# Mini: Wife friendly/approved??



## peakay (Apr 7, 2002)

Hey there,

We have 2 series 3's - one in our family room and one in the bedroom, which is essentially for my wife. I just ordered a refurb roamio and they threw in a moca adapter. 

If we go Roamio in the family room, will the mini work well enough in the bedroom to keep the house complaint free??

I'm concerned knowing the route our home cabling takes that the moca won't be fast enough, plus all the other junk we have on our home network. I can maybe route ethernet to the mini, but I'm not 100% on this yet.

Will a mini working 100% fine be speedy and trouble-free enough for the wife? If the connection gets a little flaky, will it start lagging and dropping?

thanks!


----------



## JoeKustra (Dec 7, 2012)

peakay said:


> Hey there,
> 
> We have 2 series 3's - one in our family room and one in the bedroom, which is essentially for my wife. I just ordered a refurb roamio and they threw in a moca adapter.
> 
> ...


What router are you using?


----------



## wizwor (Dec 18, 2013)

peakay said:


> Hey there,
> 
> We have 2 series 3's - one in our family room and one in the bedroom, which is essentially for my wife. I just ordered a refurb roamio and they threw in a moca adapter.
> 
> ...


The only deficiency of the Mini that I am aware of is that it does not go into stanby mode like the TiVo, so I wake up to a screen saver rather than a powered off television.


----------



## Chuck_IV (Jan 1, 2002)

If the connection is solid, the mini is as good as having a regular Roamio in there, with the exception of not being able to swap tuners with the Live TV button.

Now, the key is that connection. With other network traffic, I would suggest having a Gigabit capable router and all external switches being used are gigabit. The Mini itself only has a 100mb connection, but you want to have additional bandwidth to handle other internal network traffic.

I have a Negear Nighthawk router with the 2 minis connected through 2 additional external Netgear gigabit switches and I can use both my minis simultaneously while still maxing out my 60mb Internet connection without a hiccup.


----------



## fcfc2 (Feb 19, 2015)

peakay said:


> Hey there,
> 
> We have 2 series 3's - one in our family room and one in the bedroom, which is essentially for my wife. I just ordered a refurb roamio and they threw in a moca adapter.
> 
> ...


Hi, 
If you go to one of the Base Roamios, with 4 tuners, you might need a MoCA adapter or 2 depending on your network setup. If you can get ethernet to the Roamio, one adapter will be needed for the connection to your router. If no ethernet is accessible for your Roamio, you will likely need 2 MoCA adapters, one to feed the router and one to feed the Roamio. You may also need at least one, maybe 2 POE/ Whole Home DVR filters, one for the input main cable feed and one possibly for your cable modem if not MoCA friendly.


----------



## peakay (Apr 7, 2002)

JoeKustra said:


> What router are you using?


Its an Asus RT-N66U. good enough?

Also, I just found an open box TCDA92000 on bestbuy.com for only $35, so I snatched it up. What limitations does this have vs the new model for someone used to a Series 3 HD?

Thanks!


----------



## JoeKustra (Dec 7, 2012)

peakay said:


> Its an Asus RT-N66U. good enough?
> 
> Also, I just found an open box TCDA92000 on bestbuy.com for only $35, so I snatched it up. What limitations does this have vs the new model for someone used to a Series 3 HD?
> 
> Thanks!


Very good enough. Only issue with old Mini vs new Mini is the remote. I bought a new Roamio style remote for my Mini to avoid hand cramps. Previous posts will explain the MoCA.


----------



## peakay (Apr 7, 2002)

JoeKustra said:


> Very good enough. Only issue with old Mini vs new Mini is the remote. I bought a new Roamio style remote for my Mini to avoid hand cramps. Previous posts will explain the MoCA.


Thanks Joe. We currently have the very long Series 3 remotes, so I assume it wouldn't be much different, right? Also, I thought there was some issue with regard to having to point directly at it or something. Will that be any different than what we are used o on the series 3?

Thanks for your help.


----------



## JoeKustra (Dec 7, 2012)

peakay said:


> Thanks Joe. We currently have the very long Series 3 remotes, so I assume it wouldn't be much different, right? Also, I thought there was some issue with regard to having to point directly at it or something. Will that be any different than what we are used o on the series 3?
> 
> Thanks for your help.


The Roamio remote's rf ability is its best selling point. But since the layout changed, it can be an issue. The new Mini has the Roamio style remote. The remote can switch to ir or rf simply. It's a personal thing. I have two Premieres and one Roamio with a Mini. All are basic units. But on the thread title: The Mini doesn't have a live video window while in TiVo Central or using the guide. It's not quick to change channels. It uses a tuner from the Roamio which will be released if you hit the TiVo button or there is no activity for four hours. Since you don't get cable EAS messages, that's not an issue. I use mine (in the kitchen) every day for an hour or so. It's also wireless but that's a different thread.


----------



## waynomo (Nov 9, 2002)

peakay said:


> I'm concerned knowing the route our home cabling takes that the moca won't be fast enough, plus all the other junk we have on our home network. I can maybe route ethernet to the mini, but I'm not 100% on this yet.


You would really need some convoluted wiring scheme for MoCA not to work.

There is plenty of bandwidth available on your Coax cable. Internet traffic runs in its own band unaffected by cable TV traffic. You should be able to run several Minis without a problem.

MoCA is great because it doesn't use your home network so all that other junk you refer to shouldn't be an issue.


----------



## krkaufman (Nov 25, 2003)

peakay said:


> Also, I just found an open box TCDA92000 on bestbuy.com for only $35, so I snatched it up. What limitations does this have vs the new model ...


see: Mini v1 v v2 remotes


----------



## krkaufman (Nov 25, 2003)

peakay said:


> We have 2 series 3's - one in our family room and one in the bedroom, which is essentially for my wife. I just ordered a refurb roamio and they threw in a moca adapter.
> 
> If we go Roamio in the family room, will the mini work well enough in the bedroom to keep the house complaint free??


Others have responded re: networking. (You should be able to get a good wired connection working via Ethernet or MoCA.)

As for the SAF... The main issue may be that the benefit of the Roamio/Mini whole home solution is also its bane for users used to separate recording repositories. With the Roamio/Mini setup, all of your and your wife's recordings will be on one DVR, and they'll be identically accessible from the Roamio or Mini.

And re: what someone mentioned re: live TV surfing... you could switch locations of the Roamio & Mini if you find you want the multi-tuner surfing experience in a different location.


----------



## Chuck_IV (Jan 1, 2002)

waynomo said:


> You would really need some convoluted wiring scheme for MoCA not to work.


The problem I had was the amplifier in the mix. I really needed it for the long cable runs to the bedroom but I don't think it was made to handle the MOCA band.


----------



## krkaufman (Nov 25, 2003)

Chuck_IV said:


> Only difference between the 92000 and 93000 is the 93000 (newer model) has RF built in so the remote is RF instead of IR.


Not wholly accurate.


----------



## peakay (Apr 7, 2002)

krkaufman said:


> Not wholly accurate.


OK, this has been really helpful guys - thanks. If my understanding is correct - I see the following issues, which really aren't ones for us:

1) layout and Ir only remote -- not a problem since the series 3 has a very similar layout and is IR only anyway

2) No live window in guide and TC - no problem as that is the way she is used to it now anyway.

3) no ability to switch tuners using live TV button -- no problem as we mostly watch pre-recorded stuff and i think I'm the only one that does tis anyway (and still can on "my" TiVo - the roamio)

4) co-mingled recordings. That doesn't really bother me as it was always a pain when "my" shows were downstairs and I wanted to watch upstairs and vice versa. I think it makes way more sense to have them centralized.

So, from what you all tell me this should work great unless the networking is a problem or the thing is laggy for some reason. :up:


----------



## krkaufman (Nov 25, 2003)

peakay said:


> So, from what you all tell me this should work great unless the networking is a problem or the thing is laggy for some reason. :up:


Sounds right... and any networking issue, *should* any exist, should be relatively easy to resolve.


----------



## tarheelblue32 (Jan 13, 2014)

In all likelihood MoCA should work just fine for you. In our house we routinely have 3 Minis running simultaneously off a Roamio Plus over MoCA and we have never had any problems with a lack of bandwidth.


----------



## waynomo (Nov 9, 2002)

Chuck_IV said:


> The problem I had was the amplifier in the mix. I really needed it for the long cable runs to the bedroom but I don't think it was made to handle the MOCA band.


Did you try it and have problems or are you just surmising?

Unless they used a really crappie amplifier or put a filter on the line you shouldn't have a problem. We have an amplifier on our coax and everything is fine. We don't have any extremely long runs, but it's broken up into many segments.


----------



## Chuck_IV (Jan 1, 2002)

waynomo said:


> Did you try it and have problems or are you just surmising?
> 
> Unless they used a really crappie amplifier or put a filter on the line you shouldn't have a problem. We have an amplifier on our coax and everything is fine. We don't have any extremely long runs, but it's broken up into many segments.


I tried it and had a problem. I could get my Mini to connect to the Roamio(sometimes, not every time) but when I tried to stream live tv or a recording, it would fail every time.


----------



## HarperVision (May 14, 2007)

JoeKustra said:


> ....... But on the thread title: The Mini doesn't have a live video window while in TiVo Central or using the guide. ........





peakay said:


> ...... 2) No live window in guide and TC - no problem as that is the way she is used to it now anyway. ........ :up:


Actually, if you hit Guide while watching live tv on the mini, it WILL show the video window in the upper right corner just like the main Roamio, FWIW.


----------



## snerd (Jun 6, 2008)

waynomo said:


> Did you try it and have problems or are you just surmising?
> 
> Unless they used a really crappie amplifier or put a filter on the line you shouldn't have a problem. We have an amplifier on our coax and everything is fine. We don't have any extremely long runs, but it's broken up into many segments.


Having a good amplifier does NOT guarantee that it will work with MoCA. In fact, I would guess that most quality amplifiers will prevent MoCA from working. The amplifier needs to be specifically designed so that MoCA frequencies are passed in both directions in order to be compatible with a MoCA network.


----------



## merccat (Sep 5, 2015)

HarperVision said:


> Actually, if you hit Guide while watching live tv on the mini, it WILL show the video window in the upper right corner just like the main Roamio, FWIW.


Oh WOW! So it does, Lol. I have always been going through Tivo Central which definately does not include the video window . Maybe a future software update as they clearly seem to have the capibility.

I will no longer be so afraid to hit my guide button. You made my night 

Also, as others have stated, if you go with Moca, its seperate from the rest of your home network so essentially all bandwidth is available to your minis. I have never exeprienced any lag or delay watching tv, recordings or streaming services connected through moca.


----------



## peakay (Apr 7, 2002)

Thanks all. Just to follow up, I ended up running Ethernet and the performance has been great so far. I foresee no problems and the Roamio/Mini combo is great!

If we run into snags or wife complaints I'll log them here.


----------



## krkaufman (Nov 25, 2003)

merccat said:


> I will no longer be so afraid to hit my guide button.


Note that you can also access the "mini" guide when watching live TV by hitting the Select button.


----------

