[Larry Hutchinson]

Hah! I have been following this thread for amusement, but this morning I turned on our system, 2 DirecTV boxes and an OTA Romeo, to check on one of the DirecTV boxes that had been freezing. Remarkably, it was working but when I switched to the TiVo, I found frozen static. Unplugging and replugging gave no output at all. Lights are on but no one is home. I have to assume the unit is dead since a bad hard disk would not likely give no video output at all.

So, I then check on a replacement and it looks like the Edge with only two tuners (seriously?) is all that is available. Gack.

 

[Old Hickory]

The second that my cable company (Mediacom) drops cable card support I will drop them. I will also probably drop them the second my Tivo dies.

I feel that my setup of Cable card, roamio and mini's is the far superior solution to all the streaming options on the roku. It's faster, easier to navigate, and doesn't spoil game scores for me like ESPN+ does.
But I'm obviously in the minority on that front.

Same here but Comcast. But I don't have a plan for that day.

 

[redbeard25]

I have dabbled with Channels DVR. The thing that keeps me from jumping in is the lack of a lifetime sub. I understand why they don't have one, but until my Tivo gives up the ghost, I don't feel like adding another fee.

The other DVR in my house is an Amazon Fire TV Recast that I got a couple years back on a Black Friday sale. It seems to be pretty solid for OTA recording. The interface isn't "tivo-like," but it does the job.

 

[zalusky]

I have dabbled with Channels DVR. The thing that keeps me from jumping in is the lack of a lifetime sub. I understand why they don't have one, but until my Tivo gives up the ghost, I don't feel like adding another fee.

The other DVR in my house is an Amazon Fire TV Recast that I got a couple years back on a Black Friday sale. It seems to be pretty solid for OTA recording. The interface isn't "tivo-like," but it does the job.

Once you have lifetime you are no longer a customer. They have no incentive to pay attention to you. If you like the product pay to keep them in business.

 

[CommunityMember]

The thing that keeps me from jumping in is the lack of a lifetime sub.

If one wants to do their own "lifetime" sub just invest in something like a quality government bond and take the interest and pay for your Channels subscription (~$2000 would likely pay around $80/yr, and you get to recover the principal if you decide that Channels is not the solution you are looking for).

The long term issue with Channels may be if/when (a currently unknowable date) some content providers start to require Widevine L1 (rather than the current L3), which will end the TVE recording capability for those content providers.

 

[NashGuy]

Well-crafted info, NashGuy. You sound like a cable guy (it takes one to know one... ). Charter and Comcast cover about 85-88% of US homes passed. Their joint venture recently announced Xumo as the brand name for a feature-rich streaming video ecosystem. "Xumo will go-to-market with its first branded devices in late 2023, distributed by Comcast, Charter, and Walmart, with additional distributors to be announced in the future." Read the full story here.

Yes, will be interesting to see how much of the market Xumo can get versus the already-established smart TV/streaming app store platforms that already exist from Roku, Amazon, Samsung, Google, Apple, etc. They have a huge advantage in that Comcast and Charter together claim a majority of US home broadband customers. So they'll try to get those folks to use their streaming boxes that run Xumo. But they still have an uphill battle. Some had thought we might see Comcast buy Roku in order to immediately establish themselves as a leader in the space. But they're right to pivot in this direction because the future of video is apps as traditional cable TV fades away. So if you want to be a middle-man who gets a cut of subscription fees and ad revenue, you've got to have your own streaming platform/app store. I imagine we'll see them license Xumo out to smaller cable operators too, so that they have a turnkey way to get a slice of that revenue.

 

[DaoFerret]

I only noticed one reference to OTA here although I didn't read every message. I use TiVo and a rural Tennessee. I'll use it for OTA only. Works fine. I have an outdoor antenna. I get all the main broadcast channels for free. That was the basis of TiVo when I first started with the original TV also many years ago. I ditched satellite TV cable isn't even available where I live. So I have streaming services and Starlink. I stream most content and some things that get only through the TiVo and it doesn't cost me anything because I bought two Bolts when they first came out and they had lifetime service. I do think it said that tivo DVRs are probably going to disappear because they were always the best. The cable companies could never get it right. And even the cable companies that adopted TiVos as their own DVR. They still didn't get it right.

I'm still chugging along doing OTA on my old Premier XL HD (on its second or third Hard Drive).
I keep debating about upgrading to a Bolt (or something newer, if thats an option).
How do you like it?
I hear OTA is about to go through another "evolution" to ATSC3.0 ( Over-the-Air TV Signals Bright Future ) so I'm hoping (fingers crossed) that TiVo MIGHT put out a new OTA model that supports this new standard.

 

[andy7121]

Thanks. Charter Spectrum is anticipating changes to their network in some areas that may mean that CableCARD devices like TiVo DVRs will no longer work with their cable TV service.

Charter has done this already in St Louis. They disabled my cable card. Then they sent me one of their DVR's. What was inside? A cable card. So, cable cards still work, but they want to rent you one of their DVR's. This is a marketing decision, not a technical decision.

I sent the DVR back to them, canceled my cable subscription, and I am now using YouTube TV. I am not as happy as I was with Tivo, but space is not a problem, since all the recordings are kept on YTTV's server. I save some money, too.

In some parts of the country, Verizon is installing fiber optics to the premise. And they are supporting TIVO. Maybe someday they will get to St Louis. Then I might use my Tivo again. But, by then, my lifetime subscription might expire. Or I might expire. Or the horse will talk.

 

[cwoody222]

Charter has done this already in St Louis. They disabled my cable card. Then they sent me one of their DVR's. What was inside? A cable card. So, cable cards still work, but they want to rent you one of their DVR's. This is a marketing decision, not a technical decision.

Actually it is partly a technical decision. Their own boxes can handle alleged future changes, while retail TiVo boxes may not.

Is Spectrum killing TiVo support? Answer: It’s complicated

TiVo users received a message from Spectrum suggesting that CableCARD support is going away, but the cable company is light on specifics.

www.techhive.com

 

[MrDell]

In some parts of the country, Verizon is installing fiber optics to the premise. And they are supporting TIVO. Maybe someday they will get to St Louis. Then I might use my Tivo again.

Verizon has been here in Rhode Island for over 20 years competing with Cox Cable, and I think even Verizon sees the writing on the wall. They used to advertise aggressively for your cable business but now they only push their internet. I do agree that they are still on board supporting Tivo and cable cards, and their service is trouble free, but many people are now streaming and cutting the cord. There may come a time that it won't make sense for them to offer cable any longer. Only time will tell.

 

[CommunityMember]

In some parts of the country, Verizon is installing fiber optics to the premise. And they are supporting TIVO. Maybe someday they will get to St Louis. Then I might use my Tivo again. But, by then, my lifetime subscription might expire. Or I might expire. Or the horse will talk.

Verizon, at least twice, came -->this<-- close to moving to pure IPTV, and has (in essence) stopped pushing FiOS TV as a product (their FiOS CSRs suggest YTTV first, and only sell FiOS TV if explicitly requested, along with the reality that fewer and fewer people want a TV package (from any provider)). Most observers think Verizon will stop offering FiOS TV soon enough (the revenue for Verizon is not a significant part of the business financials (unlike some other operators), and TV service (from any provider) is only minimally profitable (most of the revenue that comes in goes out to the content providers)), and the only reason the last IPTV conversion did not happen was because FiOS TV itself was on the way out.

Oh, and the latest Verizon ONTs for the fastest Internet service speeds do not support linear QAM TV service.

I am guessing Ed will be talking before Verizon offers QAM based linear FiOS TV in St. Louis.

 

[drcos]

...the picture quality is much better through those apps than what you'd see on cable or even with an OTA antenna.

Cable, maybe. Better than OTA? 95% of the stuff on apps/streaming is nowhere close to the bandwidth of a good HD OTA channel. Not that every channel OTA uses all the available bandwidth, but we have a few that do and the picture quality is night and day.
Now Xfinity, who crushes everything (including 1080i OTA from CBS/NBC) down to 720p with low bitrates is a poor example of picture 'quality'...

 

[dlfl]

They do have a cable card tech group......those guys actually know what they are doing and helped me out numerous times when the local tech did not have a clue.

Sure I know about their national support desk located in Buffalo, but my experience with them did not match yours. I had a TA problem and they scheduled a visit (by my local support of course) to replace the TA. When the local tech arrived he not only did not have a replacement TA, he didn’t know what one was and after calling someone he informed me that it was discontinued equipment! Fortunately, by the time he had arrived the TA problem had mysteriously disappeared. Which means the national desk had not properly diagnosed the problem to begin with.

My experience at all levels with TWC/Spectrum was terrible. They never had a clue about TiVo-related issues. Their business practices make a used car salesman look super ethical. And if you don’t get and save a receipt when you turn in their equipment they will come after you later claiming payment for it.

 

[rhj]

I had been with Tivo for 20+ years until my OTA Roamio recently died. Tivo's lack of investment in ATSC 3.0 and other features caused me to finally ditch them in favor of Silicon Dust's HDHR Flex 4K solution. I don't use Channels, I simply plug a USB 3.0 storage device into my Flex 4K and use Silicon Dust's DVR solution ($35/year). The software is working well and overall I'm happy. TiVo software is better, but SD's software works good enough and the client apps are on all the platforms I care about - iOS, macOS, apple TV, LG Web OS. The one feature that is absolutely fantastic is ATSC 3.0 support...all of my recordings are higher quality and the OTA reception itself is even better than it was with Tivo....no more pixelated glitches.

Do I wish TiVo would have stayed the course and focussed on their OTA DVRs and added ATSC 3.0? Maybe even an OTA Cloud DVR? Yes. But they didn't and they likely won't. Unfortunately they bet the farm on streaming rather than their bread and butter. My guess is that I won't be the only one that ditches Tivo for the competition.

 

[david.willis.tx]

Curious of how to get the operating system on a new replacement hard drive of the Bolt and Edge? My drives seems to be corroupted. System just hangs when rebooting and no idea how to get past that. I bought a new drive for server function, but no way get whatever is needed for it to boot up.

 

[pl1]

Curious of how to get the operating system on a new replacement hard drive of the Bolt and Edge? My drives seems to be corroupted. System just hangs when rebooting and no idea how to get past that. I bought a new drive for server function, but no way get whatever is needed for it to boot up.

What is the model number of your drive? The drive needs to be a CMR drive. These two drives are known to work:
1TB Toshiba MQ01ABD100V available from Amazon $31
2TB Toshiba MQ03ABB200 available from Ebay through China $56

The operating system is located on a flash drive on the TiVo Bolt and Edge. It will automatically format and install on your new hard drive. Your problem may also be the wall wart power supply.

You can check out the threads at TiVo Upgrade Center for more info.

 

[NashGuy]

Cable, maybe. Better than OTA? 95% of the stuff on apps/streaming is nowhere close to the bandwidth of a good HD OTA channel. Not that every channel OTA uses all the available bandwidth, but we have a few that do and the picture quality is night and day.
Now Xfinity, who crushes everything (including 1080i OTA from CBS/NBC) down to 720p with low bitrates is a poor example of picture 'quality'...

Everything I see on Peacock looks better than the same shows on NBC via OTA. Everything I see on Hulu looks better than the same shows on ABC and Fox OTA. Same with CBS shows on Paramount+ (in which case a few of them actually stream in 4K). While OTA devotes more bandwidth, those stations are still encoding with an older codec versus the streaming apps. On-demand streaming looks better than OTA and way better than cable.

 

[CommunityMember]

Everything I see on Peacock looks better than the same shows on NBC via OTA. Everything I see on Hulu looks better than the same shows on ABC and Fox OTA. Same with CBS shows on Paramount+ (in which case a few of them actually stream in 4K). While OTA devotes more bandwidth, those stations are still encoding with an older codec versus the streaming apps. On-demand streaming looks better than OTA and way better than cable.

Most OTA stations have chosen (or in the case for some O&O's been told) to use at least some of their bitrate for secondary channels (Fave TV and Start TV for CBS stations, equivalent for the others).

The PQ advantage of the OTAs (which did exist in many markets) has been eliminated by the business priorities of revenue (as anyone will tell you, it is always about the money).

 

[rhj]

Everything I see on Peacock looks better than the same shows on NBC via OTA. Everything I see on Hulu looks better than the same shows on ABC and Fox OTA. Same with CBS shows on Paramount+ (in which case a few of them actually stream in 4K). While OTA devotes more bandwidth, those stations are still encoding with an older codec versus the streaming apps. On-demand streaming looks better than OTA and way better than cable.

...likely until you get ATSC 3.0 with 1080p broadcasts and HEVC.

 

[NashGuy]

Most OTA stations have chosen (or in the case for some O&O's been told) to use at least some of their bitrate for secondary channels (Fave TV and Start TV for CBS stations, equivalent for the others).

The PQ advantage of the OTAs (which did exist in many markets) has been eliminated by the business priorities of revenue (as anyone will tell you, it is always about the money).

Yeah, back at the dawn of HD, I do remember the OTA HD channels looking really pristine. But over time, just about every local station in the nation has crammed in a few diginets on their secondary channels, which has reduced the HD PQ on the main .1.

...likely until you get ATSC 3.0 with 1080p broadcasts and HEVC.

Jury is still very much out as to what level of support ATSC 3.0 will ever get from the broadcast networks. So far, almost none. But then, as of this year, it's estimated that only about 1.5% of all US TVs in use have an ATSC 3.0 tuner inside (and my guess is that most of those TVs aren't even using OTA). The ol' chicken-and-egg problem...