# Weaknees Roamio OTA with lifetime? + SSD question...



## Puppy76 (Oct 7, 2004)

As I understand it, the OTA isn't available with Lifetime...only Weaknees claims they're selling it with Lifetime for $400.

I emailed them asking about it, but...well, they said to just call tivo to have it added to my account? I don't get how that would work, what's going on...

I was assuming I'd get a Bolt, but I don't really care about any of the new features the Bolt has, and if this is cheaper with Lifetime, and can actually use larger drives...

Also...SSDs...dumb idea? I like the idea that they're silent. I realize it seems like sort of a stupid usage case, given writing is what wears them out, but I disable recording by setting up a bunch of fake 5 minute recordings throughout the day to get the tuners off, and...well, would like a 1TB Crucial or 2TB Samsung 850 Pro stand up to years of recording?


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## trip1eX (Apr 2, 2005)

Puppy76 said:


> As I understand it, the OTA isn't available with Lifetime...only Weaknees claims they're selling it with Lifetime for $400.
> 
> I emailed them asking about it, but...well, they said to just call tivo to have it added to my account? I don't get how that would work, what's going on...
> 
> ...


weakness seems trustworthy to me.

And yes ssds are a dumb idea. You can't disable recording last I heard. Tuners always record. YOu can google projected lifespans of ssds and then google how much space a 1 hr Tivo recording takes up and then do the maths of 24/7 x 4 tuners.


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## Puppy76 (Oct 7, 2004)

trip1eX said:


> weakness seems trustworthy to me.
> 
> And yes ssds are a dumb idea. You can't disable recording. Tuners always record. YOu can google projected lifespans of ssds and then google how much space a 1 hr Tivo recording takes up and then do the maths of 24/7 x 4 tuners.


I disable recording on my current units in a roundabout way-set up a series of 5 minutes recordings, one for each tuner, on channels that don't exist.

I'm hoping I can still do that on the Bolt! If nothing else, the drive's are way louder when they're recording, and I don't really buy that it doesn't impact drive longevity if it's having to write 4 streams constantly for no reason. In my 13 years of TiVO use I STILL wish they let you just have a setting to turn off recording unless you're actually explicitly recording something :-/


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## trip1eX (Apr 2, 2005)

Puppy76 said:


> I disable recording on my current units in a roundabout way-set up a series of 5 minutes recordings, one for each tuner, on channels that don't exist.
> 
> I'm hoping I can still do that on the Bolt! If nothing else, the drive's are way louder when they're recording, and I don't really buy that it doesn't impact drive longevity if it's having to write 4 streams constantly for no reason. In my 13 years of TiVO use I STILL wish they let you just have a setting to turn off recording unless you're actually explicitly recording something :-/


Why 5 minutes?

I wouldn't worry about your hard drive spinning. They are designed to do that.


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## Puppy76 (Oct 7, 2004)

trip1eX said:


> Why 5 minutes?


It's the shortest period available, as I recall.

[


> I wouldn't worry about your hard drive spinning. They are designed to do that.


They're spinning regardless, but this keeps them from having to continuously write and seek all over the place 24/7 for literally no reason whatsoever.

I seriously doubt that has no impact on the drive, but even if it didn't, they're still much, much louder when having to do that all the time.


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## JoeKustra (Dec 7, 2012)

Puppy76 said:


> I seriously doubt that has no impact on the drive, but even if it didn't, they're still much, much louder when having to do that all the time.


You're lucky to have such a quiet environment. The WD10EURX in my Roamio boxes have about a 30 dBA noise level. My normal background noise level is about 50 dB. I have heard my drive spin up when having my face 6 inches away when pushing in the power connector. From 10 feet away, my heater makes more noise and it's three floors below me. My Roamio is behind a solid wood barrier, so maybe that helps.

There are advancements in SSDs. If it makes you happy.


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## Puppy76 (Oct 7, 2004)

JoeKustra said:


> You're lucky to have such a quiet environment. The WD10EURX in my Roamio boxes have about a 30 dBA noise level. My normal background noise level is about 50 dB. I have heard my drive spin up when having my face 6 inches away when pushing in the power connector. From 10 feet away, my heater makes more noise and it's three floors below me. My Roamio is behind a solid wood barrier, so maybe that helps.
> 
> There are advancements in SSDs. If it makes you happy.


I just don't know if it's even remotely realistic. Has anyone actually done it with a quality SSD? (With or without disabling the tuners when not in use?)

I'd think the lack of TRIM shouldn't actually matter...pretty much just heat and write durability.

I'm thinking worst case scenario would be maybe 8.53MB/s, assuming all four tuners were writing 24/7 on a high bit rate station.

That would be 720GB/day...or theoretically 213.33 days to kill a Samsung 850 Pro. (I normally buy Crucial or Intel, but Samsung is the only one right now with a 2TB drive.)

So that doesn't sound very good at all lol

Semi-randomly making up that maybe all 4 tuners would be writing for an average of 5 hours a day, and half on lower bitrate channels, that would expand things to close to 3.5 years.

That's actually not TOOOOOOOO terrible, as it's certainty possible for a mechanical drive to die before then, but it's not great either. Realistically I'd still expect a mechanical drive to beat out an SSD for endurance.

So...I guess I've just convinced myself it's a bad idea.

Of course I wonder about 2.5" drives the Bolt uses vs. 3.5" for endurance...


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## trip1eX (Apr 2, 2005)

Puppy76 said:


> I just don't know if it's even remotely realistic. Has anyone actually done it with a quality SSD? (With or without disabling the tuners when not in use?)
> 
> I'd think the lack of TRIM shouldn't actually matter...pretty much just heat and write durability.
> 
> ...


I think you already knew it was a bad idea. You just wanted someone to convince you otherwise.


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## Puppy76 (Oct 7, 2004)

trip1eX said:


> I think you already knew it was a bad idea. You just wanted someone to convince you otherwise.


*sigh* I suppose so :-/


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## SomeRandomIdiot (Jan 7, 2016)

2 1/2" drives are a bad idea for a dvr period.

Even though SSD's have a limited life (and one would need a superior ssd drive), considering the failures for the past 3 years in Canada with only 2 tuners, perhaps SSD would not be a stupid idea if you can manage the smaller capacity.

I doubt they can do worse than what has been seen in Canada.


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## Puppy76 (Oct 7, 2004)

SomeRandomIdiot said:


> 2 1/2" drives are a bad idea for a dvr period.
> 
> Even though SSD's have a limited life (and one would need a superior ssd drive), considering the failures for the past 3 years in Canada with only 2 tuners, perhaps SSD would not be a stupid idea if you can manage the smaller capacity.
> 
> I doubt they can do worse than what has been seen in Canada.


Sorry, what about Canada? I'm not familiar with what you're referencing.


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## Joe01880 (Feb 8, 2009)

Puppy76 said:


> I disable recording on my current units in a roundabout way-set up a series of 5 minutes recordings, one for each tuner, on channels that don't exist.
> 
> I'm hoping I can still do that on the Bolt! If nothing else, the drive's are way louder when they're recording, and I don't really buy that it doesn't impact drive longevity if it's having to write 4 streams constantly for no reason. In my 13 years of TiVO use I STILL wish they let you just have a setting to turn off recording unless you're actually explicitly recording something :-/


Why?

I'm a light sleeper and the noise the hdd makes in my Premiere in my bedroom doesn't make enough noise to keep me up. Premieres are noisy, my Roamio's don't seem to make any noise at all.
Hard drives are designed to spin, it's what they do. If you could turn them off then back on all the time that would only serve to wear them out faster. Cooling down, heating up etc..
TiVo's are made to do what TiVo's do record things, when they are not recording they do they're thing and keep a buffer so you can pause live tv if you want to.
What good is a 5 minute recording of a channel that doesn't exits do anyway, how does one tune to a channel that doesn't exist.
Please explain?
Or is that an OTA thing? I font use my TiVo's OTA

Sent from my VS986 using Tapatalk


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## Puppy76 (Oct 7, 2004)

Joe01880 said:


> Why?


Why? They're much louder, and almost certainly will wear out faster, and it's serving literally no purpose whatsoever.



> Hard drives are designed to spin, it's what they do.


And I'm not talking about turning them off. I'm talking about stopping the pointless constant recording.



> when they are not recording they duo they're thing and keep a buffer so yuh can pause live tv if you want to.


That should be an 'optional' feature, and regardless exists when you manually change to a channel. In over 12 years of TiVo ownership, I've literally never once had a use for it randomly writing constantly.



> What good is a 5 minute recording of a channel that doesn't exits do anyway, how does one tune to a channel that doesn't exist.
> Please explain?


It makes it stop writing pointlessly.

I'm going to be pretty pissed if you can't disable this on the Bolt, but I guess I'll make do either way :-/


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## Joe01880 (Feb 8, 2009)

Puppy76 said:


> Why? They're much louder, and almost certainly will wear out faster, and it's serving literally no purpose whatsoever.
> 
> And I'm not talking about turning them off. I'm talking about stopping the pointless constant recording.
> 
> ...


It's not pointless, it does so to maintain a buffer so you can pause live tv when you sit down to watch tv.
My guess is your gonna be pissed off with the Bolt.

Sent from my LG G4 using Tapatalk


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## Puppy76 (Oct 7, 2004)

Joe01880 said:


> It's not pointless, it does so to maintain a buffer so you can pause live tv when you sit down to watch tv.


It's entirely pointless for me, and it does NOT need to be doing that in order to pause live TV.


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## SomeRandomIdiot (Jan 7, 2016)

Puppy76 said:


> Sorry, what about Canada? I'm not familiar with what you're referencing.


StarChoice/Shaw Direct has used 2.5" drives in their Motorola Based DVRs for over 3 years and the failure rate is horrible, despite only 2 tuners writing to disk at a time as opposed to 4 for the Bolt.


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## waynomo (Nov 9, 2002)

Puppy76 said:


> It's entirely pointless for me, and it does NOT need to be doing that in order to pause live TV.


The disks are spinning regardless of whether they are being written to or not.


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## dianebrat (Jul 6, 2002)

waynomo said:


> The disks are spinning regardless of whether they are being written to or not.


Why should the OP let facts get in the way of a good rant, they clearly know what they want FACTS BE DAMNED!


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## hillyard (Nov 1, 2011)

Use the power management in settings. It will stop recording and go to sleep mode if not in use, and start back up when you have a scheduled show.


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## Puppy76 (Oct 7, 2004)

SomeRandomIdiot said:


> StarChoice/Shaw Direct has used 2.5" drives in their Motorola Based DVRs for over 3 years and the failure rate is horrible, despite only 2 tuners writing to disk at a time as opposed to 4 for the Bolt.


Eek? Man, I hope I shouldn't have gone for a Roamio... The OTA model works out to be about $100 more over 5 years, but that's not THAT bad. I'd have to upgrade the drive to a 2TB WD AV drive right away though.

I was kind of wondering about that. Although I've got 2.5" drives in PCs that are years and years old and have no issues, but still, this would be seeking all over the place tons.

BUT at least they are using WD AV drives...you'd hope that WD would be confident in these things being used the same way as their 3.5" drives, that they're sold as AV drives...



waynomo said:


> The disks are spinning regardless of whether they are being written to or not.





dianebrat said:


> Why should the OP let facts get in the way of a good rant, they clearly know what they want FACTS BE DAMNED!


I never said they didn't. That's not the point.



hillyard said:


> Use the power management in settings. It will stop recording and go to sleep mode if not in use, and start back up when you have a scheduled show.


Huh...that must be new? I'll have to look in to that...


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## jacksails54 (Jun 3, 2015)

OP:
Are you certain that weaKnees is selling the Roamio OTA w/Lifetime for $399? 

When I look at their website, it seems the price is $249.99 for the Roamio OTA (with 2TB) and an additional $399 for the Lifetime. Total = $648.99. 

Note: I did not see the Roamio OTA w/SSD on their site. Perhaps I missed it.


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## Puppy76 (Oct 7, 2004)

jacksails54 said:


> OP:
> Are you certain that weaKnees is selling the Roamio OTA w/Lifetime for $399?
> 
> When I look at their website, it seems the price is $249.99 for the Roamio OTA (with 2TB) and an additional $399 for the Lifetime. Total = $648.99.
> ...


Yeah, I meant to say they're selling lifetime for it for $400, supposedly. I decided not to mess with them though, after reading reviews.

If I was going to do the Roamio OTA, I'd just buy it from Best Buy, throw in a WD AV 2TB drive from Amazon fro $90, and put up with the ongoing fee (which isn't really THAT bad).

If I knew the Roamio was more reliable than the Bolt, for example, I'd go ahead and do that, but I really don't know that, save for a sort of suspicion that maybe 3.5" drives are more reliable than 2.5" drives lol


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## Series3Sub (Mar 14, 2010)

I think some of the latest high-end SSD's today can match the life of current HDD's with lots and lots of re-writes. The problem I have--even if the SSD's can match the life of HDD's, is the high cost of storage for SSD's compared to HDD's. So, until that price comes down, I would choose a good HDD anyday, IMHO. Now, in 5 years, who knows.


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## Puppy76 (Oct 7, 2004)

I wonder if I'm making the right choice going for the Bolt over the Roamio...the larger drive SEEMS like it might be more reliable. The Bolt is slightly cheaper (over the course of 5 years) but that's not THAT big a deal. 

I bought a Bolt last week when I thought I had my new TV coming, only...the side was crushed in out of the box, so I took it back. The display model had obvious blue weirdness on the sides of the screen, so I gave up on that model.

Now I have a boxed up Bolt, and no TV to actually use it with.

Driving myself nuts on that regard...I'm semi-seriously considering Sony's 1080p W600B, as while I'd love 4K and 4K + HDR for some future proofing, on TODAY'S content that W600B looks FANTASTIC, and I don't really need more until the next gen systems come out (presumably 2-5 years away) and/or 4K Blu Ray finally gets here.


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## JoeKustra (Dec 7, 2012)

Puppy76 said:


> Driving myself nuts on that regard...I'm semi-seriously considering Sony's 1080p W600B, as while I'd love 4K and 4K + HDR for some future proofing, on TODAY'S content that W600B looks FANTASTIC, and I don't really need more until the next gen systems come out (presumably 2-5 years away) and/or 4K Blu Ray finally gets here.


I'm using a 40W600B in a small viewing area. Some light calibration and it's great. Viewing angle is a bit shallow, but I use it about 18 hours every day and would buy another. Not quite as good as my EX700, but I wore that one down.


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## Puppy76 (Oct 7, 2004)

JoeKustra said:


> I'm using a 40W600B in a small viewing area. Some light calibration and it's great. Viewing angle is a bit shallow, but I use it about 18 hours every day and would buy another. Not quite as good as my EX700, but I wore that one down.


Awesome, thanks! I was really impressed with it in the store...it looked considerably better to me than $800 and $1000+ models I was comparing it against, which is like oookay.

I kind of wish there was like a 43 or 46" version...I sort of want to do bigger than 40", but 48 (the only other size) seems kind of big...


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