[krkaufman]

No reason yours shouldn't work, or why TiVo refuses to help.

Well, if they purchased a couple Premiere DVRs capable of OTA, that would be one reason, since TiVo doesn't offer new service subscriptions for Premiere's anymore.

 

[Dealcatcher]

I have TIVO BOLT VOX and a Mini that work great. I also still subscribe to Spectrum (which is very expensive at $200+/month.) I use TIVO all the time in my home office, but my wife loves the simplicity of the Spectrum Guide and so we have it on all (4) TV's except in my office. The Mini is hooked up on a port on our main TV in the living room as a safty blanket if Spectrum goes out and also as a DVR. I would go full time TIVO and cancel Spectrum except for their basic service but my wife is addicted to the Spectrum Remotes. She agrees that the TIVO Guide is much better, and likes the DVR but just won't get away from Spectrum ... ya know, "happy wife, happy life", and it's true. Maybe sometime soon TIVO will devise the perfect solution. I would consider OTA but can't find an antenna that will pull the remote signals (50 - 7- miles away in opposite directions, ) that are reliable. 34465 Florida. So I hang in with TIVO and have for 20+ years. Fingers are crossed.

Please tell us all how you are getting your OTA to download your local TV channels? We have 2 brand new OTAs in their original Tivo boxes and have spent days trying trying to download our local channels and eastern PA, but no matter what we try, we can't get them to download.

We had been Tivo users since day 1, and it was wonderful and expensive over the many years. A couple years ago, we purchased 2 brand New OTA Tivos, and misplaced them in our new home in Dover, PA. Tried for hours and hours, and all the so called fixes to get the OTA channels in Dover. Nothing worked. We called around trying to find out what was going on, and everyone we talked to said Tivo just dropped support for the units. How much support could be involved? It is OTA not cable, and yet they lied when talking to them, and not just saying we don't support the units, and you are just screwed. So we wasted hours trying everything we could find online, but to no avail. Why does this country put up with companies just screwing over people? Does anyone know how to do a walk around on trying to download the channels to the OTA tivo's?

 

[Dealcatcher]

Well, if they purchased a couple Premiere DVRs capable of OTA, that would be one reason, since TiVo doesn't offer new service subscriptions for Premiere's anymore.

Thanks for your reply, but these are standard OTA, TIVO's not premieres capable of doing OTA. We we bought them right after TIVO came out with him, and thought we would use them eventually. And yet they eventually come and we can't get them to find us stations in our area when we can connect them up to our TV and watch them just fine and I don't think there's any of the TIVO service software on there other than the basic stuff that you need. When you buy it to record over the air TV shows nothings changed with the programming and broadcast of OTA in my part of Pennsylvania or anywhere else as far as I know , so I just can't figure out what's going on and if anyone else has any more ideas I want to try them so please pass them on much appreciated. Thank you very much everyone for your help.

 

[krkaufman]

Thanks for your reply, but these are standard OTA, TIVO's not premieres capable of doing OTA. We we bought them right after TIVO came out with him, and thought we would use them eventually. And yet they eventually come and we can't get them to find us stations in our area when we can connect them up to our TV and watch them just fine and I don't think there's any of the TIVO service software on there other than the basic stuff that you need. When you buy it to record over the air TV shows nothings changed with the programming and broadcast of OTA in my part of Pennsylvania or anywhere else as far as I know , so I just can't figure out what's going on and if anyone else has any more ideas I want to try them so please pass them on much appreciated. Thank you very much everyone for your help.

There is no such thing as a “standard OTA TIVO.” So, for the Nth time, what is the actual model number of your TiVo box … as printed on the label on its back?

And many suggestions have been made by people in this thread, but you haven’t seemed to respond to any of the questions or suggestions … which is why one of the suggestions was for you to start your own dedicated thread, so you could have an easier time tracking replies.

Additional suggestions for what to include in your thread are included in this earlier post:

Why do you still use Tivo

I'm down to a single TiVo & even that is just a backup OTA recorder in case of storms with Directv. But streaming as a backup has rendered the TiVo essentially unnecessary in our home.

www.tivocommunity.com

 

[sno.1953]

Love my TIVO, we are on #4, Series 2 (which stills works and purchased in 2005), Premiere, Roamio and Edge. Spectrum keeps threatening to stop supporting cards but if all TIVO users would cancel their subscriptions they might rethink. At one time Spectrum discussed having TIVO as their DVR but it didn't happen.

We use ROKU as an addon for streaming. Many shows are free but you are stuck with loads of commercials. I am not sure if paid subscription services offer no commercial viewing. We subscribe to ACORN and Britbox and those are commercial free. Right now many channels are pretty cheap but who is to say these won't increase dramatically when cable is reduced. Plus, many have the same shows and so it could get overwhelming.

One thing not mentioned is what happens to your viewing experience when EVERYONE is streaming? Unless they really kick up the bandwidth that could be a problem, or if the cloud is not available, streaming is out due to storms or whatever, then you are screwed. Having TIVO allows you to maintain a cable connection or watch previously recorded shows while others are twiddling their thumbs. I save shows like Sewing with Nancy, Fit to Stitch, etc.

I won't be getting rid of TIVO unless forced to.

 

[eherberg]

Spectrum keeps threatening to stop supporting cards but if all TIVO users would cancel their subscriptions they might rethink.

Given the number of users of cablecard against the total - the scenario you describe could happen and it would barely nudge the needle. In fact - I'm sure Spectrum would prefer it if such a thing were to actually happen.

 

[misterclick]

Use it for recording local broadcast and News and live sports love the interface. My 2 main issues with TiVo is I have a Mini but regularly lose connection. I have to switch back and forth between hard wired and a TiVo branded Wi-Fi adapter every few weeks. Go figure. I wish TiVo would have more updated apps

I used to have that problem years ago until I Assigned IP numbers to devices that use Internet. I found out the TiVo recorder and the Mini constantly or occasionally were given different IPs from the router and when that happened I had to "reconnect" the Mini.
After I signed static IPs, I never had that problem. You might try that.

 

[bareyb]

Because College Football. Could not find a stream of the UMich v. Ohio game today. Had to wake up old Faithful to see it. Tivo comes in handy when the Internet goes down too.

 

[krisjs1767_111]

I have yet to see anything as good as the TiVo Guide.

 

[tenthplanet]

Because College Football. Could not find a stream of the UMich v. Ohio game today. Had to wake up old Faithful to see it. Tivo comes in handy when the Internet goes down too.

Being it's a hardware dvr, even if the signal fails going to a Tivo and a recording is messed up you still have access previous recordings on the hard drive. If the internet goes down you'll still have your recordings in the cloud but you won't be able to get at them. As long as Tivo offers hardware dvrs I'll keep using them, it looks OTA plus streaming is still the future for a few more years.

 

[markjrenna]

Having used Comcast, FiOS, and Optimum DVR's... It's a no brainer. Whish List's are a must for me!

 

[buscuitboy]

Why do I still use Tivo?..... It really is still the best DVR experience. while I actually don't use it nearly as much as I did in the past, this is not so much by choice, but rather only because the way the industry and technology has shifted & moved; streaming and cloud DVR functionality. Both of these jobs can now be done by MUCH cheaper hardware options (roku, fireTV, android TV, etc)

I have 2 Roamios and 2 minis that still work great and no issues for years. I actually really only use them to record some local channels a few times a month for a paid project (& then offload with cTivo for MAC). Otherwise, I might have gotten rid of them a long time ago. Unfortunately, I find the apps on TiVo to be rather slow compared to my streaming boxes so the use of Netflix, HBO, Amazon Prime, etc, is suited better on other devices. I know some of this can be achieved by TiVo hardware, but unfortunately this is not where they excel so streaming is better elsewhere.

I actually recently used my TiVos to watch some world cup games on FOX and do find it much easier to navigate then some of the IP based providers. I am with Xfinity, but only have a low end package since we have YoutubeTV for our main live TV viewing habits. I like this service, but it nice to go back to the TiVo every so often (LOL) & overall it just seems easier to get around when wanting to just channel surf and watch a recorded show.

With cable card mandates dropped, I suspect my days of TiVo will slowly die & be coming to an end. While Xfinity seems to still support cable cards for now & could be one of the better providers to offer longer support, who knows how much longer that will be. I hear companies are shifting to IP based channels that cable cards can't handle so when this happens with all my channels, that is probably when I will be done. I guess I should feel lucky as I hear several cable companies are already dropping & not supporting cable cards at all anymore. Probably also why I am hestiant to toally drop TiVo and hanging on to in in fear of not being able to get it back.

Long live TiVo

 

[phox_mulder]

I work M-F, 2pm-11pm, so watching any primetime network programming is a no-go.
I don't record as much these days as I used to, but still watch come.

 

[hoyty]

My main preference for TiVo which I have had for 15 years now was having the capability of saving a recording such as a concert or sporting event to my PC for editing and saving in on my Media NAS for future viewing. Without that capability I would have moved on long ago. I presently have an Edge and I am happy with it.

Why did you prefer or stil use your Tivo?

I have an Edge OTA to watch NFL and News over broadcast. Everything else is on streaming services. We use the TiVo once or twice a week at most. I looked at the apps on the Edge and it is a joke. The Edge supports 4K, but with the selection of apps who cares. I have gotten sales emails for Edge Cable as low as $400 for device + lifetime.

I am 100% confident this will be my last TiVo.