use se YouTube TV as my primary OTA/OTT access. Have added a Logi keyboard, 2tb HD, 256gb USB button to replace internal memory, run a Plex server fed by attic antennas, and have a local channel app that gives pure OTA channels (great for sports as no compression). 65" LG OLED fed through Onkyo AVR so I get real Atmos 5.2.2 as I have "real" height speakers. Shield supports ATMOS and VIsion. Use Netflix, Prime, Hulu, Vudu, Dis +, HBO, Sho, etc. unless they have nothing great on at the time.

I know from friends Apple TV is great but I can't believe it is better than the Shield.

 

[TheForce]

The biggest advantage AppleTV has is it's integration into the entire Apple infrastructure. Other than that I don't know if Nvidia Shield has similar features. My daughter has had ATV for several years and claims it is much better than Roku. Prior to buying the Apple TV I just used the apps on my Blu ray Player.

FWIW- I love my nvidia graphics card and have made some nice profits this year in their stock, but that goes for AMD as well.

I'm not really a brand guy. If it works as claimed then I feel I did OK.

 

[TheForce]

I heard from several self appointed experts on Tivo suggest Playstation Vue and Hulu TV+ but a phone call to a tech support guy at Hulu researched it and said they do not support the TIVO DVR. There are also reports wide spread ( maybe circular references) that Playstation Vue is ending so I gave up on that. Back to more research.

Found FUBO TV that works with my Apple TV 4K so I loaded up their service that includes all my favorite channels. I got a 7 day free trial to test it. For $60 a month they offer 108 cable channels and 500 hours of streaming DVR service and up to 3 simultaneous streams per family membership. It tested great. I was pretty impressed. If this works out over the next month, I will be dropping the Dish system but I have much more testing to do. I've never tried internet DVT before and had my doubts, but it works here as flawless as my Dish Network DVR. The channel guide is a little overwhelming but I understand there is a way to edit the guide of undesirable channels and just see my favorites.

While the TIVO DVR lacks any real cable channel features, it is very good looking local TV channels with commercial skip. They do put a TIVO commercial on the front of the recording from the DVR but one click on the skip button quickly plays past that like all the rest of the commercials.

 

[lparsons21]

IMO, the reason you won’t find cable/sat replacement streaming apps on Tivo is because their market share in retail isn’t so good. IOW, it isn’t worth the trouble to make the apps work on it for the providers. Tivos bigger market is for the cable companies and they sure don’t want you looking for alternatives.

For me the cable/sat replacement services are not a big deal. I can get all the sports I would want via OTA and I can get all the shows I would watch via other services that I already subscribed to. Hulu is good for ABC/Fox and some NBC, CBS has their own service and there are a slew of free ad-supported streamers out there to fill in any holes. I might miss a series here and there, but I sure won’t have a problem finding plenty to watch.


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[harshness]

and have a local channel app that gives pure OTA channels (great for sports as no compression).

All publicly available digital video involves compression at some level. How much compression there is on OTA depends on how many subchannels a station delivers. Some markets see their cable and satellite video delivered unmultiplexed rather than through a TV tuner and it is possible that they are as good or better than an OTA feed. Back in the day when TV stations only carried one or two channels, the quality was pretty good but now that most offer between three and thirteen channels, not even MPEG4 can salvage that.