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Tivo-Spectrum problems ahead?

11K views 107 replies 29 participants last post by  symbiat 
#1 ·
I just read something about future Spectrum-Tivo problems. I use to Roamio, cable cards, Tivo Desktop, to download video to my computer. What is going to change? Any fixes?
 
#3 ·
 
#4 · (Edited)
There really isn't any fix for your Roamio - if it uses a cable card it won't work without one, so when Spectrum kills off cable card support your Roamio will be useless (unless you have the base model - I forgot there was one Roamio that supported both cable & OTA). When that will happen to you is unknown.

There's an existing thread on this subject:

 
#9 ·
If and when the day this BS move comes, any cable company should offer a dvr cable box for the same price as the cable card setup - yeah, I know that’ll never happen.
I‘m in Manhattan since the days of Manhattan Cable TV, which became Time Warner Cable and eventually Spectrum and can guarantee you there is no loyalty for long time customers …

I am considering Verizon Fios if Spectrum drops all Cable Cards since I already have an ODN box they had to place in for Landline phone support since copper wiring has been phased out and Fios seems to be more Cable Card friendly, for now… or going OTA and some sort of Streamer/YouTube TV like setup, but not something I’m familiar with
 
#10 · (Edited)
I am considering Verizon Fios if Spectrum drops all Cable Cards since I already have an ODN box they had to place in for Landline phone support since copper wiring has been phased out and Fios seems to be more Cable Card friendly, for now… or going OTA and some sort of Streamer/YouTube TV like setup, but not something I’m familiar with
Switch to Fios like yesterday. It’s FAR superior to Spectrum!
 
#18 ·
You talk like it's available nationwide everywhere. It is not.

I live in a major American city, in an upscale neighborhood, less than three miles from the heart of a famous district, and the projected fiber rollout in this area is the 12th of Never.

If Spectrum shuts down cable cards, my current 200/10 service is more than good enough to accommodate streaming 4K on several sets simultaneously.
I was replying to the poster who said they were considering switching to Fios.
 
#14 ·
Strikes me that this is really a mistake/problem for Spectrum. As we read here and elsewhere when people are forced off their TIVO boxes they will probably drop Spectrum and go to streaming. I would think Spectrum would like to encourage TIVO and its users to continue the service - raise price of cablecard or charge TIVO a fee but keep its customers . But who knows
 
#27 ·
Well, as soon as I get the email I'll be using it to tell the spousal unit that we're dropping our $200/month triple-play.

I've been testing T-Mobile's Home Internet...it's faster & cheaper ($50/month, no fees/taxes for broadband in my state)

Will setup the Ooma Telo Air I just got & forward my Spectrum VOIP number to it to test Ooma, then port out to Ooma if it works OK...will be under $20/month for Ooma Premier service, including all fees/taxes.

I've got a nice amplified antenna to install outside for my base Roamio...just re-run Guided Setup for OTA.

Any cable shows I want I can just sign up & use their streaming app for a month or two.
 
#28 ·
TiVo owners are less than 3% of Spectrum's clients. I just don't see them shaking in their boots over losing some of them. I bet more than a few will opt for the "One year of FREE! cablebox service for people using cable cards before they stopped working!"

I'll be sad to lose TiVo after 20 years, but things change.
 
#37 ·
Hello group,

This is my first time visiting your forum which I found doing a search for Spectrum's cable card news. I was having an issue today with my TiVo Bolt missing a few channels and called Spectrum tech support. The rep said, "you do know we are discontinuing cable cards? We sent out email notices." I told the rep I have not received an email. After rattling off a list of cities, she notified me that my market is not yet on the list for discontinuation. I am in the Tampa Bay area.

I currently have a master TiVo Bolt unit and 6 Mini/Lux units around the house. If the cable card and tuning adapter are eliminated, that really jams me up. I will have to re-imagine my entire house. I love TiVo's intuitive software, which I've used for over 20 years. I have despised other DVRs I've tried (eg. Spectrum in a temp corporate NYC apartment).

What are my options if I get the cancellation here in Florida. I currently record four news channels daily for my occupation. What about getting TV to all my other TVs in the house without having cable boxes everywhere? I hope there is a viable solution. This clearly torpedoes a large segment of TiVo's business model and leaves me with a pile of obsolete gear.

ZBD
 
#47 ·
Probably DirecTV Streaming. It has a cloud DVR and unlimited clients on the same LAN. Other cloud DVRs are limited to just a couple of simultaneous streams, nowhere near the 7 you would need. Unless of course you never watch all 7 at the same time, more like 3, which Youtube TV could handle. All cloud DVR services can record an unlimited number of simultaneous programs. The upside of a streaming solution is you can watch your recordings anywhere in the country on any streaming device, phone, tablet or laptop.
 
#48 ·
I had talked about this in another thread here and where I ended up was with a guy in the cablecard support department at Spectrum who told me that, while they won't be cutting off service, they won't be going further with them. He said there is absolutely no reason that my service would stop, as far as the two cards I have. He even looked it up to verify what he was telling me.

It just sounded like some of the stuff they are doing, progress-wise, has nothing to do with cable cards. There's a possibility, since he said that the only cable cards they are issuing now are refurbed, that there could come a time that there are no more cable cards and one would need to consider going with their option.

It's kind of like when you have older electronic equipment that still works fine, but if you need to replace it you would have to replace it with something else.
 
#57 ·
I've posted on this topic in a few other threads here, so I'm not going to put up all the evidence/links again, but it's clear at this point that Charter plans to implement "high-split" upgrades to their network that will allow much higher upload speeds. In order to do this, cable operators typically find it necessary to shut down QAM TV. Charter's CEO stated back in January that they would implement high-split in a number of markets in 2022, with others to follow after. Now, IDK, plans can and do change, so we may not see the first Charter markets have QAM TV shut down and high-split upgrades until late this year, or even early 2023. But it's coming.

And when it happens to your market, it's bye-bye CableCARD, as that technology can only work with QAM TV, not streaming IPTV (i.e. the Spectrum TV app), which Charter is transitioning to. It will likely take Charter a couple years or so to work their way around the nation to do these upgrades everywhere. So maybe your TiVo will stop working with their cable TV service in 2023. Maybe in 2024. Maybe in 2025. But I'd be shocked if it lasted until 2026. Because the mid-split upgrades are a sort of "hold-over" improvement to DOCSIS 3.1 until the next-gen DOCSIS 4.0 tech is ready to be deployed, which will allow them to offer symmetrical 10 Gbps internet service. And that's looking like it'll be ready for widespread deployment from Charter, Comcast, etc. in 2025, although I wouldn't be surprised if we didn't see it happen until 2026.

Comcast is only doing mid-split, rather than high-split, upgrades to D3.1 right now and the next couple years. So it looks like CableCARD will likely continue to work with their cable TV service until they roll out D4.0 in initial markets in 2025/2026. (And if it goes like recent network upgrades have, Comcast will start those 4.0 upgrades in Chicago, Nashville and Atlanta. We'll see.)
 
#51 ·
I don't have a need or desire to edit, either broadcasts or streams. Never have! Personal or downloaded videos that I want to edit, I use Wondershare Video Converter Ultimate. It allows me to cut, resize, adjust sound & color settings, convert formats such as from WMA to MP4, and crop videos.
 
#52 ·
Stop telling people to get Fios. These are the only places Fios is available. (The major cities, in a handful of states in the NE). Don't expect this anywhere else any time soon.
Verizon Fios Availability & Coverage Map for Internet, TV, Phone Service

Font Number Document Circle


That really just looks like sponsored content in that original link to me. "The overpriced cable card", that I'm paying $1 a month for? If spectrum stops supporting this, I'm not going to a different tivo, I'm going to streaming TV, with all time 4K, and unlimited cloud DVR, and certainly wouldn't be spectrum. If I thought I could get a good return on my bolt with lifetime, I'd probably sell it now.
 
#53 ·
Stop telling people to get Fios. These are the only places Fios is available. (The major cities, in a handful of states in the NE). Don't expect this anywhere else any time soon.
Verizon Fios Availability & Coverage Map for Internet, TV, Phone Service

View attachment 73110

That really just looks like sponsored content in that original link to me. "The overpriced cable card", that I'm paying $1 a month for? If spectrum stops supporting this, I'm not going to a different tivo, I'm going to streaming TV, with all time 4K, and unlimited cloud DVR, and certainly wouldn't be spectrum. If I thought I could get a good return on my bolt with lifetime, I'd probably sell it now.
I'm sorry, but IF.. and I say IF someone has FiOS available, then it is a far superior product option, there's also the Frontier FiOS communities, and I don't blame people for suggesting it.
Frontier also acquired the fiber-optic system built by Verizon primarily in Fort Wayne, Indiana, around Portland, Oregon, the Tampa Bay area of Florida, southern California, some eastern suburbs of Seattle, Washington, the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, and the Greenville area in South Carolina
So that list is missing a bunch of locations, however while the service itself is just as good as when Verizon owned those regions, the TV and Customer support from Frontier is really pretty bad.
It's a shame that FiOS was never able to expand to be a major player, but the slow rollout really hurt them and they just gave up when it was obvious how far ahead the CableCo's were and how much less it cost them to deploy to a home.
 
#62 ·
Fiber is nice if you can get it.

AT&T buried new conduit then pulled fiber on the main road outside my development almost FIVE years ago and they still haven't deigned to run it down into our neighborhood.

Ironically, I'm connected to the internet via fiber right now at our cabin up in the mountains...the local telephone membership co-op is targeting replacing all their copper plant with fiber by the end of this month.

Just had that install done today (only had phone service prior) and when it was finished the tech physically removed the aerial (copper) cable...fiber is in underground conduit.
 
#104 ·
Just had that install done today (only had phone service prior) and when it was finished the tech physically removed the aerial (copper) cable...fiber is in underground conduit.
They rip out the copper so no-one else can ever use that copper ever again. A few years ago a friend ordered FiOS for TV, and when they came over they ripped out his copper but he had DSL over copper at the time... 😂 no Internet for 3 weeks until they "fixed" it.
 
#70 ·
Talked to Spectrum last night (specifically cable card tech support) who told me about what their future plans phasing out CableCards.

So now Im trying to figure out how to prepare for switching to what comes next. Im of the opinion I don't want any new boxes from Spectrum so now Im looking for a service that gives me some of the networks I regularly watch plus some premium channels I currently have. It would be nice if I could use a TiVO box to search and consume that service. Would it make sense to get Edge for Cable and switch to use it as a purely streaming device when the time comes? Would things like YouTube TV work with TiVO in some way? Much as I dislike streaming services in general, it looks like this is the way things are going. What about PlutoTV or Plex TV ? Does it make sense to look at Spectrum's AppleTV offering ? So many questions...
 
#71 ·
Well, what did they say?
(not that I usually believe a thing any CSR say. In most cases they are the last to know future plans and especially details of those plans)

Tivo Edge - or any TIVO DVR - does not work with YouTube TV or Plex TV. There’s a Pluto app for TiVo DVRs and it’s fairly horrible.

Tivo DVRs work with cable card and antennas and a very limited set of streaming services (None of which are LIVE streaming services)
 
#83 ·
When considering alternative devices, before making a decision people should try to live through a few AndroidTV app updates to see how remarkably poorly they are written - something basic almost always breaks, whether it's HDR or ATMOS or DolbyDigital 5.1 support or in the case of, say, HBOMAX how the app won't even load, and if does, how often it crashes. Maybe one out of four releases of that app are stable. It was three years, three years before the Paramount+ app on AndroidTV had 5.1 channel audio. My AppleTV4K app for that service had it from the beginning.

I own a Sony OLED and the Shield Pro, and they are the second and third AndroidTV based devices I've owned, and the pattern I've described has been going on for several years. Years.

I finally stopped using the Shield and the Sony's internal apps to stream, and settled on the AppleTV 4K (the only piece of Apple gear I own) where the apps exhibit none of that nonsense. I now use the Shield strictly as a Plex Server/Client, where it does a great job.

I don't know if the AndroidTV apps issue is the underlying OS, or an incomplete API released to devs, or that the writing of the apps has been delegated to someone's incompetent nephew, and I don't care. People on the AVSFORUMS site have taken to keeping apps that work on their computers and rolling back bad updates by sideloading the older app.

No matter your opinion, that's never a good sign.
 
#85 ·
When considering alternative devices, before making a decision people should try to live through a few AndroidTV app updates to see how remarkably poorly they are written - something basic almost always breaks, whether it's HDR or ATMOS or DolbyDigital 5.1 support or in the case of, say, HBOMAX how the app won't even load, and if does, how often it crashes. Maybe one out of four releases of that app are stable. It was three years, three years before the Paramount+ app on AndroidTV had 5.1 channel audio. My AppleTV4K app for that service had it from the beginning.

I own a Sony OLED and the Shield Pro, and they are the second and third AndroidTV based devices I've owned, and the pattern I've described has been going on for several years. Years.

I finally stopped using the Shield and the Sony's internal apps to stream, and settled on the AppleTV 4K (the only piece of Apple gear I own) where the apps exhibit none of that nonsense. I now use the Shield strictly as a Plex Server/Client, where it does a great job.

I don't know if the AndroidTV apps issue is the underlying OS, or an incomplete API released to devs, or that the writing of the apps has been delegated to someone's incompetent nephew, and I don't care. People on the AVSFORUMS site have taken to keeping apps that work on their computers and rolling back bad updates by sideloading the older app.

No matter your opinion, that's never a good sign.
I have the latest Apple TV 4K. It's expensive but worth it. There's simply no better TV streaming device, IMO. That said, my parents haven't seen the sort of problems with Android TV that you describe on their little Onn 4K boxes in the past 6 months they've used them regularly. But then they only use a few apps (mainly YTTV) and aren't demanding users. I do agree that some apps devs -- such as HBO Max -- have had a poor track record of updates. Remember when they put out a garbage redesign for their Apple TV app last year? Social media ripped them a new one and they got it fixed in a few days, ha!
 
#87 ·
My Tivo Roamio's HDMI port went belly up. I have Spectrum cable Internet and TV. With all the rumors of cable cards going away, I went and got a temporary Spectrum box... and signed up for a free trial on Youtube TV. Put YTTV on all my TV Firesticks, and I have to say I'm impressed...... Spectrum has gone up to over 200.00 a month. Will dump Spectrum TV, and go with the less expensive, but better, Youtube. I will miss using Tivo, there is no better interface out there...... I've used it since the mid 90s! I think the fact that I can watch on all my TVs without Minis is the best.
 
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