# TiVo Stream and Tuners



## a812009 (Nov 24, 2012)

I'm a TiVo HD user considering upgrading to a TiVo Premier 4 box and a TiVo Stream box. After researching online and chatting with TiVo representatives, I believe a tuner is needed to stream live TV to an iOS device. Of course, this makes sense (and in fact, I'm believe the live content to stream will start RECORDING on the TiVo Premier box, presumably a required step to send the content to the TiVo Stream to be compressed before streaming to the device).

However, I'm getting conflicting answers from TiVo reps on whether or not a tuner is required to stream PREVIOUSLY RECORDED content to an iOS device. For example, with a two-tuner Premier, can I have both tuners recording live content and still stream one or more PREVIOUSLY RECORDED shows to my iOS devices? One customer rep says the a tuner would be required because it must send data to another device, while another rep says that tuners are only needed for tuning into content coming into the Premier box (i.e. digital cable).

My family often has two shows recording at once, and if we can't stream previously recorded content to other devices in this situation, then the TiVo Stream won't do us any good in this situation. The answer to this question will tell me whether to purchase the two-tuner Premier unit or the four-tuner Premier unit. Does anyone have any experience with this?


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## radish (Dec 21, 2001)

You only need tuners for recording content. Streaming/downloading via a Stream or transferring via MRV can be done without any available tuners.


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## supasta (May 6, 2006)

a812009 said:


> ...a tuner is needed to stream live TV to an iOS device. Of course, this makes sense (and in fact, I'm believe the live content to stream will start RECORDING on the TiVo Premier box, presumably a required step to send the content to the TiVo Stream to be compressed before streaming to the device).


This is exactly correct. To add:
A tuner is only required to be available in the case that you choose to stream something that is not previously recorded and in the Now Paying List. If you choose to watch and stream something in the guide from Live TV, the stream actually starts a recording for that program and then streams it. If you choose to watch something from the Now Playing List, you will have no issues at all.


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