# Syncing Tivo mini with Roamio



## FreeLunch (Dec 9, 2013)

I have a Roamio Pro and 2 Mini's. The Roamio Pro and one of the Mini's are in different rooms, but you can hear both tv's from each room. Is there not a way to get the Mini in perfect sync with the Roamio? For example, if you're watching the same show as the person in other room, you don't want to hear the slight echo. Or if you're having a super bowl party and want all Mini's to be in sync with the Roamio pro? 

I saw in another thread that people were recommending a hdmi over ethernet solution. However, it seems like it would be built into the Tivo software? Something like how Sonos automatically syncs sound with different amplifiers so you don't have an echoing effect.


----------



## Grakthis (Oct 4, 2006)

There isn't a way to do this automatically, but you could do it yourself if you're lucky/talented by pausing the Roamio for a second and letting the mini-catch up.

I doubt TiVo will/would spend any time on developing this... it wouldn't be a commonly used feature. The sonos make sense... whole home music playing is common. But whole home TV watching is not.


----------



## FreeLunch (Dec 9, 2013)

I guess you never had a superbowl party??


----------



## Grakthis (Oct 4, 2006)

FreeLunch said:


> I guess you never had a superbowl party??


I have. I have one big TV and entertainment space. I don't disperse people all over the house. And if I did, I wouldn't have the volume on the TVs up very loud, because people would be more interested in talking than listening to bad commentators.

Again, this one scenario doesn't seem like something TiVo will be willing to spend developer resources on.


----------



## jrtroo (Feb 4, 2008)

Superbowl parties happen once a year, I would not expect a feature to address a 4-5 hour event.

HDMI runs were discussed to resolve. Another method could be to turn off the tv volumes except for your distributed sonos system. The TVs could then be just a little off, but would not be annoying since the sound system would be in sync.


----------



## FreeLunch (Dec 9, 2013)

The other thread had a poster where he and his wife were watching tv where one was in the family room and one was in the kitchen. Since it was one room, he was trying to find absolution that worked. 

I'm not the only person that wants this feature and I would venture to guess that it happens more than some of you would like to believe. Whereas some people like having 6 tuners, I don't need that many. I probably use 3 max if even 3. People have different setups

The problem with turning one tv sound off is that you would then end up with the sounds not synced up with the video.


----------



## jrtroo (Feb 4, 2008)

My point is that for a football game, syncing up would not need to be precise as there is not any dialog to match, so a split second difference would be unnoticed. (my understanding is that anything less than a half-second would actually be a non-issue even with dialog)


----------



## ncfoster (Jan 22, 2011)

I think the answer is that there are ways to do this, but it is not a feature for Tivo, because it would be difficult to implement. The best way to do it would probably be with some sort of HDMI switch/splitter and/or multi-zone A/V receiver.

Obviously, the feature would be cool, and I would appreciate it as well. What would excite me MORE would be a similar delay feature that would let you sync the audio from local radio stations with sports broadcasts so you don't have to listen to bad announcers. But, once again, this is sort of a special use-case.


----------



## FreeLunch (Dec 9, 2013)

I do like the broadcast idea to sync the tv up with radio stations. 

As far as how difficult it is - I don't think we can say for certain since I'm assuming you don't work for Tivo. Sonos, SqueezeBox, others have done it with audio. So I believe it can be done - just don't know how difficult or easy it is with video/audio.


----------

