The Tivo Mini lives....

[L David Matheny]

Originally Posted by sbiller

http://www.zatznotfunny.com/2013-02/...n-digital-dvr/

If TiVo does indeed introduce a 4-tuner or 6-tuner model that can receive digital OTA (ATSC) broadcasts, I might have to buy one, but I would want to be sure that reception issues are unlikely. OTA reception is inherently more problematic than cable reception because of RFI, multipath, etc. That's why 8VSB requires more robust error correction than QAM. IME, the 2-tuner Premiere's tuners and demodulators have been excellent, with the demodulators apparently handling static multipath (reflections from buildings, hills, etc) much better than those in my TiVo HD. Others have found that the Premiere seems to be worse at handling dynamic multipath (reflections from airplanes, trucks, etc) than Series 3 units, and possibly that their tuners overload more easily. And there seem to be plenty of reports that the newest 4-tuner Premieres may have more serious reception problems.

ATSC reception shouldn't be rocket science at this point, but apparently there is still plenty of room for error. So I hope that TiVo will thoroughly test whatever tuner and demodulator chips they plan to use in newer models, both in the laboratory and in the field, before committing the designs to production. Their future success may well depend on reception quality, and unlike user interface problems, reception issues probably can't be fixed by software changes. This stuff is important.

[aaronwt]

My FiOS cable cards are $3.99 each.

[atmuscarella]

Originally Posted by sbiller

Here is the Verizon FiOS Scenario... obviously there are trade-offs (pros/cons) with using Minis v actual Premiere boxes.... 70% monthly saving for 3 TVs.

Each individual will have to do the calculations for themselves and decide how much different things are worth to them, the things I would think about are:

1. What are the actual costs/savings for my situation
2. How much do I think more tuners are worth
3. How much do I think more storage is worth
4. How much do I think redundancy is worth (in the mini whole home solution if the DVR goes you are Sh** out of luck, with 3 DVRs if one goes you likely still have 2 more)
5. What equipment do I already have - how much would I get if I sell it?
6. How much is only having to replace 1 DVR to upgrade in the future worth (assumes minis will last through several DVR upgrades)?

[mr_smits]

Originally Posted by dave13077

There is also the savings of not needing a CableCard for the Mini. That savings is monthly since you can't buy a CableCard and have to rent it from the cable co.

Plus reduced power requirements of about $1 per month per Mini (if replacing a Premiere).

[HazelW]

The TiVo support site says:
"You can also access applications such as Pandora, Live365, YouTube or your cable provider’s Video On Demand."

So does this mean the Mini will be able to access on demand from any cable provider I have?

[atmuscarella]

Originally Posted by HazelW

The TiVo support site says:
"You can also access applications such as Pandora, Live365, YouTube or your cable provider’s Video On Demand."

So does this mean the Mini will be able to access on demand from any cable provider I have?

Where did you find anything about the Mini in TiVo support - it hasn't even been officially release yet? But my guess is the answer is no. Of course if you are renting one from Suddenlink cable or happen to be in the right comcast area the answer maybe yes.

[davezatz]

Originally Posted by atmuscarella

Where did you find anything about the Mini in TiVo support - it hasn't even been officially release yet?

It's was officially released to Suddenlink several weeks ago. Support note here:
http://support.tivo.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/2395

[atmuscarella]

Originally Posted by davezatz

It's was officially released to Suddenlink several weeks ago. Support note here:
http://support.tivo.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/2395

Ok a combined support page for leased or purchased Minis makes sense.

[compnurd]

Originally Posted by HazelW

The TiVo support site says:
"You can also access applications such as Pandora, Live365, YouTube or your cable provider’s Video On Demand."

So does this mean the Mini will be able to access on demand from any cable provider I have?

Only if you have access now from your Tivo, ala some comcast customers

[BigJimOutlaw]

Originally Posted by DigitalDawn

[b]2nd Quarter 2013: Dynamic Tuner Allocation. You'll be able to pair up to 9 Mini's to a single DVR. Each DVR will support up to 4 Mini streams simultaneously.

Thanks for the info! Was anything mentioned about relaxing the 4-tuner requirement once DTA is available? With 9 Mini's to a 4-tuner box, blocking the 2-tuner box would be REALLY artificial... likely for the sole purpose of encouraging an upgrade.

$250 isn't a great deal, but with some gift cards I can eat it. But dayum, we could be getting this guy next week.

[drebbe]

From TiVo's Earnings call

"As a result of these investments, we are on track to launch a TV
Everywhere web portal powered by TiVo with our first MSO customer,
which will allow subscribers the opportunity to enjoy video content
on a variety of devices including tablets. In addition, we will be
releasing our thin-client IP set-top box, TiVo Mini, in retail in the
very near-future, which follows the successful launch of this product
in our operator channel. "

[JohnnyO]

Originally Posted by atmuscarella

[*]How much do I think redundancy is worth (in the mini whole home solution if the DVR goes you are Sh** out of luck, with 3 DVRs if one goes you likely still have 2 more)

Ooooh! Really good point. I have two TiVoHD units now, and one of the key benefits is I can swap the one from the hardly-used basement up for the primary TiVo in the Family Room if necessary. I've had to do that once with my TiVoHDs, and previously I had to do it once with an older generation of equipment.

It isn't so much that I can't be without TiVo for a day or so - more that I don't know how long I'd be out.

John

[geekmedic]

Anyone know if you can connect the Mini via 802.11n? We would like to place our TV/mini in a different area of the room (across from the cable outlet). I guess I could run coax or ethernet cable underneath the baseboard, but if it works with wireless all the better. (I understand the Premiere must be hardwired.)

[sbiller]

Originally Posted by geekmedic

Anyone know if you can connect the Mini via 802.11n? We would like to place our TV/mini in a different area of the room (across from the cable outlet). I guess I could run coax or ethernet cable underneath the baseboard, but if it works with wireless all the better. (I understand the Premiere must be hardwired.)

Hardwire only... MoCA or Ethernet.

[Loach]

Originally Posted by atmuscarella

Each individual will have to do the calculations for themselves and decide how much different things are worth to them, the things I would think about are:

1. What are the actual costs/savings for my situation
2. How much do I think more tuners are worth
3. How much do I think more storage is worth
4. How much do I think redundancy is worth (in the mini whole home solution if the DVR goes you are Sh** out of luck, with 3 DVRs if one goes you likely still have 2 more)
5. What equipment do I already have - how much would I get if I sell it?
6. How much is only having to replace 1 DVR to upgrade in the future worth (assumes minis will last through several DVR upgrades)?

These are exactly the factors I'm weighing. My whole home solution probably looks like a) adding another Premiere and 2 Minis, or b) just adding 3 Minis (once the Premiere can support more than 2 Minis). It's probably coming down to #1 vs. #4 for me. If I go with option b), I wouldn't even be able to tune most of my HD channels if my one Premiere went completely out, much less record anything.

More tuners are worth something to me, but probably more so in terms of redundancy. More storage I could get by upgrading my Premiere 4 rather than buying a 2nd Premiere.

[aaronwt]

Originally Posted by geekmedic

Anyone know if you can connect the Mini via 802.11n? We would like to place our TV/mini in a different area of the room (across from the cable outlet). I guess I could run coax or ethernet cable underneath the baseboard, but if it works with wireless all the better. (I understand the Premiere must be hardwired.)

Just use a wireless bridge. If setup properly there should not be any issues. I can use a wireless bridge with any of my Premieres, and the experience will be identical to connecting it to the wired portion of my network.

[spotterman26]

Sbiller asked for this picture. I figured I'd post it here in case others were interested too. Pretty self explanatory, but the bottom tuner is the one currently allocated to my Mini. As previously posted, I'm currently running my Q to allow 1 tuner for live tv, but both Minis can access all recorded shows on my Q, all on demand, youtube, pandora, etc.

[moyekj]

Thanks for that picture spotterman26. Quick way to check tuner allocation.

One thing I forgot to ask. From the Mini can you access Season Pass Manager & ToDo lists for the host unit and make changes?

[lessd]

Originally Posted by tbielowicz

Then you are lucky. For years I never was charged for my Outlet fees but as of 6 months ago, they dinged me for an outlet fee for each Cable Card. I turned in my HD Box and had the HD fee and Outlet fee removed, only being charged for the cable card since I used this as my main outlet (which is included).

I had two TVs getting the adapters which now have a $2.99/mth charge. Every 6 months, comcast is looking for new ways to increase my bill.

What does Comcast have against you, that they want to increase your bill !!

[Bigg]

Hmmm, so $250. Pricey, but not that atrocious, and definitely better than the $650 to add a dual-tuner box that it costs right now.

This is really t3h sux0rs for OTA-only folks though. No Mini for them. They should at least support it without the ability to do live TV. Especially since the OTA folks are usually the most budget-conscious, hence why they are OTA.

Originally Posted by DigitalDawn

I'm personally hoping for a 6-tuner model with Stream built-in. In my household that would be enough tuners for recording and Live TV.

Agreed. You need to max out the ability of CableCards, and really embrace the server/client whole-home DVR model, which is what that would do.

Originally Posted by innocentfreak

Oh I definitely agree. I am ready for a 6 tuner.

I could just see them dropping the 2 tuner model completely if they can get the 4 tuner model cheap enough. Otherwise you risk people buying a 2 tuner and later going to add a Mini only to find out they can't.

They would need to add ATSC-8VSB capability to it though. And as far as anyone knows, there's no single-chip solution to do that yet.

Originally Posted by sbiller

TiVo Mini is a MoCA end-point. It won't bridge a MoCA connection like the 4/XL4 to provide ethernet to other devices.

Yeah, that makes more sense. Otherwise the TiVo Mini would become rather much of a cabling mess on TVs that aren't installed in entertainment centers like the main TV usually is.

Would MoCA 1.1 bring the whole network down to the slower speeds, or would it still allow MoCA 2.0 devices to stay at the higher speeds?

Originally Posted by dave13077

There is also the savings of not needing a CableCard for the Mini. That savings is monthly since you can't buy a CableCard and have to rent it from the cable co.

You could have a 4-tuner on cable and a couple of 2-tuners on OTA, but yes, the savings is significant. It's even more significant when you scale up to more TVs and you can go from, say, 6 TiVos, at a cost of upwards of $4k to two sets of Premiere 4/Minis.

Originally Posted by aaronwt

Just use a wireless bridge. If setup properly there should not be any issues. I can use a wireless bridge with any of my Premieres, and the experience will be identical to connecting it to the wired portion of my network.

Correct. I'd do Homeplug AV, which isn't as fast, but is much more stable, although not nearly as stable as MoCA or Ethernet.

[crxssi]

Originally Posted by jjd_87

If this is true, this is awesome!!

Awesome that the price is $250, which is just barely reasonable. But not awesome that there is no mention at all about using it with 2 tuner Premieres.

[crxssi]

Originally Posted by aaronwt

Now I hope they get the stream working with Android and announce a six tuner box with built in stream capabilities soon.

And with OTA tuners and a MUCH faster processor. At that point, I would probably have to jump, even though it is just me and I really don't need more than 2 tuners.

[crxssi]

Originally Posted by dave13077

There is also the savings of not needing a CableCard for the Mini. That savings is monthly since you can't buy a CableCard and have to rent it from the cable co.

No there isn't. There is no requirement that the Premieres the Minis would be replacing would have cable cards. It is a POSSIBILITY in SOME cases, but not in others.

[crxssi]

Originally Posted by sbiller

Hardwire only... MoCA or Ethernet.

No, you *can* connect it via WiFi with an external router or gaming adapter. TiVo won't support/recommend this, because of possible performance issues. But if it is done correctly and without interference in your area, it should work just fine.

[dhoward]

Does anyone know if there is a delay to a remote command between the tivo and mini. I used to use a slingcatcher/slingbox hookup with my HD and the 3-5 second delay drove me crazy. It was a real pain when fast forwarding. The delay was explainable since the command had to go from the catcher to the slingbox then to the tivo and then back again. The mini goes right to the tivo but what is the response time? Also, if one is using two mini's does that mean each mini, at the same time, can watch a different recorded show?

[compnurd]

Originally Posted by Bigg

Hmmm, so $250. Pricey, but not that atrocious, and definitely better than the $650 to add a dual-tuner box that it costs right now.

This is really t3h sux0rs for OTA-only folks though. No Mini for them. They should at least support it without the ability to do live TV. Especially since the OTA folks are usually the most budget-conscious, hence why they are OTA.



Agreed. You need to max out the ability of CableCards, and really embrace the server/client whole-home DVR model, which is what that would do.



They would need to add ATSC-8VSB capability to it though. And as far as anyone knows, there's no single-chip solution to do that yet.



Yeah, that makes more sense. Otherwise the TiVo Mini would become rather much of a cabling mess on TVs that aren't installed in entertainment centers like the main TV usually is.

Would MoCA 1.1 bring the whole network down to the slower speeds, or would it still allow MoCA 2.0 devices to stay at the higher speeds?



You could have a 4-tuner on cable and a couple of 2-tuners on OTA, but yes, the savings is significant. It's even more significant when you scale up to more TVs and you can go from, say, 6 TiVos, at a cost of upwards of $4k to two sets of Premiere 4/Minis.



Correct. I'd do Homeplug AV, which isn't as fast, but is much more stable, although not nearly as stable as MoCA or Ethernet.

No Moca 1.1 would not bring everything down if there are 2 devices

[sbiller]

Originally Posted by crxssi

No, you *can* connect it via WiFi with an external router or gaming adapter. TiVo won't support/recommend this, because of possible performance issues. But if it is done correctly and without interference in your area, it should work just fine.

Since the BCM7418 based Mini is using some sort of "proprietary" Broadcom technology to extend the User Interface, I suspect that the networking demands are significant. We won't know until someone hooks up a network analyzer and looks at the traffic but I would guess that WiFi could be troublesome... not recommended IMHO.

[sbiller]

Originally Posted by dhoward

Does anyone know if there is a delay to a remote command between the tivo and mini. I used to use a slingcatcher/slingbox hookup with my HD and the 3-5 second delay drove me crazy. It was a real pain when fast forwarding. The delay was explainable since the command had to go from the catcher to the slingbox then to the tivo and then back again. The mini goes right to the tivo but what is the response time? Also, if one is using two mini's does that mean each mini, at the same time, can watch a different recorded show?

I suspect the user experience will be significantly better than the slingbox/slingcatcher. The Remote User Interface (RUI) technology of the Mini's Broadcom BCM7418 is designed for an optimal user experience. I suspect you wouldn't be able to tell that you are decoupled from the host DVR.

[sbiller]

Originally Posted by crxssi

No there isn't. There is no requirement that the Premieres the Minis would be replacing would have cable cards. It is a POSSIBILITY in SOME cases, but not in others.

If the Premiere that the Mini was replacing wanted to access live TV than it would need a CableCARD. Obviously its use-case dependent but in the majority of cases there would be a savings of one CableCARD when a Mini replaces a Premiere.

[Bigg]

Originally Posted by compnurd

No Moca 1.1 would not bring everything down if there are 2 devices

Sucks for FIOS users. Hope they hardwire their internet coming in.