Other DVR Discussion

[kingwr]

Tivo's whole-home system looks great, but the prices are outrageous. If you need the 4 tuner DVR with the 1TB HD and 4 minis, you are in for around $1900 in hardware costs, excluding cable co. fees.

Of course, looking at my post in hindsight, that''s really not much more than a good HTPC w/ a 4-tuner card and 4 echos.

[Moderator note: thread split from the State of the Echo #3 thread]

[choliscott]

I'm assuming the $1900 also includes all of the Tivo "Lifetime" fee's ?

Tivo's whole-home system looks great, but the prices are outrageous. If you need the 4 tuner DVR with the 1TB HD and 4 minis, you are in for around $1900 in hardware costs, excluding cable co. fees.

Of course, looking at my post in hindsight, that''s really not much more than a good HTPC w/ a 4-tuner card and 4 echos.

[kingwr]

I'm assuming the $1900 also includes all of the Tivo "Lifetime" fee's ?

Yes. Apples to apples with HTPC and extenders. Compare that to $299 + 4 x $99 ($699) for DirecTV Genie and 4 Mini Clients -- plus you are still paying 4 x $7 ($28) a month in STB fees for that setup, too. I am betting that i can get all that for $0 hardware costs when I go back to DirecTV as a new customer in a year (and under my wife's name, perhaps).

If Tivo would drop some the service fees and get the price of a system down in the $600 - $700 range, they would have a winner. Perhaps they can't make any money at that price range, though.

[mdavej]

I'm assuming the $1900 also includes all of the Tivo "Lifetime" fee's ?

Yes. Apples to apples with HTPC and extenders. Compare that to $299 + 4 x $99 ($699) for DirecTV Genie and 4 Mini Clients -- plus you are still paying 4 x $7 ($28) a month in STB fees for that setup, too. I am betting that i can get all that for $0 hardware costs when I go back to DirecTV as a new customer in a year (and under my wife's name, perhaps).

If Tivo would drop some the service fees and get the price of a system down in the $600 - $700 range, they would have a winner. Perhaps they can't make any money at that price range, though.

You forgot to add DirectTV's $25 advanced receiver fee. That's around $600 a year in fees alone. That will buy a lot of HTPC related stuff.

Samsung has announced plans for a cable card DVR with their own free guide service. Hopefully that will breath some life into this market and bring prices down.

[RyC]

TiVo Roamio announced: http://www.theverge.com/2013/8/20/46383 ... pro-review

[adam1991]

TiVo Roamio announced: http://www.theverge.com/2013/8/20/46383 ... pro-review

SO advanced. For example:

The TiVo app also lets you manage and control the Roamio remotely — I schedule shows using my phone when I’m out and about all the time

myreplaytv.com, anyone? Yeah, this is SUCH a new idea...

If you have multiple TVs in the house, you can add $149 TiVo Minis and link them to the Roamio, allowing you to watch recorded programs everywhere in the house. You can also watch live TV on a Mini if you give up one of the Roamio’s tuners, but an imminent software update will allow the Roamio to dynamically assign tuners as needed, which will make everything work much more seamlessly.

WMC users around the world are laughing at this.

[kingwr]

WMC users around the world are laughing at this.

Just like WMC users were laughing at SageTV users, or DirecTV whole-home users, or UVerse users? I don't think WMC users have been in much of a laughing mood lately. There is not doubt that Windows MCE was ahead of its time. In 2003 most of us on this forum were convinced this was the future of TV, not only because it made sense to consolidate media delivery on the ubiquitous home PC but because it had Microsoft behind it. But failure after failure over the next 7 years and then basic abandonment of the product in 2010 has left a bad taste in the mouth of most WMC users, and a huge number have moved on. Tivo has executed in the past and there's a good chance they will execute here, as well, siphoning off more of the stalwart WMC users. Will you be laughing then?

[Dean L. Surkin]

Samsung has announced plans for a cable card DVR with their own free guide service. Hopefully that will breath some life into this market and bring prices down.

Do you have a link for this?

[tad]

WMC users around the world are laughing at this.

Just like WMC users were laughing at SageTV users, or DirecTV whole-home users, or UVerse users? I don't think WMC users have been in much of a laughing mood lately. There is not doubt that Windows MCE was ahead of its time. In 2003 most of us on this forum were convinced this was the future of TV, not only because it made sense to consolidate media delivery on the ubiquitous home PC but because it had Microsoft behind it. But failure after failure over the next 7 years and then basic abandonment of the product in 2010 has left a bad taste in the mouth of most WMC users, and a huge number have moved on. Tivo has executed in the past and there's a good chance they will execute here, as well, siphoning off more of the stalwart WMC users. Will you be laughing then?

I assume his comment was based on the "imminent" release of dynamic tuner allocation and cetons prior (delayed) promises of the same? Other than that, the new TiVo looks pretty damn good to me - I don't see much media center does that I won't be able to do with TiVo... And that's hard for me to say since I've used media center as my exclusive DVD since 2005.

[mdavej]

Samsung has announced plans for a cable card DVR with their own free guide service. Hopefully that will breath some life into this market and bring prices down.

Do you have a link for this?

http://www.multichannel.com/technology/ ... ice/143541

Not sure about the DVR aspect. I thought I read that in another article, but can't find it at the moment. In any case, it's good to see more cable card devices coming to market.

[adam1991]

WMC users around the world are laughing at this.

Just like WMC users were laughing at SageTV users, or DirecTV whole-home users, or UVerse users? I don't think WMC users have been in much of a laughing mood lately. There is not doubt that Windows MCE was ahead of its time. In 2003 most of us on this forum were convinced this was the future of TV, not only because it made sense to consolidate media delivery on the ubiquitous home PC but because it had Microsoft behind it. But failure after failure over the next 7 years and then basic abandonment of the product in 2010 has left a bad taste in the mouth of most WMC users, and a huge number have moved on. Tivo has executed in the past and there's a good chance they will execute here, as well, siphoning off more of the stalwart WMC users. Will you be laughing then?

I assume his comment was based on the "imminent" release of dynamic tuner allocation and cetons prior (delayed) promises of the same?

That's correct.

Other than that, the new TiVo looks pretty damn good to me - I don't see much media center does that I won't be able to do with TiVo...

...except own your recordings, skip commercials, play the recordings on your devices on your schedule without *any* restrictions...


The new Tivo might be acceptable, finally, but that's about it.

[kingwr]

WMC users around the world are laughing at this.

Just like WMC users were laughing at SageTV users, or DirecTV whole-home users, or UVerse users? I don't think WMC users have been in much of a laughing mood lately. There is not doubt that Windows MCE was ahead of its time. In 2003 most of us on this forum were convinced this was the future of TV, not only because it made sense to consolidate media delivery on the ubiquitous home PC but because it had Microsoft behind it. But failure after failure over the next 7 years and then basic abandonment of the product in 2010 has left a bad taste in the mouth of most WMC users, and a huge number have moved on. Tivo has executed in the past and there's a good chance they will execute here, as well, siphoning off more of the stalwart WMC users. Will you be laughing then?

I assume his comment was based on the "imminent" release of dynamic tuner allocation and cetons prior (delayed) promises of the same?

Oh, sorry. Misinterpreted the comment.

[makryger]

I'd say, for the first time, that the TiVo may finally be a suitable alternative once I'm no longer able to use media center... they're getting close, and if I had to switch today, this would probably be an acceptable alternative, but it by no means matches wmc yet from the dvr perspective. (Streaming is a whole other question) I.do like the inclusion of the rf remote and moca, but if you're going to go rf, you really need to avoid ir all together (ie, hdmi cec)

[slowbiscuit]

Well, there's two problems with the new boxes - they don't support streaming to Android (but it's supposedly coming in the fall) and there are apparently no plans to support HDMI-CEC.

And they'll never support comskip on the box, but this can be automated with kmttg by transferring the show(s) off-box to a PC and removing commercials there. Then you can either stream from the PC or transfer the show back to the Tivo. Certainly not as good as WMC w/comskip and more error-prone if the commercial removal is not done correctly.

[slowbiscuit]

Other than that, the new TiVo looks pretty damn good to me - I don't see much media center does that I won't be able to do with TiVo...

...except own your recordings, skip commercials, play the recordings on your devices on your schedule without *any* restrictions...

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. 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.

[barnabas1969]

I looked at the Tivo website, and looked at the pricing/features. The features have improved a lot since I looked a couple of years ago. So, here's what I saw:

-Tivo Roamio Pro 6-tuner DVR = $599.99
-Tivo Mini = $99.99
-DVR expander = $129.99

Now, to come close to what I've got with Media Center, I'd need the Roamio Pro, plus five Mini's, and the DVR expander. That's $1229.93. Then, there's the service. It doesn't make sense, long-term, to pay for the service monthly. So, the lifetime service on the Roamio is $499.99, and the Mini is $149.99 (each!). Add the lifetime service ($1249.94), and now I'm up to $2479.87. There is a disclaimer at the bottom of the page that says you can get a multi-service discount... but it doesn't say how much the discount is.

The lack of live TV on the Mini is a deal breaker. If they added that, it would be attractive (except for the price). I like the idea of unified search, and I like the fact that Netflix/Hulu would be integrated on all of the TV's. When I built my system in March 2011, I spent about $2500. So, if the Roamio/Mini was available then... I might have bought it. But now, prices on the parts required to build a PC have come down. I just built a slim PC with 4TB storage for a little under $1K. You can get five extenders for about $500. Six cable-card tuners will cost you about $300. So, that's a total of $1800 for a comparable Media Center system.

Oh... whoops! I just read the Mini FAQ. It says that you can only stream to 3 TV's simultaneously. There goes the ballgame.

EDIT: Upon further reading, it seems that the statement about three simultaneous streams is only applicable when using the Tivo Premier DVR as the host for the Mini. The same is true with the fixed tuner assignment. Apparently, the Roamio supports dynamic tuner assignment, and the 3-stream limit may not apply. I guess we'd have to call Tivo to find out for sure.

EDIT2: The "multi-service discount" is a misleading term. It doesn't mean that if you buy a bunch of Tivo boxes (all at the same time), that you get a discount. It means that you get a discount if you are a current Tivo subscriber, and you buy another box. I suppose that means that you could buy the DVR and the lifetime service, and then turn around after your service is activated and buy the Mini's. According to their site, that saves you $100 off of the lifetime service. If that's correct, then it would save me $500 off the lifetime service for all those Mini's... bringing my total cost down to $1979.87.

[barnabas1969]

Sorry for the multiple posts and edits, but I didn't have time to finish my thoughts.

If my assumptions above (about being able to get a $500 discount on the lifetime service for all the extra Mini's that I would want and also the part about being able to stream to more than 3 Mini's from the Roamio), then I can see the benefit of going to a Tivo setup.

The only deal breakers at this point are the lack of live TV on the Mini, and the lack of Android support. I believe that they'll add live TV to the Mini soon, but I doubt that they'll ever add Android support due to the open nature of the OS.

[cncb]

I don't think you will receive the discounts on the Mini lifetime services as you are expecting. I'm pretty sure the discount is just for the $500 lifetime service of the "main" units.

I really contemplated going with a new Tivo system but the cost with service is a little ridiculous especially considering I already have a nice "server" doing the recording with lots of storage that is upgradable. It might be different if I were starting from scratch. I am just tired of dealing with a PC for playback in our main viewing area so I just decided to go with a new XBox 360 since the Echo apparently is a lost cause. I was resisting it because we are not a gaming family but I think the kids might enjoy the Kinect games.

[slowbiscuit]

That is correct, the multi-service discount is $100 off on Tivos, not the Minis. MSD lifetime is $399 on a Tivo. A Mini with lifetime costs $250 retail.

For whole home on a cost basis, WMC blows Tivo away - there's just no comparison even if you buy new Xbox 360s as extenders. Tivo really rapes you on the Mini 'subscription' cost which is pretty much a BS way to make a profit because there shouldn't be a 'sub' for an extender anyway. I haven't seen any Minis with lifetime subs for $200 or less but there are semi-regular sales on 360s for $150 or so.

But all this could change if Tivo creates whole home bundles with the Roamio since they now have 6 tuners and dynamic tuner allocation for the Minis, I saw someone on TCF post that up to 9 Minis can be paired to a Roamio now.

[slowbiscuit]

The only deal breakers at this point are the lack of live TV on the Mini, and the lack of Android support. I believe that they'll add live TV to the Mini soon, but I doubt that they'll ever add Android support due to the open nature of the OS.

I don't know why you think you can't do live TV on the Mini, it's been there since launch. With the Premiere XL4 you have to allocate one or more tuners statically (one for each Mini) if you want live TV, with the Roamio it's all dynamic now and dynamic allocation will be added to the Premieres as well.

And Android streaming support is scheduled for the fall software release (supposedly). It will also include the ability to stream protected recordings just as you can do with iOS today - DRM has been the issue with Android according to folks over at TCF.