OTA Recorder

[mwdxer1]

I have the old Teblo and the new. Both work fine and now there is no charge for the OTA guides. Also Tablo has another 70 streaming channels included that you can record to an HDD. I also have the Amazon Recast, but it is not made any longer. I like the idea on a free OTA guide.

 

[videobruce]

Thought they were dead

Not yet, as long as TiVo's Guide service is good, so will the DVR. BUT, forget a DVR for CATV with Cable Cards, many/most MSO's are not supplying them anymore.

 

[videobruce]

AFA ATSC3; that is as dead as analog TV. It's the "AM Stereo" of the 21st century !

 

[navychop]

Oh, be STILL, my beating heart!

 

[videobruce]

A pacemaker won't help either.

 

[Phil T]

I was lucky enough to get a 4 tuner OTA TiVO Edge last year when my remanufactured Bolt died under warranty. My wife loves it but the tuner sensitivity is crap. I also have a 4 tuner new Tablo.

Tablo picks up over 100 OTA channels. Tivo about 30 on the same antenna.

The TiVO DVR is still the best but I doubt they will be around much longer since they are not selling a OTA box anymore and cable card's are being discontinued everywhere.

Our DirecTV Stream subscription gets the most use with a Ospry/Gemini box I bought before DirecTV quit selling them.

I am satisfied with the new Tablo. It can be finicky at times requireing restarts but it seems to be improving with the latest software.

 

[Jim5506]

I was lucky enough to get a 4 tuner OTA TiVO Edge last year when my remanufactured Bolt died under warranty. My wife loves it but the tuner sensitivity is crap. I also have a 4 tuner new Tablo.

Tablo picks up over 100 OTA channels. Tivo about 30 on the same antenna.

The TiVO DVR is still the best but I doubt they will be around much longer since they are not selling a OTA box anymore and cable card's are being discontinued everywhere.

Our DirecTV Stream subscription gets the most use with a Ospry/Gemini box I bought before DirecTV quit selling them.

I am satisfied with the new Tablo. It can be finicky at times requireing restarts but it seems to be improving with the latest software.

Evidently they split the incoming signal 4 ways but did not include enough internal amplification to properly compensate.

 

[videobruce]

I've owned and setup Tivo's for others for over 15 years and everyone I bought was used! That is inspite of the fact I have little good to say about the company and less with the company that bought them out a few years ago with all of their patents (which is why there are no other true "DVR's" made anymore.)

One unit, no adapters, interfaces, additional HDD etc needed or extra hassles to deal with! A 'true DVR'

There are Roamio's available on e-Bay as long as you look for the '846' series with Lifetime service w/ the plastic enclosure and the separate power supply. There are two other models that are CATV only (840 & 848) that have a metal enclosure like all the former models had and internal PS. Stay away from the Bolt, they run extremely hot and suffer from over heating. They also use the smaller 2.5" HDD which isn't really suited for continuous operation like a full size HDD's (3.5"). The current 'Edge' model, the D6F, I don't know much about, but I believe those use the smaller HDD also.

If you are looking for something less expensive, the previous 'Premier', 746 & 748 series I've seen for under $150 w/ Lifetime Service.

 

[videobruce]

Tablo picks up over 100 OTA channels. Tivo about 30 on the same antenna.

I have seen little difference between any TiVo I've had and any other 'tuner' (TV or otherwise) AFA number of channels they receive over the years. Probably/ possibly THAT specific unit or just the Bolt series, which I wouldn't touch in the first place, especially with that ridiculous design. .

 

[Jim5506]

I've owned and setup Tivo's for others for over 15 years and everyone I bought was used! That is inspite of the fact I have little good to say about the company and less with the company that bought them out a few years ago with all of their patents (which is why there are no other true "DVR's" made anymore.)

One unit, no adapters, interfaces, additional HDD etc needed or extra hassles to deal with! A 'true DVR'

There are Roamio's available on e-Bay as long as you look for the '846' series with Lifetime service w/ the plastic enclosure and the separate power supply. There are two other models that are CATV only (840 & 848) that have a metal enclosure like all the former models had and internal PS. Stay away from the Bolt, they run extremely hot and suffer from over heating. They also use the smaller 2.5" HDD which isn't really suited for continuous operation like a full size HDD's (3.5"). The current 'Edge' model, the D6F, I don't know much about, but I believe those use the smaller HDD also.

If you are looking for something less expensive, the previous 'Premier', 746 & 748 series I've seen for under $150 w/ Lifetime Service.

I have owned TiVos since the early 2000's. I even had a Replay TV once very similar to Tivo recording composite video and RCA audio.

I do not recommend the Premiere, the tuner is just OK and being no longer supported at all, I cannot do transfers to other TiVo devices or a computer.

All of my post Series 2 TiVos are Lifetime except one Premiere that is month to month, why I keep paying for it, I must reconsider.

The HD TiVo was excellent tuner wise but they are even older than the Premiere and beginning to have power supply and motherboard troubles.

I have a Roamio Lifetime that is the best TiVo I have, 4 tuners strong signal reception - A #1 in my book.

My Bolts have both died and TiVo would do nothing to help, Weaknees cannot repair them and their tuners were pretty weak.

My Edge has a slightly better tuner than the Bolt but not as good as the Roamio and I do not like the interface.

I have a couple of low power stations 20+ miles away that only the Roamio, the HD TiVo and sometimes the Edge will pull in.

The HD TiVo has a 1 TB HDD inside. At one time I had 5 Lifetime HD TiVos but they have one by one bit the dust after 15+ years, not hard drive failures but motherboard and power supplies that I am not capable of repairing.

 

[videobruce]

Are you sure about not being able to xfer recordings from a Premier to a PC? I would swear that I did when I had one.
And yes, the Series 3HD did have their best tuner over all the ones to follow, due to handling multipath issues better.

 

[Jim5506]

Are you sure about not being able to xfer recordings from a Premier to a PC? I would swear that I did when I had one.
And yes, the Series 3HD did have their best tuner over all the ones to follow, due to handling multipath issues better.

That all depends on the position of switches within the TiVo software when TiVo deleted the ability to activate and inactivate streaming in/out and transfering in/out of the Premiere.

Once upon a time there was a web page on the Tivo.com website to set your Premiere and other post Series 2 TiVos as to whether they could do this but the whole webpage for such and any other support is all but gone. Mine is stuck with downloading in/out inactivated, so I can view programs on it from other TiVos but no uploads or downloads. The setting shows up in the page that has all the TiVo data in it under TiVoDesktop looks like this a,i,a,i where each position can be either a or i (active or inactive) and the first two are streaming in and out and the last two are are transfer in or out. I'm currently out of town so this is all from memory. I may be wrong about specifics in my first post but I've wrestled with TiVo over this for several years.

Just completed some research - my Premiere does not see and is not seen by my TiVo Desktop due to the transfer bit being inactive both in and out, that is my problem with my Premiere. I can play programs (sporatically) to and from the Premiere with almost any of my active TiVos but transfer is inactive. No one at TiVo will even discuss it with me. As soon as I say the magic word "Premiere" the discussion is over.

 

[videobruce]

The setting shows up in the page that has all the TiVo data in it under TiVoDesktop looks like this a,i,a,i where each position can be either a or i (active or inactive) and the first two are streaming in and out and the last two are are transfer in or out.

Interesting, I was wondering exactly what those letters meant, thou some time back I vaguely remember something about them.
Have you tried directly transferring them via Ethernet w/o that program? If you know the address of the TiVo (I always set it to static in my Network for everything so I know what is what in the Router), I have directly xfer'ed the files w/ the '.tivo' extension the same way Desktop does.

 

[videobruce]

Not to get too far OT, the price difference between the Roamio OTA and the Premier version is over 2x between the two. There is a Premier going for $70 w/ service now, which is insane, making it a 'steal'!
There are 3 OTA Roamio's w/ service going for around $350 now.
The CATV version of the Roamio w/ a 3TB HDD and Service is $250 which is because of the CC problem. There are a glut of them which is too bad, no thanks to the greedy MSO's.

 

[Mochuf]

I have both a Premiere and a Series 3 HD and have never had problems transferring recordings between them. Now, my Premiere wasn't showing up in KMTTG. So I reinstalled KMTTG and I now can transfer recordings to my PC. I currently don't have PYTivo installed, but that is the only way I know of to transfer recordings from a PC to a Tivo. But honestly with Plex, I really don't need to transfer anything to a Tivo from a PC anymore.

 

[videobruce]

Then you are 'viewing' those recordings from the DVR on your PC?

 

[AkaDoubleG]

I have both a Premiere and a Series 3 HD and have never had problems transferring recordings between them. Now, my Premiere wasn't showing up in KMTTG. So I reinstalled KMTTG and I now can transfer recordings to my PC. I currently don't have PYTivo installed, but that is the only way I know of to transfer recordings from a PC to a Tivo. But honestly with Plex, I really don't need to transfer anything to a Tivo from a PC anymore.

I have a unique situation in the Chicago area I am able to pick up the new Chicago Sports network on my Premier, Roamio, and Bolt with my OTA. My Series 3 HD has the channel populated in the guide but the picture only shows grey. Sometimes even the audio comes through but never the picture. I know that TiVo no longer supports the Series 3 from a technical support position so I can't really ask them anymore. Any thoughts on why that model won't pick up the channel vs the other models?

 

[Mr Tony]

I have a unique situation in the Chicago area I am able to pick up the new Chicago Sports network on my Premier, Roamio, and Bolt with my OTA. My Series 3 HD has the channel populated in the guide but the picture only shows grey. Sometimes even the audio comes through but never the picture. I know that TiVo no longer supports the Series 3 from a technical support position so I can't really ask them anymore. Any thoughts on why that model won't pick up the channel vs the other models?

The station is MPEG4 and if I recall the Series 3 does not do MPEG4. I had a series 3 back in the day.
On WJYS (the station carrying the Chicago sports network) do you get video on any station other than 62-1? All the other 62-X stations are MPEG4

https://www.rabbitears.info/market.php?request=station_search&callsign=Wjys#station

Edit: I googled it and the original Series 3 does not do MPEG4. The other 2 models in series 3 (tivo HD and HDXL) do handle it but the series 3 (the original) does not

 

[videobruce]

How many 'tuners (TV's DVR's etc) do you have in your system?
Try another location.

 

[AkaDoubleG]

The station is MPEG4 and if I recall the Series 3 does not do MPEG4. I had a series 3 back in the day.
On WJYS (the station carrying the Chicago sports network) do you get video on any station other than 62-1? All the other 62-X stations are MPEG4

https://www.rabbitears.info/market.php?request=station_search&callsign=Wjys#station

Edit: I googled it and the original Series 3 does not do MPEG4. The other 2 models in series 3 (tivo HD and HDXL) do handle it but the series 3 (the original) does not

Thanks Mr. Tony! I don't get the 62-X channels. I did a quick search online and you are correct the Series 3 does not do MPEG4.