The new TiVonomics got you down? Fortunately for you, TiVo is blowing our select Roamio inventory post Bolt intro. And this Roamio OTA is bundled with Lifetime service for a very attractive $300. For comparison, the 4-tuner Bolt starts at the same $300 but, after year one, requires either $150/year for ongoing service or $600 for Lifetime. Granted, Bolt does 4k… but, with a limited selection of content, it’s likely not yet a motivating for most. The main thing you give up is the Bolt’s controversial new look and integrated stream capabilities. One is likely irrelevant and the other can be corrected with an even more capable $130 Stream accessory, should you so choose. But you better strike while the iron is hot as TiVo will run out of inventory at some point and will surely cease sales once the OTA-only Bolt is unveiled later this year to prevent cannibalization. (Thanks David!)
In other Roamio deal news, supposedly the phenomenal 10-year customer loyalty deal has been sweetened. Whereas a Lifetimed 6-tuner, 1TB Roamio Plus was offered at a low $500 for long time customers, it has now opened up to 5-year patrons… for $50 less. Not to mention quite a few of you had convinced TiVo to throw in a Slide remote over the last few weeks (prior to the price drop). Further, various TiVo models (dependent on length of service?) may be eligible for Lifetime conversion for $99. So, like TiVo CMO Ira Bahr says, give them a call — they appear motivated to work deals and keep us happy.
“Granted, Bolt does 4k… but, with a limited selection of content, it’s likely not yet a motivating for most.”
The On Topic: Great deal. Grab it if you’re in the market for an OTA DVR. The Bolt has issues.
The Tangent: Yeah. 4K content is limited. But…
I recently noticed that Amazon is advertising the 4K Fire with the come-on of HEVC support for their 1080 streams. They use all kinds of weasel words like they’re going to deliver “more” HEVC streams “over the coming months” … “than ever before”, which could well mean almost none in the foreseeable future. But who knows? And who knows what Netflix and other OTT services are going to roll out on this front in what timeframe?
I’m obviously assuming here that the Bolt (and Roku 4) also support HEVC.
I’m probably an outlier in being a PQ freak who actually cares that even the services with the best current streaming practices (Amazon) have inferior PQ to high bit-rate multicast recordings. And who even knows if Amazon and others will use HEVC to really double the PQ of their streams, or if they’ll use some of that efficiency to reduce their bandwidth costs?
But, the whole point of my tangent is that, for folks who are PQ focussed, the newly released generation of streaming devices that support HEVC, which I assume includes the Bolt, may well have significant added streaming value well before 4K content and panels achieve any kind of critical mass.
Finally, to repeat myself back On Topic, this is a great deal if you’re in the market for an OTA DVR, and you should grab one pronto over the Bolt. (Similarly, if you’re a 5 year TiVo customer, those deals are great too. If I didn’t already have a Roamio, I’d buy one today.)
I can attest to the deals. I bought a refurb Roamio basic the day before the Bolt was announced with lifetime for 300 out the door. I called to cancel my monthly service on my Premiere and they offered to convert to Lifetime for $99 so I jumped on it. I’ve only been a customer since Nov of 2010.
Can you use an OTA like a mini to view live content from another Roamio?
Yes and I should have put that into the post. Any 4-tuner TiVo is capable of beaming live and recorded television to a Mini ($150) in another room.
Sorry, I guess I should’ve phrased it differently–can you have a Roamio Plus setup in one room and set the OTA in another room and connect to the RP to watch live TV like it was a mini?
No you can’t view live tv like the mini. But it will have access to all the recored show’s to stream them. or transfer them if not restricted. Of course they need to be on the same tivo account and the same LAN.
Chucky, pursuant to your comment above about Amazon’s HEVC-encoded 1080p streams, I’ll be curious to find out whether said streams have improved PQ over their traditional 1080p streams or if they just keep PQ pretty much the same and use the efficiencies of HEVC to deliver the streams at lower bitrates (and therefore lower data costs). Of course, it could be some combination of the two, e.g. 15% better PQ at 25% lower bitrate. Whatever the case, I would expect Amazon to serve those new 1080p streams to the TiVo Bolt too since it can decode HEVC. (As an aside, if you think the existing 1080p streams that Netflix and Amazon serve the Roamio are inferior to your multicast channels, then FiOS must have truly exceptional PQ. I’m pretty darn picky about PQ as well and 1080p streaming on my Roamio always looks better to my eyes than DirecTV — which has long been touted by AV nerds for its HD PQ — and even better than OTA HD. It’s not Blu-ray quality, of course, but then that’s not a fair comparison.)
Stupid question time… How is “an even more capable $130 Stream accessory” different from integrated streaming on a Roamio? Wondering if I should stick with my Premiere XL and get a Stream or go for the upgrade offer to a Roamio Plus.
“Chucky, pursuant to your comment above about Amazon’s HEVC-encoded 1080p streams, I’ll be curious to find out whether said streams have improved PQ over their traditional 1080p streams or if they just keep PQ pretty much the same and use the efficiencies of HEVC to deliver the streams at lower bitrates (and therefore lower data costs).”
Yeah. I did wonder about that in my comment. It’s a central question. Check out the Amazon Fire TV product page, where the wording is incredibly weasel-ish and non-specific. Read one way, it implies better PQ, but you could read it a different way where it implies no such thing.
“I would expect Amazon to serve those new 1080p streams to the TiVo Bolt too since it can decode HEVC.”
Yeah. That was my assumption. Thanks for the confirmation. And same assumption for Roku 4. (And all that said, I’d still strongly advise potential TiVo buyers to grab the Roamio deals over the Bolt.)
“As an aside, if you think the existing 1080p streams that Netflix and Amazon serve the Roamio are inferior to your multicast channels, then FiOS must have truly exceptional PQ.”
Well, FIOS does not further compress its sources from what it receives, which some other MSO’s definitely do.
Also, FWIW, different channels transmit dramatically different bit-rates. For one less dramatic example, the main HBO and HBO west coast channels transmit at a higher bit-rate than the multitude of other HBO channels.
But yeah, I can easily see better PQ from high bit-rate multicast channels than from even the services with the best current streaming practices (Amazon). If the bit-rate is 3x higher, well, I trust you can do the math…
Of course, I’m a PQ freak. If we were a MRV household, I’d never dream of using a Fire TV over a Mini. I use a Mac Mini Plex endpoint to avoid any transcoding. And so on.
AJL, That comment was specific to Bold. Stream is agnostic and thus more flexible. More importantly handles up to 4 concurrent streams, where as Bolt streams to one endpoint, in-home only. Two endpoints and out-of-home are expected at a later date. Stream vs Roamio is a closer comparison, probably minimal real world differences.
http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=508172
I basically had your setup and went for the Roamio Plus (and updated myself to 3TB).
Any reason to think the standalone Stream wouldn’t work with the Bolt to allow more simultaneous connections / OOH in the short term?
I don’t know if anyone here could provide insight but I thought I’d give it a shot. I have a Channel Master DVR+ and like it a lot; however, there are a couple channels that I could receive fine using the tuner in my tv but now have issues using the DVR+ tuner. The big problem is that my wife really enjoys both of these channels. Any idea how the Tivo’s tuner performs vs the DVR+? Would I perhaps have better luck changing to Tivo? Thanks in advance for any help!
I’m not aware of a head to head comparison, but I believe the Roamio has a good OTA tuner. TiVo is generally more polished, much more responsive, and with more apps than DVR+. It’s a harder call when you already own one, tho. Amazon has a generous return policy is all I can say.
I own two TiVo HD’s, a TiVo Premier (owned short term), and a Roamio base model. All with lifetime service. I’m OTA exclusively. The tuners in the HD have always performed well, the Premier was sent back after several weeks of trying to get the same channels my HD units tuned with ease. The Roamio reception is largely on par with the HD unit. I’m hopeful the BOLT tuners will be as good. Haven’t tried the Channel Master but I would be surprised if the Roamio won’t perform better.
I have a Series 3, Premier and Roamio Plus, and all three tune fine for me. I’d say Premier and Roamio are best, but I don’t think it is tuner as much as the quickness of the hardware pushing the software. I never had an HD before, as the Series 3 was my main unit for several years, but I knew a guy that had all sorts of issues with his TiVo HDs on Suddenlink (though it was mostly due to loss of channels or channel tiers).
I never had any issues with Series 1 and 2 TiVos tuning channels either, come to think of it….
I’ve read mixed things about OTA tuner quality on the CM+ but really only good things about the tuners in the Roamio OTA, which I own. My assessment is that it has good tuners, better than the tuner in my Samsung TV.
One thing I wish TiVo would do is integrate their software. I have a 6-Tuner Roamio (Plus?) and a Mini and an old TiVo HD. I’d like to replace the HD with an OTA so that I can connect an antenna. The Roamio I have can’t use an antenna. SO ideally I’d like the Roamio, Roamio OTA and Mini to all display the combined content of the Roamios so that I didn’t have to worry about what device is storing the content. Failing that, I’d like a mode on the OTA that makes it behave like a mini. Then in the future, if I ditch Time Warner and decide to just use the antenna, they’d draw the content from that box. In an ideal world, the two Roamios would act as one DVR so that it didn’t matter what device recorded what.
Unfortunately, I fear, by the time TiVo gets to that point of integration, DVRs will be moot.
If I’m reading this right, you’re saying I can get a new Roamio Plus with lifetime for $450? Instead of the $900 sticker on the website ($299 box, $599 all-in)? I’ve been with Tivo since 2004. I just need to call them?
Correct. Possibly a Slide remote too.
At least one person wasn’t able to get TiVo to offer them the $450 deal today. Not sure if the promo has ended, but I did take Ira at his word when he said call in, he wants to take care of folks.
Roamio OTA with lifetime on sale at amazon 299.95
Just wanted to report back that I ended up pulling the trigger on the Roamio to compare the tuner performance vs. the Channel Master I already owned. The results were what I was hoping for — the Tivo does NOT lose the signal on those channels the way the DVR+ would. Thanks for those here that encouraged me to give it a shot!
I think the deal is gone now