DirecTV’s placeshifting Nomad has been rebranded as the GenieGo. Further, the satcaster has dropped the price from $150 to a more compelling $99. The device initially only transcoded and transferred DVR recordings, but has since expanded its capabilities by also providing (almost) live television in-home streaming – comparable to the competing TiVo Stream and DISH Sling Hopper. However, unlike the TiVo Stream, DirecTV has just released an Android app (which isn’t receiving the greatest of reviews) to go along with their longstanding iPhone support. However, for pure streaming, the Sling Hopper remains best-in-class as Slingbox functionality is baked directly into STB hardware, without requiring a separate box, and content can be beamed both within the home and beyond. But for those with limited or no bandwidth whilst on the move, both the GenieGo and TiVo Stream conveniently provide video offloading functionality… although preparing and transferring the content can be a bit kludgy.
I just picked one of these up from DirecTV, it’s actually a pretty slick device. The GenieGo can hold 20 hours of recordings (it has a 16GB drive inside) from your Genie, which you can expand upon by adding a USB hard drive. The device runs silent. My only real complaint on the hardware is it transcodes the video in real time, so if you have an hour show, you have to wait an hour before transferring to your device. However, once you’ve transcoded for one device, it’s stored on the GenieGo, so the next time you transfer to another device, it’s just a download.
The app itself (I run it on iOS) is OK, there’s no native iPad app, which they keep claiming is coming, so if you run on an iPad, you’re getting an upscaled iPhone app. But the app does work pretty well. The main complaint on both the iOS and Android app is it won’t work on Jailbroken/rooted devices. You’re limited to 5 devices per GenieGo, and once you try and add a 6th, it asks you to remove one of the existing 5. Be careful about constant switching, once you remove a device, you cannot add it back for 30 days.
One of my main complaints when I left Tivo for DirecTV was my inability to take recordings with me for offline viewing, this fills that gap for my use cases. Once they get a native iPad app, I’ll be completely happy with it.