Tivo Bolt Vox & Gen 1 Tivo Mini

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Hi All,

First off, posting as a newbie because it's been a while since I posted and I can't even remember what email I registered with (so can't even do a forgot password), but I've been around there since about 2002 (Had a DirecTV Hughes SD-DVR40 that upgraded several times thanks to the community)

Secondly, I have searched, but haven't found the right thread to address the issue so I'm asking...I'm saying this trying to preempt the snarky "too lazy to search" responses. If you can't help, please just stay out of the conversation...

So basically I'm on a Roamio Pro from 2014 that has always worked great...except when I made the mistake of updating it to the software version that basically changed the look of the interface from what it was way back in 2002 to what it is today...HORRIBLE in my opinion, but ok, it's done.

Ever since that upgrade it's been 'tooth-pulling' painfully slow, but what the hell? It worked so I wasn't motivated to do much about it. Now I get the summer offer to switch to a Tivo Bolt and have been doing about 3 days of research to figure out if it's going to be a good upgrade or not. I still don't have a lot of questions answered so figured someone here might have the answers:

1. I'm using 4 Tivo Minis (Gen 1). Will those still work with the Tivo Bolt Vox?

2. Is there or isn't there a 6 tuner Bolt Vox? I keep seeing (up to six tuners) on the Tivo site, but can't seem to zero in on that information in the specs page when I try to buy. Weeknees also shows six tuner, but they're not Tivo so, just trying to make sure.

3. I have Comcast (for better or worse) so I need the one with the cable card. I know it has it, but just wondering if anyone who is using it has any words of warning about it

4. What do I do with my (still functioning) Roamio Pro? Can I just use it as a client (like the Tivo Minis) in a different room in the house? It won't have the cable card so it won't be able to get any channels unless it can talk to the new Bolt Vox.

5. Already bought the Toshiba 3TB drive from MacSales that some here found (always good to have storage) , so should I just save $100 and get the 500gb Bolt then add the 3TB Toshiba to bring storage up to par with my current Roamio Pro? Or is it just better to swap out the internal drive instead? I've done that more than once, but it was to the old Hughes and Series 2s so I have no experience with Bolt HD swaps.

Any info would be great as the offer ends tomorrow so I'd like to decide if I'm going to pull the trigger by then.

Thanks,
Mike

 

AntiPC: Thank you so much for the detailed (and quick) replies. You seem to be in the know with the current hardware so let me ask these follow-ups:

1. So are you saying that the Roamio will be a doorstop because it's just not able to serve as a client to something like a Bolt Vox or because it will be obsolete compared to it?

2. And the logical second question to that one is: Is there a way to move the hard drive contents to the new Bolt? (put it in a caddy and use it as an external drive to the Bolt)?

I think regardless of the answer though I'm going to pull the trigger on the 6-tuner Bolt. They're offering the 99 lifetime plan (which is what I have on my current Roamio and minis) and it wasn't that cheap on those when I got it so it's a good deal. But always nice to know what you're getting into

Thank you,
Mike

 

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Well, too late...looks like they're out of stock. I guess it's Roamio Pro for the foreseeable future, till there's another sale.

Thanks anyway for all the info.

 

Thanks compnurd. I did call up and after 58 minutes on hold (they need more staff), I was able to place the order for the 1TB Bolt Vox. They did confirm that it's out of stock, but also said that they would honor the promotion and ship it out as soon as it was back in stock, which apparently is Aug 9th. So basically 5 days. Hell, I waited longer than that ordering my last two phones so this'll be no problem.

Thanks again. Were it not for your tip I might have waited months till another promotion showed up.
Mike

 

Wow! I still had the webpage up, but hadn't updated it till I just posted my reply....So a whole bunch of new information I didn't know about.

 

Ah, I didn't realize it was a transfer. So I guess my Roamio Pro just lost the lifetime service? That sort of sucks, but since I'm not sure what I'm going to do with it now, maybe not so much.

Thanks for this one...started reading it, but I'll admit I didn't get through all 19 pages of it, especially as it appears to have gone off the rails talking about signal encoding.

Very, very interesting. I wasn't aware I could roll my Roamio back to the previous interface. It was much more responsive on this generation of Roamio (to be expected I suppose -- older hardware). I guess now that I bought the Bolt Vox the point is moot, but I'd love to know how it's done if you have a link.

Also, whas it "KMTTG"? I can recreate all my onepasses, but I do still have a lot of shows on there that I haven't seen. Is there anyway to copy those over? Or at least to use the current Roamio drive as an external on the new Bolt?


Lastly,

I guess this means that the Tivo OS comes on ROM or on internal storage apart from the main drive? This is really cool given that when I've done it before I had to download the Tivo OS image and do all that crap manually on the drive before installing it....