Streaming over cellular LTE

I find it funny how I can't stream over LTE, but today I turned my wife's iPhone 5S into a WiFi hotspot then connected my phone to her phone so I could stream a Dora the Explorer episode for our daughter. Couldn't stream directly on a phone, but could stream through LTE over WiFi. Ridiculous. It obviously has the bandwidth to support a good quality stream. TiVo needs to enable this feature, but I'm sure there is some weird regulation preventing it.

 

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This is starting to feel like this feature is vapor-ware for iOS. It was announced as a 'coming-soon' feature last year when I came back to TiVo (bought my first TiVo in 1999) and bought a couple of Roamio's and 3-Mini's.

Now a year later not a word has been spoken about it and to make matters worse, they've release it on Android and still no update on iOS support that was announce a year ago.

Blaming it on Apple (while I understand they have requirements) is kind of a cop-out since there are countless other apps/products out there for iOS that have been able to meet the requirements for years and work fine over LTE. I know it will not happen here but it would be nice for TiVo to offer some sort of an update given that it has been a year since they announced the feature and it's still not available.

 

If you think waiting a year between a feature announcement and feature realization is a long time, you're not used to TiVo timelines. Remember Android streaming was announced as a "coming soon" feature when you were already streaming. It does work really well, so I hope you get to enjoy it soon.

 

I get the sense the next hiccup is going to somehow be blamed on the carrier itself.

 

I can't believe that TiVo customers consider that acceptable. I had migrated to DTiVo's and then dropped TiVo completely 8+ years ago despite having been an early adopter in 1999.

So as a TiVo customer do I just have to accept that even if they announce a feature, I may never actually see that feature realized? How do they avoid false advertising claims if that is the experience they deliver?

 

You can stream over LTE using the Android app.

 

Ouch, talk about bittersweet.

 

IOS has a work around - start a download and after a few moments you can begin to watch the stream.

 

You don't have to accept it, it's just reality. In a free market, you can always vote with your dollars, but there isn't much competition. It's actually been a really good year for TiVo, so you might feel better if you enjoy what they have achieved and not pine for things they haven't yet.

As for legal claims, search the forums for "class action". As I said things are much better.

So you can start a download over an LTE connection and then start watching that recording while it's downloading? That sounds a lot like streaming.

 

Yes. i did it for two hours yesterday when I was testing it out at work. It seemed to work great. Every time I checked I had seven dots of quality. I was streaming from my Roamio Pro at home to a Droid DNA using LTE on Verizon wireless.

 

It does, doesn't it?

 

Unfortunately in this 'free market' system they locked me into a one year commitment for the service and then didn't deliver features that were promised when that agreement was initiated. Voting with my dollars would result in a financial penalty to the customer.

 

That's an amazing phone. I got it last year and it arrived with four stuck green pixels and Verizon didn't have it in stock to replace it so I ended up getting an iPhone.

 

Really? How? Cites?

 

So my local cable company (Brighthouse Central Florida) just made this problem worse by Copy Protecting everything on the box so I can't download anything no matter where I am. Now without WiFi, I have no option without adding additional hardware like Slingbox that also doesn't work correctly due to HDCP error message on the screen all the time. Even when I pay for the service they won't let me use it.

 

I use the component connection on my Sling to avoid the HDCP issue.

 

I do the same thing with the SlingBox on a Mini but since the TV is not turned on, it generates an HDCP error box on the screen all the time.

If you've found some way to suppress that I'd be very interesting in learning about that.