# Requirements for 4k TV and Bolt Plus



## Kayrocker2000 (Jan 25, 2017)

I'm planning on buying a 4k TV (specifically Sony XBR65X930D) and a Bolt Plus. I already have Charter Spectrum cable (Pasadena, CA) through a TiVo Premiere XL, which the Bolt Plus will replace. Can you please tell me what would be my requirements to make sure I'm viewing in 4k?

1) What would a good MB bandwidth flow?
2) I'm assuming I would need 4k HDMI cables, but there are so many to choose from. How do I decide?
3) I already have wired ethernet through the Premiere. Would splitting the cord and adding it to the 4k TV be advantageous at all?
5) Bolt Plus claims that I would no longer need a cable box. If I'm having trouble with picture quality, missing channels or bandwidth problems, should I contact TiVo or Charter first?
6) Anything else?

Thanks so much!


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## chicagobrownblue (May 29, 2008)

2) Probably not, but if you must:

Ultra Slim 18Gbps Active High Speed HDMI® Cable, 6ft Black - Monoprice.com

3) Bolt+ can get the guide data via WiFi. If you want to stream content, it depends.


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## krkaufman (Nov 25, 2003)

I'd first recommend that you check around TCF for parallel threads discussing the BOLT series and the state of 4K support.


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## atmuscarella (Oct 11, 2005)

You are always viewing in 4K as your TV up-scales all content and outputs it in 4K. 

If you are talking about trying to view native 4K content, then you will need subscriptions to services that provide 4K (your cable company does not provide any 4K content at this time), the services on the Bolt+ that can do that are Netflix and YouTube. 

But honestly the apps on your new TV are likely as good or better and your TV may have additional apps for additional services that provide 4K content. 

Of course the best source of 4K content is UHD Blu-ray.


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## BigJimOutlaw (Mar 21, 2004)

The Bolts include a 4K-ready HDCP 2.2 HDMI cable.

That being said, no cable provider has 4K yet. Tivo currently only has 2 apps with 4K support (Netflix and Youtube.) The apps built into your TV may negate the need to even bother with Tivo's apps.

Wired support is always preferable but that's up to you and how you want to use the devices. If you prefer to use the TV's wider array of apps, and if Tivo's limited built-in apps don't matter, then the Bolt's built-in wireless may be enough.

The Bolt works the same way the Premiere does as far as replacing the cable box goes. Insert the cable card, get it activated and paired correctly with Charter. Ditto for the tuning adapter. Missing channels are Charter's issue.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

Just use the SOny internal apps, and/or get a Roku Ultra or Premiere +. Much more options for 4K/HDR.

I have a Sony 850C. The combination of using the SOny TV along with the Roku Ultra gives me the best combination of 4K apps to use. I gave up on the TiVo Bolt for 4K apps last year. It was released in OCtober 2015 and still only has access to the same 4K apps it had in 2015. And still with no HDR.


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## No1hedberg (Mar 14, 2013)

Not to get off track, but I upgraded from premiere to bolt and I was extremely happy. It is so much faster. No lag at all for me. That's a good quality TV also. Lots of people look at low end 4k tvs and aren't all that impressed. Even the lower end ones that are HDR don't look all that much better than 1080p. They can't get bright enough for 4k HDR to really shine. Once you see what a good set can do with real 4k content it will leave you wanting more.


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## Dodge DeBoulet (Aug 3, 2010)

I have a Vizio P75-C1, a Bolt+ and a Mini arriving early next week. The Bolt will be connected to the new Vizio; our older 42" Panasonic will move to "casual dining area" adjacent to the kitchen and will be connected to the Mini. The Premiere XL 2-tuner model on the Panasonic will be retired.

I have Actiontec ECB6200 Bonded MoCA 2.0 adapters already in place to support our old Premiere. They're connected to the internet via a Netgear X10 (R9000) router that supports both GigE and 802.11ac/ad WiFi. Performance so far has been excellent, aside from the pokey-slow Premiere XL UI/apps and the outdated TV.

A few questions:

Do I need to do things in a specific order when I replace the Premiere with the Bolt? I intend to reuse the CableCard in the Bolt and retire the Premiere, but would like to retain the Onepasses and content on it (I know I can recover the Onepasses via TiVo Online)?
I'll be getting a new subscription for the Bolt+ and cancelling my Premiere's subscription, rather than moving the existing subscription from one box to another ... meaning both subscriptions can be active for a brief period in support of the migration. Is this the normal process?

I'm assuming I won't need a MOCA 2.0 adapter for the Bolt, but would still need one for the new TV for best performance should I also use its streaming capabilities, correct?
I'll need a MOCA 2 capable splitter to connect both the Bolt and the MOCA 2.0 adapter to the same cable. Is that right?

Given other posts here, 4K and HDR support seems to be a work in progress. Aside from that, anything special I need to know to get the most out of the Bolt with my selected TV?
Thanks, all. Looking forward to getting this installed!


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## JoeKustra (Dec 7, 2012)

Dodge DeBoulet said:


> I'm assuming I won't need a MOCA 2.0 adapter for the Bolt, but would still need one for the new TV for best performance should I also use its streaming capabilities, correct?
> Thanks, all. Looking forward to getting this installed!


I would expect that the TV would be happier going directly to the router for its internet access. That's a very good router.


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## Dodge DeBoulet (Aug 3, 2010)

JoeKustra said:


> I would expect that the TV would be happier going directly to the router for its internet access. That's a very good router.


I actually hadn't looked at the TV's Wifi capabilities. It supports 802.11ac, so potential throughput is likely to be vastly superior to bonded MOCA 2. Thanks for the tip.

And yes, I'm very pleased with the router, having picked it up during their BF sale at 25% off


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## JoeKustra (Dec 7, 2012)

Dodge DeBoulet said:


> I actually hadn't looked at the TV's Wifi capabilities. It supports 802.11ac, so potential throughput is likely to be vastly superior to bonded MOCA 2. Thanks for the tip.
> 
> And yes, I'm very pleased with the router, having picked it up during their BF sale at 25% off


I like my R8000, which supports my Roamio, Mini and Premiere boxes in various connections. There's a small chance the cable card can just move to a new box without pairing. That said, the cable card has nothing to do with the networking ability needed to transfer files. One thing is suggested is to get your new Bolt+ up and configured first. Even without the cable card (which can be added later) it will take over an hour to get the updates done, and longer to transfer your 1P and recordings. The transfer rate, when pulling from a Premiere, may not get better than 90Mbps. Just transfer one program then check the network diagnostics to see what rate you can expect.

Sorry, I can't answer any 4k or MoCA questions.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

Dodge DeBoulet said:


> I actually hadn't looked at the TV's Wifi capabilities. It supports 802.11ac, so potential throughput is likely to be vastly superior to bonded MOCA 2. Thanks for the tip.
> 
> And yes, I'm very pleased with the router, having picked it up during their BF sale at 25% off


nothing you will be streaming will come anywhere close to taxing MoCA 1.1. Let alone 2.0. All the streaming services use low bitrate streaming. with their top UHD encodes averaging around 16mb/s.

Sent from my SM-G920V using Tapatalk


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## chicagobrownblue (May 29, 2008)

Dodge DeBoulet said:


> Do I need to do things in a specific order when I replace the Premiere with the Bolt? *I intend to reuse the CableCard in the Bolt*


I'd get a new CableCard for the Bolt. Someone on TCF had pixelation which was traced down to a CableCard gone bad.



Dodge DeBoulet said:


> and retire the Premiere, but would like to retain the Onepasses and content on it (I know I can recover the Onepasses via TiVo Online)? I'll be getting a new subscription for the Bolt+ and cancelling my Premiere's subscription, rather than moving the existing subscription from one box to another ... meaning both subscriptions can be active for a brief period in support of the migration. Is this the normal process?


This is normal and smart. You can move the programs from the Premiere to the Bolt. I pulled my 1Ps to a computer for backup and then pushed them to my new Tivo. Not sure if you can copy them from your old Tivo to your new Tivo directly.

They may offer to lifetime your Premiere for $99. Something to think about, not sure I would do it.



Dodge DeBoulet said:


> Given other posts here, 4K and HDR support seems to be a work in progress...


So much so that I still do not have a 4K TV or a Bolt.


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## Dodge DeBoulet (Aug 3, 2010)

So, my Bolt+ and Mini arrived today. I simply couldn't wait until I got my hands on a 2nd cablecard, so I yanked the one from my old Premier XL and plugged it into the Bolt+.

Online cablecard activation didn't work with Comcast (I didn't think it would, but I felt I should try anyway). So I got one of their cablecard people on the phone who spent close to 20 minutes "unpairing" the card from my old Premiere, but was in the end successful. She then paired and activated it for my new Bolt+, and things seemed to be OK ... at first.

Channels showed up, but not all of them. As part of our move to a new home, our package included a 2 year promotion that gives us Showtime and Encore along with a significantly expanded channel lineup over what we had before. Problem was, neither Showtime nor Encore were showing in hi-def. Attempting to select any of the Hi-def channels got me the cablecard activation display, which didn't make much sense since it was already activated. The standard def channels worked OK. The tech I was working with farted around for a while and eventually declared that I didn't have the "hi def" add-on, so that was why I wasn't getting the HD versions of SHO and ENC. She offered to transfer me to a "Customer Solutions" representative, and like an idiot I let her.

After another 10 minutes of him trying to tell me I should be paying additional for HD when I'd had it all along and it was working with SHO and ENC on my old Premiere, he finally figured out that maybe technical support was really the group that should be helping me. So back to them I go, and while I'm waiting on hold for the TS rep to pickup, the SHO and ENC channels started working normally. No idea why it took so long ...

The only remaining problem is getting my recorded shows to transfer over from the Premiere. The web UI makes it very easy to initiate a copy, but I don't see anything happening. The same 5 shows I copied over manually when I first got the Bolt+ activated are there, but none of the ones set up to copy through TiVo Online have started to copy. Does it get triggered by a sync or something? I assumed they'd start copying right away ...

Vizio P75-C1 arrives in the morning. More fun!


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## Dodge DeBoulet (Aug 3, 2010)

Transfer problem from Premiere to Bolt+ via TiVo Online resolved; seems there's some "copy enable" switch that needed to be turned on (but I still don't know where that is; the CSR I worked with took care of it himself).

Looks like it may take a day or two for everything to transfer ...

And the P75-C1 showed up. Dayum penmouth:


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