# Little known facts about setup that most Tivo support personnel don't know



## sbiller (May 10, 2002)

Mike's review linked below summarized some interesting info on a 'zero-tuner' Mini set-up...


Set-up requires allocation of a live tuner followed by deallocation
The Premiere 4/XL4 doesn't have MoCA enabled by default
The Premiere 4/XL4 can stream recorded programs to three different Mini's and still be recording four programs at the same time

http://www.amazon.com/review/RFODK4LKO8RA8


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## HazelW (Dec 6, 2007)

sbiller said:


> Mike's review linked below summarized some interesting info on a 'zero-tuner' Mini set-up...
> 
> 
> Set-up requires allocation of a live tuner followed by deallocation
> ...


I set up mine without allocating a tuner at all.


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## sbiller (May 10, 2002)

HazelW said:


> I set up mine without allocating a tuner at all.


Interesting. I allocated a tuner prior to set-up so I can't say one way or the other. Would like to see TiVo post a faq on this and other Mini questions.


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## Davisadm (Jan 19, 2008)

HazelW said:


> I set up mine without allocating a tuner at all.


I also set up my Mini without allocating a tuner on my XL4.


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## mscroggin (Mar 16, 2007)

Hi Folks,

I'm the person who posted the Amazon review.

I noticed during setup the screen that shows all of your premiere boxes on your network also has the option "I don't see my premiere" or something like that. Is that what you chose to get around having to allocate and then deallocate a tuner?


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

Davisadm said:


> I also set up my Mini without allocating a tuner on my XL4.


Me too.


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## HazelW (Dec 6, 2007)

mscroggin said:


> Hi Folks,
> 
> I'm the person who posted the Amazon review.
> 
> I noticed during setup the screen that shows all of your premiere boxes on your network also has the option "I don't see my premiere" or something like that. Is that what you chose to get around having to allocate and then deallocate a tuner?


If I recall correctly, it just asked during setup if you wanted to allocate a tuner, and you could choose not to allocate one.


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## mscroggin (Mar 16, 2007)

HazelW said:


> If I recall correctly, it just asked during setup if you wanted to allocate a tuner, and you could choose not to allocate one.


Maybe Tivo changed the setup because I'm sure I wasn't asked that.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

I don't remember being asked that, but I do remember some screen that mentioned that if I wanted to watch live TV I had to allocate a tuner on the host. But it's not like it was going to do it automatically. It was just explaining the process.


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## sbiller (May 10, 2002)

Dan203 said:


> I don't remember being asked that, but I do remember some screen that mentioned that if I wanted to watch live TV I had to allocate a tuner on the host. But it's not like it was going to do it automatically. It was just explaining the process.


+1. That's my recollection as well. I seem to recall selecting the Host DVR.


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## mscroggin (Mar 16, 2007)

I'm going to buy another one in a week or so and I'll pay close attention to the setup steps.


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## mscroggin (Mar 16, 2007)

I just finished hooking up my 2nd mini. Setup definitely forces you to allocate a tuner and then you can un-allocate it if you wish.

An interesting thing happened this time when I called to pay for the lifetime service. After I paid, the person said he needed to tell me a few things about setup. He told me you need to allocate and then un-allocate the XL4 tuner. He told me three minis can be on the same XL4. He also told me the Mini has a built-in tuner that in the future will be used to tune live tv and you won't need to allocate a XL4 tuner.

The Minis are working great.


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## moyekj (Jan 24, 2006)

mscroggin said:


> He also told me the Mini has a built-in tuner that in the future will be used to tune live tv and you won't need to allocate a XL4 tuner.


 I call BS on that one. Even if Mini has internal tuner (which I highly doubt) it would need a CableCard to tune most digital channels, and there is no CableCard slot anywhere in the Mini. Maybe he was confusing Mini with Preview which does have a tuner plus CableCard slot.


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## BigJimOutlaw (Mar 21, 2004)

mscroggin said:


> He also told me the Mini has a built-in tuner that in the future will be used to tune live tv and you won't need to allocate a XL4 tuner.


Yeah, there's no way that last one is correct. He may have been confused about the dynamic tuner allocation coming soon that will release the tuner back to the host when live TV isn't being used.


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## sbiller (May 10, 2002)

BigJimOutlaw said:


> Yeah, there's no way that last one is correct. He may have been confused about the dynamic tuner allocation coming soon that will release the tuner back to the host when live TV isn't being used.


Agreed... I think the CSR was was probably referring to dynamic tuner allocation which I'm hearing may be released late August or early September.


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## mscroggin (Mar 16, 2007)

Actually I asked him if using the built-in tuner was Dynamic Tuner Allocation and he told me yes. But you're right, it would need a cable card.


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## moyekj (Jan 24, 2006)

To be clear, the Mini itself already has dynamic tuner behavior. Case in point is you can have only 1 tuner allocated to 2 Minis and they can both grab that same tuner (not at same time of course), or another tuner from same host if made available. So Dynamic Tuner Allocation feature will be a change to the host unit, not the Mini.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

They use to make a Mini with a built in tuner that they sold to cable companies. It was called the Preview. The Mini does not have a tuner. The only reason it has a coax port is because it supports MoCa.


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## sbiller (May 10, 2002)

moyekj said:


> To be clear, the Mini itself already has dynamic tuner behavior. Case in point is you can have only 1 tuner allocated to 2 Minis and they can both grab that same tuner (not at same time of course), or another tuner from same host if made available. So Dynamic Tuner Allocation feature will be a change to the host unit, not the Mini.


Complete speculation on my part but I would surmise that they could be making changes on both devices (Host DVR and Mini) to implement Dynamic Tuner Allocation.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

They may need some software tweeks on the mini side to deal with tuner conflicts (i.e. show needs to record using the tuner the Mini has allocated) but moyekj is right in that the allocation of the tuner itself is already dynamic on the Mini's end. Although for all we know those conflict screens already exist in the current Mini software and the Tivo side just isn't setup to send out the message to display them yet.

I wonder if, once this is live, we'll see real live TV support in the iPad app with Stream? Rather then the record and play macro they use now.


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