# Is Roamio anything like U-Verse yet?



## siratfus (Oct 3, 2008)

Hey guys, can you tell me if any of this is possible. We have 3 premieres in our house and wondering if we should upgrade.

-Pause on one tv, then unpause on another. 
-Access recordings from other tivos instantly (right now, you download first)

Also, is the Tivo Stream just for smartphones and tablets? I don't watch stuff on my smartphone or tablet, so that's not important to me. But I'm wondering for TV viewing in another room, do I need another Roamio, or will the TV Stream work for 2nd and 3rd TV's? 

Thank you in advance!


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## siratfus (Oct 3, 2008)

Found out the answer to my second question. LOL! It's the Tivo Mini, that's what I would need!

But I would still like to know would the viewing be instant just like the main tivo, or do you need to download first?


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

It's instant. It uses network streaming so you can start watching instantly and seek to any point in the program immediately.

Note: You can still download TiVo to TiVo if you want, but it's only necessary if you're trying to shift things around to manage space. Also Mini's have no internal storage so they are streaming only.


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## wmcbrine (Aug 2, 2003)

siratfus said:


> Hey guys, can you tell me if any of this is possible. We have 3 premieres in our house and wondering if we should upgrade.
> 
> -Pause on one tv, then unpause on another.
> -Access recordings from other tivos instantly (right now, you download first)


You can do those things with just Premieres. 



> _Also, is the Tivo Stream just for smartphones and tablets?_


Even more specifically, it's just for iOS, for now.


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## siratfus (Oct 3, 2008)

wmcbrine said:


> You can do those things with just Premieres.
> 
> Even more specifically, it's just for iOS, for now.


Thanks!

But to clarify, I don't have 3 premieres.. My bad. My mind just quickly grouped all old tivos as premieres, but two of the units I own are the tivoHD ones. And then I got 1 premiere using as a tuner without the service.


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## wmcbrine (Aug 2, 2003)

OK. Well, you can do those things with any combination of (subscribed) Premieres, Roamios and Minis. But not older models.


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## siratfus (Oct 3, 2008)

Okay, this is very important... Is the Tivo Mini independent? I know it access the main tivo, but if my parents are watching live tv with the TIVO MINI, and I'm in a different room watching live tv with the main unit, can we watch different channels independently?


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## wmcbrine (Aug 2, 2003)

Yes, of course.


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## djwilso (Dec 23, 2006)

siratfus said:


> Okay, this is very important... Is the Tivo Mini independent? I know it access the main tivo, but if my parents are watching live tv with the TIVO MINI, and I'm in a different room watching live tv with the main unit, can we watch different channels independently?


Yes, a different tuner is used on the Mini.


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## mattack (Apr 9, 2001)

wmcbrine said:


> OK. Well, you can do those things with any combination of (subscribed) Premieres, Roamios and Minis. But not older models.


But you can *TRANSFER* (copy) shows from the older Tivos to the Premieres/Roamios and THEN stream them. At least I have 100% positively done this from my TivoHD to my Premiere 4, then watched on an iPad via Tivo Stream.



siratfus said:


> Okay, this is very important... Is the Tivo Mini independent? I know it access the main tivo, but if my parents are watching live tv with the TIVO MINI, and I'm in a different room watching live tv with the main unit, can we watch different channels independently?


Don't watch live TV, record shows then watch the recordings.. But as a more serious comment, if they're using a tuner with the Tivo Mini, it means you have one fewer tuner to record shows with (while they're using it).


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## HarperVision (May 14, 2007)

djwilso said:


> Yes, a different tuner is used on the Mini.


Just to clarify, the mini doesn't have any tuners built in. It steals one from the host TiVo (Roamio, Premiere 4, etc) and does it dynamically if you have a Roamio.


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## wmcbrine (Aug 2, 2003)

mattack said:


> But you can *TRANSFER* (copy) shows from the older Tivos to the Premieres/Roamios


He already mentioned that, as something that he was looking to avoid.


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## siratfus (Oct 3, 2008)

Hmmm, very tempting to make the upgrade. Can cut down on the cable card rental. Would have been an even bigger no brainer if Tivo didn't charge service on the Minis. $149 lifetime is not bad. 

Do you guys know if Dish or Fios or whatever other company that provides Multi-room dvr experience also charge a fee for their version of TIVO Minis? I wonder how competitive Tivo's pricing strategy is versus cable companies. 

At least this is better than before when you had to pay the $400/$500 lifetime for each unit.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

Yes most of the MSOs charge for their equivalent of the Mini. I think in some cases they bundle 1 or 2 with the main DVR for a single price, but they typically charge extra for more rooms. I'm not sure how competitive they are price wise though. A lot of times the MSOs can come in cheaper because they can spread the cost out across your whole cable bill. Although not always.


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## HarperVision (May 14, 2007)

DirecTV charges the exact same, $6/month/mini genie. Only difference is you don't actually "own" the Genie mini client, it's just leased so there's no residual value later on because you have to give it back when you cancel.


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## siratfus (Oct 3, 2008)

Digging up my own thread. I figure to keep my questions here...

Here is something I forgot to ask, can the Mini flip between multiple live tuners back and forth? Would it know that nobody is watching tv right now, so all 6 tuners can be played with? I read that you have to dedicate one to the mini. "Dedicate" seems like some sort of lock, so I'm assuming the answer to my question is no? 

Now if we need to lock/dedicate, then can we dedicate 2 tuners to a mini? Ideally, I want the main Roamio Plus to have 3 tuners, first mini to have 2 tuners, and a second mini to have 1 tuner. The one tuner is for the parents, who wouldn't know what to do with two tuners. LOL! 

Thanks in advance.


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## jcthorne (Jan 28, 2002)

The Roamio does not dedicate tuners to minis, they are allocated dynamically. The mini only uses one of the Roamio's tuners at a time as it only sends one video stream at a time to the mini. Not sure how a mini could ever use more than one tuner, it can only present one stream at a time.


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## siratfus (Oct 3, 2008)

jcthorne said:


> The Roamio does not dedicate tuners to minis, they are allocated dynamically. The mini only uses one of the Roamio's tuners at a time as it only sends one video stream at a time to the mini. Not sure how a mini could ever use more than one tuner, it can only present one stream at a time.


If we get out of the tuner by going into the recorded stuff, then hitting live tv again. Will it go back to the same tuner? Or, can we tell it to stream a different tuner?


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

siratfus said:


> If we get out of the tuner by going into the recorded stuff, then hitting live tv again. Will it go back to the same tuner? Or, can we tell it to stream a different tuner?


You can't control it. I will typically get the same tuner back. But if the tuner is scheduled to start a recording or another mini takes the tuner, then the Mini will get a different tuner.


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## siratfus (Oct 3, 2008)

Okay, good to know. This will make me re-think whether I really need a 6 tuner main unit. I hardly run into conflict issues with season passes with the two tuner models. 

I like watching a movie and when it has a commercial, I would pause it, go to the other tuner and watch another show or sports, when that has a commercial, I go back to the other one, which I can now fast forward through the commercial. I figure 6 tuners would be great, so I can do this as well when I'm watching with the Mini. But this will make me re-think things.

It would be great if the the remote had 6 small led buttons saying tuner 1, tuner 2, etc. The ones that are lit red means they are occupied. The ones that are lit green are available. So when you're using your Mini, you can just hit the tuner you want. Hit a different tuner to tell the main unit to start sending contents from there. Go back to the previous tuner, to continue where you left, etc. Do you guys think this is possible with a software tweak? Or, is it too much tied to hardware?


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

That seems a bit much to me. I guess it really depends on how often people go back and forth between tuners. For me, anything that I might watch I always hit record. So I might sometimes go back and forth between tuners when using my Roamio, but it is not the norm. I will say it would be nice if the Mini could do the same thing, but really so that the behavior of the Mini would be like a normal TiVo. They have already added more things that blur the lines between using a TiVo with a hard drive and a Mini. So if the closer the experience between the two is similar then the better.


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## moyekj (Jan 24, 2006)

siratfus said:


> It would be great if the the remote had 6 small led buttons saying tuner 1, tuner 2, etc. The ones that are lit red means they are occupied. The ones that are lit green are available. So when you're using your Mini, you can just hit the tuner you want. Hit a different tuner to tell the main unit to start sending contents from there. Go back to the previous tuner, to continue where you left, etc. Do you guys think this is possible with a software tweak? Or, is it too much tied to hardware?


You can do it already. Just hit record on anything you want to watch, then you can switch between up to 6 different ongoing recordings at a time from the Mini.


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## siratfus (Oct 3, 2008)

moyekj said:


> You can do it already. Just hit record on anything you want to watch, then you can switch between up to 6 different ongoing recordings at a time from the Mini.


Problem solved! LOL!

I just don't like recording stuff I know I won't keep long and the 30 minute recording buffer is all I need when I'm switching between 2 live tuners. But you're right, just record whatever it is I want to switch to, and problem solved.


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