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TiVo Alternatives?

98K views 1K replies 105 participants last post by  Pokemon_Dad 
#1 ·
I've been a TiVo user since the Series 1 some 18 (!) years ago. The whole point was to time-shift and skip commercials. We've had our ups and downs, but our Bolt (lifetime sub) + 3 Minis are working fine. The minis are too slow and buggy to be used for Youtube/Hulu/Netflix so we also have Roku sticks on 2 of the TVs.

If TiVo is going to start pre-roll ads the whole kit is going on E-bay and I'll need an alternative. 3-4 OTA (ATSC) tuners, 1TB DVR, view-able from an iPad and several Rokus.

Is HDHomeRun my best bet here? Most of our TV is watched pre-recorded, though I do like to start watching football games halfway in to skip all the commercials and the between-play waiting.

Auto-skip would be great, but not a deal breaker - a (responsive) 30 second skip, and 7-second back has worked fine for the last 18 years. I don't care about suggestions - just something with a reliable tuner that will record our shows and play them back ad-free.

Anything else I should consider?
 
#133 ·
Tivo is the only alternative. TiVo is the company you hate to love!
I can tell you I have no love for TiVo anymore. We're long past the honeymoon period, and long past me talking about their virtues incessantly to family and friends. At this point we're coasting in the relationship due to momentum more than anything. I could write pages about our ups and downs, highlights and disappointments, but I don't think anyone really cares. I do, however, have a strong aversion to ads, especially the super-generic kind that piggy back with television content. If TiVo is going to actively display those rather than passively (or actively) allow me to skip them, then we're done - the ability to schedule and dump (already-digital) OTA recordings to a spinning platter and play them back on any device with a screen is now commodity functionality and even arguably unnecessary given the streaming services now available.

At this point, the ball is in TiVo's court. If it is an on-device or online setting to not show pre-roll ads, I'll probably stick with it. If it is a phone call...maybe. If I have to spend a day pulling shows off, and repaving 4 TiVos with TE3, setting up wishlists and recordings again, and give up autoskip...then forget it. That time is better spent figuring out Tablo or Recast or Plex+HDHomeRun or [insert solution here] or seriously considering just decommissioning the antenna.

Over the years I've come to accept that TiVo will not be the media hub I wished it were - a $30 Roku blows a $150 TiVo mini out of the water for speed, reliability, and app availability. All I ask is that my TiVos do what my S1 could do - record shows reliably and play them back ad-free.
 
#156 ·
I just thought I would toss in my experiences as I replace my Tivo. I bought a refurbished Tablo last week and set it up on Friday. Setup was painless, and in general it works fine. I didn't find video quality to be an issue, even while watching the NFL. That might be because of my older 1080p Panasonic plasma, but I didn't notice a huge difference between my Tivo and the Tablo at the highest quality setting. The frame rate is lower, but it didn't bother me. Where I started running into issues is the app. I tried both the regular Tablo app, and the Tablo Preview app on my Fire TV Stick 4K. The preview app offers auto commercial skipping, but the app is not feature complete. I was unable to watch a recording in progress. If I started something while it was recording, it immediately jumped to live with no option to start from the beginning of the recording. It also didn't remember where I left off if I exited the recording. This was a dealbreaker for using that app. The regular Tablo app didn't have this problem, but then I lost commercial skipping. I also found the app to feel somewhat beta with occasional glitches, and not exactly modern. The overall user experience was mediocre for a variety of reasons.

So after using the Tablo for a day I could tell I didn't like it, and I ordered a Recast on Saturday afternoon. The Recast arrived Sunday morning, and I had it set up in time to watch the afternoon NFL games. I did notice the higher frame rate when compared to the Tablo, as well as the slightly softer image when compared to the Tivo. Overall though the image quality is very good. I love the integration on my Fire TV, and I'm much happier with the Recast. Skipping and fast forwarding on the Recast is basically just as good as the Tivo, and the streaming app experience with Fire TV is much better than Tivo. So for me the Tablo will be sold along with my Tivo, and our house is now all in on Fire TV.
 
#157 ·
I just thought I would toss in my experiences as I replace my Tivo. ... I also found the app to feel somewhat beta with occasional glitches, and not exactly modern. The overall user experience was mediocre for a variety of reasons.

So after using the Tablo for a day I could tell I didn't like it, and I ordered a Recast ... I love the integration on my Fire TV, and I'm much happier with the Recast. Skipping and fast forwarding on the Recast is basically just as good as the Tivo, and the streaming app experience with Fire TV is much better than Tivo. So for me the Tablo will be sold along with my Tivo, and our house is now all in on Fire TV.
I have a TiVo Bolt (and cable -- not enough votes to cut the cord) and have had a Tablo Dual 64 for over a year and a dual tuner Recast for about a month. You are correct about the Tablo Preview software. According to Tablo it is a late-stage beta so the problems you noted may yet be fixed. If I had to choose (I don't), I would keep the Tablo over the Recast because my viewing habits are different.

The Recast is tightly integrated with Fire TV devices while the Tablo is not but thanks to user-written software it is easy to back-up/archive recordings to a networked drive from the Tablo. I have about a hundred shows so archived. So far, there is no way to do the same with the Recast. Also, it is possible to use the Tablo in a browser window on a PC but you need to use your TV and Fire TV device to watch recordings or do any scheduling or administration. Similarly, phone and tablet apps can give you almost full control over the Tablo while the Recast app does not. The latter is, for me, quite unreliable (connection and buffering issues). Skipping about in recordings is excellent with the Tablo apps on my iPad because the Tablo trans-codes everything to HLS Mpeg4 (whatever HLS is) which is optimized for streaming while the Recast app is clunky. On Fire TV devices the Recast 30 and 10 second skips are quite good.

Neither device has particularly useful signal strength/quality meters and setting up antenna reception would be easier if they had good signal monitoring. My Tablo tuners have been rock-solid with antennas ranging from a telescoping mono-pole taped in a window to the old house VHF/UHF in the attic. The Recast has been OK except it has problems with VHF 8 (PBS) that none of my other devices (TVs, Tablo, Windows Media Center) do. Assuming this is peculiar to my situation, it did introduce me to one continuing aggravation with the Recast. If you have any signal problem, the Recast will display a Low/No Signal warning that is more intrusive than the glitch which may last only a split second or even be completely invisible to the eye. When the signal problem is truly noticeable the warning is unnecessary. There is no way to turn this off and people have been complaining about it since the Recast first came out.

I did encounter a problem with my Tablo when, one day, CBS went crazy. I opened a ticket with Tablo, described the problem and included a 15 second sample of the problem. I then found out they had gotten many other complaints that day. Turns out our local CBS affiliate had made some changes to their signal that confused Tablo transcoding, so Tablo contacted them and worked things out very promptly. I was impressed with their customer support this one time I needed it.
 
#161 ·
I've been OTA since 2009. TiVo has been and still is my primary OTA device. I also have a FireTV Recast and have experience with Tablo and Air TV (Dish/Sling) device. Air TV is the least expensive at $79 plus the cost to add your own hard drive for DVR functionality and there are no monthly fees. But it works best if your using Sling in combo with OTA. Tablo is also a decent device. I have a friend that I set up with a Tablo Quad and they have been happy with it. I have had to get Tablo tech support a couple of times with some issues but they have always gotten it working for me. Tablo is a bit more expensive with lifetime service. Personally though I see Recast as my second choice device and sometimes I recommend it above TiVo for people who are cutting the cord.

What I like about Recast: Super easy to set up, has a built-in hard drive (500Gb or 1Tb) and 2 or 4 tuners. I also like the 4K Firesticks as they are snappy, have TV volume/power buttons and have a nice looking interface. FireTV works best if you're a prime subscriber which we are. I love that the Recast incorporates the OTA channels right into the Home Screen and that I only need one remote for everything. The tuner's seem to work well and while not as feature rich as TiVo it's easy to use and once set up works on all the Fire TV devices in the home wirelessly. So it is a much easier and cost effective system to work with vs most other systems. There are no monthly fees and the guide data goes out 14 days. If you connect with an Alexa device you can tune channels, pause, rewind, and play video content by voice. You can also set up recordings by voice as well. While watching a recording (or Netflix etc) you can repeat something you can just ask Alexa to rewind 20 seconds (or any number) and it will do that. The recast can be placed anywhere in the house where you have an outlet to plug it in and access to your antenna coax. That makes locating your antenna in the best location easier. Also the Recast works fine either with ethernet or wirelessly. You are limited to two streams (for OTA channels) and the resolution is only 720p (to make wireless streaming more reliable). But I find the picture quality nearly indistinguishable from my TiVo.

Reportedly Amazon plans to add more features to the Recast as time goes on, such as commercial skip. If you watch for a sale price (pretty frequent) you can buy a Recast for $50 to $100 off. The regular prices are $229 (2 tuner/500Gb) and $279 (4Tb/1Tb) It's definitely a great alternative (and even has some advantages) to TiVo. Especially if you don't mind the FireTV interface.
 
#164 ·
You are limited to two streams (for OTA channels) and the resolution is only 720p (to make wireless streaming more reliable). But I find the picture quality nearly indistinguishable from my TiVo.
My experience is the same. I've seen people harp on the resolution in other places, but I'm not sure they realize that Fox and ABC are broadcast in 720p. I would also bet most people can't tell the difference between 720p and 1080i when it's displayed on a good TV at a normal viewing distance.
 
#177 ·
For folks who are a bit tech-inclined and not afraid of a little DIY project and have a Linux or Mac computer available, you might want to check out the free open-source MythTV DVR software. You can use it with HDHomeRun tuners, which I do. I installed the MacPorts package of MythTV on my iMac and it generally works well. (Every now and then the system seems to go offline and I have to manually stop and restart it on my Mac.)

If you want to set up recordings manually (based on channel number and time), that's free. If you want a normal DVR experience with Gracenote guide data, you'll need to subscribe to Schedules Direct at a cost of $25/yr. (They have an initial 7-day risk-free trial to give you a chance to get the data working properly with MythTV, which, BTW, has built-in automatic download support for Schedules Direct.)

Unless you want to manage and watch your recordings on a computer, then you'll need compatible apps for your desired viewing device. I use a simple $10 (one-time charge) app for my Apple TV that's named ... MythTV. It does the basics of letting me watch and delete recordings from the MythTV server on my Mac. Left and right clicks on the Apple TV remote reliably skip backward and forward in increments of 10 and 30 seconds, respectively, or I can quick-scrub through the video timeline. Unfortunately, the thumbnail preview window in this app doesn't reliably reveal the contents of a given point in the video timeline, so when you're scrubbing right or left to FF or rewind (e.g. through a commercial break), you're really doing it blind. I just tend to scrub ahead ~3 minutes, then start playing and, if necessary, left or right click from there to reach the point where the show resumes. (For live TV, I use the Channels app on my Apple TV. It had a one-time cost of $25 and uses the same HDHomeRun Connect OTA tuner that MythTV uses.)

There's also a free app called Mythling that exists for Fire TV and Android mobile devices. This app not only lets you view and delete recordings but also set up new ones. I have it installed on my Android phone, so when I set up new recordings, I either do it on my phone or on my iMac where the MythTV system actually runs.

Beyond that, if you install the latest version 30.0 of MythTV on a Linux PC, it looks like the software's native "mythfrontend" UI can now be installed on some Android TV and Fire TV devices. (There is an older port of MythTV that's supposed to run on some Windows PCs but it looks like kind of a mess, so beware.)

For folks who want a super-easy-to-configure first-class DVR experience that rivals TiVo, MythTV probably isn't a solution I would suggest. But if, like me, you're someone who only watches some, but not a ton, of free OTA TV, and you want a decent low-cost OTA DVR solution for your Apple TV/Fire TV/Android mobile/Mac/Linux devices, it fits the bill.
 
#184 ·
For folks who are a bit tech-inclined and not afraid of a little DIY project and have a Linux or Mac computer available, you might want to check out the free open-source MythTV DVR software. You can use it with HDHomeRun tuners, which I do.
Myth has been around a long time, I used it 10-15 years ago for clear QAM back when it was available. But it does not handle protected content which takes it out of the picture for a lot of cable.

Powerful and highly customizable but way overkill for most folks wanting to record OTA, IMO. A geek's dream.
 
#771 ·
I have found that most HDR content isn't impressive at all. Mindhunter and The Revenant are two exceptions, but generally, I don't find it to add too much to the experience, and I often can't tell the difference anyway. 4k is a much bigger deal, the crispness and clearness that I see from a 4k image is a significant upgrade over 1080p for the right kinds of content.
Unless you have a very large display (not less than 75") and/or sit very close to it, 4K does not represent anywhere near as significant a visual improvement over 2K as does HDR over SDR. Any well crafted content in 2K/HDR will knock the socks off the same image in 4K/SDR. However, the results you get will depend not least of all on the quality of the video processor in your display. On a lower-end TV you can not expect to appreciate high-end visuals.
 
#780 ·
I disagree. I'm about 9-10' from my 65" TV, which is really too far for that sized screen, and I can tell a significant difference in clarity and sharpness going to 4k. I can see a little bit of difference with HDR, but it just doesn't have the same "wow" factor.

Advertising is not going to use HDR until broadcast and cable are commonly viewed with HDR. Until then, it would be a waste of effort and bandwidth with no return on investment because it wouldn't be seen by the target audience.
Unless there are more ad-supported streaming services supporting 4K HDR.
 
#638 ·
For those considering the Recast, I thought I should share my recent experience:

I got a message on one of my firesticks that my Recast had filled up its hard drive and would start deleting the oldest unprotected programs last night. However, when I went to check the storage usage, none of my firesticks could communicate with the Recast. It was recording the nightly news programs for my wife at the time, so I had to wait until it was done to reboot it. After reboot, it was again communicating and indeed showed the disk as almost full. It did not appear to have deleted anything I cared about.

I had a nice 1TB USB 3.0 drive I could use for storage, so I plugged that in and told the Recast to format it when prompted. After that was done, I checked the space and it showed a total of 1.9TB with ~900GB available, so all seemed well. Then, later, when my wife wanted to watch the news, she noticed that the NBC Nightly News recordings were all gone, including the most recent. After checking, there were several other shows that were completely gone, and now the storage usage was only ~600GB, with 1.3TB available. It seems that the Recast arbitrarily decided to delete ~300GB of shows. The more I use this thing, the buggier it seems. It is a good thing I have YouTubeTV, and it looks like I'll be keeping it for the foreseeable future.
 
#640 ·
TiVo is not that bad, but during Rio, my Premiere XL4 went off the deep end and started prematurely deleting stuff after it was over 80% capacity during high-volume recording days (30+ hours of recording, some up to 17mbps).
 
#667 ·
TE4 when it became available I set off TE3 to the land of lost tech. Piracy is a choice, if people didn't use pirated material, there would be no pirates. And the average person doesn't pirate, they are busy with their lives, raising familes, holding down multiple jobs, running a side hustle. To them tech is an appliance and they look as us as if we're crazy. DRM is here to stay, most people just don't care. The world has real problems...
If you want to talk about "real problems", then nothing on this forum matters, so just log off. Back to the regularly scheduled programming.

The fact of the matter is that most piracy is due to media not being easily available, or available in certain countries or locations at all. Although the media companies still have various staged releases, or have things that aren't available, the data shows that when things are easily available, like on Netflix, piracy goes down. When they are not, piracy goes up. While there will always be a small number of people who either pirate everything or pirate just for fun, and who wouldn't pay for anything anyways, the vast majority of pirating is created by the media companies themselves being restrictive in how they make content available.

In the early years of piracy, it seems a lot of them had their heads so far up their derrieres that they didn't understand how this works, but at this point they have no excuse, and we have to assume that any decision, like siloing content into their own streaming services, is a business decision, and they know that they are actively driving piracy, but have decided that any losses that may or may not occur due to that piracy are acceptable in furtherance of their business goals of driving customers to their streaming services or buying media or whatever the case may be.

If all media companies cared about was reducing piracy, they'd put their entire catalog on Netflix and Amazon Prime and let it grind out views, and piracy would collapse. They don't, so either they are morons who have their heads up their derrieres, or they are smart people who have crunched the numbers have figured out that the increases in piracy that they are going to directly cause by pulling content (like The Office and Disney movies) from Netflix, Amazon Prime, and other current services are worth it in order to further their goals of building their own siloed streaming services.
 
#685 ·
If I only had what was on cable TV to watch, especially after the quality of production, writing, acting that I get from a lot of original streamed content, I'd be very disappointed, but that is a personal consideration. Other than local news, a couple of network shows, and F1, nothing we watch is on traditional, linear TV. I also pay significantly less than I would to get anything remotely similar on cable or satellite, even with paying for YTTV. I can start and stop streaming services on a whim, unlike having to call and talk to an unhelpful person to try to change programming. I don't have to pay equipment fees, which, in many cases, equal what a streaming device costs, each month.

I will say ISP charges vary a lot, and, for many people the cost of uncapped internet might make the streaming model a lot less attractive. I am lucky to have inexpensive fiber with a much larger cap than I need to stream as well as real competition in my market. If cable/satellite works for you, great, but I don't really think it plays a huge part in the future of TV. It will be there for those who want it, in some form, but I expect it to shrink in footprint and in quantity of channels.
 
#918 ·
After better than 20 years, today was the day most of our Tivo whole home system was taken down and put up for sale.

Running a Channels DVR server, a Plex server and an Nvidia Shield on each TV. Channels has been my main source of recorded programming for about 3 months now and a couple weeks ago got the wife using it. I only have 1 tv left that is on an old Roamio and it will be decommissioned as soon as I can buy one more Shield and some network hardware to support it.

Its been a great run. Things change.
 
#144 ·
I thought I'd add a bit more of my experience so far with Channels DVR (on Fios with TVEverywhere and HDHR Connect Quatro tuning clear QAM for locals)...

1) last night's Eagles/Packers game, I did a quick comparison between the ESPN stream and the local broadcast (Fox 29 in Philly)... the ESPN stream was nearly unwatchable. Lots of jitter and the 30fps stream for live sports was not acceptable. It was much nicer when I switched to the local broadcast.

2) For the locals being tuned via Fios Clear QAM, there is definitely too much signal coming from the FiOS ONT. All tuners are always pegged at 100% on all three metrics. This is causing much more glitching and pixelating on the HDHR than my Tivo Roamio Pro is experiencing recording the exact same shows. It reminded me of a decade ago when I was seeing the same thing with my original Tivo HD on Fios. I have a set of coax signal attenuators on the way from Amazon and I will go through the same thing I did back then to find the right about of attenuation to not overdrive the tuners in the HDHR. Tivo eventually fixed their tuner issue with a software fix to turn down the sensitivity if the signal was overdriven, but I don't see any way to reduce the sensitivity of the HDHR's tuners through google searches. Tonight I'll fiddle with attenuators and hopefully will result in solid signal from the HDHR.

3) The out-of-home streaming experience is miles ahead of anything that I ever achieved with Tivo. Remote viewing of recorded content works great, remote scheduling is smooth and seamless and remote viewing of live content is nearly as quick to change channels as being local on the home LAN.

Overall for me, I feel like I've found the "next gen" of DVR finally - with about a $15-20/month savings when I commit to it, depending on whether I also pick up a HDHR prime and keep cable card as well or not.
 
#146 ·
1) last night's Eagles/Packers game, I did a quick comparison between the ESPN stream and the local broadcast (Fox 29 in Philly)... the ESPN stream was nearly unwatchable. Lots of jitter and the 30fps stream for live sports was not acceptable. It was much nicer when I switched to the local broadcast.
I think you meant the NFL Network stream, not ESPN, correct?
 
#510 ·
I'm no pro when I comes to all this but I'm I'm running both a Tivo Premiere and a HDHR Quatrto with Channels on an old pc.

Channels is growing on me. There's a few things I'd miss, like the guide showing live tv in the corner while I surf around but the video quality on both my Apple TV 4k and my 2nd gen Fire TV (the flat one with ethernet) is very good.
 
#564 ·
This has been changing. The following FAQ from their website doesn't mention TVE, but in my setup the guide data for my Connect and TVE channels seem to be from the SiliconDust EPG. Much the DVR interface also seems to rely on the SiliconDust approach to indexing. (Neither includes the patented "SliceView", and I'm fine with that.)
----
The app uses two different providers for EPG data. The provider chosen depends on your HDHomeRun model and your location.
  • SiliconDust (same as HDHomeRun VIEW app)
    • USA, UK and Australia
    • HDHomeRun CONNECT or HDHomeRun PRIME (w/ cable card only)
  • Gracenote
    • USA ClearQAM, international DVB-T
    • HDHomeRun DUAL and other legacy tuners
When the app is using Gracenote for data, the "Powered by Gracenote" logo will appear on the Settings tab.
 
#703 ·
@NashGuy @mdavej I assure you I included very little optimism when answering that question, though I try to be a glass-half-full kinda guy. But as data point, I'm certainly part of the glass-half-empty trend.

I've never subscribed to HBO or any other premium channel, everything we record except one news talk channel can be found via OTA, most weeks we watch far more streaming than DVR, and we watch almost no live TV.

And of course our Gen Z college kids will never ever get cable.
 
#820 ·
I tried Vue, Sling, DVTN, Phil, Hulu Live, and YTTV. YTTV had the best picture by far.
I think you're the first person I've ever seen post that YTTV has better PQ than AT&T TV Now (formerly DirecTV Now). The consensus among internet posters who've used both seems to be that YTTV has very good PQ but not as good as AT&T.

I've never seen YTTV firsthand but I know that when I had DTVN a couple years ago, using the Apple TV 4K they gave me, its live channels had the best PQ on average across all channels that I'd ever seen from any live cable TV source. (The second-best I've ever seen was DirecTV satellite.) That said, the PQ on cloud DVR and VOD was noticeably worse. But they've switched out their cloud DVR platform since then and done who knows what else. When I did the free trial of AT&T Watch TV a few months ago, it had the same level of PQ on live channels as I remembered seeing on DTVN.
 
#827 ·
I think you're the first person I've ever seen post that YTTV has better PQ than AT&T TV Now (formerly DirecTV Now). The consensus among internet posters who've used both seems to be that YTTV has very good PQ but not as good as AT&T.
I've never really done a side-by-side comparison. But going from memory, YTTV appears a little softer across the board than ATTTVN. Perhaps the compression is a little different. But it's not enough of a difference for justify paying the huge premium and ending up with less DVR space, no profiles, not to mention a DVR that actually works and an app that doesn't crash frequently. The trouble calls I get from other family members since switching to YTTV has gone from a few every week to zero.

Bottom line, AT&T has a slight edge in PQ, but is inferior in every other respect.
 
#872 ·
The thing I really want to see and probably never will is the ability to select my favorite 10 or so channels for a bundle. When I really took a good look at what I was watching, it is just a few good stations and the rest is pure on demand from Prime and Netflix and quick binges of CBSAA and HBONow (Turn them on for a month and then off until the next time).
 
#874 ·
Yeah, that'll never happen on a major scale. (And to the extent that some MVPDs like Charter experiment with it, the pricing will be so high that it defeats the point.)

The a la carte future that cord-cutters have always said they want is arriving in the form of a la carte DTC services from each media group, with each of those services pooling content from their multiple linear channels.

Wonder when we're going to finally get a real announcement from Discovery about the launch of their own DTC service? Past reports indicated that would be happening this year.
 
#954 · (Edited)
I ended up purchasing a Recast from my local Best Buy today. Ordered in the morning and it was ready in two hours for curbside. I wanted to wait until I got my new rooftop antenna put up before buying a new DVR, but just went ahead with the antenna I already have set up. And, interestingly enough, the Best Buy stores in my area don't have the Firesticks stocked, and it takes a week to ship to store. So, I bought an accompanying Firestick from my local Target.

Anyways, got everything set up. Since I'm familiar setting up the AirTV (requires involvement of my mobile phone along the way, and switching the cell phone network for a minute to the air DVR network), it wasn't difficult learning setting up the Recast, although if I never had that experience, it might have gotten stuck somewhere and frustrated. But, it was fewer steps and easier doing a channel scan on Recast than with AirTV.

So far I'm very impressed. The tuner has an amplifier that helps a few stations that come in weak. When I tune to those weak stations, it gives a weak signal message, but I can view it. The AirTV wouldn't pick them up. I also re-subscribed to Philo to see the integration. I also have Epix and the free channels on Sling, so added those too and Pluto. I noticed that it doesn't integrate all the Pluto channels, including the Pluto Dash music streams but that's ok.

I like that the use of Favorites and ability to Hide channels. With Sling and AirTV, it's tedious to hide channels (must do a re-scan), and it defaults to All Channels over Favorites each time I open the Sling app.

The Firecast over the air with Philo and Sling and Pluto kind of reminds me of my old TiVo that supported cable and satellite together. I wish TiVo went in this direction than in TiVo Stream 4k.

I also like the Firestick better than the Roku. Faster scrolls through the grid, and slicker.

But, I like the Roku Channel though as it has some free content, such as first four seasons of Bewitched and other series, with just minimal ads in the middle of the episode. I think there is a hack to get that on the Firestick and I could always use my other HDMI that is for DVD occasionally for that Roku device. The somewhat long process is adding all the apps that were on my Roku to Firestick.
 
#957 ·
  1. Power off your router, Recast, fire tv devices (including Echo Shows), and any other network equipment you have
  2. Power on the router and wait for it to be in the ready state
  3. Power on any other networking equipment you may have and wait for these to be in the ready state
  4. Power on the Recast and wait for it to be in the ready state
  5. Power on your fire tv devices
  6. Stop listening to your sister's holistic doctor
 
#958 · (Edited)
I got it back up but it was a lot of redoing the setup from yesterday, including associating back to the network.

One other setback: I have noticed the picture quality of the local channels looks degraded.

I got the 4 tuner 1 TB model. It's decoding weak signal in my area stations from Bethlehem/Allentown (WLVT, WFMZ, WBPH) that the AirTV wouldn't do making it viewable streaming, but the local stations that come in strong out of Philadelphia appear to have lower resolution, and are less sharp.

I know it's not equal comparison right now, but between my Input1(Roku and FuboTV app on) and Input2(Firecast and local channel viewing via Recast), the local channels that I get on both, and can compare the same show, and on Fubo it's sharp/higher res. The locals viewed via AirTV/Roku, my previous setup, had higher resolution.

But, I'll have to wait until I get my setup redone so that the fire stick is closer to the recast dvr.
 
#19 · (Edited)
This is going to be a bit lengthy and detailed, only to really show how our "Tivo Alternative" experience has gone, and that we didn't just throw things at the wall to see what stuck. We did our research and we really tried out different options to get a feel for things. What works for us may not work for everyone, but this is our deal:

Some background up until now...

We'd been using Tivo since Series 3 ("Premiere HD" boxes), even earlier if you count "DirecTIVO." That changed early this year, when the writing on the wall for Tivo as a service and a company, just started becoming too clear to ignore - at least for us. They are no longer innovating in the field of home/personal TV entertainment... What they're doing is mostly clinging to a field that's shrinking (QAM cable / STB), and slowly & WAY-behind following on one that's growing (streaming TV)... and even with that, their direction is SO not clear.

To give some context, the last setup we'd used for several years, starting in 2012, was a Roamio Plus with 3 minis. Initially, it was with Verizon Fios, then we switched to Spectrum after Frontier turned Fios into a disaster. Luckily we didn't have to use an SDV tuning adapter on Spectrum, since none of our chosen channels were affected. This worked really well at first, but we started to notice the "diminished capacity" for things like Netflix and Prime Video. We tried out two different versions of the Bolt over the last year or two, and frankly, they were disappointing. They were both NOISY (that fricken little fan - like Barbie's hairdryer never turned off!), felt poorly assembled from cheap materials, and we just didn't overall see it as enough of a step above the Roamio.

Last year, our MOCA connected Minis just started freaking out. By that, I mean they became unstable. This started happening a little while after Hydra UI was rolled out. BTW, I like it - have no problem with it whatsoever... Tivo needed to evolve that UI, and we thought it was good. It's just that their hardware setups may not have been ready for it... So we needed to try a different route to deliver TV to our other rooms. It was goodbye minis, and ultimately hello to Rokus (at first, Streaming Stick Plus) early this year. That led us to trying different home setups overall, which I mentioned a few posts above.

What we chose and why we chose it...

What we settled on is a Roku Ultra in the living room, with a few Streaming Sticks for the bedroom & rec room TV's... We wanted some DVR capability for "cable" network channels, so we tried two options that had the channels we wanted: SlingTV (which we also tried with its compatible AirTV OTA DVR - it's a dud), and Spectrum's "TV Choice" service - which allows you to choose your 10 favorite networks, and also happens to give you the local channels for roughly $30/month plus $5/month for a cloud DVR option with a 50-program capacity. On both Sling and Spectrum's platforms, you can't pause or rewind Live TV - only your DVR recorded programs.

On Roku, Spectrum's app overall renders video & sound better than Sling - arguably better than Tivo's QAM, and though not perfect or glitch-free, far more stable than Sling. In most cases, you don't really "need" the DVR option because almost everything is available On-Demand the day after it airs. Yes, there are sometimes commercials when you do that (many times, there aren't any - especially the further you get away from the original air date). But there are still way less commercials than what's originally aired. So we stuck with the Spectrum option.

We combine it with a Tablo setup in the living room where our router is located, with an exterior OTA antenna. We use Spectrum's app exclusively for the "cable" channels (it's not cable anymore, but I'm not sure what else to call them) with its Cloud DVR as needed (a few programs don't always migrate to On-Demand, so it's more of a "safety net"), and we use the Tablo exclusively for the OTA channels.

Other differences....

On Roku, switching between apps - Tablo, Spectrum, Prime, Netflix, etc. - is seamless, no lag, easy-peasy. Prior to making the change, I've read many times here people saying that switching input sources on a TV to watch different platforms is no big deal - that they don't get why unitizing these services on a Roku or FireTV is important. Let me set this clear: Using a streaming platform to switch between services is FAR more intuitive, consistent feeling, easier, and more stable, than bopping around the source / input selector for your TV. It IS different, and it IS better.

Some misconceptions to bust....

Since our home network is strong, there are no issues streaming wirelessly to the other TV's via Roku. If you're going to stream wirelessly, you need a strong, stable wi-fi network. You're going to see a ton of reviews out there complaining about every stick option & every one of its apps regarding "buffering." I promise, 90% of those, it's the fault of the wifi network of the person posting - not of the app or streaming platform. And the reviews about pixelating on OTA devices, most often they're using an indoor (or even attic) antenna. Just keep that in mind.

Wrapping this up...

Overall, we're saving money. We no longer pay for monthly Tivo service or cable card fees for the Tivo box. With Tablo, there is a monthly fee of $5 for their enhanced guide service (or $50/year, $150 lifetime). It's not required, but without it, the DVR functionality is much less and guide data is reduced from 2 weeks to 24 hours. To us, it's worth it.

It's been several months, and we don't miss Tivo now, at least not in any practical non-sentimental way. Even beyond what I wrote here, there's a lot more variety to what you can watch via a Roku platform. (Fire TV, too, but not AS much - and using Fire TV is like using the Prime Video app for your entire UI experience... NOT the best for such a purpose).

I listened when Tivo announced Roku apps in January that aren't even in a "beta" phase on Roku all these months later. I waited a month or so to hear more details, and based on the last two years+ of Tivo's patterns of "talking about" paths, and then not actually going in a clear direction, I didn't have enough confidence that anything would come of that. So far, it feels like my instincts were right.

I totally get that not everyone enjoys change, and I respect the comfort that some feel in keeping with what they're used to. But I know, and I think everyone really knows deep down, that this is where the market is going. Since this brand was once such an innovator, it's a bummer that so many people got here before Tivo did.

If anyone has questions about why we chose this setup vs. FireTV/Recast, HD HomeRun via Plex, or anything else (I know, it's a LOT!) please feel free to ask.
 
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