TiVo’s retail pivot away from the traditional DVR towards a smaller form factor Internet streamer has seemingly hit a bump in the road.
The Android TV-powered TiVo Stream 4K was originally slated for an April release. And, while the world has drastically changed in recent months, TiVo indicated the Stream 4K was on track and “coming very soon” on April 16th. So something has clearly come up, delaying its launch and leading to updated guidance that the TiVo Stream 4K should be available “in the next few weeks” (vs an outright cancellation of the product, as the Maverik was).
With so many sheltering in place, it’s an ideal time to get a streamer into the market. But TiVo is entering a crowded field of mature competitors, including Apple TV, Roku, and others. TiVo’s pitch is superior cross-app presentation and universal search, but they may also feature fewer deep linked content providers while only integrating Sling TV for live television and DVR — and, maddeningly, leaving behind their existing TiVo DVR customers.
The TiVo Stream 4K was originally slated to launch with $50 promotional pricing, followed by an eventual $70 MSRP. As with the release date that’s slipped, it wouldn’t surprise me if revised pricing could also be in play. We shall see.
If it had worked with YouTube TV and also streamed from a real TiVo, this would have been a no-brainer purchase for me. I moved two months ago to a place without cable, so I’m streaming-only now. They missed the boat with me, and I’m using YouTube TV on all of my sets.
Yup, killing the streamer clients without making this a TiVo DVR end-point was the end of the road for me. I moved on from TiVo in January and now use Channels DVR.
Disappointing, but unfortunately, not unexpected. Not sure what, or if, the the Coronavirus has to do with this, but I think it will arrive shortly. Hoping at least.
Place your bets, ladies and gents. When’s it gonna drop and for how much?
With the similarly specced AirTV Mini running $80, I’ll go ahead and pick that number. I’ll also guess May pre-orders with hopes of June deliveries.
I hope that dongle isn’t to heavy to affect my hdmi input on my av receiver,didn’t the amazon 4k dongle have a problem because of it’s weight so they added an cable for it?
Oooh… Good to know on the Channels DVR. That would have worked for me had I bought AppleTVs for all of my dumb TVs instead of just replacing them with RokuTVs when I moved. Channels doesn’t have a Roku app… they said the typical Roku box doesn’t have the resources needed to decode.
I bought an AirTV2 and the antenna tuner kit to try it all out before the quarantine, but ended up sticking with YouTube TV instead. Wish it was easier to sell the kit I bought.
I’d switch to the Channels DVR right now if I could afford to. Teasing us with apps really pissed me off. Hopefully I can switch at the beginning of the year.
What hardware are you using with Channels. The pre-roll ads were the final straw that turned this one time TiVo lover into a TiVo hater.
I went to the channels website but I’m kind of confused at what hardware I need. I have Apple TVs on both my sets already. But I can’t figure out everything else I would need.
Eddie, there are several ways to slice and dice it. You can use HDHomeRun over-the-air or CableCARD tuners as content sources. You can also link a cable company TV Everywhere credential to get much of that content remotely (with lesser audio and video quality). Then your DVR will need a brain and some storage. This could be a computer, a Raspberry Pi, a NAS, etc. Lastly, you’ll need some display clients like Apple TV or Fire TV.
I use an NVIDIA SHIELD TV PRO for brain, storage (via USB drive), and television client (that sits at my family room TV). Most content is via a used HDHomeRun Prime with CableCARD on FiOS TV (that sits in my upstairs office). I also linked my mom’s Comcast TVE account to add the Big Ten channel to my lineup. I have Apple TV and Fire TV for other clients. I am bummed they’re not providing a Roku client due to those performance limitations.
Thank you Dave, this clears up a lot for me.
When one of my TiVos died I managed to find an HDHomeRun box on Ebay and transferred my Cablecard. I’m using it with Plex, and so far so good.
I really wish the HDHomeRun 6-tuner cablecard unit would come out…
Oh Tivo, you’re so good at missing market opportunities.
We should probably file this under good ideas that never see the light of day.
Supply chain problems ? Chinese factories ? What market, luxuries are going to being going down the drain and a dongle isn’t food or a job.
I also moved on from Tivo to Channels DVR late last year. I ran the two systems in parallel for about a month and the transition for me and the family was very smooth. I sold our Tivo Bolt 4k and our three Tivo Mini Vox and haven’t missed them. I run Channels DVR on a Synology NAS and then have AppleTVs for the clients (along with iPhones and iPads). I use an OTA and a subscription to Philo TV as its two sources. The out of home streaming works great also. I had been using Tivo for nearly 15 years but it was time to move on.
I’m baffled as to why Tivo isn’t sending message updates about this device directly to their legacy DVRs. This device looks like the 3rd gen fire TV pendant, except the HDMI cable is on the side instead of the corner. The pendant didn’t sell very well and I picked one up a couple years ago for $17 from Target. Tivo has a bad reputation for slow apps already, so the design and inability to target their existing legacy customer base with ads for this device is not a good sign.
I have been a Tivo customer for 20 years. Tivo died when Margret Schmidt left Tivo. Rovi killed Tivo and Xperi is throwing more dirt on top the grave.
What is the point for Tivo to come out with a streaming dongle, if it cant connect to your real Tivo and stream recorded shows from that? This should be rebranded a Sling 4k stream since to “Record” shows to a virtual DVR you must have Sling.
I have a Tivo Bolt with lifetime and 1 mini, soon to have 2 minis to give my daughter one. I would have bought a stream for her if I could access Tivo recorded shows.
They went with Android with the SW for this new device, and at some point I see the Tivo OS migrating to Android, which being an Apple fan boy, I dont hate the idea. Tivo has never been good at developing SW for the box. Heck, they came out with the Tivo HD with a dual core tuner and they had no idea how to enable it. I understand much under the hood needed to change. Once they got that enabled, it was night and day difference.
I hope Xperi is smart enough to realize when new things are not good keep innovating with Tivo product.
I was sad to see Tivo stop HW development but then again I am happy that others are building boxes. I just home Tivo gives them the ability to innovate and do improvements they want without Tivo crippling them. If Tivo does switch to full Android for the full size box, it could open the doors for much better things. I just hope they offer Airplay 2 support, which the 4k stream is missing.
You can order now from TiVo for $49.99. I will have one at my house Saturday.
The dongle is now available for $50 with free shipping for the next few weeks. As far as we know, no changes in capabilities from the CES announcement. I’ll post a follow up when someone like Jared Newman and our fellow customers go hands on.
https://www.tivo.com/products/stream-4k
It looks to me like an incremental improvement on the Android UI, with a drastic improve the over the typical Android TV remote. That may be enough for me. I’ll be getting one Sunday, will report back..
The gimmick seems to be a proprietary Tivo app that aggregates content from multiple streaming apps and provides a unified guide to search and select shows to watch by launching the corresponding streaming app. I wonder how much slower it will be.
Someone, who purchased this device, should call customer support and ask if this device can be reverted to TE3.