# stream live between 2 tivos



## Videodrome (Jun 20, 2008)

I think its kinda odd Tivo doesnt do this? Why cant i stream live between 2 tivos?


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## tomhorsley (Jul 22, 2010)

Videodrome said:


> I think its kinda odd Tivo doesnt do this? Why cant i stream live between 2 tivos?


Because then you wouldn't have to pay extra for a mini?


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

Regular TiVos have their own internal tuners, why would they need this?


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## tomhorsley (Jul 22, 2010)

Dan203 said:


> Regular TiVos have their own internal tuners, why would they need this?


Well, I use it because the old TiVo premiere I have in the bedroom is only connected to the antenna, and the Roamio on the other side of the house has the cable connection. I can use the android TiVo app to make the Roamio start recording something I want to watch on cable, then stream that to the Premiere, but "real" streaming would be less klunky (and would sure make channel surfing simpler .


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

Yeah but it would be confusing to the user. With the Mini you're basically seeing a reflection of the host TiVo. With this they'd have to differentiate between the local tuners and the host tuners. I can't really see that being intuitive.

A better option for you would be an add-on OTA tuner (i.e. USB or network like HDHomeRun) then your Roamio could record everything and you could replace the Premiere with a Mini.


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## tatergator1 (Mar 27, 2008)

I'd also appreciate this feature, but the iOS app to start a recording work-around is fine for me. I upgraded to the Roamio Plus, transferred the CC and TA from my old 2-tuner Premiere to the Roamio, and swapped my Premiere to the Master Bedroom to replace and old S2 DT. I'm too cheap to pay for another CC and TA, especially since I've got 6 tuners on the Roamio that can access my full cable line-up, I don't need 8. 

TWC still has analog on their system, so the Premiere is running off Analog only and recording mainly stuff for my kids. They just MRS to that Tivo. It also has a couple added benefits: segregating all the kids stuff off the Roamio and is my current method of "profiles", as well as letting me download any of their shows to the iPad for trips. Otherwise, a CC in the Premiere enables the CCI-byte and kills that ability on a TWC system.


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## Videodrome (Jun 20, 2008)

Dan203 said:


> Yeah but it would be confusing to the user. With the Mini you're basically seeing a reflection of the host TiVo. With this they'd have to differentiate between the local tuners and the host tuners. I can't really see that being intuitive.
> 
> A better option for you would be an add-on OTA tuner (i.e. USB or network like HDHomeRun) then your Roamio could record everything and you could replace the Premiere with a Mini.


Duh . How does it work now ? There would just be 4 more circles to choose from .


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

And what if you have 3 TiVos, or 4, or 10? The Mini is required to be paired to a host TiVo. It's My Shows list is a reflection of that host, it's To Do List is a reflection of that host, and when it needs a tuner it borrows one from that TiVo. It makes sense. When you have a TiVo with it's own internal tuners it does not make sense to borrow one from another TiVo.

I can almost guarantee you this is never going to happen.


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## JosephB (Nov 19, 2010)

I think the current MRV architecture of the Roamio + Mini would mean they probably wouldn't be interested in moving in this direction. A 6-tuner main DVR with Minis all through your house would be the standard solution. Wanting to record OTA + Cable is an edge case at this point (or else I doubt they would have dropped that)


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## Videodrome (Jun 20, 2008)

Dan203 said:


> And what if you have 3 TiVos, or 4, or 10? The Mini is required to be paired to a host TiVo. It's My Shows list is a reflection of that host, it's To Do List is a reflection of that host, and when it needs a tuner it borrows one from that TiVo. It makes sense. When you have a TiVo with it's own internal tuners it does not make sense to borrow one from another TiVo.
> 
> I can almost guarantee you this is never going to happen.


Well just as the mini chooses a machine, so would another tivo. This isnt rocket science. I would rather one of my tivos have total control over my 4. So at anytime i could just tune to a channel.


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## JosephB (Nov 19, 2010)

Videodrome said:


> Well just as the mini chooses a machine, so would another tivo. This isnt rocket science. I would rather one of my tivos have total control over my 4. So at anytime i could just tune to a channel.


The number of people who have multiple TiVos who try to watch live TV on one of them when all the tuners are in use on that particular box is probably less than 100. The smallest Roamio has four tuners, and if you are bumping into that often you should get a 6 tuner. They'll never add additional functionality to the Premiere line, so bringing that up would be a nonstarter.

You're talking about a pretty major undertaking that almost no one would ever use. They've staked their future whole home architecture on the Roamio + Mini model. If you're recording + watching more than 6 channels at a time, maybe go outside or something


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## Videodrome (Jun 20, 2008)

JosephB said:


> The number of people who have multiple TiVos who try to watch live TV on one of them when all the tuners are in use on that particular box is probably less than 100. The smallest Roamio has four tuners, and if you are bumping into that often you should get a 6 tuner. They'll never add additional functionality to the Premiere line, so bringing that up would be a nonstarter.
> 
> You're talking about a pretty major undertaking that almost no one would ever use. They've staked their future whole home architecture on the Roamio + Mini model. If you're recording + watching more than 6 channels at a time, maybe go outside or something


Obviously you dont have a family, why boxes cant communicate and do collaborative scheduling is a bit moronic. It even more stupid is ,what does tivo make more money on a tivo or a mini ?


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## JosephB (Nov 19, 2010)

Videodrome said:


> Obviously you dont have a family, why boxes cant communicate and do collaborative scheduling is a bit moronic. It even more stupid is ,what does tivo make more money on a tivo or a mini ?


What does whether or not I have a family have to do with it?

TiVo has obviously staked their whole-home architecture on a Roamio + Minis. The model of multiple "full-sized" TiVos is a thing of the past. Every major DVR developer with whole home capability (DirecTV Genie, Dish Hopper, TiVo) has gone the route of centralizing all the tuners in one box and using clients, so obviously that is either a much simpler or cheaper method or both.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

Cooperative scheduling made sense back in the days when TiVos only had 1-2 tuners and you needed a "full size" box for every room. But that's an idea who's time has passed. As Joseph said the industry has settled on a model where you have a single central box with all the tuners and small thin clients in secondary rooms. If you need more then 6 tuners then you are in the serious minority. 

What I think TiVo really needs to support families is user profiles.


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## eboydog (Mar 24, 2006)

Dumb question perhaps but I understood that you could stream between Premiers and Roamio Tivos? 

Is this different than the streaming to Mini's?


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## tatergator1 (Mar 27, 2008)

eboydog said:


> Dumb question perhaps but I understood that you could stream between Premiers and Roamio Tivos?
> 
> Is this different than the streaming to Mini's?


The distinction is that a when using a Mini, you can access a tuner on the host box and then do whatever you want: channel surf, watch a single channel, record that channel, etc. Or you can simply choose a recording from any other Tivo in your network and stream that recorded show to the Mini.

With two DVR's, all you can do is stream recordings. The capability to stream Live TV like a Mini would have some benefits for me with my Roamio Plus/Premier 2-tuner/Mini setup, primarily because I've opted to run the Premiere without CableCard for a couple reasons. It'd be nice to have direct access to the Roamio Plus so I could get all my Digital and HD channels on the Premiere as well. However, I understand it's never going to happen and I simply use the Tivo mobile app to remotely start a recording on the Roamio, so I can then stream to the Premiere.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

That was a little confusing, so let me take a stab at it... The difference between a Mini and another TiVo is live TV. With either one you can stream recorded shows. But with a Mini when you go to live TV it borrows a tuner from the host and you have access to whatever channels are available on that host. With a TiVo when you go to live TV it uses it's own tuners and you can only access the channels available to it.

What the OP wants is for a TiVo to be able to borrow a tuner from another TiVo so that if they have access to different sources (i.e. one cable, one OTA) they can use eachother's tuners to access the other source.

While it's a neat idea it's highly unlikely that it'll happen. The number of users with that type of setup is very small and the UI requirements to make it work is not worth the effort.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

Dan203 said:


> That was a little confusing, so let me take a stab at it... The difference between a Mini and another TiVo is live TV. With either one you can stream recorded shows. But with a Mini when you go to live TV it borrows a tuner from the host and you have access to whatever channels are available on that host. With a TiVo when you go to live TV it uses it's own tuners and you can only access the channels available to it.
> 
> What the OP wants is for a TiVo to be able to borrow a tuner from another TiVo so that if they have access to different sources (i.e. one cable, one OTA) they can use eachother's tuners to access the other source.
> 
> While it's a neat idea it's highly unlikely that it'll happen. The number of users with that type of setup is very small and the UI requirements to make it work is not worth the effort.


All you do is change the host for the Mini. I have a Roamio Pro on FiOS and a Roamio Basic on OTA. My Minis are typically using my Roamio Pro as a Host. But if I want to all I need to do is go into the settings menu on the Mini and change the host to the Roamio Basic. Then I wan watch live TV from an OTA channel. It only takes a few seconds to change the host. You just got to settings>Remote & Device settings>TiVo DVR Connection and it shows the boxes on you network that can be used as a host. Then you select teh box you want as your host.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

The OP wasn't talking about a Mini. The OP wanted to use a TiVo to borrow a tuner from another TiVo. Since TiVos have no concept of a host it doesn't make sense.


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## eboydog (Mar 24, 2006)

Dan203 said:


> The OP wasn't talking about a Mini. The OP wanted to use a TiVo to borrow a tuner from another TiVo. Since TiVos have no concept of a host it doesn't make sense.


That would be nice for those who need to have OTA on their newer Roamio plus/pro, perhaps it will be a future update that will allow such. Now after getting my new Roamio setup with my existing Premier, my question makes sense now in how streaming works between the 4th & 5th generation Tivos.

From my limited knowledge, it doesn't seem it would require anything major to incorporate active tuner streaming since they accomplish it with the mini and those monthly subscribers are paying more monthly for the full Tivo box than a Mini costs.


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## sd1236 (Mar 28, 2010)

I cannot understand why streaming a show requires me to record it. Why cant it stream without recording.


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## eboydog (Mar 24, 2006)

I think it's because unlike the Mini streaming on the local higher speed network, there has to be a way to buffer the Stream data to outside the local home network as the bandwidth can be limited once you are off your local home network. 

It is rather hocky, at least it should delete the recorded channel once the stream session is complete.


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## jrtroo (Feb 4, 2008)

All of a tivo's tuners are being recorded all the time. 

I'm sure the recording was their easiest approach to reserve the tuner for streaming when it was programmed. While it makes sense for the unit to auto-delete such recording, I bet someone somewhere would complain about such a deletion...


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

The Stream was released long before dynamic tuner allocation existed on the TiVo. Now that it's here we'll likely see the Stream get upgraded to support real live TV eventually. Although I doubt it's high priority, so it could be a ways off.


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