Other DVR Discussion

[barnabas1969]

I don't know why you think you can't do live TV on the Mini, it's been there since launch.

I guess I thought that because someone in an earlier post said so. I also thought I saw it on the Tivo site, but I was wrong.

[adam1991]

All of this is incorrect, it can all be done with 3rd-party apps w/Tivos (pyTivo and kmttg). The only issues are with protected recordings but we all know that WMC has the same issues.

Color me confused:

http://sourceforge.net/p/kmttg/wiki/Home/

so, kmttg does this on shows that have been downloaded off the Tivo?

What about simply watching shows that are on the Tivo?

And once they get streaming for Android (in addition to iOS) you'll be able to use a tablet anywhere in the house to watch a show without offloading it to a PC first, or even watch over the net a la Slingbox.

I *did* say on YOUR tablet on YOUR schedule, which includes in YOUR location of choice--not just "anywhere in the house". That's a restriction.

[barnabas1969]

OK, so I have some questions...

1) If I connect a Mini to a coax cable in a room that doesn't have Ethernet cables, does it act as a MoCa bridge (allowing me to connect other Ethernet-enabled devices, like a BluRay player, to the Mini)?
2) If I have more than one Roamio DVR (for example, one "Pro" and one basic one, with the basic one connected to an antenna, and the Pro connected to digital cable)...
a) do I get a unified list of recordings on all devices?
b) when I add a new recording, how does it determine which DVR to use? Can I assign "tuner priorities" like I can in Media Center? For example, if it's a program that's available on both ATSC and CableCARD... use my antenna if there is a tuner available on that DVR... and then use one of the "Pro" tuners if all four are in use on the "basic" DVR.

[barnabas1969]

3) Can you transfer videos from your PC to the Roamio? If so...
a) What containers and audio/video codecs are supported?
b) Can these files be watched on the Mini?

[barnabas1969]

4) Can more than one TV use Netflix at the same time?

[gcw07]

OK, so I have some questions...
2) If I have more than one Roamio DVR (for example, one "Pro" and one basic one, with the basic one connected to an antenna, and the Pro connected to digital cable)...
a) do I get a unified list of recordings on all devices?
b) when I add a new recording, how does it determine which DVR to use? Can I assign "tuner priorities" like I can in Media Center? For example, if it's a program that's available on both ATSC and CableCARD... use my antenna if there is a tuner available on that DVR... and then use one of the "Pro" tuners if all four are in use on the "basic" DVR.

While I don't have a Roamio, I have had several Tivo's in the past and as far as I know things haven't changed with multiple boxes. Everything would remain on the box you recorded it on. No unified recording list. It is basically like using a network tuner and multiple WMC PCs. The items remain on the the PC you recorded the show on. Now with the Premiere line, they did finally introduce streaming from one device to another. So you could pull up the recordings on the 2nd device and stream them (or copy if they aren't flagged).

3) Can you transfer videos from your PC to the Roamio? If so...
a) What containers and audio/video codecs are supported?
b) Can these files be watched on the Mini?

In the past there was a program called pyTivo that allowed you to watch videos from your PC on the Tivo. It basically transcoded everything to the box and did a decent job, but the interface was poor to say the least. I'm hopeful with the addition of the "store" they talked about, that it will open it up for clients like MediaBrowser and Plex. But that is still a wait and see thing.

[Crunch]

My question is if TIVO is going to have android streaming/connection later. Could we use chromecast in place of a 'TIVO Mini'?

For me that would mean I need a 'Roamio' for TV room. When we get second TV kids could throw it on larger screen from their personal device.

Maybe TIVO will make a droid/chromcast app.

[barnabas1969]

My question is if TIVO is going to have android streaming/connection later. Could we use chromecast in place of a 'TIVO Mini'?

For me that would mean I need a 'Roamio' for TV room. When we get second TV kids could throw it on larger screen from their personal device.

Maybe TIVO will make a droid/chromcast app.

That would be awesome for consumers, but it would be a very stupid business decision for Tivo.

[EZEd]

The thing that originally kept me away from TiVo (and all other standalone DVRs) in the past, still in my mind has not been handled by anything other than a PC...My HTPC in addition to handling live TV & DVR through cablecard tuners is also
1) my whole house audio (because of multiple extenders and PCs elsewhere in the house)
2) my whole house movie viewer (extenders & PCs networked back to a ripped movie store - a poor man's kaliescape for 1/20 the price)
3) my whole house picture viewer (extenders and networked PCs)
4) my whole house radio (FM tuner inside of main HTPC - works out to extenders but not other PCs)
5) and when necessary is a stand alone DVD player in the living room when we get a movie from Redbox or other.

I've never seen another standalone DVR be able to DO ALL of that in one box. Moxi I believe came the closest and I don't think it is made any more. Until ANYBODY...TiVO, Ceton, Sillicon Dust, Time Warner, Comcast, Windows 8/9 (Metro Apps) can do ALL of that in one box better...they get no consideration from me.

In my opinon...NOBODY is even remotely close yet except the other competing software products on a PC. I don't forsee any standalone product maker (CE manufacturer) trying to get into that kind of space anytime soon. I thought maybe that would have been Google's plan when they bought SageTV and came out with Google TV but boy what a joke that was.

Now here comes XBox1 and PS4 and both sound to be a step backward rather than forward. Ceton Q sounded like it might have been it. But alas it has gone the way of Google TV and Moxi. So here we are.

I challenge anyone, Greenbutton subscriber or CE manufacturer to come up with a better solution than a PC to be a networked multisource/multi-distributable solution that is affordable by the masses. If you do it...I'll buy it in a New York minute. Otherwise you're just adding moisture to the breeze.

My 2cents

[slowbiscuit]

All of this is incorrect, it can all be done with 3rd-party apps w/Tivos (pyTivo and kmttg). The only issues are with protected recordings but we all know that WMC has the same issues.

Color me confused:

http://sourceforge.net/p/kmttg/wiki/Home/

so, kmttg does this on shows that have been downloaded off the Tivo?

What about simply watching shows that are on the Tivo?

And once they get streaming for Android (in addition to iOS) you'll be able to use a tablet anywhere in the house to watch a show without offloading it to a PC first, or even watch over the net a la Slingbox.

I *did* say on YOUR tablet on YOUR schedule, which includes in YOUR location of choice--not just "anywhere in the house". That's a restriction.

With kmttg you download to the PC, strip commercials, then upload it back to the Tivo and it can all be automated. Or just stream from the PC after the strip. Of course you can't do any of this natively on a Tivo, it's not a Replay.

And as I said, Tivo has said that they will deliver anywhere streaming to tablets, phones etc. not just in your house. It's not on the Roamio at launch and as with anything TIvo it's just a promise at this point.

[barnabas1969]

The thing that originally kept me away from TiVo (and all other standalone DVRs) in the past, still in my mind has not been handled by anything other than a PC...My HTPC in addition to handling live TV & DVR through cablecard tuners is also
1) my whole house audio (because of multiple extenders and PCs elsewhere in the house)
2) my whole house movie viewer (extenders & PCs networked back to a ripped movie store - a poor man's kaliescape for 1/20 the price)
3) my whole house picture viewer (extenders and networked PCs)
4) my whole house radio (FM tuner inside of main HTPC - works out to extenders but not other PCs)
5) and when necessary is a stand alone DVD player in the living room when we get a movie from Redbox or other.

From what I've read so far about the Roamio/Mini, by your numbers above:

#1 - Pandora is built-in. It also allows you to store your music collection on the DVR, which is then available to the Mini's.
#2 - As stated previously, you can upload videos to the DVR. Not sure what codecs/containers are supported though. I didn't see that info on the Tivo site.
#3 - According to the Tivo site, you can do this.
#4 - There isn't an FM tuner, but you have Pandora.
#5 - No optical drive is included, but Bluray players are cheap.

EDIT: Correction: It says that music and photos that reside on your Mac or PC can be viewed/played, as long as you have the Tivo desktop software installed on the PC/Mac. You can also use Picasa or Photobucket for your photos. The compatible media formats are:

Windows Media Video (.wmv)
QuickTime Movie (.mov)
MPEG-4/H.264 (.mp4, .m4v, .mp4v)
MPEG-2 (.mpg, .mpeg, .mpe, .mp2, .mp2v, .mpv2)
DivX and Xvid (.avi, .divx)*

*DivX and Xvid formats must be encoded with the DivX codec, version 4 or higher, or with the Xvid codec. No other video formats are supported within .avi files.

[EZEd]

From what I've read so far about the Roamio/Mini, by your numbers above:

#1 - Pandora is built-in. It also allows you to store your music collection on the DVR, which is then available to the Mini's.
#2 - As stated previously, you can upload videos to the DVR. Not sure what codecs/containers are supported though. I didn't see that info on the Tivo site.
#3 - According to the Tivo site, you can do this.
#4 - There isn't an FM tuner, but you have Pandora.
#5 - No optical drive is included, but Bluray players are cheap.

EDIT: Correction: It says that music and photos that reside on your Mac or PC can be viewed/played, as long as you have the Tivo desktop software installed on the PC/Mac. You can also use Picasa or Photobucket for your photos. The compatible media formats are:

Windows Media Video (.wmv)
QuickTime Movie (.mov)
MPEG-4/H.264 (.mp4, .m4v, .mp4v)
MPEG-2 (.mpg, .mpeg, .mpe, .mp2, .mp2v, .mpv2)
DivX and Xvid (.avi, .divx)*

*DivX and Xvid formats must be encoded with the DivX codec, version 4 or higher, or with the Xvid codec. No other video formats are supported within .avi files.

But you see what you had to do, right? Which is already done on an HTPC and has been done for years. The start-up costs and recurring fees for TiVO don't buy you anything that can't be done for cheaper with an HTPC, nor integrated as well. And the reliability factor only differs by how much the user is willing to setup the two systems then keep his prying hands off of it. Linksys DMA2100 extenders do the same thing as the Roamio Mini for much less the cost. I have the same streaming apps as Roamio via Kylo browser (and likely many more) inside of WMC.

So instead of having to set up a TiVO Roamio AND a PC to do everything listed, I've only had to set up the PC and the extenders. The added PCs using the networked tuners is just a bonus (just because I can - not that it's needed). Again the consumer device doesn't come close because it still needs a PC to meet the same functionality. Likely if there had not been such thing as PC functionality there would be no such thing as TiVO.

[barnabas1969]

Yeah, I agree about the cost. If it was half the price, I might sell the new PC that I just built! I disagree about the Linksys extenders. As far as I can tell, the Internet apps are available on the Roamio AND the Mini. That beats the HP/Linksys/Ceton extenders. The XBox will do it, but only with a "Gold" subscription... and you have to exit from extender mode to use those extra features on the XBox. Having it all in one device and in one menu is a plus.

[EZEd]

Yeah, I agree about the cost. If it was half the price, I might sell the new PC that I just built! I disagree about the Linksys extenders. As far as I can tell, the Internet apps are available on the Roamio AND the Mini. That beats the HP/Linksys/Ceton extenders. The XBox will do it, but only with a "Gold" subscription... and you have to exit from extender mode to use those extra features on the XBox. Having it all in one device and in one menu is a plus.

I don't remember if Kylo works on the extenders or not but PlayOn and Tversity do - they have internet streaming too. I just didn't want to have to pay for PlayOn either so I went with other PCs and the networked tuners to get distributed streaming, local file play and live tv everywhere else. I have yet to get a tablet, so I guess that is the most recent chic and sexy way to sling stuff around one's house now. I have Remote Potato and Emit that can give me access to content over the phone (and/or tablet) Remote Potato Media Center can also do live tv over the phone but it's $5.99 on the play store. Figured it wouldn't be something that I'd use much so I didn't buy it either.

The things that I have issue with over the WMC7 ecosystem are:
1) CCI flags on TWC content that won't let me watch all recorded TV over other PCs and remotely over the phone (just wish all providers were treated equally)
2) Lack of (true) extender software for the other PCs so that they act exactly like an Xbox or other extender (shared guide, recording pool and access to tuners). This is the area that SageTV got it right and M$ didn't. It would have really put WMC7 over the top
3) Better 3rd party integration of internet apps over and above Netflix. At one time the Extras Gallery was filled with neat little internet based apps - what happened? I don't know.

So now we are where we are. The sun going down on WMC7/8; XBox1 pedalling backwards to 1999 & 2000 with IR blasters and set top boxes. Google killing off SageTV after also pedalling backwards to 1999 with Google TV. And TiVO (as well as cable/sat providers) just now getting into distributable networked whole house solutions.

Someone said a while ago that IP based point solutions were probably the future for us all. In a way I can't wait for it to happen because hopefully it will be a lot better than what we have today, but with the way CE manaufacturers and MSOs/content owneres are going now, I don't have real confidence it will get better. The way that innovation is stifled for the sake of a dollar is just disheartening.

[barnabas1969]

I had PlayOn and TubeCore for more than a year. It sucked in every way imaginable. The interface was clunky, the video quality was sub-par, only one extender could use Netflix at one time, and it often just didn't work.... until I installed an update to PlayOn... which happened way too frequently.

I ended up just buying a Bluray player with built-in streaming apps for the other rooms.

I wouldn't want to watch TV on a tablet when I'm at home. That would only be attractive when I'm away from home. Almost all of my channels are copy-protected, so Remote Potato isn't an option. Roamio claims to have streaming of protected channels, but only inside the home. I wonder how difficult it would be to hack that (VPN?).

I posted some of my questions over on the tivocommunity forum. Waiting for an answer.

[foxwood]

Roamio claims to have streaming of protected channels, but only inside the home. I wonder how difficult it would be to hack that (VPN?).

There's a reasonable chance that "in home only" restriction is there for support reasons - bandwidth is going to make remote access all but unsuable for many (most?) users, so it's not even worth TiVOs time dealing with the issue - just say it's only supported in the home. There'll be more than enough calls from people with crappy or congested wi-fi in home without having to deal with the headaches of port forwarding, double-NAT, etc, etc.

On the other hand, if the "in home only" restriction is in any way down to fears of legal threats from the providers, it wouldn't be that difficult to lock it down even further, and detect the presence of a VPN.

[EZEd]

This is what TWC does with their TWC TV app on Android. You get all of your subscibed channels and corresponding On-demand inside your house on your own network. Also works for their PC based web client. As soon as you move off your network it is crippled to only a few non-interesting channels. I get the idea it is fueled by original content owners not wanting their content consumed away from the point of sale. You don't get your local channels with either the web client or the Android app so I assume that is to avoid the local franchising issues. This whole rules based system we have is screwed. Everybody is so afraid of a lawsuit it makes them completely in-flexible and anti-innovation.

[foxwood]

Everybody is so afraid of a lawsuit it makes them completely in-flexible and anti-innovation.

That's not entirely fair - it would be easier to just give you all the same content no matter where you logge in from - they actually had to innovate to restrict your access when you weren't at home!

(insert smiley as appropriate!)

[barnabas1969]

I read somewhere on their site that the iOS client will automatically negotiate a lower-resolution picture depending on your connection speed. So, it seems that it **should** work outside the home too... as long as the transcoder in the Roamio is capable of down-scaling it to a low enough resolution for a 1-2Mbps connection. A connection that slow can happen on a WiFi network too... so I would imagine that the transcoder/app can handle it.