# Roamio OTA reception?



## mr_smits (Dec 17, 2009)

I know the TivoHD had great OTA reception (so I've read) and the Premiere models did not. I'm interested in any experience early adopters have comparing OTA reception to previous Tivo models.


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## jcthorne (Jan 28, 2002)

I am going to find out tomorrow. My Roamio just shipped from Amazon for delivery tomorrow. I only use OTA but really have no problem with my 3 Premiers tuners.


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## mr_smits (Dec 17, 2009)

jcthorne said:


> I am going to find out tomorrow.


Excellent.


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## troasti (Nov 13, 2008)

I use my premiere with OTA. Why would I upgrade to this box? I can only upgrade to the base model with OTA. It has Amazon prime? I already have netflix and its better. All it gives me is built in wifi and 2 extra tuners? I already have hard wired ethernet.. The UI is faster? I don't think my premiere is that slow.. 200$?


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## bayern_fan (Aug 12, 2013)

troasti said:


> I use my premiere with OTA. Why would I upgrade to this box? I can only upgrade to the base model with OTA. It has Amazon prime? I already have netflix and its better. All it gives me is built in wifi and 2 extra tuners? I already have hard wired ethernet.. The UI is faster? I don't think my premiere is that slow.. 200$?


Tivo does NOT currently have Amazon Prime streaming. I hope I don't sound too harsh using caps, but I want to make sure that nobody expects it only to be disappointed later on.


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## curiousgeorge (Nov 28, 2002)

bayern_fan said:


> Tivo does NOT currently have Amazon Prime streaming. I hope I don't sound too harsh using caps, but I want to make sure that nobody expects it only to be disappointed later on.


Gladd you did. I *almost* got a little excited for this new box.


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## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

Who cares about Amazon Prime? You can just pick it up on Roku...


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## mattack (Apr 9, 2001)

troasti said:


> I use my premiere with OTA. Why would I upgrade to this box? I can only upgrade to the base model with OTA. It has Amazon prime? I already have netflix and its better. All it gives me is built in wifi and 2 extra tuners? I already have hard wired ethernet.. The UI is faster? I don't think my premiere is that slow.. 200$?


Does the existing OTA capable Premiere work with the Stream? I forget.. I think so, but that's one other POSSIBLE thing.. (I only got a Premiere with the Premiere 4, and the differences I know of that one are built in Moca & digital-cable-only.)


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## mattack (Apr 9, 2001)

Bigg said:


> Who cares about Amazon Prime? You can just pick it up on Roku...


I do, one fewer input to switch? I don't have a Roku, but do switch to my PS3 to watch Amazon Prime Instant Video lately (watched 2 of the Bond movies so far, and am several behind on Under the Dome.. but am watching it).

If I could do it all in one box, I'd prefer it -- heck, I'd even pay a ONE TIME FEE for it to be all in one box.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

This is just the beginning folks. This new platform opens up all sorts of possibilities for over the top apps on TiVo. They said they are working to get more apps on the TiVo and even mentioned working on an app store. So obviously their goal is to have enough apps that they'd want people to actually have to manually pick them from a store. 

That being said always buy something for what it can do now, not what it might do in the future. If it doesn't do what you want it to do now then don't buy because there is no guarantee they will ever follow through with any of this.


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## SugarBowl (Jan 5, 2007)

troasti said:


> I use my premiere with OTA. Why would I upgrade to this box? I can only upgrade to the base model with OTA. It has Amazon prime? I already have netflix and its better. All it gives me is built in wifi and 2 extra tuners? I already have hard wired ethernet.. The UI is faster? I don't think my premiere is that slow.. 200$?


It will work with the Tivo Mini. The 2 tuner Premieres will not.

I sold my 2 tuner premiere for $500 and ordered the base roamio.


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## KrazyKiko (Mar 21, 2006)

Well...I am disappointed to see that Tivo restricts choice between OTA or cable, since there is only one cable input. With our old trusty Tivo HD, at least Tivo provided two cable inputs. We have basic-basic cable, but primarily use OTA; While we do get some HD cable channels through basic-basic cable, it's helpful to switch when OTA reception stinks. I do miss not having the Premier/Roamio streaming features, as the Tivo HD stinks in this capacity. Guess I'll hope some sanity returns to Tivo's future architecture design.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

Who knows? This could be the last TiVo that has OTA tuners.


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## JimboG (May 27, 2007)

In an effort to get back on topic, has anyone had a chance to compare the over the air reception ability of the base Roamio to the TiVo Premier, TiVo HD, or original OLED S3 TiVo?

Pulling in weak, distant stations a little better is a plus. Better multipath rejection than the TiVo Premiere is a must.


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## utcompeng (Aug 22, 2013)

Hey Guys, I'm happy to report the tuner is a million times better than the premier. No more issues with high signal channels interfering with low signal channels. I was able to remove a splitter I was using to downgrade my signal. The tuner is just as good as my Samsung TV...enjoy!!


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## utcompeng (Aug 22, 2013)

Also, the hulu app actually works on the Roamio. Previously I was never able to even launch the app on the premier.


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## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

mattack said:


> I do, one fewer input to switch? I don't have a Roku, but do switch to my PS3 to watch Amazon Prime Instant Video lately (watched 2 of the Bond movies so far, and am several behind on Under the Dome.. but am watching it).
> 
> If I could do it all in one box, I'd prefer it -- heck, I'd even pay a ONE TIME FEE for it to be all in one box.


I gave up on trying to keep things simple after 5th or 6th remote or something. Actually, I lost count. I think I'm around 10 remotes. I just made a schematic of the system in Excel using borders, so that my roommates know what's connected to what.


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## tenthplanet (Mar 5, 2004)

utcompeng said:


> Hey Guys, I'm happy to report the tuner is a million times better than the premier. No more issues with high signal channels interfering with low signal channels. I was able to remove a splitter I was using to downgrade my signal. The tuner is just as good as my Samsung TV...enjoy!!


 Thanks for the info. How's multipath with UHF stations. The S3 was a little better than the Premiere but high VHF was a draw.


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## Chesterton (Aug 5, 2013)

Has anyone tried roamio in a fringe location? I'm in one and concerned about splitting antenna among four tuners vs. two on my series 3 HD oled.


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## jfh3 (Apr 15, 2004)

utcompeng said:


> Hey Guys, I'm happy to report the tuner is a million times better than the premier. No more issues with high signal channels interfering with low signal channels. I was able to remove a splitter I was using to downgrade my signal. The tuner is just as good as my Samsung TV...enjoy!!


Agree. The signal meter seems to be re calibrated though - Roamio shows a lower signal strength than the Premiere, even though the signal appears stronger.


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## Mister B (Jan 23, 2011)

utcompeng said:


> Hey Guys, I'm happy to report the tuner is a million times better than the premier. No more issues with high signal channels interfering with low signal channels. I was able to remove a splitter I was using to downgrade my signal. The tuner is just as good as my Samsung TV...enjoy!!


That is certainly good news! I have a Premiere in storage that I can not use due to it's poor tuner performance and had to return to the TCD652160 model. I hope to hear more varied reports from OTA users in fringe and multipath prone reception areas.


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## ggieseke (May 30, 2008)

jfh3 said:


> Agree. The signal meter seems to be re calibrated though - Roamio shows a lower signal strength than the Premiere, even though the signal appears stronger.


Splitting it 4 ways instead of 2 may account for that.


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## jfh3 (Apr 15, 2004)

ggieseke said:


> Splitting it 4 ways instead of 2 may account for that.


Ah, yes - good point.


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## ncbill (Sep 1, 2007)

My Roamio Basic was able to get all the main Charlotte stations, transmitters roughly 60 miles away, before it stopped working (less than 24 hours after I received it)

Previously, I could only get one station from that city on both a Premiere & TivoHD.


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## ss-stingray (Aug 25, 2013)

Your Roamio basic quit working? What's up with that? I hope it's not an overheating problem since I don't see a fan in the pictures of the back. I get my roamio Monday and hope heat isn't a issue.


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## MeInDallas (Jul 31, 2011)

ss-stingray said:


> Your Roamio basic quit working? What's up with that? I hope it's not an overheating problem since I don't see a fan in the pictures of the back. I get my roamio Monday and hope heat isn't a issue.


The fan is in the middle between the hard drive and the motherboard, blowing from side to side.








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## ss-stingray (Aug 25, 2013)

Thanks Dallas for the picture.


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## ncbill (Sep 1, 2007)

Even thought it was on an open shelf before it failed my Roamio Basic got much warmer than the Premier it replaced.

It's too bad, because OTA reception was better than my Premiere, S3 OLED, or TivoHD.

I'm going to return it for a refund and monitor this forum for a few more months before I jump into any Roamio model again.



ss-stingray said:


> Your Roamio basic quit working? What's up with that? I hope it's not an overheating problem since I don't see a fan in the pictures of the back. I get my roamio Monday and hope heat isn't a issue.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

ncbill said:


> Even thought it was on an open shelf before it failed my Roamio Basic got much warmer than the Premier it replaced.
> 
> It's too bad, because OTA reception was better than my Premiere, S3 OLED, or TivoHD.
> 
> I'm going to return it for a refund and monitor this forum for a few more months before I jump into any Roamio model again.


Why not exchange it? Electronic failures happen. Just because yours failed doesn't mean it's epidemic of the model. Get another one, if it fails then get a refund.


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## crobey (Jan 4, 2002)

So I currently have an S3. I do have issues recording on a couple OTA channels. Any answers on performance in comparison to previous models?


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

From what's been said it's better then the Premiere but about the same as the S3. So if you have trouble getting channels on the S3 you'll likely have the same troubles with the Roamio.


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## ilovedvrs (Oct 21, 2004)

I just went from using a S3 for 7 years to the Roamio.

Seems the same to me


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## Chesterton (Aug 5, 2013)

I've concluded that the Roamio's fringe reception is better than the Series 3 I had. I have two very directional fringe UHF antennas, one aimed at Austin (60 miles away) and one at San Anotonio (50 miles away). I've got some weak stations each direction, and they pixellate a lot less often than they did with the Series 3. The Roamio also picked up two stations that the Series 3 didn't.

That's impressive to me since the Roamio's input is shared by four tuners vs. the Series 3's two.


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## atmuscarella (Oct 11, 2005)

Chesterton said:


> I've concluded that the Roamio's fringe reception is better than the Series 3 I had.


That was my conclusion also. My writeup is here:

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=508432​


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## Joe Siegler (May 10, 2000)

ilovedvrs said:


> I just went from using a S3 for 7 years to the Roamio.
> 
> Seems the same to me


I went from a Premiere to a Roamio. I have less macroblocking on weak signals than I used to - except for ONE channel, which seems to have it more, but as a whole, it seems better.


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## Balzer (Nov 12, 2006)

Well, I have my Roamio now. 
With the Premiere, I needed a signal booster in the line for my local Fox station to work. After setting up the Roamio, I disconnected the booster and Fox still comes in fine.
I still need the booster for a couple other distant channels though.


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## Roamio_Tucson (Jan 7, 2014)

Based on this forum and this thread, I went from a Premiere with a Lifetime subscription to the Roamio for the monthly subscription and got to try it out last night. I can say with 100% certainty that the Roamio tuners are way better than the Premiere's and I couldn't be happier even though I am now paying a monthly fee again.

I went through 3 different antennas, several different splitters, on the roof on the cell phone to my wife making minor adjustments to the antenna height and angle before finally giving up on my Line of Sight towers that gave me clear signals to my TVs but not through the Tivo Premiere before I made the switch. I only use OTA so this makes the wife much happier when her shows don't pixelate!

Thanks for all the good feedback on this forum, it was very helpful.


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## Jeff_DML (Mar 3, 2009)

I just recently upgraded from a Premier to Roamio for OTA. I am having multipath issues on one of my local channels. I was hoping the roamio would fix it but I am still having some issues. It seems improved and actually finding the 4 tuners useful. Anways I would say do not expect miracles upgrading to a roamio for reception issues. Guess that should be kind of obvious Up on the roof for me


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## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

Roamio_Tucson said:


> Based on this forum and this thread, I went from a Premiere with a Lifetime subscription to the Roamio for the monthly subscription and got to try it out last night. I can say with 100% certainty that the Roamio tuners are way better than the Premiere's and I couldn't be happier even though I am now paying a monthly fee again.
> 
> I went through 3 different antennas, several different splitters, on the roof on the cell phone to my wife making minor adjustments to the antenna height and angle before finally giving up on my Line of Sight towers that gave me clear signals to my TVs but not through the Tivo Premiere before I made the switch. I only use OTA so this makes the wife much happier when her shows don't pixelate!
> 
> Thanks for all the good feedback on this forum, it was very helpful.


Get Lifetime. Monthly makes NO SENSE. Even if you resell it way before it pays for itself, you get the money back in the additional resale value.


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## L David Matheny (Jan 29, 2011)

Jeff_DML said:


> I just recently upgraded from a Premier to Roamio for OTA. I am having multipath issues on one of my local channels. I was hoping the roamio would fix it but I am still having some issues. It seems improved and actually finding the 4 tuners useful. Anways I would say do not expect miracles upgrading to a roamio for reception issues. Guess that should be kind of obvious Up on the roof for me


I think that is a pretty good summary of my experience so far. I finally installed the Roamio (4-tuner basic, for OTA) that I bought a while back. In general it seems to do better than my 2-tuner Premiere, but not miraculously so. I tuned one weak, distant station on both, and the Roamio had a big burst of initial uncorrected errors (see below), but the Premiere's uncorrected error count surpassed it within a few minutes, and the picture, while still glitchy, was definitely more watchable on the Roamio.

The Roamio's software may be doing some housekeeping in foreground tasks (high priority) that should be handed off to interruptible background tasks (low priority). This could account for the bursts of errors when first tuning a station, and possibly for the glitching seen when using same-tuner overlap. After the initial burst of errors, the Roamio's counts of uncorrected errors sometimes increment so seldom that I wonder if they're being updated properly.

But the strangest thing is that I have yet to see any corrected errors counted by the Roamio for any station. Surely the chipset must be correcting some errors. Could the TiVo software be polling the wrong register or misinterpreting the data somehow? Has anyone else seen a corrected error counted by a 4-tuner Roamio's tuners? Has anyone seen corrected errors counted by a 6-tuner Roamio's tuners? Thanks for any insights.


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## tatergator1 (Mar 27, 2008)

L David Matheny said:


> Has anyone seen corrected errors counted by a 6-tuner Roamio's tuners? Thanks for any insights.


I have definitely seen counts for RS Corrected on my Roamio Plus. I rarely pay attention since my signal is generally 90-100 for my digital cable stations. I think I've seen one frame with minor pixelation in the last 6 weeks of use.


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## Zu Nim (Apr 20, 2012)

L David Matheny said:


> Has anyone else seen a corrected error counted by a 4-tuner Roamio's tuners?


I have the base model and have never seen corrected errors (and I should, I do see a few uncorrected ones). I mean, it's great that it's correcting them, but a little visibility would be helpful. Both counts give me an idea of how my signal strength is functioning over extended periods of time and weather.


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## kucharsk (Feb 2, 2007)

I can't say for performance, but on the signal strength meter the Roamio shows lower signal levels than my S3.

With the same cable, my S3 showed levels nearly maxed out on one or two of my channels that the Roamio shows as being in the low 80s, possibly because the incoming signal is now being split among more tuners.


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## StevesWeb (Dec 26, 2008)

I went from a Premiere XL to a Roamio basic for OTA. We are about 40 miles from Mt Wilson where the LA TV towers are. If you draw a line from our location to Mt Wilson and then continue on the line comes close to Santa Barbara. 

Not only does our Roamio receive every LA station rock solid, it even picked up a low power (and completely useless) station in Santa Barbara. The Google says it is a 146 mile drive to Santa Barbara, by direct line it must be well over 100 miles.

We do have an excellent location on top of a hill, and a rooftop directional "HD" antenna with mast mounted preamp. But I need all of that crap just to try to get my TiVo Premiere XL to maintain sync.

The Roamio has as good of an OTA ATSC tuner as I've ever used, it seems perfectly cromulant to me.


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## hhh222 (Jul 28, 2005)

I've had an S3 for several years and basic roamio for about a week.
With signal levels on 5 channels of 91,92,96,96,96,82 on the S3
...............................................72,66,72,72,72,56 on the roamio

Had some breaking up on Letterman recorded on roamio last night. I'll have to do a bit more research to know what's what for sure.


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## Jeff_DML (Mar 3, 2009)

hhh222 said:


> I've had an S3 for several years and basic roamio for about a week.
> With signal levels on 5 channels of 91,92,96,96,96,82 on the S3
> ...............................................72,66,72,72,72,56 on the roamio
> 
> Had some breaking up on Letterman recorded on roamio last night. I'll have to do a bit more research to know what's what for sure.


signal level seem to be always different between series


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## DustSJC (Jul 15, 2010)

OK, I just got the basic Roamio from weeKnees (w/ 2 TB instead of standard 500 GB. This is (was) meant to replace my TiVo Premier (with RF OTA input AND separate Comcast Cable input).

I open the box and, what the heck, there is only ONE RF screw on input. Surely there MUST be a way to have at least the same capability on a "newer" generation TiVos. I was crystal clear that I wanted whichever new Roamio handled BOTH inputs..as before with the Premier.

Does anyone have a work around or am I missing something? TiVo and weeKnees had both just closed when I came upon this conundrum. Any suggetions folsk?

Thanks..


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## atmuscarella (Oct 11, 2005)

DustSJC said:


> OK, I just got the basic Roamio from weeKnees (w/ 2 TB instead of standard 500 GB. This is (was) meant to replace my TiVo Premier (with RF OTA input AND separate Comcast Cable input).
> 
> I open the box and, what the heck, there is only ONE RF screw on input. Surely there MUST be a way to have at least the same capability on a "newer" generation TiVos. I was crystal clear that I wanted whichever new Roamio handled BOTH inputs..as before with the Premier.
> 
> ...


Sorry no work around the Base Roamio can only do OTA *OR* cable, it can not do both at the same time like the dual tuner Premiere or Series 3 units.


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## L David Matheny (Jan 29, 2011)

DustSJC said:


> OK, I just got the basic Roamio from weeKnees (w/ 2 TB instead of standard 500 GB. This is (was) meant to replace my TiVo Premier (with RF OTA input AND separate Comcast Cable input).
> 
> I open the box and, what the heck, there is only ONE RF screw on input. Surely there MUST be a way to have at least the same capability on a "newer" generation TiVos. I was crystal clear that I wanted whichever new Roamio handled BOTH inputs..as before with the Premier.
> 
> ...


The workaround is to use one unit for OTA and another unit for cable. It's definitely one of those what-were-they-thinking situations. But I suppose handling both together would complicate their software a bit.


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## DustSJC (Jul 15, 2010)

Hi folks,

Thanks for getting back to me on the Roamio single coax input. I guess I'll have to keep the Premier hooked up to the Comcast Cable and move the Premier's Roof antenna coax to the Roamio and dedicate that to local and OTA programs.

Is there anything to beware of vis-à-vis TiVo programming, season pass selection(s) of shows on the Roamio even though it wont have a M-Card (since it's not going to connect to Comcast.)

Any tips or warnings will be greatly appreciated. Gonna' be a busy weekend 

dustSJC


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## leweezo (Mar 23, 2012)

hhh222 said:


> I've had an S3 for several years and basic roamio for about a week.
> With signal levels on 5 channels of 91,92,96,96,96,82 on the S3
> ...............................................72,66,72,72,72,56 on the roamio
> 
> Had some breaking up on Letterman recorded on roamio last night. I'll have to do a bit more research to know what's what for sure.


I just got a Rmio OTA and am having the same issue witth a 20+ point drop in reception and some formerly strong staions being twitchy.. Is yours still the same way?..


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## atmuscarella (Oct 11, 2005)

leweezo said:


> I just got a Rmio OTA and am having the same issue witth a 20+ point drop in reception and some formerly strong staions being twitchy.. Is yours still the same way?..


There is no standard for OTA signal strength. So there is no way to use it to compare signal reception between devices. I have a Series 3, TiVo HD, Premiere, & Roamio all used for OTA the signal strength meters read about the same on the Series 3 & TiVo HD (high like yours) but both the Premiere and Roamio read much lower. In use the Roamio, TiVo HD, & Series 3 all perform about the same (the Premiere has always had the worst reception for me), but the Roamio does appear to potentially have a better tuner as it does find more remote stations than the Series 3 or TiVo HD but the remote stations are still not viewable.

In any event don't worry about the lower signal strength numbers, doesn't mean much if anything. That said if your Roamio is having noticeably more reception problems than your S3 then you may have a problem with the Roamio.


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