While I’ve been quite satisfied with my TiVo Mini as a DVR extender, it shipped crippled in terms of third-party streaming apps. And, after 6 months with no movement, I picked up another Roku today. Perhaps ironically, Sam Biller just discovered TiVo has (accidentally?) published Netflix and Amazon Instant icons to our Minis. Netflix appears to be fully functional, although possibly crashy dependent on output resolution, and feels significantly faster than my Premiere XL4/Elite — although just about every other app platform is. Unfortunately, Amazon is met with a V301 error which suggests the backend isn’t active for us non-beta testers and it’s not yet known if we’ll be treated to an entirely new Amazon implementation (to include Prime streaming). But both apps are clearly on their way and this lines up with news of a scheduled September TiVo Mini update to include dynamic tuner allocation.
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Have you been able to output at 1080P24 for the Mini? With both of my Minis, as soon as the output switches to 1080P24, they reboot. At first I thought it was an issue with the 1080P stream. But when I force both of my Minis to output at only 1080i or 720P, I'm able to play all three 1080P Netflix bitrates without issue. But when the 1080P24 output resolution is checked, and it switches to that resolution, both of my Minis reboot.
I had never tried anything with 1080P24 on my Minis, since Amazon did work either. So I'm wondering if it is something specific to both of my Minis.
My Mini is currently on an older 720p plasma (bedroom). Not sure if I can change the output to test without losing the image and I really don't feel like moving it to either of the 1080p sets... But I'm feeling hopeful we've made it this far -- it's obviously nearly ready to go (and may require a firmware/software update before it works properly for you). Which means I'll be able to move the Premiere Elite to the basement, headless, and get a second Mini for the living room (instead of flipping the Lifetimed Elite for a Roamio). Also, if I can get the Mini working with my wireless bridge and DTA is delivered as expected, I'd consider getting another for the kitchen and calling it a year. Unless FiOS TV comes to Roku - then I'd take that in the kitchen instead.
I can confirm that 1080p causes a reboot of the Mini. The Mini where I was performing the primary testing was set to 720p. It turns out the other (3rd bedroom) TV is capable of 1080p. I enabled that as a video format and as soon as the Super HD stream switched to 1080p, the Mini rebooted. I suspect that the Netflix app beta testers probably reported this and a fix is in the works prior to launch. Now that this back door has been revealed, I wonder if TiVo will disable the capability on our Boxes.