Explain Mini, Please?

1. No
2. No
3. No, No, No, but you could watch any of the 4 things being recorded or any other recording. This would only be an instant behind live.

Since you apparently have coax in each room, you need to connect your Roamio and Mini via Moca. You'll have to buy one Moca adapter to make this work, but no additional wiring is required.

 

Actually, he'll probably need 2 MoCA adapters, 1 at the 4-tuner Roamio and 1 at the router. TiVo sells a 2-pack of MoCA adapters on their website for $90.

 

Hi,
If you need 2 adapters, Meritline has a pair of MoCA 1.1 adapters on sale right now for $50. These work fine but they are not MoCA certified meaning there is no configuration utility to set either encryption or manual channel selection. They will detect and use whatever channel is being used on your Tivos and for the price do a comparable job to the more expensive units.
http://www.meritline.com/mygica-coma-cable-kit---p-68646.aspx

 

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... don't forget the MoCA filter for your home's cable point-of-entry (PoE)! (also available from TiVo.com, and elsewhere; likely free from your cable provider, if pushed)

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More background/info...

• BigJimOutlaw's "Setting up a MoCA network for TiVo" thread, here on TCF (initial post is key reading; delve further if curious)
  
  
• TiVo's newer "What is MoCA?" page
• TiVo's older "What is MoCA?" page
• TiVo's "How to connect your TiVo box to your network and the Internet" page
• TiVo Support 'Moca Troubleshooting' document
  
  
• MoCA Blog FAQ

 

You already said you could connect the mini to your router via wired ethernet. Is there any way you could connect the Roamio via wired ethernet? Sure would be nice to avoid buying moca adapters and POE filters.

<CRASS BRAGGING>When we had our home built 16 years ago I had four one inch plastic pipes installed -- two from basement to first floor, and two from basement to 2nd floor -- additional cost: $75. Some of the best money I've ever spent!</CRASS BRAGGING>

 

Has anyone attempted using Mini with Powerline Ethernet adapters? My gut says it's probably not viable, but I had to ask.

 

It has been done with some success and some not so much. I can speculate it might be related to your wiring. There are 61 threads in this forum with "powerline" in them.

 

MoCA is really a very simple networking standard. It works over the coax cable already in your home at higher frequencies than the cable company signal uses, so they can coexist together without causing any interference with each other. The Mini actually has MoCA built in, so it doesn't need any adapter. Unfortunately, the 4-tuner Roamio doesn't have MoCA built in, which is why the Roamio would need an adapter.

 

Also, imagine what you'd have to do if your router (I'm making an assumption, here) didn't have Wi-Fi built-in. You'd have to install a separate wireless access point and connect it to your router so that your Wi-Fi phones, tablets, laptops, etc could talk to and through your router to the Internet.

Well, same goes for MoCA. If your Internet gateway device (combo modem/router) doesn't have MoCA as a feature (and few do!), you'll need to add a separate device to act as the "access point" for MoCA networking, to bridge your MoCA device traffic over to your router's Ethernet LAN ports. So that's the other MoCA adapter you need to buy, the MoCA adapter that acts as the bridge between your MoCA/coax network devices and your router.

 

1. Yes, one at the Roamio and another at your router (or some switch that ultimately connects to it). The idea is one needs to be connected to both your coax and your router.

2. Techinically yes. But you can watch any of the 4 things the Roamio is recording. So while not live, only a few milliseconds behind live.

3. You don't need any cable boxes anymore. But you could keep one if you think live tv with all 4 tuners in use is going to be an issue. It won't do any harm. I personally wouldn't want to pay for any cable boxes if I had Tivo. The Mini is a viable TV as long as one tuner is free. And it can watch any recording and all streaming services (Netflix, etc.) when all tuners are busy.

 

Yeah you could use a 2-way splitter there and keep the cable box connected to that TV at the same time the Mini is connected to it. If all 4 tuners on the Roamio are busy, you also have the option to cancel a recording to free up a tuner to use for live TV on the Mini.

 

MoCA shares the cable wire, like the way my cable TV shares the wire with my internet.

 

No stupid questions. Perhaps some stupid answers, but not on purpose.