# Three Mini's, three new people



## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

I've got three new Mini's on order for my new place with three new roommates who will be new to TiVo. I'll post at some point how it goes. Hopefully it's smooth. One will have a bedroom TV, and we'll have one in the kitchen plus an upstairs and downstairs common TV.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

So how will you use one Premiere XL4 with four people? I would think you have to assign two tuners to the Minis for live TV. That would leave only two tuners for recording to use between four people. Or are you getting a second Premiere 4 to add more tuners for recording?


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

Yeah hope you don't plan on them all watching live TV. Right now the max is 2 tuners for live TV. While they are in a general pool and can be used by any of the Minis if you try to use all 3 Minis for live TV at the same time one will get an error.

Also, right now, the tuners are permanently allocated so you'd only have 2 tuners left for recording. Not sure that's enough for 4 people.

Might want to seriously consider an upgrade to the 6 tuner unit whenever it comes out. (should be this fall)


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## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

aaronwt said:


> So how will you use one Premiere XL4 with four people? I would think you have to assign two tuners to the Minis for live TV. That would leave only two tuners for recording to use between four people. Or are you getting a second Premiere 4 to add more tuners for recording?


We'll have one for live TV. If we have to, we can get a regular box from Comcast, but with the HD fees, that's another $20/mo. Either that or DTAs if people want strictly live, those are only like $2/mo, and they're not HD. Hopefully DTA will come soon.

Plus, the main TV will have the XL4 itself on it, so we could have one live there, and one live elsewhere. One TV is in the kitchen, one's a bedroom, and one's a living room.

Most recordings, if there's a conflict, can be moved 3 hours later anyways when the west coast runs happen. So that would effectively give us 6 tuners worth of capacity to record on. None of us watch a ton of TV. I'll leave the MCE PC connected to the main TV, so that could pick up the networks (until Comcast encrypts anyways) for now if we really ran out of tuners, but I highly doubt we'll get to that point.


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## Rose4uKY (Mar 28, 2003)

So if I was to have one Premiere I know you can record 4 shows but if watching live TV than it's 3. So watching live TV on a mini plus on the main TV with the Premiere would use a tuner and make it 2 correct? We hardly ever are watching live TV so it will probably be ok but if were just both watching a recorded show on the mini now that doesn't use up the tuners also does it? Thanks! Trying to decide if I want the new Premiere and the 2 minis. I have three series 3 Tivo's now and am moving..



aaronwt said:


> So how will you use one Premiere XL4 with four people? I would think you have to assign two tuners to the Minis for live TV. That would leave only two tuners for recording to use between four people. Or are you getting a second Premiere 4 to add more tuners for recording?


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

The problem with the live TV on the Mini is that you have to permanently allocate the tuner which means your 4 tuner TiVo becomes a 3 tuner TiVo even when you're not watching live TV on the Mini. When using the main TiVo to watch live TV that tuner is still available for recording and you will be prompted if it's needed. But for the Mini you're dedicating an entire tuner for live TV even when you're not using it.


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## berg0449 (Nov 5, 2011)

Rose4uKY said:


> So if I was to have one Premiere I know you can record 4 shows but if watching live TV than it's 3. So watching live TV on a mini plus on the main TV with the Premiere would use a tuner and make it 2 correct?


Short answer, yes it will always be a 2 tuner tivo if you assign 2 of the 4 tuners for the minis.

Longer answer as its more complex:

My first note, I assume you are using Premiere generically and are talking about the 4 tuner version. That is a safe note, since only the 4 tuner units are supported for the mini.

The mini's currently use an assigned tuner from a 4 tuner tuner tivo. It does not matter if you are using the live tv at the time or not, it always assigned to the mini. So that will always make the 4 tuner actually a 3 tuner tivo. You can always choose to not assign a tuner to the mini, but then you can only watch tapes shows.

The trick with 2 minis is if you want to watch live tv at the same time on both minis. Then you have to assign 2 of the 4 tuners to the mini thus you are correct making it a 2 tuner tivo. If you do not want both watching live tv at the same time, you can assign 1 tuner between them thus making it a 3 tuner tivo.

On my mini I do not have a tuner assigned to I cannot watch live tv. When I want to watch live tv I actually go in and tape the show I want to watch live. I can then stream that taped show to the mini.

I cannot wait until they make dynamically assigned tuners for the mini. But I will not hold by breath waiting for them to do it.


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## Rose4uKY (Mar 28, 2003)

So it's always using a tuner whether it's live tv a recorded show or not being used at all. Wow! Wonder if Dish is the same way with the Hopper and Joey's?



Dan203 said:


> The problem with the live TV on the Mini is that you have to permanently allocate the tuner which means your 4 tuner TiVo becomes a 3 tuner TiVo even when you're not watching live TV on the Mini. When using the main TiVo to watch live TV that tuner is still available for recording and you will be prompted if it's needed. But for the Mini you're dedicating an entire tuner for live TV even when you're not using it.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

Rose4uKY said:


> So it's always using a tuner whether it's live tv a recorded show or not being used at all. Wow! Wonder if Dish is the same way with the Hopper and Joey's?


This is why Dynamic Tuner Allocation is important. Hopefully that will be implemented sooner rather than later.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

Rose4uKY said:


> So it's always using a tuner whether it's live tv a recorded show or not being used at all. Wow! Wonder if Dish is the same way with the Hopper and Joey's?


It's not always "using" the tuner. Basically TiVo has two pools for tuners. One for recording and watching live TV on the TiVo itself and one for network devices. When a tuner is in the network device pool it can not be used for recording even if it's not actively being used. However the tuners in the network device pool are not allocated to any one specific Mini. So if you had 2 Minis and only allocated one tuner to network devices either Mini could use that one tuner as long as the other was not actively using it at that moment.

I have no idea how the Dish or DirecTV systems handle this.

As aaronwt mentioned TiVo announced that they are working on dynamic tuner allocation. When/if that happens then all the tuners will be in a common pool and when your Mini wants to watch live TV it will request a tuner dynamically from the TiVo. The TiVo will then give it one if it's available or report an error if all are being used for recording. With this watching live TV on the Mini will be just like watching live TV on the TiVo itself.


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## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

I hope DTA drops before the fall, as 3 tuners on one TiVo kinda sucks. It's not really that horrible in practical terms, but knowing that I paid for 4 tuners, and I'm getting basically 3 just sucks. I want the flexibility to dynamically go from 4/0 all the way down to 1/3 recording/live on an as-needed basis.

So far we've got one Mini set up, and it's great. The other two Minis aren't set up yet. We have had one conflict, but it wasn't a big deal, and we rescheduled one of the shows for a later showing, and we could have rescheduled more. I don't see the 4 tuners being much of an issue as long as DTA drops soon, since most stuff is cable anyways and can be recorded later if need be.


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