# Roamio OTA used at parts



## GoBucks (Mar 3, 2015)

Hello all. New Tivo guy here. We bought the 4 tuner Basic Roamio with antenna and cable card use. I was wondering if our Roamio went out could I just buy the $50 OTA version and use say the hard drive in it? Take it out and slap it into our basic? 

That would be a lot cheaper then sending it in if anything would happen to the hard drive. Thanks in advance and we love our Tivo. We us it for OTA and lifetimed it with that wonderful plsr coupon.


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## raqball (Feb 23, 2015)

GoBucks said:


> Hello all. New Tivo guy here. We bought the 4 tuner Basic Roamio with antenna and cable card use. I was wondering if our Roamio went out could I just buy the $50 OTA version and use say the hard drive in it? Take it out and slap it into our basic?
> 
> That would be a lot cheaper then sending it in if anything would happen to the hard drive. Thanks in advance and we love our Tivo. We us it for OTA and lifetimed it with that wonderful plsr coupon.


I think they are exactly the same on the inside sans the cable card guts.

I had an OTA version at 1st then picked up the regular with lifetime before my 30-day trial with the OTA was up.

I am going to keep the OTA for the exact same reasons you mentioned above. It's nice to have an extra hard drive, remote and power cord available.


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## Arcady (Oct 14, 2004)

You can put any hard drive into a Roamio and it will format the drive for you. There's no reason to buy a whole TiVo for a replacement drive.


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## GoBucks (Mar 3, 2015)

The only reason I would is because its $50. Looking on Amazon most 500gb hard drives are around $50 anyway. At least with the OTA it comes with an extra remote and cord. Just like raqball states.


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## Arcady (Oct 14, 2004)

Okay, but you can buy a 1TB on Amazon for $50 or a 2TB for $65. Just sayin'...


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## tarheelblue32 (Jan 13, 2014)

Sure you can. And if you buy it for a spare hard drive, you'll get a spare remote with it as well.


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## raqball (Feb 23, 2015)

GoBucks said:


> The only reason I would is because its $50. Looking on Amazon most 500gb hard drives are around $50 anyway. At least with the OTA it comes with an extra remote and cord. Just like raqball states.


Yeah I agree. HD is about $50, the remote sells for like $30 on Tivo.com and the power cord is like $6 on Tivo.com. Plus you've got the shell just in case..

I know you can get a better deal on larger HD's but if your hard drive fails you may not want to wait a few day to order one and have it delivered. Same goes for the remote or power cord.

The only issue you might have is that I believe you can only buy the OTA version from Tivo (again you are waiting on shipping) or a Best Buy..

I've boxed my OTA up and it's in a closet. If I ever need the parts, they are right there with zero wait times..


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## GoBucks (Mar 3, 2015)

Arcady said:


> Okay, but you can buy a 1TB on Amazon for $50 or a 2TB for $65. Just sayin'...


That does sound better. I would rather have more space than those extras. :up:


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## bradleys (Oct 31, 2007)

GoBucks said:


> The only reason I would is because its $50. Looking on Amazon most 500gb hard drives are around $50 anyway. At least with the OTA it comes with an extra remote and cord. Just like raqball states.


I suppose I am very odd - and I accept that.  I just would just feel buying a whole device like that "just in case" is a waste. I suppose it doesn't help that I know it is a loss for tivo, but that is their problem.

If the power supply died, I might run off to best buy at that point... But TiVo's are generally pretty bullet proof. Seems like a real waste to me.


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## HarperVision (May 14, 2007)

Plus, I'm not 100% sure yet, but I just ordered a PCMCIA board connector that I'm going to try on my Roamio OTA to see if when I plug in a Cablecard it will bring up the screens and allow it to then be setup with a cable signal. 

This would be similar to the way I setup a base Roamio for OTA then connected a TA and/or Cablecard and it allowed me to run both signals concurrently which the specs say it couldn't do. 

I think they're basically the exact same unit with just the Cablecard slot removed because it still has the Cablecard screens in the menu. 

I'll post a thread once I'm able to try it.


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## bradleys (Oct 31, 2007)

That is a very cool idea!


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## HarperVision (May 14, 2007)

bradleys said:


> That is a very cool idea!


Yeah, it was only $8.95 so I thought I'd give it a whirl!


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## Kash76 (Jul 29, 2001)

Let us know


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## h2oskierc (Dec 16, 2010)

HarperVision said:


> Plus, I'm not 100% sure yet, but I just ordered a PCMCIA board connector that I'm going to try on my Roamio OTA to see if when I plug in a Cablecard it will bring up the screens and allow it to then be setup with a cable signal.


Cool! Once you're done with that, want to find a way for me to use my Plus with OTA in case I ever decide to quit the cable? Don't really see myself doing it, but hey, you never really know.


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## bradleys (Oct 31, 2007)

h2oskierc said:


> Cool! Once you're done with that, want to find a way for me to use my Plus with OTA in case I ever decide to quit the cable? Don't really see myself doing it, but hey, you never really know.


Not possible - tuners don't exist on that box. If you cut the cord, just sell the plus and buy a base...


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## Mikeguy (Jul 28, 2005)

Had never occurred to me but you folks are absolutely right: especially if you might only want a 500GB replacement drive, the Roamio OTA is prime, at its price-point, as a parts machine.


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## raqball (Feb 23, 2015)

Mikeguy said:


> Had never occurred to me but you folks are absolutely right: especially if you might only want a 500GB replacement drive, the Roamio OTA is prime, at its price-point, as a parts machine.


For $50 it's not really a bad deal all things considered and the spare parts will always be on hand..

In my case I was past my 2-week return period with Best Buy or I probably would have taken it back, I am not really bummed about missing that return window though as I now have extra parts on hand if needed..


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## GoBucks (Mar 3, 2015)

raqball said:


> For $50 it's not really a bad deal all things considered and the spare parts will always be on hand..
> 
> In my case I was past my 2-week return period with Best Buy or I probably would have taken it back, I am not really bummed about missing that return window though as I now have extra parts on hand if needed..


I was looking at prices for the remote, drive and cord. It would be better to get a OTA if something happens.

I wasn't going to just buy one out of the blue. I was talking about if something happened to my basic.

Thanks everyone for all the great info. Glad I joined your very informative forum!


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## ncbill (Sep 1, 2007)

I take my (base) Roamio to our cabin in the mountains to watch stored shows & as a 'one-box' for Netflix/Hulu+/etc.

So I bought a $50 Roamio OTA so I could leave a power supply/remote at the cabin.

I'll probably strip the hard drive and use it to replace the original drive in an old Series 3 OLED w/ lifetime.


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