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Migrating to Amazon Recast from TiVo

14K views 98 replies 25 participants last post by  jlb 
#1 · (Edited)
Introduction

With no overriding logic I decided to give Amazon Recast a tryout and see if I prefer it over TiVo. In my case a Roamio TE4 with blocked guide ads ($199 with Lifetime) and a Amazon Recast ($179 / Fire TV 4K free). This post will be more of a log versus a review with miscellaneous updates. To a large degree the swap process is routed in the bad taste from ads and change for the sake of change... something different. For the time being I'll be running both in parallel with day to day usage almost exclusively the Recast. After a month or so I'll either sell the TiVo or return the Recast.

Installation

I believe you need the Fire TV app (and Amazon account) to install the Recast and I happen to have a Fire tablet collecting dust. More than likely if I didn't have the tablet and Fire TV 4K sitting around I wouldn't have bother with the Recast as realistically I don't expect it to outperform TiVo in any measurably way based on my usage.

I split my OTA antenna signal and was happy to see TiVo was still receiving the channels I record. The Recast couldn't be simpler to hookup. OTA signal, network cable (in my case) and power. My tablet is rather under-powered however installation was very quick with only scanning for OTA channels taking a few minutes. Once installed you can view live TV and recordings via the tablet but not much more as far as I know such as scheduling recordings or re-configuring the Recast.

At this point I woke up the Fire TV 4K and it already had the DVR option on the menu bar. The DVR interface plays out very similar to the others so how you feel about the interface will carry over. You get On Now, My Recordings and DVR Manager columns. The first thing I did was go into DVR Manager/DVR Settings/Channel Management and hide all of the channels I don't view (26) and setup Favorites (7) that I do view. Signal strength I was good to go. Finally I went to DVR Manager/DVR Settings/Live TV Sources/Fire TV Recast/Default Recordings Options where you set Start/End buffers and Recording Preference (new episodes in my case). Under DVR Manager is also Channel Guide, Scheduled Recordings and Recording Priority.

You can play around and find a few other options however that's about it. You're ready to watch TV.

I only have a few hours of usage and I'll update the below as I become more acquainted with its in and outs... my likes and dislikes.

Daily Usage

  • As mentioned above you can hide channels so they don't appear in the guide
  • Forwarding through the guide (especially one day at a time) it will buffer
  • Skip forward (30 seconds) and backwards (10 seconds) is fairly smooth (not particularly fast) and it will buffer multiple presses of the remote (which is very nice)
  • For scheduling I have only clicked on the show in the guide and selected Record Series - no Alexa or whatnot at this point in time - it won't allow you to view guide data prior to "now"
  • Even though the interface is rather primitive and feature lacking streaming on a "cheap" Fire tablet works great. Effortlessly streams and connecting my Bluetooth headphones was painless.

Video/Audio

  • Noticed (or should I say my wife) the occasional lip sync issue - skip backwards might get you in sync
  • Rare buffering in the image - might be my weak WiFi - most often a recording will ramp up the quality as it begins
  • Flipping back and forth between the Recast and TiVo I think...
  • - Recast has a higher contrast ratio (gives the image a little more pop)
  • - 720p channels look more detailed on the Recast - I suspect a little more image processing, the above mentioned contrast and possibly some (mild) edge enhancement
  • - 1080i channels look very similar
  • On rare occasions I would "spot" a possible encoding issue - overall the image never felt as "solid" as TiVo
  • Recast upscales the image to 4K and I use naive on TiVo so the TV is doing the upscaling (LG OLED set) so it's hard to draw any actual conclusions here

General Notes

  • Recast can only stream (play) to two devices concurrently
  • Recast won't clip recordings (cut-off buffer before/after) to record either the same or different channel
  • One advantage is I can use my Bluetooth headphones with OTA since the Fire TV 4K supports such
  • There is no undelete recordings
  • If you reset Fire TV 4K back to factory settings you reset a few of the Recast configurations such as favorite/hidden channels however your scheduled recordings are retained

Initial Reaction

Going in I was worried about image quality and lack of AutoSkip. At this point I think image quality won't play a part in the decision. Skip forward is smoother than I guessed so it helps a little bit against AutoSkip. Also a big chunk of my viewing is done via chase play where AutoSkip doesn't come into play anyway.

Until I spend some serious time with the Recast I don't think it's fair to address the two interfaces. However I can say most of the time the Recast takes a second (or three) to buffer live TV or a recording

Conclusion

After two weeks the Recast has been returned. I'll miss its concept but not its execution. Going in I was always leaning towards the Recast... I wanted something new. However in virtually every category I was giving up more than I was getting in return and finally I ran across the straw that broke the Recast's back. I could have perhaps worked past the issue but there were simply too many others to the point it wasn't as effortless and as smooth as TiVo's experience.

The last straw was reception strength. My PBS station turned iffy. Fine most of the time with a solid "Good" rating however on occasion it would breakup or even lose signal completely. For years it's never been an issue with TiVo.

I was up for re-aiming the antenna which was a microcosm of the differences between the two. The Recast offers a few categories such as Poor and Good where TiVo provides a numeric readout which allows you to actually fine tune the signal. After numerous attempts (using TiVo) I couldn't improve the attic antenna's signal strength and I'm not willing to try an amp - I did try removing the splitter. If that was the only issue I would have sadly there are many more I couldn't overlook or change.

For my usage outside of support for (Bluetooth) headphones and an integrated interface the entire experience wasn't as "slick" and generally lacking just enough features and or performance it wasn't as enjoyable. For lack of a better description it always felt you were attempting to use a streamer as a DVR. If they release new hardware and or software I'd gladly give it another attempt.

All of the above is my experience and may have little or no value for someone else's use case.
 
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#60 ·
I got a 4 tuner Recast the day they went down to $179 so I have a few more days of use than you. I am getting use to using it and have mostly the same experience you do, expect I haven't had any buffering issues and I get much better channel reception and channel count than my Bolt. Like you I feel the interface has a long way to go and I miss auto skip. I use a Fire TV Stick and since it has Alexa you can give commands like "skip 3 minutes" and speed up the skip process. I dumped Spectrum a few months ago & I use OTA, Prime, Philo & Hulu. The DVR guide intergrates the Philo guide with the OTA channels, which I like. Looking forward to following your experiences.
I got a new tiVO Bolt OTA and was looking to shift in the opposite direction - from recast to TiVo, mainly because of poor video quality of the recast. I agree with you - I get much better channel reception than my Bolt. The bolt is very sensitive to over and under loading of channels. A couple of channels get constant pixellation on TiVo while they run flawlessly on recast (same antenna). Also, turns out that TiVo Bolt's picture quality is not that much better than recast (it is, but slightly - a bit more so on 1080i channels obviously). My HDHomeRun blows both away in picture quality (though powered by a high end Nvidia card in my media center).
 
#62 ·
Reprising this thread...

I’ve been using a Bolt for my OTA dvr but have been wanting a unified UI on one box to fit both the OTA and streaming wants. Tivo just doesn’t cut it for that these days.

So I got a Recast 1TB 4-tuner model and set it up with my FireTV Cube 2nd Gen. Works great! It isn’t a slick as the Tivo but it gets the job done well enough for my needs, especially these days when there is so little of live TV that is of interest to me.

The tuners are stronger than the Bolts by a huge margin. Not only did it get more channels than the Bolt could find, it plays them all with few video/audio glitches which was not the case with the Bolt. The PQ is better than the Bolt, especially on the plethora of SD channels that are the sub-channels around here. All in all, a better solution for me.
 
#63 ·
Reprising this thread...

I've been using a Bolt for my OTA dvr but have been wanting a unified UI on one box to fit both the OTA and streaming wants. Tivo just doesn't cut it for that these days.

So I got a Recast 1TB 4-tuner model and set it up with my FireTV Cube 2nd Gen. Works great! It isn't a slick as the Tivo but it gets the job done well enough for my needs, especially these days when there is so little of live TV that is of interest to me.

.
I'm still debating this. There are pro's and con's to both devices. I have been using a Roamio OTA for the past 4 years and it has worked great, and the auto commercial skip is a very nice feature. On the other hand the Recast gives me more flexibility on where I can watch (such as tablets and mobile devices that don't work with my Roamio). I was reading a Recast forum and saw some complaints about missed recordings which would be a big issue. I don't recall that my Roamio has ever missed a scheduled recording. What I may end up doing this fall season is setting up my series on both devices and seeing which works out better.
 
#64 ·
So far the new or returning stuff I’ve seen for the fall season is a big yawner, little of interest to me. Which means recording things will continue as it has for the last few months, and that is very few recordings at all.

But I did set up some recordings to test things out and it did what it was supposed to do. No missed recordings yet.
 
#67 ·
I noticed some issues with the Recast program guide. There is no indicator to tell you if the show is new or a repeat, and the Air Date always lists the current date, rather than the original air date of the show. Has it always been like this or is this a new problem?
 
#72 ·
^^^ That's fine. Happy for you. Love my Recast as well. Just didn't want people to think it was some kind of magic box.
Yeah it isn't a magic box, but it can be good choice. Tivo still does better overall for many things and their implementation of DVR functionality is hard to beat.

Recast is much simpler but it does well enough for me. And one big plus is that I can use the FireTV as the one box that works for all functions. In my setup switching devices gets twitchy as hell and very irritating.
 
#73 ·
I can only go by what I see. Tuner strength for me is stronger as I'm getting a couple channels the Bolt wouldn't. And the main CBS and NBC channels on the Bolt are often as not and either/or/neither situation. But on the Recast all channels are solid all the time, even the ones that indicate a weaker signal.
I have had a similar experience. There are 2 channels that will occasionally pixelate on my Roamio, usually during bad weather. But if I switch over to my Recast at the same time both of those channels come in fine (connected to the same antenna via splitter). Both of these are VHF channels, so to some extent I wonder if the Roamio has more trouble on VHF.
 
#75 ·
Glad to hear it's been stable for you. I recently set up a few new series in the past couple weeks and it seems to be working well. I bought the 4-tuner Recast for $179 during a Black Friday sale last year which is a steal. I'm not concerned about ATSC 3.0 at this point. In my market there have not been any stations even testing yet, and even once they do switch to 3.0 they still have to broadcast on the old standard for 5 years. So in reality you're looking at 5-10 years before the hardware becomes obsolete...an eternity when it comes to electronics.
When they switch over to ATSC 3.0 the ATSC 1.0 channels will all be broadcast in 480i.
 
#76 ·
I won't mind that at all. As things stand, I rarely watch Network Television. Mostly SD classics. There should be a lot of OTT options available. I expect Tablo, Amazon, (obviously) Silicondust, and even TiVo to integrate ATSC 3.0 tuners into their infrastructure by then. My TiVos will be getting close to ten years old anyway.
 
#83 ·
I don't own a recast, but Amazon announced a couple of weeks ago that a new totally redesigned Fire TV home screen experience, which includes support for user profiles, is coming later this year or early next.
 
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#86 ·
I don't own a recast, but Amazon announced a couple of weeks ago that a new totally redesigned Fire TV home screen experience, which includes support for user profiles, is coming later this year or early next.
I read the same but didn't see anything about the Recast (features) being updated. Plus Googling around I haven't found anything for at least a year.
 
#87 ·
No, but if Amazon is completely redesigning their Fire TV Home Screen, then how one navigates and accesses the Recast recordings will be affected. Whether or not it is an improvement is yet to be seen.
 
#88 ·
I’m an avowed geek so I decided to add yet another box to my mix. This thread is about the Recast vs Tivo.

I’ve added an AirTV Anywhere 4-tuner OTA DVR to the mix. The biggest advantage of the AirTV devices is that they will work with almost every box out there because they use SlingTV apps and you don’t have to sub to Sling to use it.

Tuner strength seems to be as good as the Recast and it comes with a 1TB drive just as the 4-tuner Recast does. Video quality seems to be on par with Recast, as is audio quality.

No fee for guide data but the guide is only for 7-days vice the 10+ on the Recast.

Cost is $199 from airtv.com, but one of Sling’s offerings is get the AirTV Anywhere, indoor antenna and 3-month prepaid Sling Blue or Gold for $189 total.
 
#89 ·
Amazon Recast looks like it has a lot of potential... But for me, I am going to hang on tight to my lifetime TiVo Roamio OTA as long as possible and hope that Amazon uses that runway to come up with something truly world class...

And then when I need to replace my TiVo Roamio, I'll swoop on in!
 
#96 ·
I guess it also depends on how we define "die". With my Bolt, if it's just a bad HDD I Can always put a relatively cheap HDD in easily enough. "Die" for me is when Comcast no longer supports cable cards. That is when I will have to make a decision.
 
#93 ·
I stopped using my Roamio OTA this past month and migrated everything to Recast. I just picked up a Fire TV Cube for 79.99 during Prime Day and it works amazingly well with the Recast. I love having everything in one ecosystem and being able to watch recordings on my phone/tablet/Chromebook that I could not do with the Roamio.
 
#94 ·
I'm trying to figure out a recording issue with the Recast. I have Dateline NBC set to record all episodes. There is an episode airing tonight and another airing tomorrow night which are both listed in the guide, but neither of these episodes is being selected to record. Is anyone else noticing this?
 
#98 ·
I guess it also depends on how we define "die". With my Bolt, if it's just a bad HDD I Can always put a relatively cheap HDD in easily enough. "Die" for me is when Comcast no longer supports cable cards. That is when I will have to make a decision.
I just don't know for sure... But with Spectrum offering a cloud DVR for $5.00 a month when using their streaming package ($15.00-$49.00) Not sure if I would want to keep my Tivo when renewal time comes around. Spectrum's DVR would work on any of my smart TV's and no more hardware to buy or support. With my Recast as backup, I think my TiVo hardware can go to Ebay or Goodwill in 2021. I completely agree that a cloud DVR would not be as nice as a TiVo. But I'm sure I can get my $5.00 worth out of it. AND, I get a guide with NO COMMERCIALS! Spectrum's DVR allows a 30 second FF. So I can skip commercials.

TiVo... with very little DVR hardware to sell anymore, its going away as we know it today. The poor customer service support is enough to run off many customers. If I had a lifetime device, I would ride it to the end, but with yearly account, no reason to continue to fight it. It's just time to call it quits and move on. Any hardware issue, would push me out today.

TiVo's money is lawsuits and selling access to their software products. Not DVR's.

Bottom line... IT'S JUST TV.
 
#99 ·
I totally agree. My TiVo bolt is lifetime and I will ride that as long as I can. At least there are options for when that time comes.
 
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