# Which would you buy? Roamio Plus all in or Tivo Bolt?



## jeffl910 (Mar 25, 2013)

Hi All,

I have tried searching for this topic but didn't find the exact scenario. I would like to buy a new or used tivo and here are my options below. Which would you choose? The Roamio is quite expensive, but it has the all in subscription & more tuners.

Also, for the steaming, does that work only in the same network or can you steam from anywhere? Is it a good option to have in your opinion or is it rarely used?

Used Tivo Roamio Plus:Approx $650 - $700
-6 tuners (not sure if I need 6)
-Built in steaming
-1tb hard drive
-ALL IN subscription included

-or-

Brand New Tivo Bolt 500MB: $169 + $150/year subscription
-4 tuners
-Built in steaming
-500mb Hard drive
-Buy the annual subscription

-or-

Used Roamio HD: $450 All in subscription included
-4 tuners
-NO built in steaming
-500mb hard drive
-ALL IN subscription included

Thanks in advance!


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## mikeyts (Jul 10, 2004)

You don't mention whether 4K video (with HDR10 promised), only available on the Bolt, is of any value to you.


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## atmuscarella (Oct 11, 2005)

What any of us think is pretty irrelevant. 

What matters is what features you value and want and how much a few hundred dollars matters to you financially.

Bottom line is all the Roamio & Bolt DVRs are excellent DVRs. Where the difference come in is the additional features which only you can value for yourself.


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## jeffl910 (Mar 25, 2013)

Thanks for the replies!
I dont think i care much about 4k since there isnt any content for it right now. Which Tivos support 4K?

I do value the opinions of this forum as there may be things I have not thought of such as you experiences with the newer technologies etc. 

Thank you!


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## mikeyts (Jul 10, 2004)

jeffl910 said:


> Thanks for the replies!
> I dont think i care much about 4k since there isnt any content for it right now. Which Tivos support 4K?


Only Bolt and Bolt+.


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## atmuscarella (Oct 11, 2005)

Ok here is what I think about the various Roamios & Bolts:

General: 

Roamios are from 2013 and Bolts from 2015 tech
Roamios will likely be used with no warranty Bolts can be new with warranties
Both work well as DVRs
Bolts work noticeably better when using streaming apps like Netflix, Amazon, or Vudu. 

Individual units:

Base Roamio:

4 tuners can be OTA or Cable
100 Mb Ethernet & Wireless N Networking built in
Requires external adapter to use with MoCA networking
Requires external TiVo Stream to stream to android, iOS, or web browsers
Requires break out cable to use with older TVs that require analog outputs 
Has 3.5 inch hard drive that is failry cheap & easy to upgrade/replace

Roamio Plus or Pro:

6 tuners cable only
1 GB Ethernet, Wireless N, & MoCA 1.1 built in
TiVo Stream hardware built in, can do up to 4 streams at a time to Android, iOS, or web browsers. 
Has analog outputs for older TVs 
Has 3.5 inch hard drive that is fairly cheap & easy to upgrade/replace

Bolt: 

4 tuners OTA or cable
Has 1 Gb Ethernet, Wireless AC, & MoCA 2.0 built in. 
Has TiVo Stream functionality built in but can only do 2 streams to Android, iOS, Web browsers at a time
Can play 4K content from YouTube & Netflix
Only has HDMI output - no analog outputs available for older TVs
Has 2.5 inch hard drive which cost more and has fewer options to upgrade compared to the Roamio's with 3.5 inch drives

Bolt Plus: 

6 tuners cable only
Has 1 Gb Ethernet, Wireless AC, & MoCA 2.0 built in. 
Has TiVo Stream functionality built in but can only do 2 streams to Android, iOS, Web browsers at a time
Can play 4K content from YouTube & Netflix
Only has HDMI output - no analog outputs available for older TVs
Has 2.5 inch hard drive which cost more and has fewer options to upgrade compared to the Roamio's with 3.5 inch drives


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## gdog2004 (May 23, 2015)

I would go bolt. Its under Warranty, its newer, faster. I doubt you will ever use 6 tuners. I have 6 now on a roamio and have never used more than 4. More 4K content will come out. Why not get a DVR that is more future proof ?


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## jeffl910 (Mar 25, 2013)

wow really great detailed comparison atmuscarella, thank you.
And I really appreciate your opinion gdog2004.

The options changed as there was a Roamio Plus with 10 months of subscription left of it which I picked up for $370. I think this is a good deal and leaves me with more cash in case i want to upgrade to the bolt or bolt + in a year or two and I'd still be ahead.


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## thyname (Dec 27, 2010)

Once you go Bolt you never go back.... Oh wait!


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## gthassell (Apr 22, 2003)

I'd suggest the Bolt and All-In vs. annual fee, if for no other reason than TiVos with All-In / Lifetime service tend to retain a good portion of the value of the lifetime / all-in service in the secondary market. (e-bay, this forum, etc,) 

If you are interested, I have an unopened 2TB Bolt from Weaknees that has Lifetime / All-In service on it, just to complicate your decision making process....


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## zalusky (Apr 5, 2002)

gdog2004 said:


> I would go bolt. Its under Warranty, its newer, faster. I doubt you will ever use 6 tuners. I have 6 now on a roamio and have never used more than 4. More 4K content will come out. Why not get a DVR that is more future proof ?


It gets down to the question of whether you have more TVs (with minis) in your house. We have 3 TVs so that is 3 tuners right there and then the question of simultaneous recording needs adding to the 3 tuner demands.

If the OP only has 1 TV then maybe.

I need refreshing the Bolt has 4 tuners but aren't two of the tuners for OTA and two of the tuners for Cable. Can you really do 4 tuners on a Cable connection?


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

zalusky said:


> It gets down to the question of whether you have more TVs (with minis) in your house. We have 3 TVs so that is 3 tuners right there and then the question of simultaneous recording needs adding to the 3 tuner demands.
> 
> If the OP only has 1 TV then maybe.
> 
> I need refreshing the Bolt has 4 tuners but aren't two of the tuners for OTA and two of the tuners for Cable. Can you really do 4 tuners on a Cable connection?


The Bolt has four tuners. Either four OTA or four Cable. No combination.

The Roamio Pro and Bolt+ have six cable tuners.


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## gdog2004 (May 23, 2015)

aaronwt said:


> The Bolt has four tuners. Either four OTA or four Cable. No combination.
> 
> The Roamio Pro and Bolt+ have six cable tuners.


What do you mean no combination ?
You cant watch something on a cable tuner on one mini and OTA broadcast on the bolt itself ?


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## thyname (Dec 27, 2010)

gdog2004 said:


> What do you mean no combination ?
> You cant watch something on a cable tuner on one mini and OTA broadcast on the bolt itself ?


He replied to the other poster asking whether two tuners can be used for OTA and the other two for cable, simultaneously, which is not possible.

You can either connect cable and use the four tuners for cable, or connect antenna and use the four tuners for OTA. Cannot connect both antenna and cable at the same time. Clear?


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## gdog2004 (May 23, 2015)

thyname said:


> He replied to the other poster asking whether two tuners can be used for OTA and the other two for cable, simultaneously, which is not possible.
> 
> You can either connect cable and use the four tuners for cable, or connect antenna and use the four tuners for OTA. Cannot connect both antenna and cable at the same time. Clear?


Yep. For some reason I was under the impression you could connect both at the same time via a splitter.


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## chicagobrownblue (May 29, 2008)

I think you will be happy with the 4-tuner Bolt. I'd go with the pre-paid annual plan and wait for a deal on all-in. 

Have you or someone you know had a TiVo in the past? There are deals at times that are partly a function of how long you've been with Tivo or how much money you've paid them. Lifetime on my 4-tuner Roamio cost $99.


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## gdog2004 (May 23, 2015)

chicagobrownblue said:


> I think you will be happy with the 4-tuner Bolt. I'd go with the pre-paid annual plan and wait for a deal on all-in.
> 
> Have you or someone you know had a TiVo in the past? There are deals at times that are partly a function of how long you've been with Tivo or how much money you've paid them. Lifetime on my 4-tuner Roamio cost $99.


How many years are you going back though for that deal ?
I'm all for waiting for a deal but I just don't see Tivo discounting a fairly new product like the bolt one year into its existence. and i you have to pay for a year or 2 of monthly fees, how much of a deal is it really ?


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## ThreeSoFar (May 24, 2002)

We have 14 TiVo tuners in the house and there are still times where it gets challenging getting everyone's choices recorded, and that's just two of us! We do watch a lot.

No Bolts, we have two Roamios and a Premiere (and a Mini), so I can't speak to Bolt directly (with no monthly fees, all lifetime). 

We are still very pleased with the Roamio generation of hardware, still today, even its speed/responsiveness. The 6 tuners are easy to use especially if you have one or more Minis elsewhere in the house. We have no wired network on the 3rd floor, and wifi is iffy up there (because we didn't really bother trying), so the Mini would have had a tough time up there if it weren't for the MoCA. I would only consider buying any new units if one of these were to die. If the Premiere dies, we'd probably just go down to ten tuners and get another Mini. For sure that'd be my preference if Bolt still offers no lifetime.

How is Bolt with Netflix or Amazon streaming? The Roamio does an OK job with it, the show doesn't die mid stream like it used to. But the user interface is horrible and slow. We use Roku for our streaming instead.

History: We've had over a dozen TiVos over the years, as early as 2002's Series 1, many we'd buy, upgrade and either sell or give to family. Lifetime is our preference, by far. They definitely last long enough to be cheaper that way. We spend a ton of money on TV, between TiVos and Comcast (Ptooey!! hate them...). But as said, we watch a lot.


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## thyname (Dec 27, 2010)

ThreeSoFar said:


> We have 14 TiVo tuners in the house and there are still times where it gets challenging getting everyone's choices recorded, and that's just two of us! We do watch a lot.
> 
> .


Wow. 14 tuners not being enough for 2 people has to be a record. And I thought my family was watching way too much...


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## gdog2004 (May 23, 2015)

Your looking at like 720 up front for a Bolt plus all in. 
If your on Comcast, to get a single DVR with HD from them would essentially cost you 22.50 per month. 
In 32 months you break even. 

If you have a mini and a bolt with all in that runs you 850.00 up front. 
That same type of package on comcast(in the philly area) would be 32.50 a month.You break even in in about 26 months. 

A bolt and 2 mini's 980.00 up front. You break even in 23 months. 

For me, a bolt with all in and mini(s) is an easy choice. You have 4k(which Netflix streams) and to my understanding Netflix and other apps are built in using the flash memory. So they come up super quick. Netflix isn't even integrated into the Comcast DVR.


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## ThreeSoFar (May 24, 2002)

thyname said:


> Wow. 14 tuners not being enough for 2 people has to be a record. And I thought my family was watching way too much...


Ya. We do record way more than we watch....but yeah.


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## HarperVision (May 14, 2007)

thyname said:


> He replied to the other poster asking whether two tuners can be used for OTA and the other two for cable, simultaneously, *which is not possible.*
> 
> You can either connect cable and use the four tuners for cable, or connect antenna and use the four tuners for OTA. Cannot connect both antenna and cable at the same time. Clear?


Actually it IS possible, just not easy to do, considering there's only one RF Coax input. With a little notching and filtering, well................


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## thyname (Dec 27, 2010)

HarperVision said:


> Actually it IS possible, just not easy to do, considering there's only one RF Coax input. With a little notching and filtering, well................


Let me guess: your diplexer thing?

That thing is tough for 99.99% of the people. Maybe I am exaggerating a bit 😄


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## HarperVision (May 14, 2007)

thyname said:


> Let me guess: your diplexer thing? That thing is tough for 99.99% of the people. Maybe I am exaggerating a bit dde04


No, I don't use diplexers for that. It's not really that hard to do at all, just time consuming to map out frequencies and then selecting the right filters to use.


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## thyname (Dec 27, 2010)

HarperVision said:


> No, I don't use diplexers for that. It's not really that hard to do at all, just time consuming to map out frequencies and then selecting the right filters to use.


But then if done successfully, how would it work with the guide? You can't possibly have two simultaneous guides on the TiVo, one from cable and one from antenna. At the same time? I don't get it.


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## HarperVision (May 14, 2007)

thyname said:


> But then if done successfully, how would it work with the guide? You can't possibly have two simultaneous guides on the TiVo, one from cable and one from antenna. At the same time? I don't get it.


Yep, that's exactly what you get!


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## thyname (Dec 27, 2010)

HarperVision said:


> Yep, that's exactly what you get!
> View attachment 26619
> 
> View attachment 26620


Wow! That's very interesting! You should create a sticky "how to..." here. I am sure many people would be interested.


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## gdog2004 (May 23, 2015)

thyname said:


> Wow! That's very interesting! You should create a sticky "how to..." here. I am sure many people would be interested.


I would be interested  
I really only want the major networks on Antennae, the rest on Cable.


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## HarperVision (May 14, 2007)

thyname said:


> Wow! That's very interesting! You should create a sticky "how to..." here. I am sure many people would be interested.





gdog2004 said:


> I would be interested  I really only want the major networks on Antennae, the rest on Cable.


I don't think I can make a sticky, can I? Don't the mods have to make one sticky if they deem it worthy?

The process is pretty easy, but it's the planning that's the tough part. All you do is connect your antenna and also a cablecard and/or TA, then run guided setup. When it asks what you want to setup, select antenna and it will pop up a screen next that asks if you want antenna & cable, or just antenna because it detected a cablecard/TA connected. Of course select antenna and cable and start the process, then off you go. It will run through one, then the other in order until they're both setup, just like the old two tuner Premieres did that do have the capability.

This brings you to your problem though, two sources setup and only one rf coax input. At this point you'll have to research all the frequencies on your cable feed and your antenna then decide if the cable freqs that overlap with the antenna ones you want are channels you care about or not. If not you can filter it out and ditch that channel, replaced by the non filtered OTA one.

Its fairly easy for me since my cable system still has analog channels down in the antenna tv band, so I can just notch those out and tap in my antenna. I also have an HD QAM/ATSC modulator that used to be connected to a DirecTV Genie Lite H44, as you can see in the guide picture I posted on channel 1-1. It's available if anyone wants it to play?

User tivoyahoo here had issues getting this working, but I've done it time and time again without issues, including less than a week ago on a Roamio Basic model

.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

not really worth the effort for most people. Which is why I didn't mention it.


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## HarperVision (May 14, 2007)

aaronwt said:


> not really worth the effort for most people. Which is why I didn't mention it.


Agreed. The only reason I did is because someone said something like it "is not possible", and it is.


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## chicagobrownblue (May 29, 2008)

gdog2004 said:


> How many years are you going back though for that deal ?


"Roamio Basic Nov 2013 Lifetimed 02/02/2016 3TB added Sep 2016"

So, that would be 2 years and 3 months if you just look at my Roamio. But, they may be looking at me being a TiVo customer since ~2007.



gdog2004 said:


> I'm all for waiting for a deal but I just don't see Tivo discounting a fairly new product like the bolt one year into its existence. and i you have to pay for a year or 2 of monthly fees, how much of a deal is it really ?


They may offer discounts on hardware, service or both on Black Friday or Cyber Monday.

Basically using your logic, I may just buy a Bolt+ with prepaid annual service. That hardware is unlikely to be discounted. I'll just wait for a deal on service.

The 4-tuner Bolt is the more likely target for a discount. I think that works for the OP.


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## elm222 (Jan 21, 2015)

HarperVision said:


> I don't think I can make a sticky, can I? Don't the mods have to make one sticky if they deem it worthy?
> 
> The process is pretty easy, but it's the planning that's the tough part. All you do is connect your antenna and also a cablecard and/or TA, then run guided setup. When it asks what you want to setup, select antenna and it will pop up a screen next that asks if you want antenna & cable, or just antenna because it detected a cablecard/TA connected. Of course select antenna and cable and start the process, then off you go. It will run through one, then the other in order until they're both setup, just like the old two tuner Premieres did that do have the capability.
> 
> ...


Just a question/suggestion......It would be less functionally convenient but much simpler to setup if you connected your cable and antenna inputs thru a A/B switch and then switch to the input you wanted. I know there would be issues/convenience with making sure you had the correct input selected for any program recording and if there are any cable hits to the cable card. But if cable went out you could at least switch over to OTA. Thoughts?


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## HarperVision (May 14, 2007)

elm222 said:


> Just a question/suggestion......It would be less functionally convenient but much simpler to setup if you connected your cable and antenna inputs thru a A/B switch and then switch to the input you wanted. I know there would be issues/convenience with making sure you had the correct input selected for any program recording and if there are any cable hits to the cable card. But if cable went out you could at least switch over to OTA. Thoughts?


Yes, I've suggested that in the past as well. It can get ugly with one passes though too, because you'd have to make sure it's set to NOT record "All Channels" or else you may have it try to record on the it's channel while you're connected to cable, or vice versa.


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