# Is Tivo PremiereXL Compatible with Tivo Mini?



## vega27 (Aug 2, 2008)

Does anyone know. I talked to sales rep on the phone the other day and they said it was compatible but given conflicting information from the website (or rather its unclear) 

I need more concrete information atleast some tivo community input. 

So anyone have any information.... I'm still mad the latest version is cable Card Only... how are us Free Basic Cable people Suppose to live (And I still use my HD antenna to pick up all the awesome HD Broadcast TV~)


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## Chimpware (Jan 30, 2002)

Tivo Mini will work only with 4 tuner Tivo XL4 or Premiere 4.


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## NotNowChief (Mar 29, 2012)

.......Must........Resist.......Urge..........To...........


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## Chimpware (Jan 30, 2002)

Have to say if you can get a Premiere for $99 and Tivo Mini will have subscription (at least I believe it will), what will real benefit be? Can't be much cheaper, maybe lower service cost per month? Also I guess more easy to manage recordings as you have one central Tivo, but you get benefit of 2 extra tuners with Premiere. Would have additional cost for cable card, but that is minimal. What will be the market for the Mini really on this basis?


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## vega27 (Aug 2, 2008)

welp, that's why quad tuner is so cheap on eBay. sigh... i really want to support tivo mini platform, but as you can see since 2008 (first post) i haven't had a problem with my Tivo Series 3 or Tivo Premier Platform. Im not willing to Give up Over the Air HD antenna Functionality


Why is Tivo being forced/pushed to eliminate HD Antenna. I use the **** outta that. I like having Control over MY TV & Content! So many new box's kept coming out i kinda feel forced I early adopted premier only to know the quad latest version is it thats not cool that hindering innovation


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## NotNowChief (Mar 29, 2012)

The Mini is coming soon.

So is the Zombie Apocalypse.


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## atmuscarella (Oct 11, 2005)

vega27 said:


> welp, that's why quad tuner is so cheap on eBay. sigh... i really want to support tivo mini platform, but as you can see since 2008 (first post) i haven't had a problem with my Tivo Series 3 or Tivo Premier Platform. Im not willing to Give up Over the Air HD antenna Functionality
> 
> Why is Tivo being forced/pushed to eliminate HD Antenna. I use the **** outta that. I like having Control over MY TV & Content! So many new box's kept coming out i kinda feel forced I early adopted premier only to know the quad latest version is it thats not cool that hindering innovation


Most believe the current 4 tuner models were primarily developed for cable companies. Basically they took a normal Premiere and removed the Over The Air tuners (OTA) and replaced them 2 more cable tuners to keep the costs down. Also many believe the current hardware platform could not support 4 OTA & 4 cable tuners. The 6 tuner model with TiVo software being developed by Pace is also designed for cable companies and may or may not make it into the retail market.

In my opinion we will not know what level of support TiVo plans for OTA until they release their next hardware update for retail.

Regarding the mini - we do not know for sure how it will work or when it will come out. At this point TiVo has said it will require a 4 tuner Premiere to work and I am guessing it will also work with 2 tuner Premieres on the same network (at least be able to stream content from it - but not likely use a tuner). But we wont know for sure until it is here. Frankly if TiVo decided to allow a 2 tuner Premiere to have all the same functions as a mini it would end up being as attractive or even more attractive a solution as the mini for many people.


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## vega27 (Aug 2, 2008)

atmuscarella said:


> ...
> 
> In my opinion we will not know what level of support TiVo plans for OTA until they release their next hardware update for retail.
> 
> Regarding the mini - we do not know for sure how it will work or when it will come out. At this point TiVo has said it will require a 4 tuner Premiere to work and I am guessing it will also work with 2 tuner Premieres on the same network. But we wont know for sure until it is here. Frankly if TiVo decided to allow a 2 tuner Premiere to have all the same functions as a mini it would end up being as attractive or even more attractive a solution as the mini for many people.


I Agree With You.

i enjoyed a good ride on a refurbished Tivo Series 3. After a few years I switched to Tivo Premier. I feel Tivo is caught (once again) between a rock and a hard place. It's using new found money to avoid this big showdown between how content is delivered to consumers. I feel like management hit the reboot button on the premier line and found the one thing Content Providers where afraid of and cut it away (but also attracted more subscribers to tivo aka OTA Antenna Support.)

Now all of a sudden its pushing cable cards like they've been selling great all along. But it's all too recent... cable company's made it so difficult for cable cards to work for a reason! The complete 180* in support only more supports my suspicion of whats going on/soon to come.

awwwww Tivo what to do...

Obviously We the Consumers Would Send a Message with our money, and I really think Tivo Mini Will Flop until they release FULL-Access to the older "split generation" of Tivo Equipment. Why? because by doing what they have done already to the platform they have separated the market into two.
Cable Card Only Subscriber Market (gets all the cool ****) & Advanced/Normal Tivo Subscriber market.

**Edit Grammar** (At work,My time to post/edit is limited but cleaned it up a bit)

PS: I'd really Love to See the CableCard Installed VS No CacbleCard Tivo Device Numbers.


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## slowbiscuit (Sep 19, 2006)

Really poor grammar there, but if the gist of what you're saying is that Tivo is bending more towards keeping cable and content happy than their retail customers, you are correct.


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## moyekj (Jan 24, 2006)

Chimpware said:


> Tivo Mini will work only with 4 tuner Tivo XL4 or Premiere 4.


 That's not the whole story. From what we have been told you need a 4 tuner unit to initially setup the Mini, however MRS will also work to stream recorded shows from 2 tuner Premiere units as well. And while it may be necessary to initially allocate a tuner to the Mini for live TV from 4 tuner unit, it can be changed not to do so. Sounds strange I know and hopefully TiVo will revise the situation before release, but that's where we stand now as far as information that has been gathered thus far.


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## atmuscarella (Oct 11, 2005)

vega27 said:


> ...
> I really think Tivo Mini Will Flop...


It would be interesting to know what TiVo actually wants to happen with the mini.

I am fairly sure they do not want it to replace existing TiVo DVRs (at least not Premieres) and 100% sure they do not want it to replace future TiVo DVR sales and contrastingly do want and expect it to help increase future TiVo DVR sales.

So where does selling the mini to existing customers fall? Do they care one way or the other? Or is the mini primarily designed to enhance future DVR sales to people looking for a single DVR whole home solution?

My guess is that the price for stand alone minis will be high enough to be profitable and the "deals" will come when it is bundle with a new DVR - like the recent Stream + New DVR deals.


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## vega27 (Aug 2, 2008)

atmuscarella said:


> It would be interesting to know what TiVo actually wants to happen with the mini.
> 
> I am fairly sure they do not want it to replace existing TiVo DVRs (at least not Premieres) and 100% sure they do not want it to replace future TiVo DVR sales and contrastingly do want and expect it to help increase future TiVo DVR sales.
> 
> ...


This scares me ... but dammit I will pay an additional fee (ontop of buying the equipment) to have tivo mini stream/all features unlocked to the older premier generation. That way its not easy out of the box (what I assume content providers / cable wants), kind-of like what they did with the tivo server software and the pro upgrade. I'm still using it too


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## Loach (Jan 11, 2013)

atmuscarella said:


> So where does selling the mini to existing customers fall? Do they care one way or the other? Or is the mini primarily designed to enhance future DVR sales to people looking for a single DVR whole home solution?
> 
> My guess is that the price for stand alone minis will be high enough to be profitable and the "deals" will come when it is bundle with a new DVR - like the recent Stream + New DVR deals.


I am a recent Tivo customer who became one because I began looking for a whole home solution, and the thought of paying Cox additional $$$ monthly for their whole home service plus additional boxes did not appeal to me. My first step was to purchase a Premiere 4 with lifetime. Now I'm impatiently waiting for pricing information on the Mini. Depending on pricing, I would add 2 Minis. But if Mini with lifetime is not substantially cheaper than a base Premiere with lifetime, then I'll just add a Premiere and maybe one mini. It sucks to sit here and still not have my whole home solution while I wait for Mini pricing info. Oh well, at least my Cox bill has gone down.


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## swerver (May 18, 2012)

Chimpware said:


> Have to say if you can get a Premiere for $99 and Tivo Mini will have subscription (at least I believe it will), what will real benefit be? Can't be much cheaper, maybe lower service cost per month? Also I guess more easy to manage recordings as you have one central Tivo, but you get benefit of 2 extra tuners with Premiere. Would have additional cost for cable card, but that is minimal. What will be the market for the Mini really on this basis?


The additional cost for the extra cable card is high in my area, something like $8-10/month. So for me, I'm really hoping for the mini. I would definitely lifetime it to avoid monthly fees.


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## Loach (Jan 11, 2013)

swerver said:


> The additional cost for the extra cable card is high in my area, something like $8-10/month. So for me, I'm really hoping for the mini. I would definitely lifetime it to avoid monthly fees.


It's cheap in my area - $1.99/month. So at 24 bucks a year for a cable card, another Premiere is certainly a viable option for me if Mini pricing isn't much more attractive.


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## moyekj (Jan 24, 2006)

I already have an unactivated Premiere lying around, so if I can get a much better deal than $400 lifetime on it (like the recent $50 lifetime offer being emailed to some) then that would be more enticing than a Mini to me at this point given what we know about it.


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## slowbiscuit (Sep 19, 2006)

Same here, with an unactivated $50 refurb Premiere.


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## bobdole888 (Jan 30, 2010)

How would you be able to get a deal on the unactived premier?

I thought the unit has be active for an year, then unsubscribed before you could get an offer for lifetime at $50?


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## slowbiscuit (Sep 19, 2006)

The key word here is 'if', not 'how'.


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