# Roamio vs Plus



## opus472 (Jul 4, 2007)

Tivo is having a sale - $125 for the Roamio and $300 for the Plus. Not much use for streaming and don't know much about the MoCA adapter - are these good reasons to go with the Plus? I assume the HD can be relatively easily expanded, although you'd lose the lifetime warranty? Thanks!


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## tarheelblue32 (Jan 13, 2014)

If you ever plan on adding any TiVo Minis to your setup, the extra 2 tuners and the built-in MoCA on the Plus are very nice features to have. If you never plan on adding any Minis and you don't think you need 6 tuners and you don't care about streaming, then the base Roamio is all you would need. And if you think you might ever cut the cord and go OTA only, then the Roamio is your only option for that. The Plus (and Pro) are digital cable only.


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## Arcady (Oct 14, 2004)

There is no lifetime warranty. They offer lifetime product service, which is instead of the service fees you would otherwise pay monthly.


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## ThAbtO (Apr 6, 2000)

There are basically 3 (now 4) models of Tivo Roamio, the lowest end is as we call it a "Basic" Roamio. It has OTA or Digital capabilities, no MoCa, 4 tuners.
The Roamio OTA is basically the stripped down version of the Basic Roamio, no cable card slot, no lifetime service period, and only for OTA,

Roamio Plus and Pro are 6 tuners for digital cable use only, has built-in stream and MoCa. About the only difference between the Plus and the Pro is the drive size (1TB vs. 3TB).


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## englishgypsy (Feb 25, 2015)

Are the Roamio's the same as the Premiere - does the mini capture a tuner permanently?


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## tarheelblue32 (Jan 13, 2014)

englishgypsy said:


> Are the Roamio's the same as the Premiere - does the mini capture a tuner permanently?


The Premiere doesn't even do that anymore. Minis now release the borrowed tuner after 4 hours of inactivity, whether you use them with a Roamio or a Premiere as the host DVR.


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## joewom (Dec 10, 2013)

Arcady said:


> There is no lifetime warranty. They offer lifetime product service, which is instead of the service fees you would otherwise pay monthly.


They do offer lifetime warranty if you pay lifetime of monthly fees.


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## jcthorne (Jan 28, 2002)

joewom said:


> They do offer lifetime warranty if you pay lifetime of monthly fees.


Ehem, no, they do not offer a lifetime warranty on any tivo hardware.


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## jcthorne (Jan 28, 2002)

Just FYI, outgoing streaming and Moca can both be added to the base Roamio for extra cost later if you need them. Incoming streaming from Netflix, Amazon, local server etc is available on all models of the Roamio.


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## opus472 (Jul 4, 2007)

Arcady said:


> There is no lifetime warranty. They offer lifetime product service, which is instead of the service fees you would otherwise pay monthly.


Looks like they offer a warranty as long as you subscribe -

TiVos Continual Care warranty covers your TiVo Roamio for the uninterrupted duration of your monthly or annual TiVo service subscription. With Continual Care protection, well send you a replacement at no charge if your TiVo Roamio box needs repair within the first 90 days from your date of purchase. After 90 days, youll receive a replacement DVR for just $49.00.


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## jcthorne (Jan 28, 2002)

They offer the 'paid' repair option to any subscribed tivo. Including lifetime units. Its actually an exchange for a refurb unit. They ship you one and you send your dead unit back.


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## joewom (Dec 10, 2013)

jcthorne said:


> Ehem, no, they do not offer a lifetime warranty on any tivo hardware.


Ahem you are wrong I do believe.

Continual Care warranty

TiVo's Continual Care warranty covers your TiVo Roamio DVR for the uninterrupted duration of your monthly or annual TiVo service subscription. Learn more

TiVos Continual Care warranty covers your TiVo Roamio for the uninterrupted duration of your monthly or annual TiVo service subscription. With Continual Care protection, well send you a replacement at no charge if your TiVo Roamio box needs repair within the first 90 days from your date of purchase.* After 90 days, youll receive a replacement DVR for just $49.00.** No one else in the industry offers protection like this.

* Exchange exclusions and restrictions apply. Replacement DVR may be a repaired, renewed or comparable product, at TiVos discretion. Customer responsible for payment of shipping costs. See Limited Warranty Info for details.
** Exchange exclusions and restrictions apply. Replacement DVR may be a repaired, renewed or comparable product, at TiVos discretion. Customer responsible for payment of shipping costs and any applicable taxes. See Limited Warranty Info for details.


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## joewom (Dec 10, 2013)

jcthorne said:


> They offer the 'paid' repair option to any subscribed tivo. Including lifetime units. Its actually an exchange for a refurb unit. They ship you one and you send your dead unit back.


They just started the warranty for as long as you are paying monthly service. So I will forgive you for strongly stating we are wrong when it is you that is.


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## jcthorne (Jan 28, 2002)

joewom said:


> They just started the warranty for as long as you are paying monthly service. So I will forgive you for strongly stating we are wrong when it is you that is.


Don't see where I am wrong. They may have just started some new advertising campaign on the subject but the fixed price paid repair program after 90 days has been available for many years. I have used it twice. Once last year on a Roamio that had a failing tuner and once a number of years ago on a TivoHD with a failed power supply. Both times I was actually able to get tivo to waive the fee by just asking. And both these units were under lifetime service plans, not monthly. Perhaps they intend to actually charge the fee now and are restating what has been in practice for many years.

Regardless, there is no lifetime warranty.


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## joewom (Dec 10, 2013)

jcthorne said:


> Don't see where I am wrong. They may have just started some new advertising campaign on the subject but the fixed price paid repair program after 90 days has been available for many years. I have used it twice. Once last year on a Roamio that had a failing tuner and once a number of years ago on a TivoHD with a failed power supply. Both times I was actually able to get tivo to waive the fee by just asking. And both these units were under lifetime service plans, not monthly. Perhaps they intend to actually charge the fee now and are restating what has been in practice for many years.
> 
> Regardless, there is no lifetime warranty.


This is not fixed base pricing. This is free repair minus shipping for as long as you pay a monthly service fee. So lifetime service does not get this warranty. And if they have to replace it then its 49.00 after the first 90 days. That is a lifetime warranty. So after 4, 5 or 6 years if you are still paying a monthly fee they will repair for free or replace for 49.00. I can't see were you don't see that. Is it wise to pay the fee for that long no. But its still a lifetime warranty if you pay a service fee for your lifetime.


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## jcthorne (Jan 28, 2002)

joewom said:


> This is not fixed base pricing. This is free repair minus shipping for as long as you pay a monthly service fee. So lifetime service does not get this warranty. And if they have to replace it then its 49.00 after the first 90 days. That is a lifetime warranty. So after 4, 5 or 6 years if you are still paying a monthly fee they will repair for free or replace for 49.00. I can't see were you don't see that. Is it wise to pay the fee for that long no. But its still a lifetime warranty if you pay a service fee for your lifetime.


The $49 is a fixed cost repair fee for out of warranty tivo. They offer the same fixed cost repair for tivos covered by a lifetime service contract. They also sometimes waive that fee if asked. There is nothing new here and a fixed cost repair is NOT a lifetime warranty.

This is going nowhere. We will need to agree to disagree.


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## joewom (Dec 10, 2013)

jcthorne said:


> The $49 is a fixed cost repair fee for out of warranty tivo. They offer the same fixed cost repair for tivos covered by a lifetime service contract. They also sometimes waive that fee if asked. There is nothing new here and a fixed cost repair is NOT a lifetime warranty.
> 
> This is going nowhere. We will need to agree to disagree.


Your missing that the 49 fee is only if it can't be repaired. Not for repair. The repair is free if it can be repaired! Please read on the site for continual care warranty. Its a continual warranty for as long as you continue to pay the service fee. It doesn't get any clearer.


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## Arcady (Oct 14, 2004)

So if I pay for monthly service for 6 years at a cost of over $1000, you will replace my $199 TiVo for a small fee. What a bargain!


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## joewom (Dec 10, 2013)

Arcady said:


> So if I pay for monthly service for 6 years at a cost of over $1000, you will replace my $199 TiVo for a small fee. What a bargain!


Oh I never said it was the greatest deal or even a good one. Just that its a lifetime warranty so to speak. I wouldn't do it!!!


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## krkaufman (Nov 25, 2003)

opus472 said:


> Tivo is having a sale - $125 for the Roamio and $300 for the Plus. Not much use for streaming and don't know much about the MoCA adapter - are these good reasons to go with the Plus? I assume the HD can be relatively easily expanded, although you'd lose the lifetime warranty? Thanks!


For clarification, those prices are for *"TiVo-renewed Roamios"* -- in other words, refurbished units. An alternative would be to leverage BestBuy's price-matching policy to take advantage of the sale Amazon is having on NEW Roamios models: currently offering Basic at $145, Plus at $310, Pro at $450.

As for which model to choose, others have hit the main points. As for myself, I'd bought a price-matched Plus at BB for $300 a week-ish ago, with plans to leverage the simplistic DIY 3TB HDD upgrade to bring it up to "Pro" storage levels. But that was before Amazon dropped the price on the Pro. Fortunately, I hadn't yet opened the box, and so returned the Plus to BB and picked-up a Pro at the price-matched $450 -- negating any warranty concerns.

That said, the Pro purchase worked for me because I was only looking for 3TB, at present. If you want more than 3TBs of storage, then the Plus would make more sense, I would think.


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## krkaufman (Nov 25, 2003)

tarheelblue32 said:


> If you ever plan on adding any TiVo Minis to your setup, the extra 2 tuners and the built-in MoCA on the Plus are very nice features to have.


Heck, the Plus and Pro's MOCA feature may be useful to anybody with an old house lacking CAT5/6 cabling but plentiful coax runs, if you have rooms to which you'd like to extend wired networking. MOCA's not just for Minis, eh.


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## krkaufman (Nov 25, 2003)

krkaufman said:


> An alternative would be to leverage BestBuy's price-matching policy to take advantage of the sale Amazon is having on NEW Roamios models: currently offering Basic at $145, Plus at $310, Pro at $450.


One followup comment on Amazon... TiVo sales support intimated that they wouldn't offer extended support coverage for Amazon-purchased Roamios, but Best Buy was doable. With the price-matching available at BB, I didn't bother digging any deeper to confirm.


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## jcthorne (Jan 28, 2002)

joewom said:


> Your missing that the 49 fee is only if it can't be repaired. Not for repair. The repair is free if it can be repaired! Please read on the site for continual care warranty. Its a continual warranty for as long as you continue to pay the service fee. It doesn't get any clearer.


Tivo does not repair ANY units. They are all refurb cross ships.


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## joewom (Dec 10, 2013)

jcthorne said:


> Tivo does not repair ANY units. They are all refurb cross ships.


Then I would agree with you then if true. If true that is false advertising on Tivo's part. You can't say repair if they never ever repair ANY units. They would need to change their wording.


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## tarheelblue32 (Jan 13, 2014)

krkaufman said:


> Heck, the Plus and Pro's MOCA feature may be useful to anybody with an old house lacking CAT5/6 cabling but plentiful coax runs, if you have rooms to which you'd like to extend wired networking. MOCA's not just for Minis, eh.


True, the MoCA bridging feature on the Plus/Pro is a really nice feature to have. I'm using it to provide wired ethernet to my Roku 3.


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## opus472 (Jul 4, 2007)

I have a Tivo HD with a 1T drive filled with copy-protected recordings. If I purchase a Roamio, guess my only option is to keep both units connected to the TV? No way to stream from the HD?


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## Arcady (Oct 14, 2004)

opus472 said:


> I have a Tivo HD with a 1T drive filled with copy-protected recordings. If I purchase a Roamio, guess my only option is to keep both units connected to the TV? No way to stream from the HD?


Not from TiVo to TiVo.

I was able to copy some protected shows using a Slingbox and kmttg at realtime onto a PC. It was a pain to copy them that way, but they are still HD and I was able to upload them to the Roamio.

This would be a very tedious process for more than a handful of shows.


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## ThAbtO (Apr 6, 2000)

opus472 said:


> I have a Tivo HD with a 1T drive filled with copy-protected recordings. If I purchase a Roamio, guess my only option is to keep both units connected to the TV? No way to stream from the HD?


Series 3 does not have the ability to stream (except from youtube and Netflix). Premiere and Roamio can stream to another Premiere or Roamio even if copy protected.

An option to use Slingbox is possible, but do not get the model M1 as that requires Windows 8 to setup or use. Then after its hooked up to the device (Tivo), just play the recordings, etc. as if you are sitting in front of the TV.

Do you have lifetime on the S3 HD? If monthly, you can call and try get the lifetime for either $99 or $199.


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## Arcady (Oct 14, 2004)

ThAbtO said:


> An option to use Slingbox is possible, but do not get the model M1 as that requires Windows 8 to setup or use.


That's not true. I use a Slingbox M1 with Windows 7 and Mac OS X 10.10 without any problem. The Windows app is x86, so there's no reason it shouldn't run on Windows XP or Vista either.

My point of using a Slingbox was not to watch the recordings as you normally would with a Slingbox. It was to use the Slingbox as a method to copy the output to a file on a PC, which can then be uploaded to another TiVo.


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## ThAbtO (Apr 6, 2000)

Arcady said:


> That's not true. I use a Slingbox M1 with Windows 7 and Mac OS X 10.10 without any problem. The Windows app is x86, so there's no reason it shouldn't run on Windows XP or Vista either.
> 
> My point of using a Slingbox was not to watch the recordings as you normally would with a Slingbox. It was to use the Slingbox as a method to copy the output to a file on a PC, which can then be uploaded to another TiVo.


I tried using the M1 and cannot even get it installed on my XP PC.Ended up getting returned, after having things hooked up to component on my S3 HD.


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## Arcady (Oct 14, 2004)

ThAbtO said:


> I tried using the M1 and cannot even get it installed on my XP PC.Ended up getting returned, after having things hooked up to component on my S3 HD.


I just looked up the officially supported operating systems. It works with Windows 7 or 8, or Mac OS X 10.8, 10.9 or 10.10. Basically, any version of Windows for the last 6 years or any version of Mac OS for the last 3 years. I think it has more to do with the encryption and compression technology than with the underlying OS.

In any case, the Slingplayer software is not needed to extract using kmttg.


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## opus472 (Jul 4, 2007)

ThAbtO said:


> Do you have lifetime on the S3 HD? If monthly, you can call and try get the lifetime for either $99 or $199.


Would that be transferable to the Roamio? Otherwise, not sure I understand what that does for me...


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## ThAbtO (Apr 6, 2000)

opus472 said:


> Would that be transferable to the Roamio? Otherwise, not sure I understand what that does for me...


Its lifetime Tivo service. It cannot be transferred to another Tivo Box, but if you decide to sell it, it becomes a little greater value than a box without service. Regular lifetime service is $499.99 and adding another Tivo to your account is $399.99 lifetime service


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## opus472 (Jul 4, 2007)

ThAbtO said:


> Its lifetime Tivo service. It cannot be transferred to another Tivo Box, but if you decide to sell it, it becomes a little greater value than a box without service. Regular lifetime service is $499.99 and adding another Tivo to your account is $399.99 lifetime service


Thanks. And I might be able to get this for $99-199 by calling them?


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## ThAbtO (Apr 6, 2000)

opus472 said:


> Thanks. And I might be able to get this for $99-199 by calling them?


Only by calling Tivo can you get this.


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## Mikeguy (Jul 28, 2005)

Also, lifetime subscription is available for $99-$199 (depending on the model of Roamio you buy), if you're a current 10-year or so TiVo customer/subscriber and also buy a Roamio box directly from TiVo. This gets the out-of-pocket cost for a new box with lifetime down to around what it cost 10 years ago.


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## samccfl99 (Sep 7, 2013)

their software development isn't even worth ONE BUCK. :down::down::down:


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## sangs (Jan 1, 2003)

samccfl99 said:


> their software development isn't even worth ONE BUCK. :down::down::down:


What a great addition to the discussion!


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

ThAbtO said:


> I tried using the M1 and cannot even get it installed on my XP PC.Ended up getting returned, after having things hooked up to component on my S3 HD.


Sounds like basically it works with a modern OS. Windows XP is ancient now. Plus Windows XP isn't supported anymore by MS. So it's not a surprise for a newer device not to work with an unsupported OS.


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