Streaming TiVo w/ a Partially Broken TiVo and maybe saying Good Bye to a 20 year Relationship

Did you ever try using component cables out from the Tivo? Or try moving to a different HDMI input on the TV? I had a lightning hit years ago that disabled the Panasonic plasma's HDMI port that the Tivo was connected to (it also killed my Tivo).

I disagree that buying another Tivo is a bad idea, a used lifetime Roamio Plus is less than $300 now on ebay. Not a big investment for a superior system with Minis, as you know. But if you're paying too much for Comcast then yeah, streaming might be the way to go.

 

HOA would be my first choice because there is a big cost savings there I assume. I definitely would try that.

The other options are, if you still want cable, is a used Roamio, new TiVo or get one of these cable OTT services like YTTV. I would definitely recommend trying the latter first as they all pretty much offer free trials and work on pretty much any streaming equipment including Fire sticks.

 

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You don't need component. Composite will do. I would simply buy a new Mini and see if you can set it up without seeing the Roamio screens. If not, I'd call TiVo support and see if they can help. Then I would go composite -- unless you have a component use case. In that case, by all means, just grab the component cables.

 

Entirely different video quality, which matters if the viewer is trying to restore HDMI-adjacent quality.

 

+1 for a lightning hit killed my Tivo. In my case it fried all the networking stuff as well as the HDMI - so it wasn't able to "phone home" any longer and the lifetime subscription died as a result. I see you are in Florida - so lighting might be the case!

"Component" cable isn't anything other than RCA plugs - stereo connectors some may call them. I have so many of those I would give them away to a neighbor - but we got of of Florida (thankfully)!

A secondary idea - use Airplay (AppleTV) - or "screencast" (other boxes) to use your mobile devices to play/record/control from your mobile devices and bounce the picture onto the TV of your choosing.

 

When our Roamio Pro goes, we're done with TiVo. I've been running Channels DVR in parallel with the Roamio, in preparation for the latter's eventual demise. We tried a Bolt and it was horrible... I'll spare you the rest of my long list of how TiVo is driving so many of us away. On the positive side, for streaming we've moved on to the very WAF-friendly world of Fire TV.

The Xifinity self-serve website is usually painless. About a year ago I moved the card that was in our buggy Bolt to an HD HomeRun Prime using that site and the process was smooth as silk. (I use the Prime with Channesl DVR.) The FCC no longer requires cable companies to provide those cards, but as long as you have one I believe you're good for at least another five years.

The app and website you mentioned is in your case Xfinity Stream. There is a way to use Channels DVR to record many of the "TV Everywhere" (TVE) streams that feed that app, using Hotwire or Comcast credentials. But that's a beta feature and some channels are not available outside of the Xfinity app, so the most reliable alternative is still cable.

For CableCARD reception, Channels DVR works only with the HD HomeRun Prime tuner or with one of their over-the-air (OTA) tuners. You would install Channels DVR on an NAS or a spare PC/Mac, and install the Channels client app on your Fire TV Stick. Here's more info on my setup: https://www.tivocommunity.com/community/i...

 

To improve WAF bit the bullet and get a XG1v4 from Comcast. Keep the Roamio, and minis for other rooms. See if Comcast will give you a deal or drop a streaming service to offset the additional costs.
The XG1v4 is a great box and puts most of the streaming services in one box.

 

Domestic tranquility was achieved here by having everything in the Fire TV interface. In addition to the Fire TV Stick 4K I mentioned, which went on our big screen Sony, I replaced our other two TVs with Insignia Fire TV Edition sets. And lo-and-behold the wife started regularly using all the streaming apps she was avoiding on the buggy TiVo.

Channels DVR is just an app in the Fire interface. TiVo Minis are still attached to each set, and the wife prefers those for live/buffered TV, but the Insignias allow her to switch from within the Fire UI and return by pressing the Home button on the Fire remote. As for the TV with the Fire TV Stick 4K, she's perfectly able to pick up our beloved ol' TiVo remote and use its Input button when necessary.

Until it's gone anyway. As you may have seen in my other post that I linked to, I replaced the Roamio's hard disk a year ago. But I think one of the Minis is starting to go, the wife is mostly using Channels DVR and streaming, and at some point we'll be done with TiVo.

 

The Xfiniity stream app is now available on the Fire TV.

 

Unfortunately it's not on Apple TV - and for iOS they block using AirPlay - so no screen mirroring.
Tried the FireTV 4K and couldn't stand it... no better than Roku which we have just for Xfinity - but never use it due to all other streaming content being supported on Apple TV - so for us it's 50/50 AppleTV/Tivo.... or in the year 2020 it was more like 80% AppleTV and 20% Tivo due to no TV production.

For the long term post-Tivo future I am looking at online Streaming+DVR services like YouTubeTV. There is an expiration date on recordings however so that's one niggle. You cover all the major networks and most of what is on cable as well - $65/month and we get to dump cable though seems like a good deal. Some competitors to this are less expensive - less features...

WAF-Friendly? I run it all including the media server - hubby doesn't have a clue how it works. ha ha

 

Is it the Advertisements? That's the one thing I hate the most about the Fire Stick (and Fire TV), the ads, which are mostly pushing Amazon's movies and shows. I hate that you have to click down two rows before you can even select an app.

The Absolute CLEANEST interface I've tried so far is the TiVo Stream 4K. You can eliminate everything on the screen except the apps you want.

You can ALMOST do that with the Roku, but it always displays one ad.


I figure the Nvidia Shield can be setup like TiVo Stream 4K, but I don't have one to compare.

 

Yeah we really ought to replace "WAF" with something gender-neutral. Like "LAM factor" (Liberal Arts Major). Or "MDF", for all the medical doctors who have no clue how to do anything at home.

 

I used to have cable, but gave up the tv part. I still pay for internet. OTA is a lot cheaper. The $$$s part re cable vs the free channels by antenna is a big deal to me. Saving is important at this stage of my life. The streaming services can be started and stopped whenever I want too. The new Tivo costs, but renting the cable boxes back then added up over the year too.

 

Yeah, this is my initial complaint with Google's Chromecast w/ Google TV, just too much advertising and suggested content being thrown in my face, including from services for which I lack a subscription or are PPV. Even in "Apps Only" mode, the first massive row is a scrollable content advertisement, as compared to Roku's approach which has the forced advertisement over to the side, where it can be ignored.

So that's one advantage of the TS4k over CCwGTV, imo, at least for "Apps Only" users.

 

Ads are one thing - but the one at a time clickety click click click (or zoom single click and hold) on and on to get to things makes me crazy after having used Apple TV 4K for a long time now.

With the ATV remote one simply glides around like a finger on a trackpad. No clicking - just glide until you find your item then one click. It's hard to explain and seems a little foreign at first but once you master it - it's incredibly elegant and fast. A quick double click and you're in a carousel app switcher where you can just side swipe between any of your open apps and choose in 1 second. Of all the boxes I've tried the ATV is way out in front on the UI - I think Roku would probably be dead last.

ATV kind of has 3 different "home" screen choices. The ATV+ App itself does have one giant carousel banner at the top of the home screen, and presents paid shows at the bottom, but we almost never see that screen. Mostly it just leaves you right where you left off - or which choices of everything you're visited recently. Or with choices of all the available apps - no ads.

It has unique "spaces" to navigate from - very similar to OSX's Spaces which allow multiple unique desktops for user defined workspaces. (in OSX I use one for photo editing - one for web design - one for publishing/word, one iTunes, one calendar etc) So with the Apple TV - for us, Netflix and Amazon are always open/running to switch between - sometimes the media server, and sometimes other apps as well.

Hard to explain but hope this helps a bit.

 

Hotwire is such a hot mess, I wouldn’t wish them on anyone. The geniuses at my mom’s old retirement community signed an 18-year contract with them when a simple search of the interwebs would show how bad they are. When it worked, and it frequently didn’t, everything was SD and service was nonexistent. After less than five years, the powers that be finally got the message and exercised an exit clause to move to Fios. It costed a little more but it was well worth it.

 

But with Youtubetv you still need to pay for broadband internet from the cable company. Not sure you would save money over cable but you would have the unified apple tv interface that you like. Might be worth it.