# Elite worth it?



## BankZ (Aug 16, 2007)

I just finished my basement and need a DVR. I have a TiVo 3 HD upstairs. Should I wait for the elite? Are there any other differences other than 4 tuners and a bigger drive? Is it worth the $900 its going to cost me?


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

Do you need OTA? If so the ELite does not do OTA.
Will you have conflicts with only two tuners? IF so then the Elite makes sense.


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## crxssi (Apr 5, 2010)

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=475474
http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=475367
http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=475400
http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=475510


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## danjw1 (Sep 13, 2005)

BankZ said:


> I just finished my basement and need a DVR. I have a TiVo 3 HD upstairs. Should I wait for the elite? Are there any other differences other than 4 tuners and a bigger drive? Is it worth the $900 its going to cost me?


Depends do you have the Series 3 or a Tivo HD? The Elite is THX certified, for whatever that is worth, which could be the same as what you currently have, if you have a Series 3 or a Tivo HD XL. This wouldn't be true of a base Tivo HD. Also, some of the menus will be in HD, not all have been converted yet. Some see poor performance with the HD menus and disable them, this does seem to be at least somewhat connected to the quality of internet access you have. Also, with the HD menus active, you will have a meter showing how full the Tivo's hard drive is. Almost forgot, you can use an iPad/iPhone as a remote.


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## atmuscarella (Oct 11, 2005)

Do you need 4 more tuners? Do you care about THX certification? If not you could buy a Premiere and upgrade the hard drive to 2TB for under $600. Until someone actually gets a test model we will not know if there are any other reasons to go with the Elite instead of a normal Premiere. 

Good Luck,


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## BankZ (Aug 16, 2007)

atmuscarella said:


> Do you need 4 more tuners? Do you care about THX certification? If not you could buy a Premiere and upgrade the hard drive to 2TB for under $600. Until someone actually gets a test model we will not know if there are any other reasons to go with the Elite instead of a normal Premiere.
> 
> Good Luck,


I do get conflicts now with only two tuners. However, now I will have 2 boxes.


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## smbaker (May 24, 2003)

BankZ said:


> I just finished my basement and need a DVR. I have a TiVo 3 HD upstairs. Should I wait for the elite? Are there any other differences other than 4 tuners and a bigger drive? Is it worth the $900 its going to cost me?


If I was you, I'd wait 3-6 months and see how the Premiere works out, particularly to see if streaming functions properly, and if the Preview launches as expected (it sounds like a whole-home solution might benefit you in the long run).

Don't assume because it's Tivo, that it will work right when you buy it. That's so 1990's.


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## BankZ (Aug 16, 2007)

smbaker said:


> If I was you, I'd wait 3-6 months and see how the Premiere works out, particularly to see if streaming functions properly, and if the Preview launches as expected (it sounds like a whole-home solution might benefit you in the long run).
> 
> Don't assume because it's Tivo, that it will work right when you buy it. That's so 1990's.


The problem is I kinda need something now. I had to go get a comcast DVR


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

smbaker said:


> If I was you, I'd wait 3-6 months and see how the Premiere works out, particularly to see if streaming functions properly, and if the Preview launches as expected (it sounds like a whole-home solution might benefit you in the long run).
> 
> Don't assume because it's Tivo, that it will work right when you buy it. That's so 1990's.


We already know streaming itself worked with the Premire. Although there were issues with multiple streams or multiple recordings and streaming. I was streming content from my Premieres on a daily basis with no issues when they had it enabled. As long as I wasn't trying to have the Premiere do four or six things concurrently it was fine.


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## smbaker (May 24, 2003)

aaronwt said:


> We already know streaming itself _worked_ with the Premire.


The key being that you said "worked", not "works". 

I've stopped giving this company the benefit of the doubt. Either it's functional and confirmed to be functional by the user community, or the feature doesn't exist.


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## vitos (Feb 2, 2003)

I'm in kinda the same boat.... My TiVo HD box is dying on me and I'm not sure if I should get a Premier, or wait for the Elite. I guess I could ditch TiVo all together, but I love the simplicity and really want this company to turn things around.

Thoughts?


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## Soapm (May 9, 2007)

aaronwt said:


> We already know streaming itself worked with the Premire. Although there were issues with multiple streams or multiple recordings and streaming. I was streming content from my Premieres on a daily basis with no issues when they had it enabled. *As long as I wasn't trying to have the Premiere do four or six things concurrently it was fine*.


You mean like recording 4 separate channels while streaming?

I don't mean to sound like a fly in the ointment but I suspect they needed more processor with 4 HD tuners but we'll see...


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## crxssi (Apr 5, 2010)

Soapm said:


> You mean like recording 4 separate channels while streaming?
> 
> I don't mean to sound like a fly in the ointment but I suspect they needed more processor with 4 HD tuners but we'll see...


"Recording" actually takes very little CPU processing power on the TiVo. It is just shoving a data stream from point A to point B.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

Well the hard drive is more than capable. I was doing more than four HD streams on PCs many years ago with the old slow ide 5400rpm hard drives. So hopefully the software will be up to the task.

RCN has a beta program with the quad tuner TiVo. Does anyone have some info from them?


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## Leon WIlkinson (Feb 13, 2000)

vitos said:


> I'm in kinda the same boat.... My TiVo HD box is dying on me and I'm not sure if I should get a Premier, or wait for the Elite. I guess I could ditch TiVo all together, but I love the simplicity and really want this company to turn things around.
> 
> Thoughts?


If you have a Iphone,Ipad or a Android based equivalent. You my wan't to go way of the Premier/Elite. The cheapest way would be to replace the failing Hard Drive if that is the issue.

If I had a older TiVo which wasn't Life-timed, I would buy a Premier/Elite along with a lifetime. When I spend over $200 for something(Most of the time) I plan on having it longer then 3 years.


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## Resist (Dec 21, 2003)

BankZ said:


> Is it worth the $900 its going to cost me?


The simple answer is no. While having 4 tuners is really good and a 2TB drive is nice. The only real plus to this box are the tuners, because you can always upgrade the drive yourself for less. So $900 is way to much! But then again, maybe you're used to paying more to use the latest electronics now. The rest of us will wait until the price comes down.


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## innocentfreak (Aug 25, 2001)

aaronwt said:


> Well the hard drive is more than capable. I was doing more than four HD streams on PCs many years ago with the old slow ide 5400rpm hard drives. So hopefully the software will be up to the task.
> 
> RCN has a beta program with the quad tuner TiVo. Does anyone have some info from them?


They are under NDA unfortunately. They picked a tester from each region, but didn't announce who due to the NDA.


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## BankZ (Aug 16, 2007)

To make things harder, I just got a promo for a TiVo Premiere + Lifetime for $450


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## dlarf01 (Sep 21, 2011)

BankZ said:


> To make things harder, I just got a promo for a TiVo Premiere + Lifetime for $450


Check craigslist for Premiere boxes with lifteime. I'm in the Minneapolis area and have bought 2 of them in the past 3 months for around $350 each, and they are in perfect condition. I was surprised at the price at first, but when I looked around more, I found more of these deals (at least in my area).


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

Only $350? Crap. That is not what I wanted to hear since I wanted the sale of two of my Premieres to at least cover the bulk of the cost of the Elite.
Hopefully the extended warranties on them will help the sale.


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## Chris Gerhard (Apr 27, 2002)

BankZ said:


> To make things harder, I just got a promo for a TiVo Premiere + Lifetime for $450





dlarf01 said:


> Check craigslist for Premiere boxes with lifteime. I'm in the Minneapolis area and have bought 2 of them in the past 3 months for around $350 each, and they are in perfect condition. I was surprised at the price at first, but when I looked around more, I found more of these deals (at least in my area).


I would definitely buy new today for $450 instead of used for $350. Warranty and peace of mind for $100 is definitely worth it. If all I used was cable, the Elite at $900 would be a nice deal.


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## ldconfig (Sep 7, 2004)

I am hearing rumors that the elite is way under powered. I hope thats not true because with the specs I would pay 900 only if it could trust it to replace my Tivo HD & GreedCast DVR (yes I need 4 tuners - I love toons & sports) and last (except hard drive) at least 5 years.

When I saw the premiere at a store it was way slow. My HD is like 10X faster responding to remote commands than the demo unit I checked out. So I am in the 'wait & see' camp.

ld


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## crxssi (Apr 5, 2010)

ldconfig said:


> I am hearing rumors that the elite is way under powered.


The Elite is a series 4 (AKA "Premiere"). It is identical in "power" to the other two series 4 boxes. You don't need any rumor to tell you that; it is already known. It is the same box, that has the two OTA tuners swapped out for another two cable tuners.

It has the *potential* to be slower than the other two Premieres, but only when recording more than 2 shows at once. However, as has been discussed before, "recording" shows actually doesn't use much computing resources at all, and 4 streams will not saturate the hard drive bandwidth. So it is unlikely to be much slower than the other two Premieres.


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## jfh3 (Apr 15, 2004)

ldconfig said:


> I am hearing rumors that the elite is way under powered.


What and from where? And "underpowered" how? We already know from the streaming code (when it was accidentally turned on a couple minor releases ago) that the current Premiere has the ability to handle more that it does now. And, as others have pointed out, recording more tuners hardly taxes the CPU. If the current Premieres could handle streaming, I don't see why the Elite would have any problem doing that and the extra two tuners. My Premieres can handle (a) two recordings (b) MRV (c) TTG and (d) Amazon download at the same time without a problem.


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## MichaelK (Jan 10, 2002)

jfh3 said:


> What and from where? And "underpowered" how? We already know from the streaming code (when it was accidentally turned on a couple minor releases ago) that the current Premiere has the ability to handle more that it does now. And, as others have pointed out, recording more tuners hardly taxes the CPU. If the current Premieres could handle streaming, I don't see why the Elite would have any problem doing that and the extra two tuners. My Premieres can handle (a) two recordings (b) MRV (c) TTG and (d) Amazon download at the same time without a problem.


someone mentioned that the premiere streaming bogged down when you got to like 6+ streams recording or playback at a time. Quick math is 4 tuners recording on elite + 1 show playing back gets you close to a bit of trouble pretty quick. Add in a amazon download or streaming to another box and you are at 6. Stream to another and rut roh shaggy....

Presumably they pulled it back to rework it?

I remember way back when the orginal 14hr series 1 was around how we were all amazed it (the drive) could record and playback at the same time. Then the Directivo's came along and 3 streams were coming/going to the drive at a time and again some were amazed. Then they tossed in MRV and others oggled. Then downloading from amazon. Have drives really gotten that much faster over the years or where people (myself included) just not understanding how many streams you can jam through a drive at the same time? Anyone know what the real world limit of say full bitrate OTA streams would be (for a worst case benchmark)?


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## crxssi (Apr 5, 2010)

MichaelK said:


> I remember way back when the orginal 14hr series 1 was around how we were all amazed it (the drive) could record and playback at the same time.


It was like magic, especially since analog recording really was "recording"- it had to take lots of data and digitize it (which is very intense) and compress it (much more intense) and store it. And tech back then was a lot slower.



> Then the Directivo's came along and 3 streams were coming/going to the drive at a time and again some were amazed.


It was years later- faster tech. But more importantly, it was all digital- so there was no more "recording", it was just taking information that was already digitized and compressed and small and throwing it on the drive.



> Then they tossed in MRV and others oggled. Then downloading from amazon.


Already digitized and compressed even smaller (much better codecs) and faster tech.



> Have drives really gotten that much faster over the years or where people (myself included) just not understanding how many streams you can jam through a drive at the same time?


Drives have gotten faster, but the compressed streams are really not much bandwidth (even the HD ones at higher bitrates). Literally, the TiVo is just taking data from the tuner or network and storing it, like a NAS (network appliance).



> Anyone know what the real world limit of say full bitrate OTA streams would be (for a worst case benchmark)?


The real-world maximum broadcast (ATSC 1080i HD + 5.1) bitrate is 18Mb/s, which is rare, and usually a FAR FAR higher bitrate than what you will see on cable. A typical hard drive of the type used by TiVo has a sustained transfer write rate of around 96MB/s (768Mb/s). That means writing of 42.6 HUGE streams at once. But you can probably halve that, since the drive really can't sustain that with lots of seeking from multiple streams. I would halve it again for other types of overhead (encryption, filesystem, etc). That leaves about 11 HUGE streams at once.


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## BankZ (Aug 16, 2007)

I have a TiVo DH. What kind of integration will it have to with the Premiere? Can I record on one, and watch and delete from the other? Can I start a show in one room and resume in the other?


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## crxssi (Apr 5, 2010)

BankZ said:


> I have a TiVo DH. What kind of integration will it have to with the Premiere? Can I record on one, and watch and delete from the other? Can I start a show in one room and resume in the other?


I assume you mean an "HD".

No, you cannot currently "stream" as you describe from one to another. You can *copy* programs (in full) from one to the other, as long as you pay for service on both TiVo's *AND* it is not a premium channel or other channel that the cable company or content owner set the no copy flag. But that doesn't do what you describe.

We are all assuming that TiVo-to-TiVo streaming will be a reality at some point on the Premiere (series 4), since it has already been shown. If that will come to the HD (series 3), too... can't say.


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## BankZ (Aug 16, 2007)

Ok, I think I am sold. Any idea when I can get it??


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## innocentfreak (Aug 25, 2001)

No announcement yet. 

They were aiming for mid-October, but no official announcement yet. Weaknees.com at one point had 10/7 listed, but I doubt it is that since no word yet from TiVo unless they announce it on Monday. 

RCN who will be offering the MSO version known as the Q said they are aiming for very early November. He is currently visiting TiVo. Of course they have more involved such as setting up their systems so it could possibly be after the Elite is released.


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## jfh3 (Apr 15, 2004)

Charter is also testing the Q, according to a tech I spoke to today.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

That's good. The cable companies can do alot of the testing before it's released. Hopefully it's released sooner than later. I just hope I'll be able to use a 12% off Best Buy coupon with it. And that BestBuy will offer a four year extended warranty for a decent price.


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## innocentfreak (Aug 25, 2001)

aaronwt said:


> That's good. The cable companies can do alot of the testing before it's released. Hopefully it's released sooner than later. I just hope I'll be able to use a 12% off Best Buy coupon with it. And that BestBuy will offer a four year extended warranty for a decent price.


Not sure I would opt for the Best Buy warranty since it is usually a repair warranty these days rather than a swap like it used to be.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

innocentfreak said:


> Not sure I would opt for the Best Buy warranty since it is usually a repair warranty these days rather than a swap like it used to be.


As long as it's repaired that would be my main concern. I do not plan to open up my Elite so even if the hard drive has issues, which would be a first for me, I will still want it fixed or replaced with a refurbished unit.
If the price is right. Otherwise I would try to go through TiVo if possible.


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## innocentfreak (Aug 25, 2001)

aaronwt said:


> As long as it's repaired that would be my main concern. I do not plan to open up my Elite so even if the hard drive has issues, which would be a first for me, I will still want it fixed or replaced with a refurbished unit.
> If the price is right. Otherwise I would try to go through TiVo if possible.


No worries just giving you the heads-up. I had one back on my series 2 when they switched to repairs over replacement plans. It took about 3 weeks and they sent it off. I don't know if this is how it works now, but I imagine it is. Also like the TiVo plan it is one use.

I wonder if Squaretrade offers a plan that covers lifetime service.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

innocentfreak said:


> No worries just giving you the heads-up. I had one back on my series 2 when they switched to repairs over replacement plans. It took about 3 weeks and they sent it off. I don't know if this is how it works now, but I imagine it is. Also like the TiVo plan it is one use.
> 
> I wonder if Squaretrade offers a plan that covers lifetime service.


So the best Buy plan is only one use as well? Yes that will be very different. It would need to be a very low price then for me to getteh extended warranty from Best Buy. Hopefully it shows up next Sunday for sale.


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## innocentfreak (Aug 25, 2001)

aaronwt said:


> So the best Buy plan is only one use as well? Yes that will be very different. It would need to be a very low price then for me to getteh extended warranty from Best Buy. Hopefully it shows up next Sunday for sale.


It was at one point, but they may have switched back.

http://images.bestbuy.com/BestBuy_US/en_US/images/global/pcontent/gs/btp/BTP_HT.pdf?h=488

Interesting to note they don't list it on the XL so they may not offer it on anything but the basic TiVo.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

innocentfreak said:


> It was at one point, but they may have switched back.
> 
> http://images.bestbuy.com/BestBuy_US/en_US/images/global/pcontent/gs/btp/BTP_HT.pdf?h=488
> 
> Interesting to note they don't list it on the XL so they may not offer it on anything but the basic TiVo.


The in store warranties sometimes differ from whats offered online. The bad thing is the in store warranty is usually higher. At least that has been my experience.


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## BankZ (Aug 16, 2007)

It looks like its at bestbuy now? But not on tivo.com? Am I missing something??


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## innocentfreak (Aug 25, 2001)

No. Best Buy might be selling it early or TiVo could announce it tonight as available tomorrow. They couldn't ship it today anyway.


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## BankZ (Aug 16, 2007)

Their site shows it available for pickup at the store.


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## danjw1 (Sep 13, 2005)

BankZ said:


> Their site shows it available for pickup at the store.


Yep, I am showing them available in my area for pickup too.


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## donnoh (Mar 7, 2008)

aaronwt said:


> As long as it's repaired that would be my main concern. I do not plan to open up my Elite so even if the hard drive has issues, which would be a first for me, I will still want it fixed or replaced with a refurbished unit.
> If the price is right. Otherwise I would try to go through TiVo if possible.


Since you seem to change Tivo's whenever a new one comes out, just how many Tivo's have you owned that have actually failed?
I'm curious as to why you would waste money on extended warranties?


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

donnoh said:


> Since you seem to change Tivo's whenever a new one comes out, just how many Tivo's have you owned that have actually failed?
> I'm curious as to why you would waste money on extended warranties?


I've had zero fail so far. But the way my luck works, when I don't get an extended warranty, that is when I have an issue with it. I've owned eight HD sets over the last ten years. Only one did not have an extended warranty and that was the one that had issues right after the warranty expired.

One of the reasons I got extended warranties on the Premieres was for resale value. The warranty is transferable so I figured it would help with the resale value. For the Elite, I don't plan on selling it but I also don't plan on opening it up. Of course I might change my mind but you never know if you will need to use an extended warranty.


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## rrg (Apr 22, 2004)

Well, I got mine at Best Buy today. It came in what was almost a plain brown wrapper (box says "TiVo Premiere Elite" and not much more than that).

Not sure how long it will take me to get the necessary CableCARD from Verizon. I could steal a card from one of my other units (my past experience with FiOS is that the CableCARDs aren't paired to the units in which they live) but I need them all fully functional until I get the Elite completely set up.

If it all works out (I guess I have 30 days to decide, both with Best Buy for the hardware and with TiVo for the service) then the Elite will replace two 1TB Series 3s. Four tuners, one Now Playing List, better conflict resolution, one card instead of four cards.

We'll see.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

rrg said:


> Well, I got mine at Best Buy today. It came in what was almost a plain brown wrapper (box says "TiVo Premiere Elite" and not much more than that).
> 
> Not sure how long it will take me to get the necessary CableCARD from Verizon. I could steal a card from one of my other units (my past experience with FiOS is that the CableCARDs aren't paired to the units in which they live) but I need them all fully functional until I get the Elite completely set up.
> 
> ...


I used one of my cable cards from my other Premieres in the Elite. All my FiOS channels came right up. I transferred over my Season passes from two of my Premeires and so far most of the shows are showing up properly to be recorded. The whole process with updating it, setup, and having the SPs etc. show up took around 2.5 hours for me.

Hopefully the rest of my Season Passes will show up to be recorded this week by the morning otherwise I will have to manually set them up. But either way I would be comfortable in turning off the two Premieres that the Elite is repalcing and let the Elite record everything.


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