TiVo Mini VOX/4K reviews and comments thread

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Out of box issues will create a mess, that's where some may have zero patience or no knowledge of self fixes. Somewhere I read TiVo wants to move past bug fixes on the mini vox and prepare for what? There are issues on the V2 mini you refuse to address to say the least. The mini vox should be perfected, for retail of $179 is pure extortion.

As far as the mini vox goes right now for me, I have 2...they are stable after you get your remotes paired and updated. Needs some work still.

 

It should automatically install 20.7.4, the classic UI, when you select a non-Hydra host. I haven't tried it yet.

 

Cool. So the only thing I'll really be missing by not running Hydra on the new Mini is the voice control, right?

 

If you consider using a completely different UI nothing, then right. Like I posted, I have not done it yet. I already have v1 and v2 Mini boxes. I haven't been able to make voice control work. I haven't tried very hard.

 

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$180 is a little high. I'm glad I was able to get a Mini Vox from Best Buy for $150 on Cyber Monday. And return the one I got from Best Buy for $180.

 

Picked up a Tivo Mini VOX to use on my one and only 4K TV. Also saw this as an opportunity to replace a buggy v1 Mini.

The 4K TV (Sony) was previously the home of one of my Roamios that was connected via MOCA. No issues using it as a host tuner for half of my 5 minis using this MOCA connection. Some are MOCA connected, others are Ethernet.

Moved the Roamio to the TV that had been served by the v1 Mini that was acting up. Connected via MOCA as it had been connected in the other room.

Had issues with the Mini VOX where certain live tv channels stream for about 1-2 minutes and then stop with a V87 error (as others have reported). Changed the config to use Ethernet instead of MOCA, and this appears to have fixed the issue. Note that the Roamio previously connected in this room used the same MOCA connection without issues including hosting a tuner for minis.


I got Netflix, Amazon, Plex, etc to show up, but I haven't been able to get Netflix or Amazon to present me with UHD options like I'm used to seeing in those apps native to my Sony TV. My goal is to stay within the Tivo GUI as much as possible, which is why I chose to put my only 4K Tivo device on my only 4K TV.

My wife hates the Hydra interface. I've taken it in stride, there are pros and cons like with anything else.

 

Hello. Will the Tivo Vox remote work with the 93000 model mini without a dongle? I want to order the 4K mini, but I want to use its Vox Remote with my older mini. What are my options?

 

One option: use IR mode. Everything works in IR mode. No voice support of course.

 

With a Bolt and Roamio I could never reliably get Live TV to work. Way too frustrating. I spent more time with TiVo tech than watching live tv. I’ll revisit buying one when they figured out this issue.

 

What issue? I link my Mini Vox periodically between two Bolts on FiOS and a Roamio on OTA. Live TV works great, recordings work great streaming to my Mini Vox. Amazon and Netflix both stream in UHD as well.

And I've used two Mini Vox units with the same results. I returned the first one since BestBuy wouldn't price match when they dropped the price $30. So I returned the first one that was $180 and bought the second one for the lower price.

 

THIS!!!!

Thank you so much, I've spent the better part of the last two days trying to get UHD to show up in my MINI VOX Netflix app. Was working everywhere else I used the Netflix app but not the TiVo.

 

Does anyone notice a material difference in video quality between the mini vox and the bolt vox? I have two brand new samsung 49" qleds, one hooked up to a new bolt vox and the other hooked up to a new mini vox (using the bolt vox as the master). Both the mini vox and the bolt vox have resolution set to to auto (so for both I am using the tivo scalar rather than samsung scalar). Both samsungs have the same picture settings (the default settings that samsung labels 'dynamic'). Both are hard wired to my switch and router via ethernet (cat 5, unfortunately). So this should be a pretty good test.

The picture quality on the mini vox feeding the samsung is considerably worse than the picture quality on the bolt vox feeding the samsung. The picture coming out of the mini vox is substantially softer and seems washed out as compared to the picture coming out of the bolt vox. To make sure I wasn't imagining this, I played back the same recorded content on each and paused each at the same place in the recording...no question about it, the mini vox picture looks noticeably worse.

Are others having that experience? Any chance that is due to a defective mini vox?

Btw, anyone know whether the bolt vox and mini vox scalars are better than the scalar in a new samsung qled?

 

How do I get native video output?
Or is it still broken?
My Sony 900e does a great job of upscaling and I'd rather let it work.

 

It is still broken in hydra.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk

 

ok i so read the thread, am i right in the only thing a mini vox gives me is 4k output for one app over a normal mini (plus the voice remote)?

 

If you mean on the plus side, you also get a faster processor and a nicer case. If you mean on the minus side, well ..... you read the thread.

 

Didn't really think this warranted its own thread, but I felt compelled to note an error in TiVo's FAQ for the Mini VOX (link):

How many TiVo Mini VOX boxes can be supported on one TiVo network?

Up to ten TiVo Mini VOX boxes can be supported by one TiVo network containing TiVo BOLT, BOLT VOX, Roamio or Premiere DVRs. One tuner is used each time a TiVo Mini VOX is on the network. Therefore, depending on the number of TiVo DVRs and tuners you have available, you may not be able to have all ten operating simultaneously.

TiVo BOLT, BOLT VOX and Roamio devices allow for dynamic tuner allocation, so the tuner is only used when the TiVo Mini VOX needs it and is released back to the DVR for use when the Mini VOX isn’t in use. TiVo Premiere DVRs do NOT support dynamic tuner allocation, so any Mini VOX connected to a Premiere is allocated a constantly dedicated tuner and therefore reduces the tuners available for the Premiere DVR.​

Dynamic tuner allocation is available in all compatible Mini hosts: all 4-tuner or greater TiVo DVRs. It'd probably also be worthwhile to note that a tuner is not required when streaming from an Internet streaming service.

(Also, the description may leave 2-tuner Premiere owners thinking they could add a Mini VOX. And I haven't seen anyone test the limit of 10; I thought the max was simply controlled by the account device limit of 12 active boxes.

CC: @TiVo_Ted

p.s. Prolly wanna get the BOLT OTA added to the compatible DVRs list under the Specs tab.

 

I cannot recommend the Mini Vox 4K right now. I have the Mini Vox 4K and my experience isn't the best. If my Roamio OTA 1TB is being used (streaming, OTA, or recorded media), the mini will either work great or will fail with constant V87 connection errors about every 30 - 45 seconds. I have spent weeks looking for the problem and cannot find any. The problem is intermittant, and it doesn't follow anything happening on my network, so every attempt to locate the problem fails. I posted my Mini stats, but I haven't gotten any replies, so I'm not sure if they are good or not (I think the PHY settings are good, not sure about signal levels).

I just received new splitters specifically for MoCA networks, so next weekend I am going to replace all of my splitters with those. If that doesn't fix it, I will either buy the Bolt OTA with it's own antenna to replace the mini, or abandon the Tivo line completely and find a new solution.

That's my2 cents

--Hank

 

I mainly use a Mini Vox for my TiVo viewing. Since it launched last year. I stream recordings from two Bolts on FiOS and a Roamio on OTA. I've never seen a V87 error on my Mini Vox.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk

 

I have a Mini VOX that's about a month old and it locks up about once every three or four days. I have to unplug and it reboot it for it to work again so even though it's faster than the old ones I'm not impressed.