# TiVo Mini vs Roamio Plus - Key usage differences?



## dmk1974 (Mar 7, 2002)

I currently have 2 Premiere 4's and 4 Mini's in my house working perfectly. Well, pretty much. The Premiere 4's are very slow compared to the Mini's (assuming because the Mini's are piggy-backing off the Premiere 4's).

Anyway, I just ordered a Roamio Plus to replace our primary Premiere 4 in the family room and then was thinking...should I relocate the Roamio to another room and just have the Mini in the family room and have this Mini connect to the Roamio? Perhaps with the Roamio the speeds are the same compared to the Mini.

But I was wondering, are there any downsides to doing this? What key functions and settings can I not perform on the Mini vs the Roamio? Thanks!


----------



## BigJimOutlaw (Mar 21, 2004)

The Premiere 4's performance will pretty much stay the same regardless of the Minis. The Premiere line was born slow.  But the summer update improves the performance some, if you haven't gotten it yet.

All the same, regardless of which Minis have which hosts, if possible I'd put the P4 on the least-used TV just to avoid using the slower box. You can still do all the primary functions (recordings, season passes, apps, etc) from any Minis connected to it... except watch Amazon downloads. (But even that has a trick if you use the Tivo app.)


----------



## dmk1974 (Mar 7, 2002)

BigJimOutlaw said:


> The Premiere 4's performance will pretty much stay the same regardless of the Minis. The Premiere line was born slow.  But the summer update improves the performance some, if you haven't gotten it yet.
> 
> All the same, regardless of which Minis have which hosts, if possible I'd put the P4 on the least-used TV just to avoid using the slower box. You can still do all the primary functions (recordings, season passes, apps, etc) from any Minis connected to it... except watch Amazon downloads. (But even that has a trick if you use the Tivo app.)


Thanks! I know initially that I couldn't set season passes on the Mini's, but that was fixed quite a while ago. Even Netflix and Xfinity OnDemand are faster on the Mini. Amazon doesn't really matter because neither supports Prime. And as far as the primary TiVo having extra tuners, the Mini will just grab an available one anyhow.

The only benefit, that I had encountered, by using the Premiere is if there are 2 available tuners, I can hit the Live TV button to toggle between NFL games and rewind on the one I am not viewing. I think on the Mini, while I can switch the channel, I can't command a 2nd available tuner to pause and rewind.


----------



## tarheelblue32 (Jan 13, 2014)

dmk1974 said:


> I think on the Mini, while I can switch the channel, I can't command a 2nd available tuner to pause and rewind.


By accident, I recently managed to do this on the Mini, but it requires both channels you want to watch to already be sitting on tuners and buffering on my Roamio Plus.


----------



## dmk1974 (Mar 7, 2002)

tarheelblue32 said:


> By accident, I recently managed to do this on the Mini, but it requires both channels you want to watch to already be sitting on tuners and buffering on my Roamio Plus.


The other work-around that I do on TiVo, regardless of which box, is to have the Bears game and RedZone both set to record so no matter what room I am in, each recording is live and can be viewed from any TV.


----------



## dmk1974 (Mar 7, 2002)

Both of my Premiere 4's and all 4 of my Mini's now have the latest software update. Different look, seems snappy enough on all six devices. No issues.

In spite of the Roamio ordering debacle, I am likely just going to keep everything as-is. From what I understand, for the 4 TiVo Mini's that I have, their performance would be unchanged if I upgrade the host box from a Premiere 4 to a Roamio (if this is incorrect, someone please let me know).

1 of the Premiere 4's is in the basement and is on the _least_-used TV in the house (and hosts 3 of the 4 Mini's). The other Premiere 4 is in the family room and is on the _most_-used TV in the house. Not terrible speed, but still not as fast as any of the Mini's.


----------

