# Considering the Bolt



## Hauss (Apr 2, 2015)

Can anyone comment on the picture quality of regular HD cable channels? I am considering upgrading from my Roamio to the bolt. Also, how are the transferring speeds from the bolt to the iPad? Has that improved?


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## waynomo (Nov 9, 2002)

The picture quality might be dependent on your cable provider. When I was on FiOS there was no difference in quality between a FiOS cable box and TiVo. We recently moved and we are on Charter Cable. There was a significant increase in picture quality when I replaced the Charter Cable box with a TiVo. The improvement was enough that my wife even noticed without me even saying anything to her. 

So YMMV.


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## BigJimOutlaw (Mar 21, 2004)

There's no particular difference in picture quality between Roamio and Bolt, from what I've seen.

iDevice transfer speeds are also about the same.


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## JoeKustra (Dec 7, 2012)

BigJimOutlaw said:


> Device transfer speeds are also about the same.


Really? I thought the Bolt had Gb Ethernet.


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## joewom (Dec 10, 2013)

JoeKustra said:


> Really? I thought the Bolt had Gb Ethernet.


Roamio has gb Ethernet. However most devices your transferring to are not wired.


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## BigJimOutlaw (Mar 21, 2004)

JoeKustra said:


> Really? I thought the Bolt had Gb Ethernet.


Android/iDevice transfers are bottlenecked by the transcoder.

It's still the same roughly 2x real-time speed at the highest quality setting. But slightly better quality from what I've seen.


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## joewom (Dec 10, 2013)

BigJimOutlaw said:


> Android/iDevice transfers are bottlenecked by the transcoder. It's still the same, roughly 2x real-time speed at the highest quality setting. But slightly better quality from what I've seen.


Also wireless. I have a wrt1900 and depending on my distance from it I get 550mbps to 100. Average since I'm uasually at least 25 feet away is 225. Those are iPhone 6 speeds.


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## BigJimOutlaw (Mar 21, 2004)

joewom said:


> Also wireless. I have a wrt1900 and depending on my distance from it I get 550mbps to 100. Average since I'm uasually at least 25 feet away is 225. Those are iPhone 6 speeds.


That's still much faster than the transcoder can transcode. Wireless isn't the bottleneck.


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## atmuscarella (Oct 11, 2005)

JoeKustra said:


> Really? I thought the Bolt had Gb Ethernet.





joewom said:


> Roamio has gb Ethernet. However most devices your transferring to are not wired.


The Roamio *does not* have GB Ethernet. The Bolt does have GB Ethernet and transfers from the Bolt to a computer (with GB Ethernet through a GB router/switch) are significantly faster. Transfers to a WiFi tablet which have to be trans-coded to h.264 have not been noticeably different for me from my Bolt or from my Roamio via a stand alone Stream.


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## joewom (Dec 10, 2013)

atmuscarella said:


> The Roamio *does not* have GB Ethernet. The Bolt does have GB Ethernet and transfers from the Bolt to a computer (with GB Ethernet through a GB router/switch) are significantly faster. Transfers to a WiFi tablet which have to be trans-coded to h.264 have not been noticeably different for me from my Bolt or from my Roamio via a stand alone Stream.


Really? My switch shows my roamio with gb ethernet. It's green. My tv is yellow because it's only 100mbps. Also before I got bonded moca 2.0 I used it to bridge and was getting speeds of 130mbps from moca 1.1 4 port switch with a computer internet speed test which was received from the roamio. I thought there was 100mbps Ethernet and 1000 Ethernet. Is there something in between?


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## joewom (Dec 10, 2013)

atmuscarella said:


> The Roamio *does not* have GB Ethernet. The Bolt does have GB Ethernet and transfers from the Bolt to a computer (with GB Ethernet through a GB router/switch) are significantly faster. Transfers to a WiFi tablet which have to be trans-coded to h.264 have not been noticeably different for me from my Bolt or from my Roamio via a stand alone Stream.


If you are talking about the basic roamio you are correct. But the plus and pro have gb Ethernet.
https://www.weaknees.com/tivo-roamio-comparison.php


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## BigJimOutlaw (Mar 21, 2004)

The base Roamio is 10/100. The Plus/Pro are GigE.

But their network speeds don't have much to do with the speed of Android/iDevice transfers. Those are as slow as they are because of the video transcoding, which takes about the same amount of time for both boxes.


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## joewom (Dec 10, 2013)

BigJimOutlaw said:


> The base Roamio is 10/100. The Plus/Pro are GigE.
> 
> But their network speeds don't have much to do with the speed of Android/iDevice transfers. Those are as slow as they are because of the video transcoding, which takes about the same amount of time for both boxes.


I agree just pointing out the roamio does have gb which is not an upgrade for the bolt.


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## atmuscarella (Oct 11, 2005)

joewom said:


> Really? My switch shows my roamio with gb ethernet. It's green. My tv is yellow because it's only 100mbps. Also before I got bonded moca 2.0 I used it to bridge and was getting speeds of 130mbps from moca 1.1 4 port switch with a computer internet speed test which was received from the roamio. I thought there was 100mbps Ethernet and 1000 Ethernet. Is there something in between?


Of the 4 Series 5 TiVos the Roamio OTA, & Roamio have 100Mbps Ethernet and the Roamio Pro & Roamio Plus have GB. Transfer to my computer for my Roamio are in the 90 Mbps range and from my Bolt are 200+ Mbps. The Bolt, Roamio, & computer are all attached to the same GB switch. Back when the Series 5 line was release that was one of noted differences between the Roamio and the Roamio Plus/Pro


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## atmuscarella (Oct 11, 2005)

joewom said:


> If you are talking about the basic roamio you are correct. But the plus and pro have gb Ethernet.
> https://www.weaknees.com/tivo-roamio-comparison.php


The Roamio OTA, Roamio, Roamio Plus, and Roamio Pro are all different and individual TiVo DVRs. So yes when I say Roamio and I am referring to an individual DVR I do mean just that the Roamio. It can be confusing because many of us (and TiVo) refer to all Series 5 DVRs collectively as "Roamios". I also understand on this Forum to add clarity many of us at times (myself included) add the word Basic or Base to Roamio to highlight we are taking about a Roamio and not a Roamio Plus/Pro or Roamio OTA, and as can see it does help with clarity.


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