# Roamio Pro - The Good, the Bad & the Unkown?



## danthefan (Nov 1, 2001)

So I'm on the fence on buying the Roamio Pro. There are a lot of things to like, but quite a few things I'm disappointed aren't yet available. Here's my list of good, bad and unknown. Please add to it as you see fit.

*The Good*

New hardware should be much faster
6 tuners
Updated interface
Built-in streaming capability
Built-in Wi-Fi support (which I don't use)

*The Bad?*

Streaming not available, yet
Android streaming support not available, yet
Windows PC streaming support not available, and no signs of it in the future
$600 (ouch) + $400 lifetime service (ouch) = $1000 (double ouch)
No THX certification?

*The Unknown?*

Will 6 channel support work with Time Warner tuning adapter in Raleigh, NC? It's unclear how many channels the tuning adapters support.
Will streaming be supported for Time Warner cable channels? Currently with my Premiere I can only download over-the-air channels to the TiVo Desktop. The other channels are copyright protected.
No Sirius XM streaming capability? (this would be a really nice addition)

What am I missing from these lists?

I'm also disappointed that TiVo won't offer better pricing for long time TiVo customers or the ability to transfer lifetime service. I've been a customer since the first 14 and 30 hour TiVo Series 1. I still own 4 TiVos, including 3 Series 2s and 1 Premiere. I know they've got to make money, but it's still disappointing.

Regards, Daniel


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## celtic pride (Nov 8, 2005)

I wish tivo would at least reduce the price of lifetime service everytime you upgrade to a new tivo to $199.00 or less. $399.00 is too high for me therefore i wont be able to get the new roamio, which means i either keep mt premiere 2 tuner dvrs or switch to directv and get the 5 tuner genie.


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## CrispyCritter (Feb 28, 2001)

celtic pride said:


> I wish tivo would at least reduce the price of lifetime service everytime you upgrade to a new tivo to $199.00 or less. $399.00 is too high for me therefore i wont be able to get the new roamio, which means i either keep mt premiere 2 tuner dvrs or switch to directv and get the 5 tuner genie.


Where do they make their money then? Historically, they lose money on every hardware sale except the highest end machine (average loss historically has been in the 30-40% range). They make up their lost money on the service.


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## rogmatic (Sep 17, 2009)

Although I normally think chasing volume over margins is a bad strategy, Tivo would probably benefit by driving up sales to reduce the public's dependence on cable boxes.


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## trip1eX (Apr 2, 2005)

celtic pride said:


> I wish tivo would at least reduce the price of lifetime service everytime you upgrade to a new tivo to $199.00 or less. $399.00 is too high for me therefore i wont be able to get the new roamio, which means i either keep mt premiere 2 tuner dvrs or switch to directv and get the 5 tuner genie.


How much will the 5 tuner genie save you over 3 years compared to buying a Roamio?


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## rainwater (Sep 21, 2004)

danthefan said:


> Will streaming be supported for Time Warner cable channels? Currently with my Premiere I can only download over-the-air channels to the TiVo Desktop. The other channels are copyright protected.


Nothing can change with regards to this as the cable company sets the restrictions. Streaming will work of course and downloads or MRV will be disabled for most channels on TWC.


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## NYHeel (Oct 7, 2003)

CrispyCritter said:


> Where do they make their money then? Historically, they lose money on every hardware sale except the highest end machine (average loss historically has been in the 30-40% range). They make up their lost money on the service.


I don't know about the Roamio line, but supposedly, they had gotten their subsidies way down on the Premiere line. I believe it was at the point that the Premiere 4 and XL4 were not actually subsidized.


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## CrispyCritter (Feb 28, 2001)

NYHeel said:


> I don't know about the Roamio line, but supposedly, they had gotten their subsidies way down on the Premiere line. I believe it was at the point that the Premiere 4 and XL4 were not actually subsidized.


Yes, absolutely. This last year (2013 fiscal year) was the lowest subsidy that I remember since they started to build their own hardware. But it was still almost 20% when averaged over all their units. I expect that number to go up for a year or two with the new hardware line.


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## jrtroo (Feb 4, 2008)

danthefan said:


> *The Bad?*
> 
> Streaming not available, yet





Streaming is really broad- I suggest that you explain this a bit better for your readers. I *assume* you mean outside of the wifi environment, but someone coming in clean to this may completely misunderstand what you are saying.


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## josborne (Jun 18, 2003)

Anyone with TWC knows they lock down pretty much all shows so when the TIVO Streamer came out the only thing it could do in my household is just that, streaming to an iPhone or iPad. The killer feature that most would want it for is the ability to take content on the go which TWC doesn't allow because of it's copy protection. I am curious if you will be able to stream TWC copy protected shows outside the home....that would be interesting, but still not as conveniant as being able to put the content on your portable device.


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## Grakthis (Oct 4, 2006)

josborne said:


> Anyone with TWC knows they lock down pretty much all shows so when the TIVO Streamer came out the only thing it could do in my household is just that, streaming to an iPhone or iPad. The killer feature that most would want it for is the ability to take content on the go which TWC doesn't allow because of it's copy protection. I am curious if you will be able to stream TWC copy protected shows outside the home....that would be interesting, but still not as conveniant as being able to put the content on your portable device.


They don't lock down broadcast shows. I mean, i'm not discounting your complaint, but roughly 60% of what I watch is broadcast.


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## zgamer (Oct 13, 2007)

Grakthis said:


> They don't lock down broadcast shows. I mean, i'm not discounting your complaint, but roughly 60% of what I watch is broadcast.


That was the nice thing about analog cable, portability.

The trick with going OTA + online content is finding the content you want. Outside of live sports most content is available online these days...just with Roamio would allow us to access it natively.


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## randywalters (Oct 21, 2003)

danthefan said:


> What am I missing from these lists?


No Antenna tuner. Completely kills any chance of me buying one.


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## bayern_fan (Aug 12, 2013)

The Good: Built-in MoCa


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## bradleys (Oct 31, 2007)

randywalters said:


> No Antenna tuner. Completely kills any chance of me buying one.


That is what the base unit is for... 4 tuners, no waiting!


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## Davisadm (Jan 19, 2008)

josborne said:


> Anyone with TWC knows they lock down pretty much all shows...





Grakthis said:


> They don't lock down broadcast shows...


If the FCC didn't have a mandate that broadcast programs have to be free of copy protection, TWC would lock those too. They are the worst copy-protection abusers.


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## Leon WIlkinson (Feb 13, 2000)

On the main TiVo page it says "from the backyard.to the car. *to 3500 feet away*" which you can watch your recording.

That wireless card inside must be a little beast, .66 miles is huge for wifi.


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## George Cifranci (Jan 30, 2003)

The bad: No HDMI-CEC support.


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## randywalters (Oct 21, 2003)

bradleys said:


> That is what the base unit is for... 4 tuners, no waiting!


Well they screwed that up too - unlike my S3 the Roamio only only has one RF input and it's tuner is unable to simultaneously tune both my antenna channels AND my cable channels like i do seamlessly with my S3. I use both sources equally every day. Man this is such a letdown.


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## bucm4sko24wle2mi (Aug 17, 2009)

CrispyCritter said:


> They make up their lost money on the service.


True, but I respectfully submit that asking price is still steep, IMHO.


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## bucm4sko24wle2mi (Aug 17, 2009)

bradleys said:


> That is what the base unit is for... 4 tuners, no waiting!


I concur with RandyWalters. I think the Pro should have the OTA support included.


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## JWhites (May 15, 2013)

I'd love to know if the new remote is backward compatible with Premiere's and older TiVo's since I just might have to order them to get the family used to the new button layouts before any Roamios are ordered.


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## Game Master (Jan 11, 2013)

On the main TiVo page it says From the backyard to 30,000 feet. How long is that?


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## bfollowell (Aug 24, 2013)

Game Master said:


> On the main TiVo page it says From the backyard to 30,000 feet. How long is that?


About 5.7 miles!


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## crxssi (Apr 5, 2010)

JWhites said:


> I'd love to know if the new remote is backward compatible with Premiere's and older TiVo's since I just might have to order them to get the family used to the new button layouts before any Roamios are ordered.


For RF mode, a Roamio device will not do you any good on a non-Roamio DVR because only the Roamio has the wirelesss connection built into it. The IR mode should work OK, though (but it is slower).

What you probably want is a Slide remote (perhaps the new one coming out), which works on the Premiere and has a dongle (and a keyboard, and IR learning, and more).


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## JWhites (May 15, 2013)

I'll look into it when it comes out. I know what you mean about the IR being slower since when I was using the original slide remote with Bluetooth it was quite fast and responsive on the Premiere even while using the HDUI (this was back before all the software improvements in 2012) it felt like night and day.

I wasn't a big fan of it's shorter length compared to the regular sized remote and ended up going back to the Glo remote. It has been said that the Roamio remote is almost as short as the slide remote was. Here's a comparison between the slide and the standard sized remote [media]http://tctechcrunch2011.files.wordpress.com/2010/08/tivo-slide-2.jpg[/media] and here's a comparison of the Roamio remote and the standard sized remote [media]http://www.blogcdn.com/www.engadget.com/media/2013/08/three-remotes.jpg[/media]


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## JWhites (May 15, 2013)

Here is an unknown I'm wondering about the Roamio. Is the program description truncated from 5 lines down to 3 like users of the Premiere have been seeing with the 20.3.1 software update?


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## BigJimOutlaw (Mar 21, 2004)

JWhites said:


> Here is an unknown I'm wondering about the Roamio. Is the program description truncated from 5 lines down to 3 like users of the Premiere have been seeing with the 20.3.1 software update?


I'd have to look side-by-side to be sure, but the thinner font might be squeezing a little more text into the given lines. I am trying (and failing) to find a really long description, but I am looking at a 4-line description on one channel right now.


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## JWhites (May 15, 2013)

How is the performance with transferring shows from a Roamio to a Premiere or from a Premiere to a Roamio? Are the times as fast as a Premiere to Premiere? What about multi room streaming shows from a Roamio to a Premiere or from a Premiere to a Roamio? Any stuttering or performance issues? How does the Premiere and Roamio identify each other in the My Shows list? Does the Premiere identify the Roamio as a "TiVo Roamio" and display a Roamio icon like as shown here with a Premiere to Premiere? [media]http://blog.tivo.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/4.png[/media]


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## JWhites (May 15, 2013)

BigJimOutlaw said:


> I'd have to look side-by-side to be sure, but the thinner font might be squeezing a little more text into the given lines. I am trying (and failing) to find a really long description, but I am looking at a 4-line description on one channel right now.


I found a show on Lifetime called Devious Maids and one called PGA Tour Golf that are both experiencing the truncation.


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## BigJimOutlaw (Mar 21, 2004)

JWhites said:


> I found a show on Lifetime called Devious Maids and one called PGA Tour Golf that are both experiencing the truncation.












It's good on Roamio.


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## JWhites (May 15, 2013)

ah ok thanks. maybe this is a sign they'll fix it on the Premiere in the next update  I do like the new font, it looks nice.


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## Davelnlr_ (Jan 13, 2011)

trip1eX said:


> How much will the 5 tuner genie save you over 3 years compared to buying a Roamio?


Being a new customer, he would get a Genie free. Then the cost would be approx $20-$25 a month to use it (Advanced receiver fee). This includes Multiroom viewing, High Def fee, and DVR fee. It would be less expensive to buy the new Tivo, and pay the month to month fee in some cases depending on whether he currently has to pay a surcharge for HD service. If he doesnt, it would be more expensive with the Genie. If he does, it would be about the same as Tivo's month to month rate.

I always buy lifetime. It has worked out well for me so far. I still have my original SVR2000 Sony Tivo with lifetime for a guest room. Works perfectly with a comcast DTR box. Also have lifetime on a TivoHD, Premier, and just recently, an XL.

While its a large chunk of money up front, it eventually pays for itself. My advice to friends, is go month to month and wait until they get their tax return, and use it (or a portion of it) on the lifetime.


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## Bierboy (Jun 12, 2004)

bayern_fan said:


> The Good: Built-in MoCa


Seriously...how many people really use MoCA....are there any stats? Percentage of TiVo users using it whose units who have that capability? My uneducated guess would be a small percentage...


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## lessd (Jan 23, 2005)

Bierboy said:


> Seriously...how many people really use MoCA....are there any stats? Percentage of TiVo users using it whose units who have that capability? My uneducated guess would be a small percentage...


Once I learned about MoCa I sold my TiVo "N" adapters and went to MoCa, because I have one TP-4 near a RJ45 router connection I did not even have to purchase any MoCa adapters. I can't say enough good about this MoCa system.


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## JWhites (May 15, 2013)

When _I_ learned about MoCA, I removed the Ethernet wiring I had previously run all over the house and purchased a 4 tuner Premiere and MoCA adapters for my router and distant desktops where WiFi doesn't reach, then relocated the router to a better location in the house. MoCA has been a godsend for me.


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## tomhorsley (Jul 22, 2010)

I was using MoCA till (apparently) lightning blowed up one of my boxes. Maybe if I get a Roamio I'll be able to figure out which one and go back to using it instead of wireless.


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## JWhites (May 15, 2013)

Well just remember the standard $199 Roamio requires a MoCA adapter which is like $49 through TiVo, so if you wanted it built in you'd be looking at the Plus at $399 or the Pro at $599.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

The Pro is $599.


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## vurbano (Apr 20, 2004)

CrispyCritter said:


> Where do they make their money then? Historically, they lose money on every hardware sale except the highest end machine (average loss historically has been in the 30-40% range). They make up their lost money on the service.


From the previous lifetimes they sold me and from their overpriced hard drives and from the new subscriptions of new subs with used equipment.


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## aristoBrat (Dec 30, 2002)

Bierboy said:


> Seriously...how many people really use MoCA....are there any stats? Percentage of TiVo users using it whose units who have that capability? My uneducated guess would be a small percentage...


I love it, personally.

I don't see many people backfilling existing tivo installs with it, but since 2 of the 3 Roamios support it, people buying minis to extend their Roamios will use it without thinking twice.


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## JWhites (May 15, 2013)

aaronwt said:


> The Pro is $599.


ah thanks I missed that. Fixed.


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## JWhites (May 15, 2013)

aristoBrat said:


> I love it, personally.
> 
> I don't see many people backfilling existing tivo installs with it, but since 2 of the 3 Roamios support it, people buying minis to extend their Roamios will use it without thinking twice.


Let's not forget that a simple install of a MoCA adapter on non native MoCA TiVo's like the Series 3, HD, and 2 tuner Premieres, brings the same joys of a native MoCA TiVo.


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