# Why would there be no Roamio Basics available for sale on Tivo's website?



## JimPa (Oct 25, 2006)

I found new Roamio Basics on Amazon for 3rd party sellers but don't see any on the Tivo website.

What does this mean?

I'm having some problems with my Roamio Basic and am looking at replacing it but would rather hold off for a Bolt pro version provided its not just vaporware.

Thanks


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## DevdogAZ (Apr 16, 2003)

TiVo sold out of them with the big sale they did late last year and they don't plan to continue making that model. For now, their two models are the Roamio Pro and the Bolt. Presumably, once the Bolt Pro is released later this year, they'll clear out the Roamio Pros and then they'll just sell the Bolts.


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## JimPa (Oct 25, 2006)

DevdogAZ said:


> TiVo sold out of them with the big sale they did late last year and they don't plan to continue making that model. For now, their two models are the Roamio Pro and the Bolt. Presumably, once the Bolt Pro is released later this year, they'll clear out the Roamio Pros and then they'll just sell the Bolts.


Would you know if the Bolt pro will have 4 or more OTA tuners?


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## atmuscarella (Oct 11, 2005)

JimPa said:


> Would you know if the Bolt pro will have 4 or more OTA tuners?


No one even knows if the a Bolt pro will work OTA at all, actually we know almost nothing about what a Bolt pro may be.

What is wrong with your Roamio? How old is your Roamio? Do you pay monthly/annually or does it have lifetime? Have you talked to TiVo? They maybe willing to replace it for a pretty reasonable price if it is actually a warranty type issue.


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## JimPa (Oct 25, 2006)

atmuscarella said:


> No one even knows if the a Bolt pro will work OTA at all, actually we know almost nothing about what a Bolt pro may be.
> 
> What is wrong with your Roamio? How old is your Roamio? Do you pay monthly/annually or does it have lifetime? Have you talked to TiVo? They maybe willing to replace it for a pretty reasonable price if it is actually a warranty type issue.


I've already spoken with them this afternoon. The best they could offer was to do some kind of swapout for a refurb unit for $149. I'd rather not get a refurb.

On my Roamio Basic, color and contrast appears off. Using either my Mini or Series 3 on the same display, the picture is better in terms of contrast and color.

I considered buying another mini and use it to output the signal to the display. Only problem is that the mini doesn't have a toslink audio output. My prepro does have hdmi audio but it processes the picture even with the settings turned off.

Ideally, I'd like to find a way to use the Series 3 to act like a mini but I don't think it works that way. Its video output is the best of the three.


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## ej42137 (Feb 16, 2014)

JimPa said:


> Ideally, I'd like to find a way to use the Series 3 to act like a mini but I don't think it works that way. Its video output is the best of the three.


Correct, the first model that supports streaming like a Mini is the Premiere. The S3 is out in the cold, cruel non-streaming world. You can copy shows that don't have copy protection to an S3, of course.


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## JimPa (Oct 25, 2006)

ej42137 said:


> Correct, the first model that supports streaming like a Mini is the Premiere. The S3 is out in the cold, cruel non-streaming world. You can copy shows that don't have copy protection to an S3, of course.


I had an earlier discussion about copying shows to the S3 but what I didn't know is how many shows broadcast OTA are copy protected.... or is copy protection more a thing of the cable companies?


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## jrtroo (Feb 4, 2008)

Zero OTA shows are copy protected.


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## dlfl (Jul 6, 2006)

JimPa said:


> I've already spoken with them this afternoon. The best they could offer was to do some kind of swapout for a refurb unit for $149. I'd rather not get a refurb. .....


Nothing wrong with a refurb unit. Many of them are just new units that were not even defective but were returned anyway. I purchased my Roamio base model last August as a refurb unit. Has the same warranty as a new one and had nary a scratch on it -- no way to tell it wasn't brand new.

You don't say whether your unit has a lifetime sub. If they are replacing it and continuing the lifetime sub for $149 that is an excellent offer.


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## Joe01880 (Feb 8, 2009)

JimPa said:


> I've already spoken with them this afternoon. The best they could offer was to do some kind of swapout for a refurb unit for $149. I'd rather not get a refurb.
> 
> On my Roamio Basic, color and contrast appears off. Using either my Mini or Series 3 on the same display, the picture is better in terms of contrast and color.
> 
> ...


Why not a refurb.? What kind of price are thatr offering with lifetime service.?
I'd just throw 3, 4 or 6TB. HDD in it anyway. Get the extended warranty on it and all you've done is save a bunch of money.

Sent from my VS986 using Tapatalk


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## JimPa (Oct 25, 2006)

dlfl said:


> Nothing wrong with a refurb unit. Many of them are just new units that were not even defective but were returned anyway. I purchased my Roamio base model last August as a refurb unit. Has the same warranty as a new one and had nary a scratch on it -- no way to tell it wasn't brand new.
> 
> You don't say whether your unit has a lifetime sub. If they are replacing it and continuing the lifetime sub for $149 that is an excellent offer.


I'm on a month to month subscription for the last several years. Stupid, I know.


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## atmuscarella (Oct 11, 2005)

JimPa said:


> I'm on a month to month subscription for the last several years. Stupid, I know.


If you are paying monthly I wouldn't pay $150 for replacement Roamio, for the same effective price you can have a new Bolt (Max of $300 which includes 1 year of service so the unit is $150).


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## JimPa (Oct 25, 2006)

atmuscarella said:


> If you are paying monthly I wouldn't pay $150 for replacement Roamio, for the same effective price you can have a new Bolt (Max of $300 which includes 1 year of service so the unit is $150).


Thanks for posting.

I couldn't figure out from the Tivo site if on the Bold, you get 4 ATSC tuners for over the air reception. Would you happen to know?


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## rainwater (Sep 21, 2004)

JimPa said:


> Thanks for posting.
> 
> I couldn't figure out from the Tivo site if on the Bold, you get 4 ATSC tuners for over the air reception. Would you happen to know?


The Bolt has 4 tuners. You can use it for OTA or cable (but not both at the same time).


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## JimPa (Oct 25, 2006)

Well that made the decision a bit easier.

Next question is to go ahead and get the Bolt or wait for a yet not unannounced Bolt Pro to be released which may not happen for a while if ever. Plus, the current Bolt looks like somebody went out of their way to make it ugly.


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## SomeRandomIdiot (Jan 7, 2016)

JimPa said:


> Well that made the decision a bit easier.
> 
> Next question is to go ahead and get the Bolt or wait for a yet not unannounced Bolt Pro to be released which may not happen for a while if ever. Plus, the current Bolt looks like somebody went out of their way to make it ugly.


No OTA for possible new "Pro" model.

However OTA about to do dramatic change in next 12 months with or without ATSC 3.0.

I certainly would not be buying an OTA unit now.


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## JimPa (Oct 25, 2006)

SomeRandomIdiot said:


> No OTA for possible new "Pro" model.


How do you know this? Just asking.

Also, lets say that I go ahead and get a Bolt along with the included 1 year subscription. What's the best way to handle the recordings on the Roamio which has an external drive attached? I would eventually want to use the external drive on the Bolt.


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## atmuscarella (Oct 11, 2005)

JimPa said:


> How do you know this? Just asking.
> 
> Also, lets say that I go ahead and get a Bolt along with the included 1 year subscription. What's the best way to handle the recordings on the Roamio which has an external drive attached? I would eventually want to use the external drive on the Bolt.


Leave service on your Roamio until you have moved all your shows. Move as many as you can directly to your new Bolt. Any that do not fit on it will have to be moved to a computer and then after you move the external drive to the new Bolt moved to your Bolt from the computer.

Be aware that when you disconnect the external drive from the Roamio you will loose all recordings made after that drive was added to your Roamio.


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## SomeRandomIdiot (Jan 7, 2016)

JimPa said:


> How do you know this? Just asking.


Simply using the logic of what TiVo has done over the last 7 years.

As they have moved their focus from retail to mso, no reason to expect them to change course with OTA tuners.


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## JimPa (Oct 25, 2006)

atmuscarella said:


> Leave service on your Roamio until you have moved all your shows. Move as many as you can directly to your new Bolt. Any that do not fit on it will have to be moved to a computer and then after you move the external drive to the new Bolt moved to your Bolt from the computer.
> 
> Be aware that when you disconnect the external drive from the Roamio you will loose all recordings made after that drive was added to your Roamio.


Bolt order a couple of hours ago.

When you transfer recordings, do you do it one at a time or do you select and move all at once?


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## atmuscarella (Oct 11, 2005)

JimPa said:


> Bolt order a couple of hours ago.
> 
> When you transfer recordings, do you do it one at a time or do you select and move all at once?


You do it one at a time, but you do not have to wait for each show to get transferred, you can continue to select the ones you want to transfer and they just get added to a transfer to do list, then the Bolt will go through the list and transfer them all without further input form you. Once both units are on your TiVo account your Roamio should show up in your Bolts My Shows list and you select each recording to transfer to the Bolt from there.


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## JoeKustra (Dec 7, 2012)

JimPa said:


> Bolt order a couple of hours ago.
> 
> When you transfer recordings, do you do it one at a time or do you select and move all at once?


Also, under Network, Network Diagnostics, View Transfer History you can see the time and speed of the transfer. This will give you an estimate of how long it's going to take.


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## JimPa (Oct 25, 2006)

atmuscarella said:


> You do it one at a time, but you do not have to wait for each show to get transferred, you can continue to select the ones you want to transfer and they just get added to a transfer to do list, then the Bolt will go through the list and transfer them all without further input form you. Once both units are on your TiVo account your Roamio should show up in your Bolts My Shows list and you select each recording to transfer to the Bolt from there.


That's a little different than transferring content from the Roamio to the S3.

So when the Bolt fills up and I still have some content (on either the Roamio drive or my external drive) is there an application within the bolt to transfer the remaining content or do I use my computer to move it to my computer's hard drive?


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## atmuscarella (Oct 11, 2005)

JimPa said:


> That's a little different than transferring content from the Roamio to the S3.
> 
> So when the Bolt fills up and I still have some content (on either the Roamio drive or my external drive) is there an application within the bolt to transfer the remaining content or do I use my computer to move it to my computer's hard drive?


No application within the Bolt you will have to use either TiVo Desktop or one of the other solutions that people talk about on these forums (I have only used TiVo Desktop). I would transfer the shows you want the most first, TiVo Desktop is old an clunky and if the recording as any issues you can have failures pretty easy not sure how the other programs work.


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## JimPa (Oct 25, 2006)

O.K.....Bolt came in and has been installed.
In the process of transferring content from the Roamio Basic to the Bolt.

One question I'd like to ask is I see how on the Bolt, you can find shows on the Roamio that's on the network and just play them without transferring them.

This has me wondering if I could do that with the S3....meaning use the S3 to play/stream content off of the Roamio. Is that possible and for it to work if it works would I have to reactivate the S3?

Also, what's with the way the Bolt skips forward 30 seconds. Its like its actually playing the content extra fast instead of just skipping forward?


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## atmuscarella (Oct 11, 2005)

Series 3 TiVos can not stream from another TiVo, you have to transfer the recording to them. All model TiVos have to have active service on them to stream or transfer shows. On a side note if you don't have service on a Series 3 unit, you can no longer buy service for it and it is not much more than a paper wait. 

Regarding the 30 sec skip or scan, default is a 30 sec scan but you can still turn on the 30 sec skip by playing a recording and then press Select-Play-Select-3-0-Select.


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## JimPa (Oct 25, 2006)

Thanks !!!


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