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It is with heavy heart I say good bye to TiVo :(

7K views 95 replies 34 participants last post by  NashGuy 
#1 ·
After being a very long time fan of TiVo I must say good bye. 20 years is a good run :) I was never an expert but I had this place and thank you to all the Forum members that help guide me. I will have a nice new-ish few TiVo's for sale soon. I'm going to do an inventory and photos this weekend and will post what I got.
I really wanted to keep my TiVo boxes but I'm done with the cable company(COX for 20 Years) I canceled TV and home phone. Switching to Apple 4K TV and DirecTV NOW.

Thank you for all help.
 
#27 ·
Yes, that's how I see the cable companies doing it. I doubt they'll try to throttle other content providers. There's just no need to rile the net neutrality crowd who will just get a future administration to put neutrality back in place. They can simply keep raising internet prices until there's some competition for that. Hopefully some new technology will come along to provide that competition.
 
#48 ·
Yeah, my upper limit is a little soft, but Spectrum is very close to it. I've free-trialed PS Vue and know that we can live with it. I get good antenna reception of local OTA channels, so would convert my lifetime Roamio basic to OTA and use it for the locals.
My only issue with services like PS Vue and DTV Now are their time limits on the DVR functionality. I like to save entire seasons of shows and then binge watch them, sometimes a year later just before the next season starts. I couldn't live with the 30 day limit (or whatever it is) those services put on DVR "recordings".
 
#49 ·
Hulu with Live TV has no auto-expirations and YouTube TV has a 9-month expiration. But it is true that, so far, all of these vMVPDs have some kind of compromises with regards to their cloud DVRs vs. DVRs from traditional MVPDs. I suspect (but haven't read anything one way or another) that AT&T's forthcoming "premium OTT" version of DirecTV will have a cloud DVR that is full-featured like a traditional vMVPD and that will be a chief way that it is differentiated from the cheaper DirecTV Now, PS Vue, YouTube TV, etc.
 
#56 ·
Yep, pretty much what I've been saying - you get what you pay for with IPTV, a generally inferior experience because you do not have the control and ease of use with content that you get with Tivo and cable.

But some folks are ok with that, they just want to save money and/or don't care about TV enough for Tivo's superior experience to matter.
 
#60 ·
Yep, pretty much what I've been saying - you get what you pay for with IPTV, a generally inferior experience because you do not have the control and ease of use with content that you get with Tivo and cable.
Hmm, whether you think something like Hulu with Live TV gives you more or less "control and ease of use with content" vs cable + TiVo probably depends on what sort of UI that you're used to. Hulu is really just adding in live TV to the main on-demand experience -- which probably seems like the tail wagging the dog to folks over a certain age -- but I do think it's the direction that TV is going.

That said, I agree that the cloud DVRs -- the amount of storage, the length of time you can keep recordings, how ads are treated -- do tend to be compromised in these vMVPDs. But then, for some folks, the simplicity in recording entire series on YouTube TV by "liking" shows, and the ease of finding content across your library of recordings plus VOD, makes that a preferable solution over fiddling with OnePasses and deleting watched shows to manage space.
 
#37 ·
Video subscription are ALWAYS going to be some kind of bundles. Regular cable TV is a bundle. DirecTV Now is a bundle. Netflix is a bundle. HBO is a bundle. All of them features a variety of series, movies, events, etc., some of which a subscriber will watch and enjoy, but most of which they won't. Question is always whether there's enough content within a given bundle for you to justify the price you pay for it.

For those who don't want bundles, you can already buy individual movies and seasons of TV shows. Buy season 1 of the new series Yellowstone, for instance, from Apple for $19.99 (in HD, ad-free). You can stream new episodes each week shortly after they air on cable on the Paramount Network. Or get it from Google or Amazon or Vudu. Movies can also be rented, of course, from a variety of sources.
 
#55 ·
Those younger folks are Ok with VOD that has no skippable commercials and when becomes the norm, say goodbye to hardware DVRs. The content creators own the future and you and whatever service will both pay dearly for it. Basically you'll have less control then you do now.
I'm a younger folk early. 20. I have tried every IPTv and I hated it. The quality sucks. The channels suck. The price sucks. The navigating using streaming box remotes suck. Pressing a directional down button a hundred times to channel surf sucks instead of like TiVo where you press page down a few times. Pressing menu a hundred times to do simple navigation sucks. The buffering sucks. Lack of 5.1 sucks. Lack of 1080i and 60 on certain channels etc sucks. Finicky dvr sucks. Low dvr storage sucks. Lack of transferring my recordings to my computer sucks. I have paid spectrum 100 plus basically 12 a month for TiVo for 5 years already and I get EVERY SINGLE CHANNEL I could ever watch, 5.1 surround sound. Excellent picture quality and the frame rates to match. Spot on dvr. Fast internet. Amazing navigation with my harmony remote and auto commercial skip. I get to skip ANY commercial (which you can't say for the majority of these iptv). I get hbo showtime Cinemax and epix For ~114 I get all that. I would have to pay spectrum and ps Vue ~150 to get what I want and I still wouldn't get all my channels and 5.1.

All this rant of mine to say I really don't get how people can be "happy" with these iptv. And I really want to! I would absolutely love to cancel cable and get Hulu live tv. It would be amazing to be able to have everything in one app. All Hulu on demand and live tv. It's just none of these iptv are anywhere near ready and I don't think they ever will be.

Navigating a dvr and a TV guide on a remote with 2 buttons and a directional pad absolutely sucks. It's painfully inefficient. I feel like daft punk pressing all those buttons when navigating Hulu live tv or directv now.

Again this is all coming from someone who desperately wants to cut the cord. Haha
 
#57 ·
I'm a younger folk early. 20. I have tried every IPTv and I hated it. The quality sucks. The channels suck. The price sucks. The navigating using streaming box remotes suck. Pressing a directional down button a hundred times to channel surf sucks instead of like TiVo where you press page down a few times. Pressing menu a hundred times to do simple navigation sucks. The buffering sucks. Lack of 5.1 sucks. Lack of 1080i and 60 on certain channels etc sucks.

All this rant of mine to say I really don't get how people can be "happy" with these iptv. And I really want to! I would absolutely love to cancel cable and get Hulu live tv. It would be amazing to be able to have everything in one app. All Hulu on demand and live tv. It's just none of these iptv are anywhere near ready and I don't think they ever will be.
Well, I don't have all these issues that you have. My streaming looks awesome (ATV 4K and Roku Ultra), I get NO buffering, I do get 5.1 on almost everything, the price is great and I don't really channel surf much or watch sports. So for me it's a great deal. I use a Harmony remote so everything is seamless. There is no "one size fits all" but for me it's a very good fit.
 
#82 ·
There's no way your getting 5.1 on everything on any of the iptv services. Not even dtvn has 5.1 on live channels. And what size tv do you have and how far are you sitting away from it. Iptv picture quality is not good compared to good quality cable tv. The bitrates don't lie. There's is absolutely no way anyone can consider iptv picture quality as excellent. It hurts my eyes.
I said almost. It depends on what you're watching. LOL I never said I watch live channels. The stuff I watch I get mostly 5.1 55" @ about 8-10 feet away. YES, my PQ is FAR better, FAR BETTER streaming than I get with Comcast. Hulu, Netflix, you name it. You don't have to believe me, my eyes aren't lying to me. Maybe you need better internet?
 
#88 ·
I said almost. It depends on what you're watching. LOL I never said I watch live channels. The stuff I watch I get mostly 5.1 55" @ about 8-10 feet away. YES, my PQ is FAR better, FAR BETTER streaming than I get with Comcast. Hulu, Netflix, you name it. You don't have to believe me, my eyes aren't lying to me. Maybe you need better internet?
Bingo. That's why. 55 inch 8-10 feet away you would be hard pressed to even notice if it's 720 or 1080. Too far for that size screen. I am a film editor and I trust my eyes. It's literally what I do for a living.

5.1 dtvn was garbage when I listened on my receiver and set up. On Apple TV the audio damn near blew my house down. Their codec handle is terrible. Oh. Comcast. Lol. Yeah Comcast is garbage. And no I don't need better internet. Gig? Yeah that's good enough. Cell phone data is good enough to run hd content single stream. I have never had issues with data I have issues with picture quality. That's not internet that's compression and codec choice.
 
#5 ·
A good place to post the information: Buyer/Seller Area
Thank you Sir that was going to be my next question as I always wanted to give my fellow forum members first dibs.
A Hint of what is coming and all of them have LTSub
Bolt +
Roamio Pro
premier is stuck in boot loop tried to reimage with no luck. But still has a LT sub
VOX mini
Tivo Mini
 
#65 ·
For me, even the top $70 DirecTV Now tier doesn't have all the same channels I have on FiOS. And my costs are less on FiOS since I have a triple bundle. Every year I check to see what it would cost me to dump cable TV. And every year I find that I would have to pay more to drop cable TV and get the same programming I watch from elsewhere.

Currently on FiOS I pay $150 a month after all taxes, fees, and cable cards for the Ultimate HD TV tier, phone service, and GigE Internet.
 
#28 ·
Those younger folks are Ok with VOD that has no skippable commercials and when becomes the norm, say goodbye to hardware DVRs. The content creators own the future and you and whatever service will both pay dearly for it. Basically you'll have less control then you do now.
 
#42 ·
I canceled TV and home phone. Switching to Apple 4K TV and DirecTV NOW.
I'm surprised by that. Being a long-time TiVo user suggests you use your DVR heavily. The DirecTV Now DVR offers Comcast levels of video and audio quality. You would think their DVR is a clone of the live stream but it's not. They take an approximately 1080i/10mbps video + 128k audio live stream, which looks pretty good, and compresses it down to approximately 720p/3mbps video + 32k audio. From my Apple TV it looks awful in my opinion, even worse than what I get through Comcast on my TiVo, and the DVR isn't nearly as nice to use as a TiVo. The DTVN DVR also suffers mis-recordings, where you end up with only a few minutes of a show, which you would think would be impossible.
 
#50 ·
I know I'm being pessimistic right now (odd--I just got done with a hike, in a wetlands area), but I fear that, even then, government will try to establish how all of this is good for me, in the end.

I hope all my pessimism is wrong.
This really depends on which party is in charge at the time. One will try to convince you it's in consumer interest to have a "free market" and the other will say it's bad but really do nothing becuase they're still in the pockets of the same lobbyist.
 
#62 ·
Cox has really been screwing its customers over the most with regard to Internet pricing, and changes to down/up speed plans. Recently they changed to three plans: 5mb down, 30mb down and 100mb down. The pricing is unbalanced, especially between the two, higher rates. But they know the Internet price is their big, future money-maker. The only way customers stand a chance is without Internet. And that's not going to happen...
 
#66 ·
Interesting thread, and some parallels. Having been well served by OTA and TiVo HD's for years, in a weak moment about seven years back we succumbed to a bundle pitch from our local ISP for internet/tv/phone. All of that was provided over their fiber link, so it's a Uverse equivalent, and as the ISP is/was a regional telco, they weren't obligated to develop nor provide a cable card for TiVo.

Change in job status led me to cut the cord again last year; and I upgraded an HD with Lifetime to a Bolt on TiVo's offer, and added a Mini. I already had fireTV OTT boxes on hand. The telco service got cut back to internet and telco only, and in spite of doubling the bi-directional speed to 50mbps, that cut the the total bill by $120 per month. Added back Sling TV Orange, and later shifted to PS Vue, so still saving over $80 per month. The wife uses TiVo for all streaming from the "big three" - my use of OTT is for regional sports channels. As the OTT service is month to month, I can shut it off during the baseball off-season. As for content, we found the OTT packages offered about 70% of what was available from the cable provider, and between that and OTA satisfied about 98% of what we actually viewed.

With the on-demand features of most of the OTT package offerings, we really don't miss nor use the cloud based dvr service. Interestingly, in this market, PS Vue provides local station access to the "big four" broadcast affiliates, and there are odd times when the wind is blowing strong and multi-path reception creates issues where I'll opt for streaming rather than OTA.

Local buffering isn't an issue; we leverage the coax plant for MoCA services, rather than depending upon wifi. (I did switch from SlingTV to PS Vue due to buffering issues at their source). PQ from the OTT isn't objectionable- the primary 4K set is upscaling any OTA source to native display resolution, and those systems seem to do a pretty good job. Considering that much of what is OTA is either reduced bandwidth HD (9-12 Mbps) due to sub-channel proliferation; or is upscaled 480i- there's not a huge difference between OTT source and OTA, except on the major network broadcasts- and even that's pretty minimal.

There may well come a time where we may forego OTA as well. Our "younger" neighbors have a similar setup, but do not use OTA- only OTT streaming. It's how they've accessed media for some time now, and they're very satisfied with that choice. They don't have a landline telephone service either, for similar reasons.

Do I wish that TiVo would offer OTT apps for PS Vue and/or SlingTV? Sure, if only to save on connecting another device- but that's probably not likely to happen, and it's easy enough to work around with an OTT device and a programmable remote control.

Fortunately, at the moment the local ISP does not have a data cap in place. We're also in a market where there is competition available from Uverse, as well as Comcast- so we still have some choice.
 
#68 ·
As for content, we found the OTT packages offered about 70% of what was available from the cable provider, and between that and OTA satisfied about 98% of what we actually viewed.

With the on-demand features of most of the OTT package offerings, we really don't miss nor use the cloud based dvr service. Interestingly, in this market, PS Vue provides local station access to the "big four" broadcast affiliates, and there are odd times when the wind is blowing strong and multi-path reception creates issues where I'll opt for streaming rather than OTA.
Yeah. A lot of folks, when contemplating dropping traditional cable/satellite TV to be replaced with streaming on-demand services, worry that they're going to miss certain basic cable/broadcast shows that they watch now. But I think that a lot of people find that some of those shows are available to watch immediately/next-day via Hulu (original on-demand service), and the PBS app, and the CW app. And then others become available to watch some weeks or months later on Netflix or Hulu or Prime Video. And, to me, that isn't a big deal. It's kind of like waiting on a movie to come out on Blu-ray or HBO/Showtime rather than watching it right now at the cinema. And a bonus of waiting until a cable show comes to a streaming service is that usually the entire season becomes available at once, so you can binge watch if you like, rather than waiting a week in between eps. Another bonus is that, with regard to streaming content from Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime, Showtime and HBO, it almost always has better picture quality than is the case if watched/recorded from either cable or OTA channels (although sound quality is sometimes reduced from 5.1 to only stereo on some streaming sources).

And the other thing they realize after cutting the cord is that some of that stuff that they thought they'd miss from cable TV, they don't really miss, because they spend more time checking out content in Netflix, Hulu, Prime Video, and/or the streaming services from HBO, Showtime or Starz (not to mention various free, ad-supported sources like YouTube, Tubi, etc., as well as niche subscription services like BritBox, Smithsonian Earth, etc.). Netflix, for instance, really keeps building their catalog of content. It's hard to keep up with all the new stuff that they make available. And if you already have regular cable/satellite TV, you may be relying on that so much that you don't really bother to discover just how much stuff Netflix (and other sources) offers. It's not just scripted series. Netflix offers lots of true crime docuseries, nature docs, food/home shows, etc. And, in many cases, the quality of the content itself is better from Netflix and Hulu than what you'd find on basic cable channels.

The main thing that's missing, of course, are sports and talking-head opinion "news" shows. If you really like that stuff, you'll miss it when you leave cable, unless you get a "virtual cable" streaming service like YouTube TV, PS Vue, etc. (Although you can replace some of the news stuff with free apps from CBS News, NBC News, ABC News, and PBS, plus Sky News live feed via YouTube, etc.)

There may well come a time where we may forego OTA as well. Our "younger" neighbors have a similar setup, but do not use OTA- only OTT streaming. It's how they've accessed media for some time now, and they're very satisfied with that choice. They don't have a landline telephone service either, for similar reasons.
Yeah, when I initially cut the cord, my thought was that I still wanted the traditional cable DVR experience, just with my local OTA channels, to be supplemented with streaming apps. So I bought a TiVo Roamio OTA, which I kept over 3 years but sold a few months ago. Over time, I've found myself relying less and less on OTA. For a lot of people, myself included, it's just a pain in the butt given the finicky unreliability of the OTA broadcast standard that the US uses (ATSC 1.0). I'm happy just to pay $12 for ad-free Hulu, which largely replaces the need for an OTA DVR, while also offering a lot of additional content. I do still turn to OTA TV for background noise, for occasional live breaking news and the occasional football or baseball game. And I use free open-source DVR software (MythTV) to record news shows (e.g Meet the Press, NBC Nightly News) and certain PBS shows to my computer and then watch through an app on my Apple TV. (PBS is an exception in that the HD video quality from their app is definitely inferior to that of their local OTA channel.)

I'm a Gen X'er but I can definitely see why the typical Millennial and Gen Z'er don't even bother with free OTA TV. Much simpler just to rely on streaming.
 
#3 ·
Nope OTA is really bad in my area :( I really was hoping for the DirecTV NOW APP to show up on my TiVo but no luck and my cable bill just went up for the last time. It was weird at first but I'm getting over the withdraws and the shakes are almost gone.
 
#7 ·
What will you use for internet? Won't you still be paying Cox? Or have you found a better deal on internet than what cable company ISP's offer?

Recently Spectrum increased my total cable+internet bill from $112 to $131 and refused to give me a reduced promotional rate when I threatened to drop cable. If I did drop cable, I would lose a bundling discount and would have to pay $75 plus taxes and fees for just internet (their minimum 100 Mbps service). Thus I only save about $50 to $55 dollars. I've looked at streaming packages that I can get on my Fire TV and the one that comes closest to replacing my cable TV package is a $45/mo. PlayStation Vue package. Considering the tiny savings plus the loss of the TiVo DVR features, it's not that attractive to cut the cord. For most of us there is no escaping the local cable TV/Internet monopolies.
 
#8 ·
This is where lack of net neutrality is going to come into play. Eventually the cable companies are going to switch to IPTV. Then they'll be competing directly with services like PS Vue. But since they own the pipe they can put their IPTV offering in the "Fast Lane" and make it not count against your data cap, while Sony has to pay millions to be in the "Fast Lane" and will still count against your data cap. They're going to use every trick available to them to protect their own video business.
 
#18 · (Edited)
I did a channel by channel comparison with cox and directv now and the channels that me and my wife watch are all in the directv now package that I'm using today. Don't get me wrong I'm not bashing COX cable TV but it is just more then we need. Also I'm not pushing one streaming service over the other. I'm just sharing what I got and what I like. As of right now the only thing I don't like is the Cloud DVR it is still in beta but I'm aware of that and I see the potential it has.
I say if you are thinking about cutting the cable do your research make sure you TRY BEFORE YOU BUY!. no contracts makes that real easy. I say try it feel it out get an idea for how it works.
 
#20 ·
The things that sold me on DirecTV NOW was the free Apple TV 4K and the intro price per month and the great channel line up. I also like that I can watch live sports on my phone or tablet with no data caps or charges and I can watch games anywhere anytime I want put my air pods on and I'm good to go.
 
#24 ·
You have to go into a corporate retail store usually to get the best deals from Cox. I left Dish after 15-16 years and switched to a bundle with Cox a few years ago. My initial 2yr deal ended in March. I had 150M internet and Cox Expanded and Advanced TV with 200 or so channels for $109 and $129 a month the first 2 years. I went in and they did another 2 yr deal dropping internet to 100M and keeping my tv and cable card same for $120 a month. That deal has now changed as I went in 2 weeks ago to redo my dad’s deal after his 2 yrs was up. The best they had now for that same package was $140 a month. It’s pretty much the same as regular price internet and using a streaming service for tv. So might as well keep TiVo and not worry about getting dinged for going over their stupid data cap.

They did price lock us for 2 yrs instead of 1 as we also have a Cox acct with internet and starter tv in Las Vegas for our condo.
 
#25 ·
After being a very long time fan of TiVo I must say good bye. 20 years is a good run :) I was never an expert but I had this place and thank you to all the Forum members that help guide me. I will have a nice new-ish few TiVo's for sale soon. I'm going to do an inventory and photos this weekend and will post what I got.
I really wanted to keep my TiVo boxes but I'm done with the cable company(COX for 20 Years) I canceled TV and home phone. Switching to Apple 4K TV and DirecTV NOW.

Thank you for all help.
yeah, I know how you feel, dealing with Cox. I'm certain they started messing with the packets when we ditched their phone service three months ago. We have Vonage as well, and as soon as we cut the Cox phone line, all our Vonage lines started to suffer from gremlins. Not to mention the ridiculous 'bundle pricing' mysteries they devise.
 
#40 ·
Sadly I might quit using Tivo soon. I started working for Comcast. Employees only have to pay for equipment to get their services so I will be switching. Unfortunately in the portal to sign up there is no option to get a cablecard. I want to use the X1 for a while anyway to better understand the features to help me sell it. I will probably try to get a cable card at a Comcast store. They do not like Tivo. Not surprising since they have lost a lawsuit to Tivo.
 
#70 ·
Yep. Well, Sling announced their $5 increase (to a minimum $25) a couple of days ago and DTV Now did so yesterday (to a minimum $40). PS Vue just announced theirs today (to a minimum $45). I suppose Hulu with Live TV will be next, jumping from $40 to $45. YouTube TV went up from $35 to $40 not long ago, so maybe they won't jump to $45 for awhile longer yet.

The cost of local channels (which obviously offer a good bit of sports via ABC, NBC, CBS and Fox) and cable sports channels (ESPN, RSNs, etc.) just keeps going up, up, up. Those channels are the main drivers of the increases we see every year from pay TV providers, whether it's traditional MVPDs (cable, satellite, telco) or these new OTT virtual cable services (vMVPDs).

Broadcast rights for both pro and Division I college sports are expensive. As the prices keep going up, it will mainly be big sports fans (plus wealthier people who don't care what they spend on TV) who remain on some form of "cable TV".

At some point several years down the road, I imagine we'll see the sports teams/leagues just take matters in their own hands, cut out the middle men, hire their own announcers and camera men, and broadcast all of their games themselves through their own direct-to-consumer subscription apps. For baseball, imagine a few random live MLB games per week being free (with ads) in the app (to encourage sampling and develop/sustain the fan base nationwide). Beyond that, you could pay a certain amount to see all of one team's games the entire season, or pay somewhat more to see all of every team's games for the season. For more casual fans, you could buy individual game tickets (maybe $2 per game) or a pack of individual tickets at a discount (any 10 games for $15). All in live 4K HDR! This just seems like the obvious, ultimate endpoint to where all this is going, although I could be wrong. It's happened before...
 
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