Tivo vs WMC Discussion

[tootal2]

you can get a tivo ota for 49.95 it has 4 tuners but will cost 12.95 a month

[Moderator note: topic split from the Antenna Advice thread]

[adam1991]

or you can just buy it outright and not have an ongoing monthly fee.

I don't understand people who scream "but that's expensive!". It's not. It's the cost of the unit, the proper cost. Hiding the proper cost inside "monthly fees" is a fool's game, a way to get the fools to pay MORE than what the unit is worth in the end.

Math is math. It's not hard.

[tootal2]

or you can just buy it outright and not have an ongoing monthly fee.

I don't understand people who scream "but that's expensive!". It's not. It's the cost of the unit, the proper cost. Hiding the proper cost inside "monthly fees" is a fool's game, a way to get the fools to pay MORE than what the unit is worth in the end.

Math is math. It's not hard.

you cant buy a lifetime on a tivo ota. you will have to buy a tivo roamio basic to buy a lifetime

[LuckyDay]

I've never really looked into Tivo, but after looking at the prices I see that the lifetime is $500, plus the cost of the unit.

So it's $700 to get into the Tivo game. Which is fine, some people pay that much for their HTPC to serve the same functions (although with the know-how you can come in far below that).

What I'm unclear on is whether the lifetime fee is attached to a specific Tivo unit. Do you pay a one time TIVO subscription and it lasts forever? Do you have to pay the lifetime fee again every time you upgrade to a new Tivo box?

That, to me, as someone who has a second HTPC sitting in my office that has been running for 7 years with no issue would make me definitely want to research how reliable the Tivo units are, and what their failure rate is.

[Mike88]

you cant buy a lifetime on a tivo ota. you will have to buy a tivo roamio basic to buy a lifetime

IIRC from looking at Tivos years ago, a lifetime service plan did not give you a lifetime warranty. I thought the warranty maxed out at something like 3 years. And if you bought a top of the line Tivo and it stopped working after 3 months it would get replaced with a refurbed unit. It didn't sit right with me to spend hundreds of dollars for a new DVR & if it broke at 91 days I'd end up with used one. It's been years so I may be wrong on my recollection & will stand corrected, but it didn't seem like a good deal to me at the time.

That being said, if you're not able to set up a HTPC and/or WMC then a Tivo may be the way to go.

[tootal2]

tivo ota is 49.95 plus 14.95 a month or one payment of 149.95 a year. and you can use it with tivo minis so it can be used on every tv in the house.
If you get one, take out that small 500 gig drive and put in a 3tb or 6tb drive in it.

Im using WMC now with ceton

[choliscott]

It's attached to the particular unit & not transferable to a new unit. According to some people, if you buy the Tivo from anywhere but Tivo themselves, you can get $100 knocked off the price of lifetime activation

I've never really looked into Tivo, but after looking at the prices I see that the lifetime is $500, plus the cost of the unit.

So it's $700 to get into the Tivo game. Which is fine, some people pay that much for their HTPC to serve the same functions (although with the know-how you can come in far below that).

What I'm unclear on is whether the lifetime fee is attached to a specific Tivo unit. Do you pay a one time TIVO subscription and it lasts forever? Do you have to pay the lifetime fee again every time you upgrade to a new Tivo box?

That, to me, as someone who has a second HTPC sitting in my office that has been running for 7 years with no issue would make me definitely want to research how reliable the Tivo units are, and what their failure rate is.

[STC]

I've harped on about this before but TiVo thumbs and suggestions are simply fantastic. Add to that unified search and a gorgeous front end and you've got a winner. A pseudo commercial 30 second manual skip gets you by. I still have my trusty lifetime TiVoHD ready in the wings incase my HTPC dies. I will most probably go Roamio when the PC croaks or if I choose to put it to pasture sometime in the next couple of years.

As time goes by and my spare time gets less I'm more interested in something that just works with little or no tweaking and TLC required just to watch TV.

[LuckyDay]

I've harped on about this before but TiVo thumbs and suggestions are simply fantastic. Add to that unified search and a gorgeous front end and you've got a winner. A pseudo commercial 30 second manual skip gets you by. I still have my trusty lifetime TiVoHD ready in the wings incase my HTPC dies. I will most probably go Roamio when the PC croaks or if I choose to put it to pasture sometime in the next couple of years.

As time goes by and my spare time gets less I'm more interested in something that just works with little or no tweaking and TLC required just to watch TV.

I can certainly see the appeal of Tivo and it sounds like a good product. Personally, I don't mind the tinkering that comes with the HTPC, and I like to have my PC on my TV for other things (Gaming, browsing, etc.).

I was just curious how reliable the boxes themselves were. If you are likely to have a Tivo box last for 6-7 years then it's definitely a good value.

[cwinfield]

This is from another thread and I agree with the opinion

You can get an OTA tuner for $69. If you need 4 tuners get two. No monthly fee!

As far as Tivo, I used to be a huge fan. A month ago my family bought 2 of the Roamio's. One to be used with OTA and one cable. They also bought a Mini to go with one of them. I was very surprised at the bugs in the product. Tivo's attitude is "oh well!"

It made me feel much better about WMC!

Not to mention that when you start looking at their extender like experience using minis, the lifetime support makes it ridiculously expensive. It will give you a better user experience than most cable companies boxes but not by much. It is a last resort if WMC disappears.

http://support.tivo.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/573 $150 per mini!

[STC]

They are certainly built well IMO.

[STC]

I used to have a hacked TIVo with TurboNet in the UK many moons ago. Fun times spent tinkering.

[ileenback]

Here's my setup, we use FiOS.

2 HD homeRun Prime's- 6 (DLNA) tuners. Ability to locally watch live or recorded TV on iOS. Remote viewing using WebDAV on Windows IIS server worked fine when used, just required more attention.

4 HTPC's, laptops not included. 3 bedroom home.

Master bedroom connects with an Integra DTR 7.8 AVR, it also handles whole house music. There's an outside wall (Courtyard), adjacent to master bedroom, via 2 HDMI splitters, shares WMC, & FiOS STB with outside TV, set as zone 2 on AVR.

Other big advantage for us using WMC/HTPC's, we installed Swann's 7250 NVR IP security cameras that can be viewed using software as you watch TV.

[Scott R]

I haven't been super-active here, but I figured I'd jump in to say that it looks like I'm leaving WMC, too. I ordered a TiVo Roamio Plus and TiVo Mini last week (due to be delivered this coming Monday). I was a big fan of the TiVo long ago, but switched to WMC (and two HDHomeRun PRIMEs) when one of my TiVo's got fried by a freak electrical problem. I really enjoyed the WMC experience early on, and it still does the job most of the time, but I've had a few issues, some bigger and some smaller.

I could possibly troubleshoot things further and/or reformat my computer and reinstall Windows, which might fix some of the issues. One issue seems to have to do with a weak tuner signal, which I thought I fixed by hooking up a cable line amplifier, but recently I'm seeing pixelation and errors again. If the problem really is with the line itself, then I'll likely be frustrated with continued issues with the TiVo, but I think the Roamio Plus only needs one cablecard and delivers the same 6 tuners that my current dual-HDHomeRun PRIME setup gives me, so perhaps removing the splitter will give me just enough extra signal strength to eliminate (or greatly reduce) the pixelization / signal strength issues.

The decision to jump in last week came about because I heard about a "deal" they were offering really old TiVo customers and I was able to squeak in on that. It's a pricey "deal" (just short of $700 for the units I mentioned with "lifetime" subscriptions), but I wasn't short on money and I get the itch to have a change, just for change's sake, every so often. I think I get 30 days to return it, so I could still do that if it ends up being a complete disappointment, but I'm not expecting it to. In fact, I'm looking forward to getting a couple of features that I've been missing out on. Namely:

1) The idea of having live TV and DVR functionality on a mobile device seems really cool and was something that I had originally hoped to get working with WMC. I jumped through a few different hoops and experimented with various things, but never got it to deliver in the way I hoped I could. Now, the TiVo mobile software seems fairly mature and claims to offer this. That said, I honestly have no real need for this, and will probably rarely use it.
2) Another dream of mine was to have a one-input setup. IOW, get all of my DVR, streaming, and movie-watching done via a single device, where I didn't have to change the input. I have been using WMC/XBox 360 (for DVR), Apple TV (for Netflix, iTunes movie rentals, and Pandora), and a nettop PC (for Blu-Ray movie rips). The TiVo Roamio might get me closer to this dream since it will do DVR, Netflix, Amazon Instant Video, and Pandora. There are also ways to stream movies to it (StreamBaby), though there may be transcoding involved, and I'm picky about video quality. But even if I can use it (or the TiVo Mini) as the only device in one room, and have a more complicated setup in my home theater (living room), that might still be a nice improvement.
3) I'll be honest, I have fond memories of the TiVo UI and remote control, so I'm kind of looking forward to experiencing that again. Note: I thought the WMC UI was great, and never had any complaints about it (and there were some things that I did think MS did better than TiVo). So, chalk this one up to nostalgia.
4) When I originally went with WMC I thought I might want/need to have live TV and DVR functionality in about 4 rooms of my house. That would have been an expensive proposition for TiVo a few years back, as they wanted to kill you with monthly fees for every device. Today, I can tell you that I really only need live TV and DVR in two rooms, and the TiVo Mini is being sold with lifetime service (supposedly for a limited time, but I wouldn't be surprised if this becomes permanent).

[adam1991]

I never did understand the reluctance--I will call it mania--for not changing inputs on the TV.

It's like a car mechanic refusing to swap out that socket wrench for a screwdriver. Use the right tool for the job. There is no universal tool.

[3rob3]

since it will do DVR, Netflix, Amazon Instant Video, and Pandora

I have read conflicting reports about the Amazon Instant. Are you sure you can stream Amazon Prime (free with subscription) stuff? From what I have read it's only Amazon rentals and purchases which is really dumb if true.

Also, I read Plex is available for Tivo now. Anyone ever seen it/tried it on Tivo?

[Scott R]

I never did understand the reluctance--I will call it mania--for not changing inputs on the TV.

It's like a car mechanic refusing to swap out that socket wrench for a screwdriver. Use the right tool for the job. There is no universal tool.

Changing the TV input is not the concern. What I want is a common UI and a remote that works consistently across a variety of applications. And there's no reason why someone couldn't offer a device that accomplishes all of that. The TiVo might fit that bill, or it might not. WMC could have fit that bill, too, but it did not. There's no reason why a single device couldn't offer a common UI and provide DVR, Netflix, movie rentals, playback of locally stored movies, etc. Having to use box A for DVR and box B for Netflix, and adapting to the fact that the UI and remote control behave differently from one device to the other adds to the WAF complaints, and I don't like it, either.

I have read conflicting reports about the Amazon Instant. Are you sure you can stream Amazon Prime (free with subscription) stuff? From what I have read it's only Amazon rentals and purchases which is really dumb if true.

Based on my interpretation of the description about the Amazon services offered, it looks like it supports both the free stuff via Amazon Prime as well as rentals. I'll know for sure when I get my TiVo in operation on Monday or so and can reply back to confirm. But take a look at this page, click on the Amazon icon halfway down, and look carefully at the photo:
https://www.tivo.com/discover/service

Also, I read Plex is available for Tivo now. Anyone ever seen it/tried it on Tivo?

It is my understanding that Plex recently released an Opera Browser app (or whatever they call that) and the TiVo supports Opera apps, *BUT* the Plex app doesn't show up as being available, and supposedly TiVo has to do something on their end to make it available. A recent post I read by someone claiming to be "in the know" indicated that TiVo's next software update (which could be a couple months off) would include the Plex Opera app.

Also, there's something called Streambaby which has been around in the TiVo world forever and, I believe, works a lot like Plex Media Server (you run it on a computer and it transcodes your content as necessary and you can play it on your TiVo). I have never used it previously, but I'll probably be looking into it soon. That said, my preference when watching my Blu-ray rips is to watch them in perfect quality, so I may still need to fire up a computer to do that in my living room (which has my front projector). But for the bedroom, transcoded content from something like Streambaby or Plex might be good enough.

FWIW, I mentioned at the top that I wanted a common UI across all apps, but I suspect that the Opera apps behave a little differently than the standard TiVo DVR UI and that Opera apps might behave differently from one app to the next, so this may still not be the ideal UI for me, but it might still be a step closer to my ideal.

[adam1991]

Changing the TV input is not the concern.

Really? Because that's the talk track, everywhere I see on this forum. It in and of itself seems to be the main goal, for entirely inexplicable reasons.

[Scott R]

Changing the TV input is not the concern.

Really? Because that's the talk track, everywhere I see on this forum. It in and of itself seems to be the main goal, for entirely inexplicable reasons.

I suspect people use that term as shorthand when they're actually thinking about the reasons I mentioned (i.e., change in user experience from one device to another). Another reason is to reduce the number of boxes that are required, and reduce costs (especially if you need to serve multiple rooms/TVs and want to offer the same choices in all rooms).

[mdavej]

There's no reason why a single device couldn't offer a common UI and provide DVR, Netflix, movie rentals, playback of locally stored movies, etc.

WMC does do all of that, except digital rentals, which I would never in a million years do anyway.

Having to use box A for DVR and box B for Netflix, and adapting to the fact that the UI and remote control behave differently from one device to the other adds to the WAF complaints, and I don't like it, either.

Netflix is the same on every device. So the common UI argument doesn't hold water. It's all arrow keys, no different than navigating around WMC. My family (including very young and very old visitors) press the Cable TV button on the remote for WMC and the Netflix button for Netflix and have no problems getting around. If there are complaints (which there aren't), I'd simply remind them how many thousands of dollars Tivo would cost, and I guarantee you they would adapt.

What I don't get is that whether you watch Netflix on a Tivo or Ruko or WMC, the interface is pretty much the same. So what doe a single device give you if that single device does most things badly or is outrageously expensive?