# The Bolt flies



## sangs (Jan 1, 2003)

Couple of Bolts up and running since yesterday afternoon and first impressions are quite positive. Boy are these things fast - and small. The footprint makes the Roamio Plus/Pro look like an archaic monster. The "bend" is not as dramatic as I thought it would be when first seeing photos of the Bolt either. And I love having an external, easily replaceable power supply. Couldn't have been any easier to setup either. Didn't even have to "manually validate" my cable cards from FiOS. Every channel was active through regular activation. Very pleased.

Glad I took the plunge. Thinking of getting two more.


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## shanebowman (Oct 9, 2005)

Are there any upgrade offers for the bolt?


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## RockinRay (Aug 25, 2004)

sangs said:


> Couple of Bolts up and running since yesterday afternoon and first impressions are quite positive. Boy are these things fast - and small. The footprint makes the Roamio Plus/Pro look like an archaic monster. The "bend" is not as dramatic as I thought it would be when first seeing photos of the Bolt either. And I love having an external, easily replaceable power supply. Couldn't have been any easier to setup either. Didn't even have to "manually validate" my cable cards from FiOS. Every channel was active through regular activation. Very pleased.
> 
> Glad I took the plunge. Thinking of getting two more.


I agree with you - this box is FAST! I have the 1 TB unit and I may upgrade the hard drive, not sure yet.

I am also very pleased.


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## jcthorne (Jan 28, 2002)

Reboot times are also very fast. MUCH faster than a Roamio.


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## wmcbrine (Aug 2, 2003)

sangs said:


> Didn't even have to "manually validate" my cable cards from FiOS.


Did you get new cards, or transplant them from older TiVos?


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## sangs (Jan 1, 2003)

wmcbrine said:


> Did you get new cards, or transplant them from older TiVos?


New. Just did the online activation and they were up and running. Painless process.


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## sangs (Jan 1, 2003)

RockinRay said:


> I agree with you - this box is FAST! I have the 1 TB unit and I may upgrade the hard drive, not sure yet.
> 
> I am also very pleased.


Think I'm just going to attach a couple of the WD externals. 2 TB on each is more than enough for my viewing habits.


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## sangs (Jan 1, 2003)

shanebowman said:


> Are there any upgrade offers for the bolt?


Not sure, sorry.


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## jcthorne (Jan 28, 2002)

sangs said:


> Think I'm just going to attach a couple of the WD externals. 2 TB on each is more than enough for my viewing habits.


2tb WD external drives will not work on the Bolt. The ONLY available option is the 1TB WD Mybook DVR drive.


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## sangs (Jan 1, 2003)

jcthorne said:


> 2tb WD external drives will not work on the Bolt. The ONLY available option is the 1TB WD Mybook DVR drive.


No, I mean 2TB total by attaching the MyBook DVR drive.


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## waynomo (Nov 9, 2002)

Anybody try SkipMode yet?


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## PSU_Sudzi (Jun 4, 2015)

shanebowman said:


> Are there any upgrade offers for the bolt?


No, it's a new product so won't be discounted for a year or more unless sales are really bad. This was confirmed by TiVo.


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## bricco (Mar 28, 2008)

waynomo said:


> Anybody try SkipMode yet?


The SkipMode is insane. It tells you when to hit the D key or the channel up to "skip." You get the last second of the last commercial or promo leading into the next segment. This is the game-changer for me. I only watch prime-time shows, so the addition of this feature and the seemingly improved OTA tuner makes this a keeper.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

bricco said:


> The SkipMode is insane. It tells you when to hit the D key or the channel up to "skip." You get the last second of the last commercial or promo leading into the next segment. This is the game-changer for me. I only watch prime-time shows, so the addition of this feature and the seemingly improved OTA tuner makes this a keeper.


So do you need to hit it at every commercial break? Or just once during the program and it automatically skips commercials during the rest of the program?


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## L David Matheny (Jan 29, 2011)

aaronwt said:


> So do you need to hit it at every commercial break? Or just once during the program and it automatically skips commercials during the rest of the program?


As I understand it, somebody at TiVo looks at the primetime video and defines a breakpoint just after each commercial break. When you press the green D button on the remote, the TiVo skips to the next breakpoint.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

aaronwt said:


> So do you need to hit it at every commercial break? Or just once during the program and it automatically skips commercials during the rest of the program?


Every time. They're essentially skip marks. You can actually hit the button at any time and it will skip to the next one.


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## sangs (Jan 1, 2003)

bricco said:


> The SkipMode is insane. It tells you when to hit the D key or the channel up to "skip." You get the last second of the last commercial or promo leading into the next segment. This is the game-changer for me. I only watch prime-time shows, so the addition of this feature and the seemingly improved OTA tuner makes this a keeper.


Just tried it out today. Very impressive. Didn't think it'd be a big deal for me, but I'm man enough to admit when I'm wrong.


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## krkaufman (Nov 25, 2003)

bricco said:


> The SkipMode is insane. It tells you when to hit the D key or the channel up to "skip." You get the last second of the last commercial or promo leading into the next segment. This is the game-changer for me. I only watch prime-time shows, so the addition of this feature and the seemingly improved OTA tuner makes this a keeper.


They may need to add a little bell/tone that rings when the SkipMode 'D' jump is activated, so we can start to automatically hit the 'D' button when we hear the tone. We'll quickly become quite the little Pavlovian army.


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## Jonathan_S (Oct 23, 2001)

bricco said:


> The SkipMode is insane. It tells you when to hit the D key or the channel up to "skip." You get the last second of the last commercial or promo leading into the next segment. This is the game-changer for me. I only watch prime-time shows, so the addition of this feature and the seemingly improved OTA tuner makes this a keeper.


BTW channel down also skips; but to the end of the _previous_ commercial break.


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## steinbch (Nov 23, 2007)

Has anyone been able to compare transferring speeds to the iOS app? Wondering if the new chip and power makes it transfer faster since it's being held up by transcoding speed and not wifi speeds.


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## BigJimOutlaw (Mar 21, 2004)

steinbch said:


> Has anyone been able to compare transferring speeds to the iOS app? Wondering if the new chip and power makes it transfer faster since it's being held up by transcoding speed and not wifi speeds.


Good question. Just ran a rest. Same program for both boxes (Roamio Plus and Bolt). 30-minute, 720p HD program, Best quality setting. Both were 9 minutes.


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## krkaufman (Nov 25, 2003)

bricco said:


> The SkipMode is insane. It tells you when to hit the D key or the *channel up to "skip."* You get the last second of the last commercial or promo leading into the next segment. This is the game-changer for me. I only watch prime-time shows, so the addition of this feature and the seemingly improved OTA tuner makes this a keeper.





Jonathan_S said:


> BTW *channel down also skips; but to the end of the previous commercial break*.


Ok, these impress me even more, as I see them as more user friendly (no-look control) than the 'D' button. VERY nice.

Thanks for the info.

(*Now* I'm starting to get envious of the BOLT.)


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## mattack (Apr 9, 2001)

jcthorne said:


> Reboot times are also very fast. MUCH faster than a Roamio.


If you're willing to do this while there's a recording happening, could you give an approximate time for how long it takes to reboot to actually _be recording_?

The Roamio is actually successfully recording (e.g. if it reboots while a recording is happening, and will resume) "a while" (I'm guessing a minute or so) before the UI is fully back to the user's control.... at least based on the red recording indicator.

But the Roamio is of course way faster at rebooting than the previous ones, which put up the UGH, searching for signal or whatever for MINUTES when it did whatever cable card syncing it was doing..

(Yes, they should NEVER reboot.. But I personally think reboot time should be as small as possible.. Heck, I once in a while have to reboot my Roamio entirely to get the streaming device to be recognized again, even though I know there's also a SEPARATE "reboot streaming device" from within the iOS app.. sometimes it's NOT seeable from the iOS app)


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## krkaufman (Nov 25, 2003)

mattack said:


> (Yes, they should NEVER reboot.. But I personally think reboot time should be as small as possible..


Time for the TiVo OS to be on SSD. Helloooo... BOLT Pro! (Storage on hefty 3.5" magnetic, still.)



mattack said:


> ... even though I know there's also a SEPARATE "reboot streaming device" from within the iOS app.. sometimes it's NOT seeable from the iOS app)


Thanks for that tip; wasn't aware.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

krkaufman said:


> Ok, these impress me even more, as I see them as more user friendly (no-look control) than the 'D' button. VERY nice.
> 
> Thanks for the info.
> 
> (*Now* I'm starting to get envious of the BOLT.)


The D button would already be "no look control"


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## wmcbrine (Aug 2, 2003)

krkaufman said:


> Time for the TiVo OS to be on SSD.


It is already (starting with the Roamio).


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## krkaufman (Nov 25, 2003)

wmcbrine said:


> It is already (starting with the Roamio).


Does it run from the chip, or is it just stored there, read-only, for restoration to the hard drive following a format?


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## krkaufman (Nov 25, 2003)

aaronwt said:


> The D button would already be "no look control"


Yeah, but much tinier, and more out of the way. Channel Up/Down are much easier to access.


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