# Time to Bolt?



## FoxFireX (May 8, 2002)

My wife recently brought up the idea of finally canceling the cable TV service. We've been long time TiVo users (Series 2, Series 3, HD, Premiere, now Roamio) so I'm a little leery of losing the familiarity we have. Unfortunately for the cord cutting idea, we've got one of the Roamios that doesn't support OTA, which we'd like to include, so I'm wondering if the Bolt is the way to go.

I can look at specs and writeups all day, but in the end the question comes down to this. Is it a hard transition, going from nearly two decades of TiVo+cable to switch to Bolt+OTA+streaming services?


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## lujan (May 24, 2010)

FoxFireX said:


> My wife recently brought up the idea of finally canceling the cable TV service. We've been long time TiVo users (Series 2, Series 3, HD, Premiere, now Roamio) so I'm a little leery of losing the familiarity we have. Unfortunately for the cord cutting idea, we've got one of the Roamios that doesn't support OTA, which we'd like to include, so I'm wondering if the Bolt is the way to go.
> 
> I can look at specs and writeups all day, but in the end the question comes down to this. Is it a hard transition, going from nearly two decades of TiVo+cable to switch to Bolt+OTA+streaming services?


I like the title of your posting. 

It didn't take long for me to get used to OTA only and I've never regretted this decision.


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## spaldingclan (Aug 22, 2012)

lujan said:


> I like the title of your posting.
> 
> It didn't take long for me to get used to OTA only and I've never regretted this decision.


WHat he said...I went from a decade with Directv to cutting the cord....went from Tivo HD to Roamio to just last week a Bolt (just bought a 4k tv) and along with streaming services...I dont miss anything. I'd supplement with a Roku if your tv doesnt have the apps you need


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## mdavej (Aug 13, 2015)

You'd save a lot more money with a lifetime Roamio OTA and have essentially the same features minus 4k.


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## FoxFireX (May 8, 2002)

spaldingclan said:


> WHat he said...I went from a decade with Directv to cutting the cord....went from Tivo HD to Roamio to just last week a Bolt (just bought a 4k tv) and along with streaming services...I dont miss anything. I'd supplement with a Roku if your tv doesnt have the apps you need


That's one thing that bugs me a little. Is there a big need for apps outside the TiVo itself? I was hoping all the major streaming platforms were well integrated and performed well so we wouldn't have to switch around to different boxes frequently.

4k would be a nice feature. Will have to see what the cost difference is.


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## krkaufman (Nov 25, 2003)

mdavej said:


> You'd save a lot more money with a lifetime Roamio OTA and have essentially the same features minus 4k.


.... minus built-in MoCA bridging and mobile streaming, as well, though you can add these two capabilities with standalone devices, if needed. BOLT also includes Gigabit Ethernet and AC Wi-Fi, along with a beefier processor, while the Roamio line allows for cheaper hard drive upgrades.


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## mdavej (Aug 13, 2015)

All nice to have, but not worth $15/month forever IMO.


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## jth tv (Nov 15, 2014)

I am saving so much after going antenna that $15/mth does not bother me in the least. I'd go for a Roamio OTA monthly and put a 3TB drive in. A couple of years later buy the latest and greatest.


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## spaldingclan (Aug 22, 2012)

I only do Lifetimed on all my Tivos...I'm now past having paid for my tivos (the Bolt with al in was given to me by a friend who was given it by Tivo)

My 4k tv has a pretty good amount of streaming apps but doesnt have MLS Live so I keep the Roku hooked up just for that


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## FoxFireX (May 8, 2002)

It seems like what I keep hearing is on-TV apps, Roku, etc. Is the Bolt itself really not that good as a streaming service player? I'd like to be able to use a unified interface to whatever degree possible, so I don't have to flip around between different sources to figure out where we can watch a particular show.


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## spaldingclan (Aug 22, 2012)

the included apps are fnie it's just that theres not enough of them


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## ej42137 (Feb 16, 2014)

spaldingclan said:


> My 4k tv has a pretty good amount of streaming apps but doesnt have MLS Live so I keep the Roku hooked up just for that


I notice that the streaming apps on my Roamio are very sluggish compared to my Roku. How do the apps on the Roku compare with the Bolt in terms of starting the app and playing?


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## TrackZ (Jan 5, 2004)

I planned to use my Bolt apps and make it a primary box in my setup. It didn't work. These apps are some of the most unreliable I've seen. HBO go doesn't authenticate with Comcast. Massive lack of UHD support. No word on HDR. I'm not using apps on TiVo at all. I've written it off for that use case.


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## lujan (May 24, 2010)

ej42137 said:


> I notice that the streaming apps on my Roamio are very sluggish compared to my Roku. How do the apps on the Roku compare with the Bolt in terms of starting the app and playing?


I use the Netflix app on the Bolt and haven't seen any other device load as fast as Netflix does on the Bolt.


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## TeamPace (Oct 23, 2013)

It doesn't get mentioned much but some users including myself have seen better OTA reception on the Roamio vs the BOLT. It tends to vary depending on the user but I compared a BOLT vs a Roamio on my large outdoor antenna and the BOLT could tune only about 30 of the 50 channels available on the Roamio. Additionally some of the 30 channels still had picture breakup. I stuck with the Roamio. Other's seem to have better results with their BOLTS though so YMMV.


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## aspexil (Oct 16, 2015)

We cut the cord in our last move. Even with just a Mohu Leaf we were able to pick up the major stations in the Indianapolis area. I then put in a pair of DB8s in the attic and that really amped up our channel selection.

But OTA is not cable. We use Amazon and Netflix on the Bolt but quite frankly nothing else. So we also have an old Roku 2XS that had been lying around unused and got Sling TV on it. At least that gets us some of the cable channels we didn't have anymore and a small price to pay. The Roku also fills in some other channels like Sky News.


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## PdX (Apr 12, 2016)

lujan said:


> I use the Netflix app on the Bolt and haven't seen any other device load as fast as Netflix does on the Bolt.


Netflix seems to work fine, but MLB.tv is a **** show on the bolt. It constantly freezes and wants to load and makes watching games unbearable. I can't even get half an inning sometimes.


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## mlcarson (Dec 31, 2007)

You could also go the DIY route since there's no longer the constraint of DRM/Cable card. Have a PC as the media server, run SageTV on the back end. Use Nvidia Shield hardware as the frontend with SageTV minclient app. The OTA tuners would be SiliconDust HomeRun Connect's; SageTV even supports the HDHomerun Prime for Cable Card minus any DRM channels. The guide data would be via Schedules Direct at $25/yr.

You could also add Plex on the PC backend for a full media server. I believe you can add whatever menu/streaming apps to the SageTV menu that the Nvidia Shield supports.

This would be the direction that I would be looking if I didn't already have a Roamio Basic. One advantage of the external tuners for OTA TV is that you can dedicate separate antennas to them if you end up in a situation where your stations are in different directions and a single antenna can't pick up everything available. 

Tivo will always be the nice I don't want to mess with anything solution but I think you can come up with some nice alternatives with additional functionality.


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## tivoyahoo (Sep 4, 2003)

mlcarson said:


> SageTV even supports the HDHomerun Prime for Cable Card minus any DRM channels. The guide data would be via Schedules Direct at $25/yr.
> 
> You could also add Plex on the PC backend for a full media server. I believe you can add whatever menu/streaming apps to the SageTV menu that the Nvidia Shield supports.
> 
> This would be the direction that I would be looking if I didn't already have a Roamio Basic.


So in this scenario, is the only real minus no drm channels?
HDHomerun Prime for Cable Card / SageTV / Nvidia Shield

drm just won't transfer to the front end device? Can you view only on the pc where the drm is recorded? the drm records, right?

What other front ends would you recommend? e.g. if you wanted one nvidia shield in main room and more budget oriented boxes in other rooms to tie into Prime/Sage?

do the silicondust products do only cable or ota, but not both / dual configuration?


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## elwaylite (Apr 23, 2006)

PdX said:


> Netflix seems to work fine, but MLB.tv is a **** show on the bolt. It constantly freezes and wants to load and makes watching games unbearable. I can't even get half an inning sometimes.


The Netflix app, when it works right is awesome, the PQ is great and UHD is 2160p/24. Now, mine loves to have some hangs and can act up.

Hopefully they will get it better.


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## FoxFireX (May 8, 2002)

mlcarson said:


> You could also go the DIY route since there's no longer the constraint of DRM/Cable card. Have a PC as the media server, run SageTV on the back end. Use Nvidia Shield hardware as the frontend with SageTV minclient app. The OTA tuners would be SiliconDust HomeRun Connect's; SageTV even supports the HDHomerun Prime for Cable Card minus any DRM channels. The guide data would be via Schedules Direct at $25/yr.
> 
> You could also add Plex on the PC backend for a full media server. I believe you can add whatever menu/streaming apps to the SageTV menu that the Nvidia Shield supports.


Well, now I've got more interesting things to go look into, I think. I've actually already got a pretty nice Plex setup along with a PC that runs it 24/7. Had never really given this much consideration, but maybe it's a good idea. Thanks for the thought.


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## mdavej (Aug 13, 2015)

Stick with WMC on Win 7/8 or Tivo if you need DRM. There is no other PC based solution that will record it. Sage is no exception. Silicon Dust is working on their own solution for DRM, but I don't think they'll ever deliver. You can view live DRM channels with the Prime via apps, but only WMC can record and play them back.

With HBO Go, etc, depending on your cable system, you may not even need DRM recording since you can just get it on demand.

SD products are not dual config. You need different boxes for OTA and digital cable.

The DRM situation is precisely why I sold my Primes and moved to Tivo.


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## tivoyahoo (Sep 4, 2003)

mdavej said:


> Stick with WMC on Win 7/8 or Tivo if you need DRM. There is no other PC based solution that will record it. Sage is no exception. Silicon Dust is working on their own solution for DRM, but I don't think they'll ever deliver. You can view live DRM channels with the Prime via apps, but only WMC can record and play them back.
> 
> With HBO Go, etc, depending on your cable system, you may not even need DRM recording since you can just get it on demand.
> 
> ...


I'm on comcast so drm isn't much of an issue. not many channels get the 0x02 cci byte. But HBO does, and I don't think HBO Go works with comcast subscription - not certain, but I think that's the latest.

What about Windows 10? is there an issue compared to 7/8?
and isn't there an issue with wmc extenders?

sage is only linux and mac, right? but doesn't have the issue with "extenders" or front ends or whatever the right term would be in the sage case.

do any work with fire tv? and as far as fire tv and the OP looking for OTA options...



FoxFireX said:


> Well, now I've got more interesting things to go look into, I think.


this might be interesting:
http://www.aftvnews.com/amazon-fire-tv-possibly-gaining-support-for-tv-tuners/

and android tv is supposed to get ota usb tuner, such as with this new mi box:
https://9to5google.com/2016/07/21/xiaomi-mi-box-android-tv-box-fcc/

and then Playstation Vue, SlingTV, and DirecTV NOW belong in the discussion going back to OP wanting to use ota and streaming services.


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## jkrell (Nov 27, 2002)

I have a question for all you cordcutters -- I saw the deal on Amazon for the Roamio OTA (link) and it got me thinking about cordcutting again. I cut the cord several years back -- maybe in 2010/2011 -- the only reason I went back to cable is that it's not that much more expensive to have bundled Internet+Cable as it is to just have Internet (the so-called Xfinity Double Play).

Still, I find myself using the streaming services more and more, and HBO Now answers the Game of Thrones problem. And Playstation Vue sure is compelling. So, my question for all of you is -- how do you get standalone Internet cheaply (and Internet fast enough to do all the streaming)?

I'd also like to speak from experience and say that in my opinion using a PC-based DVR is a nightmare. I had a lot of missed recordings, changing channels, etc. Stuff would break on me all the time.


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## mdavej (Aug 13, 2015)

That's exactly what's keeping me from cutting the cord too. I was able to do it for my parents because they already had cheap internet only, having been on satellite for several years. They're still grandfathered in to a $30/mo for 30Mbps plan. So Tivo OTA plus Vue worked out great. If I were to do the same myself, dropping the TV package would up my internet bill to $60, erasing a lot of my savings. So I'm keeping what I've got until the numbers work out.

About the only thing you can do is switch internet providers if possible to take advantage of their new customer discounts for the first year or so. Then switch again when that runs out.


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## tivoyahoo (Sep 4, 2003)

jkrell said:


> So, my question for all of you is -- how do you get standalone Internet cheaply (and Internet fast enough to do all the streaming)?


that's a great question. I too noticed how double play wasn't that much extra when you start comparing against another $30-40 for vue or sling with some hulu, netflix, etc mixed in. what's the secret? what am I missing? I figured the "cord cutters" might be cutting their internet cord too and bumming a connection off a neighbor.

Although I do know one guy who has one of the grandfathered unlimited data plans from verizon wireless that is $40/month (used to be $30/month). Lives by himself so he just fires that up on his phone as the hotspot to the ethernet bridge when he's home to connect all the streaming boxes on his network and I think he runs ota as well. But if you have other people in the household, the connection walks out the door when you do and you're down to ota.

what internet services are out there under $45/month that are reliable and where you can do a lot of streaming and not running into overage fees?


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## atmuscarella (Oct 11, 2005)

If someone wants all the shows that are on cable channels then you want a Pay TV provider. Truly cutting the cord only makes sense if you can live with less selection and without the content only available through a Pay TV provider. If you can not do that all you can do is look at the various packages offered by the various Pay TV providers available to you and pick the one that matches what you want. Over the Top (OTT) subscription options are still Pay TV providers. Providers like Netflix are not a cable TV replacement but instead have become more of a Premium channel add on. Providers like Play Station Vue are no different than a traditional cable or satellite Pay TV provider they are just providing a lower number of channels. In the end you have to pay for the content you want and the only way it gets cheaper is if you want less content. At least now people have more options than in the past.


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## HarperVision (May 14, 2007)

tivoyahoo said:


> ........ do any work with fire tv? and as far as fire tv and the OP looking for OTA options... this might be interesting: http://www.aftvnews.com/amazon-fire-tv-possibly-gaining-support-for-tv-tuners/


The FireTV has the HDHomerun View app, that if you paid for the DVR Beta can act as a basic DVR with the software running on/through your PC, NAS, or NVidia Shield.


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## mlcarson (Dec 31, 2007)

When I used WMC and Silicondust tuners, it was quite reliable. The only thing that I had to do that wasn't normal for a typical PC user was to have an NTP service pointing to an NTP server on the Internet to keep the time synchronized. I think PC's normally only time sync when you login and the clock can slowly drift unless you have something like NTP running. Channel changes were no slower than the Tivo. The thing that killed it for me was Rovi guide data. I was using a small PC right at the TV though which I also didn't like. I think a client/server model with something like an Nvidia Shield at the TV is the better way of doing things.

I don't think you'll beat the Tivo OTA and Tivo Mini's on price or simplicity though. I also don't see how most people can eliminate cable TV since that's their best internet provider. The pricing of Internet only is high enough by design to not make it cost effective to then buy your TV service from some place else. I preferred Satellite for most of my TV viewing but needed fast Internet. When it came renewal time, the price for the Satellite TV service went up to the point where cable TV was cheaper as a bundle which is why I now have Tivo. Something that a service like PSVue might be great for though is to cut the cable and then come back as a new customer since they don't require contracts or equipment rental.

I love that Tivo can now be a Plex client but I want greater than 720p from it and for that I need a Bolt and a totally new Mini which doesn't currently exist. That's what got me thinking about a DIY solution. Well, that and the Roamio H.264 L3.2 recording bug which I haven't gotten a fix for yet.



jkrell said:


> I'd also like to speak from experience and say that in my opinion using a PC-based DVR is a nightmare. I had a lot of missed recordings, changing channels, etc. Stuff would break on me all the time.


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## jth tv (Nov 15, 2014)

jkrell said:


> how do you get standalone Internet cheaply (and Internet fast enough to do all the streaming)?


The way I did it was to accept a slower speed. Unfortunately after the merger this is NO longer an option. But here's the story. Time Warner Cable was charging me $25/mth for 3Mbps, then bumped it to 10Mbps for the same price. I then downgraded to $15/mth 3Mbps since I knew what it was like. With 3Mbps (actual measures 3.5Mbps) , YouTube is 720p and per the TiVo Info button Netflix is "720", on very rare occasions "1080". That is plenty good enough for me.

Often cable companies can lower/raise internet speed over the phone so one can experiment. BUT they may charge more to go back up later, in my case after the merger the inexpensive options have been eliminated. Lowest is now $60 Retail for 50Mbps. Whew.

At the same time as downgrading internet I went antenna with TiVo Roamio Basic and got rid of cable tv, net savings $85 a month, a quick payback.

It seems like a big deal but they are just TV shows. They can be cancelled any time and more often than not they run out of new material, they just stop being interesting. When Broadcast gets really dull (like now, before the Fall season) I sign up for 3 DVD at a time Netflix in addition to Netflix online. The month before, I signed up for one month of Amazon Prime.

For me its fun to experiment with and making a mistake would not be any big deal, not really. There a plenty of options these days and many are one month at a time.

They way I look at it, why not try it ?


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## mdavej (Aug 13, 2015)

tivoyahoo said:


> I'm on comcast so drm isn't much of an issue. not many channels get the 0x02 cci byte. But HBO does, and I don't think HBO Go works with comcast subscription - not certain, but I think that's the latest.
> 
> What about Windows 10? is there an issue compared to 7/8?
> and isn't there an issue with wmc extenders?
> ...


With DRM off the table, Win 10 is fine. With DRM, Win 10 is a bust. Even WMC is broken now in Win 10. A few claim to have WMC extenders working (Xbox only), but without DRM.

I know very little about Sage, but it's my understanding that it also runs on Windows.

I'm not sure what the android (Fire TV) options are these days besides Kodi, Plex and Emby. If you can stick with a WMC backend (ServerWMC) on Win 7/8, then Emby apparently works quite well, for non-DRM of course.

Bottom line is there is one solution for DRM, and that's WMC on a pre-Win10 system. There are many solutions if you don't have DRM, all of which are more complex than Tivo. People really bend over backwards to avoid the best solution, which is Tivo. I did as well for years due to the high price. But at current Roamio OTA with lifetime prices, Tivo is a no-brainer if you take into account hardware costs as well. Even Channel Master is a no-brainer if you don't need all of Tivo's bells and whistles.


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## tivoyahoo (Sep 4, 2003)

mlcarson said:


> I don't think you'll beat the Tivo OTA and Tivo Mini's on price or simplicity though.





mdavej said:


> Even Channel Master is a no-brainer if you don't need all of Tivo's bells and whistles.


a couple more ota options worth adding into the mix for review:
-Simple.TV https://us.simple.tv/

-Tablo https://www.tablotv.com/tablo-products/
$160 for refurb 2 tuner model
several app/channel platforms including fire tv, plex, kodi, roku



mlcarson said:


> I love that Tivo can now be a Plex client but I want greater than 720p from it and for that I need a Bolt and a totally new Mini which doesn't currently exist. That's what got me thinking about a DIY solution. Well, that and the Roamio H.264 L3.2 recording bug which I haven't gotten a fix for yet.


yep, same boat. so with roamio bug, and 720p plex limitation on roamio/mini it has me looking at other boxes. so with a fire tv you don't have the 720p plex limitation like the mini, right? but still get full access to tivos on your network. what are the cons on the fire tv as compared to the mini ? is there a good comparison thread on that? why do people choose one over the other typically?


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## atmuscarella (Oct 11, 2005)

tivoyahoo said:


> ...
> so with a fire tv you don't have the 720p plex limitation like the mini, right? but still get full access to tivos on your network. what are the cons on the fire tv as compared to the mini ? is there a good comparison thread on that? why do people choose one over the other typically?


There is a big differance between using a Fire TV and a Mini to access live TV and the recordings on a TiVo. First off for a base Roamio or a Roamio OTA you will need a stand alone Stream device to use the app on the Fire TV and then you will get an experience similar to using a android or iOS device. The Mini is very close to the same experience as using the TiVo directly and does not require the stand alone Stream device.


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## tivoyahoo (Sep 4, 2003)

atmuscarella said:


> There is a big differance between using a Fire TV and a Mini to access live TV and the recordings on a TiVo. First off for a base Roamio or a Roamio OTA you will need a stand alone Stream device to use the app on the Fire TV and then you will get an experience similar to using a android or iOS device. The Mini is very close to the same experience as using the TiVo directly and does not require the stand alone Stream device.


ok, so fire functions a lot like the regular android app for tivo - that answers a lot thanks. and the stream add on only applies to 4 tuner roamio, not Bolt or 6 tuner roamio.

according to this:
https://support.tivo.com/articles/Features_Use/TiVo-App-for-Amazon-Fire-TV-Use

App Limitations

The TiVo App for Amazon Fire TV and Fire TV Stick cannot:
See or stream streaming (e.g., video on demand) content from your DVR
Create or modify OnePasses
Schedule recordings
Configure or control the DVR itself


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## HarperVision (May 14, 2007)

jth tv said:


> ........With 3Mbps (actual measures 3.5Mbps) , YouTube is 720p and per the TiVo Info button Netflix is "720", on very rare occasions "1080". That is plenty good enough for me. ...........


You must work for Comcast!  

jk, at least YOU personally made that choice for yourself, unlike what Comcast is doing.


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## mlcarson (Dec 31, 2007)

Anniversary update broke the Win10 WMC stuff. They had it working fine before that. Extenders had issues. I think you have to go back to Windows 7 for all of the various extenders to work.

SageTV works on Linux, OSX, and Windows but doesn't support DRM. It's Java and open source. I plan on playing with it this weekend. I looked at what was DRM'd with Comcast and can live without it. I'd rather give up the DRM stuff than rely on kludge after kludge to keep WMC working. Actually I made that decision by going with the Tivo Roamio and concluded that it was a better solution for DRM material than the WMC path.

I think the latest hardware extender for SageTV is the HD300 (2010) and is more expensive than an Nvidia Shield on Ebay and can't be purchased new anymore. There's a miniclient app that runs on Android/Android TV that supposedly makes the Nvidia Shield a great client for SageTV. It's also the same hardware that the Silicondust DVR is targeting so something may eventually happen there on the DRM stuff.

If you need the DRM'd channels, it's Tivo or the Win7/8.1 version of WMC. I guess you could back out the anniversary edition of Win10 and use WMC there too but that's a temp solution. WMC worked so well -- it's a shame that Microsoft stopped all development of it and is actively trying to kill it now.

NextPVR and Mediaportal are other backends that appears to work half way decent and support cablecard but not DRM and interface with Kodi/Emby. I think MythTV does too but it's Linux/BSD/OSX rather than Windows based.



mdavej said:


> With DRM off the table, Win 10 is fine. With DRM, Win 10 is a bust. Even WMC is broken now in Win 10. A few claim to have WMC extenders working (Xbox only), but without DRM.
> 
> I know very little about Sage, but it's my understanding that it also runs on Windows.
> 
> I'm not sure what the android (Fire TV) options are these days besides Kodi, Plex and Emby. If you can stick with a WMC backend (ServerWMC) on Win 7/8, then Emby apparently works quite well, for non-DRM of course.


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## henrymc (Aug 8, 2016)

FoxFireX said:


> It seems like what I keep hearing is on-TV apps, Roku, etc. Is the Bolt itself really not that good as a streaming service player? I'd like to be able to use a unified interface to whatever degree possible, so I don't have to flip around between different sources to figure out where we can watch a particular show.


Streaming services don't always make apps available for Tivo and in those cases you have to use a second device that has their app. Tivo has the key services Hulu and Netflix (plus some others). I use Roku for Sling/Playsatation Vue and some other random stuff. Any new TV you buy will have built-in smart tv capabilities tho. The TV itself may have the outside app you want.


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## tivoyahoo (Sep 4, 2003)

atmuscarella said:


> on the Fire TV and then you will get an experience similar to using a android or iOS device. The Mini is very close to the same experience as using the TiVo directly


is the Apple Tv experience similar to using the tivo app for iOS? and how does that compare to Fire TV - do you effectively have the same capabilities and limitations (compared to Mini) as far as tivo functionality when using Apple TV as with a Fire TV. although I saw mention that Apple TV apparently uses airplay to communicate with Tivo - does that change things? or is everything still delivered by the external stream or the internal stream on the roamio plus/pro and bolt?

Or maybe the better question is: what client device (other than mini) provides the most tivo functionality? are apple tv and fire tv the top contenders for best mini alternative? do ps4 or xbox have tivo stream capability?

for purposes of this question, let's assume we're talking about for use with a Bolt or roamio pro - integrated stream. and I bring that up because perhaps some might say add a sling not a stream to a roamio basic.


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## JTHOJNICKI (Nov 30, 2015)

I am currently using both a Bolt and Roamio OTA for OTA recording. I don't need 4K right now. Both work great and functionality is pretty similar except for network speed during transfers. The Roamio OTA is definitely usable, but only supports 100mpbs Ethernet while the Bolt supports 1,000mbps (1gbps) - only matters if you have a gigabit home network. The major advantage of the Roamio is that is uses cheaper 3.5" hard drives; the Bolt uses the more expensive 2.5" drives. This only matters if you need to expand your storage space. The Roamio OTA now includes All-In (lifetime TiVo service) in the price (directly from TiVo); the Bolt currently includes no service.


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