# Questions regarding Two Bolt Setup



## joker2008 (Mar 23, 2019)

Hey All question here. I needed a 4k mini for one of my tv's. I was looking and instead of picking up a mini which would have been about 180.00 I found a refurb bolt with 4k and a lifetime subscription for 420 which I felt was a better deal as I will no longer have to pay a annual fee. My questions are as follows:

1) Do the 4k bolts support hdr?
2) Do I need a second cable card?
3) What is my best setup config as I am planning on keeping my current bolt and want to watch anything from anywhere?
4) essentially does this now double my tuners to eight?
5) Anything else in general I need to be aware?


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## krkaufman (Nov 25, 2003)

Weaknees is selling non-4K new Minis for $100 (link); and you can use your TV, Roku or other device for 4K streaming support.


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## joker2008 (Mar 23, 2019)

that doesn't answer any of my questions


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## ej42137 (Feb 16, 2014)

joker2008 said:


> *Questions regarding Two Bolt Setup*
> 
> 1) Do the 4k bolts support hdr?
> 2) Do I need a second cable card?
> ...


1) No. It is claimed the hardware has HDR capability, but it is not yet implemented in the software. (Do not count on it ever being available, TiVo hasn't even bothered to make empty promises about HDR for some time now.)

2) Yes, if you want the second Bolt to tune cable programming. No if you just want to use it as a Mini, or for recording OTA broadcasts.

3) If they are networked with MOCA or Ethernet, you can watch anything recorded from either Bolt. WiFi networked TiVos will have problems streaming, work-arounds are available but IMO not worth it.

4) Yes, if you get a second CableCARD. But the TiVos will not coordinate handling recording conflicts, that's a manual function you have to handle.

5) Yes, but the margins of this book are too small to go into the matter, except to say turn off IGMP.


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## joker2008 (Mar 23, 2019)

Thanks for all the info...appreciate it


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## JoeKustra (Dec 7, 2012)

ej42137 said:


> 2) Yes, if you want the second Bolt to tune cable programming. No if you just want to use it as a Mini, or for recording OTA broadcasts.
> 4) Yes, if you get a second CableCARD. But the TiVos will not coordinate handling recording conflicts, that's a manual function you have to handle.


"Use as a Mini" isn't quite accurate. A second Bolt can't use a tuner on the first Bolt.
"recording conflicts" would be hard. Duplicate recordings would be easy.


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## joker2008 (Mar 23, 2019)

JoeKustra said:


> "Use as a Mini" isn't quite accurate. A second Bolt can't use a tuner on the first Bolt.
> "recording conflicts" would be hard. Duplicate recordings would be easy.


So to explain the idea behind this. I currently have one bolt and three mini's. I wanted to replace the one mini on my one tv which is a vizio 4k hdr and was looking at the price on the mini's which to me was high. I also pay the annual fee on TiVo as I do use FIOS TV. Personally and again this is subjective and opinion I think hulu and prime suck. The only things I stream are YouTube, Netflix, and Plex for the most part which my TV can already do as Vizio TV's have chromecast built in. So when I saw the bolt with the lifetime subscription I said sure why not. It means I no longer have to pay Tivo anything and it met the 4k need.

The idea behind this was
1) No more annual fee
2) Gets me the 4k I want on the other TV
3) I use one bolt to handle any all recordings
4) It gives me a total of 8 tuners in the MOCA if I add the second cable card
5) Tivo has said they will credit me back my annual fee that I just paid which if I want will also allow me to then to get a 4k mini for my other 4k tv.

So I do understand some of the issues and I would plan to use only one of the bolts for season passes. The second bolt would always allow me secondary storage if need be that can be managed via their website.


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## krkaufman (Nov 25, 2003)

joker2008 said:


> I also pay the annual fee on TiVo ... So when I saw the bolt with the lifetime subscription I said sure why not. It means I no longer have to pay Tivo anything and it met the 4k need.
> 
> The idea behind this was
> 1) No more annual fee
> ...


Absent a service plan for your original BOLT, your original BOLT will have no functionality beyond the ability to view previously recorded content via a directly-connected TV.


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## joker2008 (Mar 23, 2019)

krkaufman said:


> Absent a service plan for your original BOLT, your original BOLT will have no functionality beyond the ability to view previously recorded content via a directly-connected TV.


Actually that's not true. Especially if I do decide to put a cable card in the second bolt. To be honest I would be an utter complete idiot to buy one of those non-4k mini's from weaknees. If I wanted that I could probably pick one of those up at this time for around $40 possibly less. They are basically almost worthless at this point.


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## krkaufman (Nov 25, 2003)

joker2008 said:


> Actually that's not true. Especially if I do decide to put a cable card in the second bolt.


Hey, more power to ya. Please do pay FiOS for a CableCARD for a BOLT lacking a TiVo service plan.


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## joker2008 (Mar 23, 2019)

The second bolt will get its guide information as it will also be covered under the service plan and that I confirmed with Tivo. Basically all boxes I own are covered under that service plan.


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## joker2008 (Mar 23, 2019)

I hate when people try to hock their wares in forums. The funny part is that there are people selling minis talking about w/lifetime subscriptions. Tivo doesn't even do subscriptions on mini's anymore.


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## krkaufman (Nov 25, 2003)

joker2008 said:


> The second bolt will get its guide information as it will also be covered under the service plan and that I confirmed with Tivo. Basically all boxes I own are covered under that service plan.


As I said, good luck with that. Your confidence is inspiring.


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## krkaufman (Nov 25, 2003)

joker2008 said:


> I hate when people try to hock their wares in forums.


Yes, which is why it's officially frowned-upon by TCF, except for specific authorized instances. That said, "their" is an inaccurate framing relative to anything posted in this thread or any linked thread.


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## ej42137 (Feb 16, 2014)

joker2008 said:


> The second bolt will get its guide information as it will also be covered under the service plan and that I confirmed with Tivo. Basically all boxes I own are covered under that service plan.


If a TiVo representative told you this, he was either mistaken or lying to get you off the phone. The only way a TiVo gets guide information is if there is an active service plan, either subscription or lifetime, for that particular TiVo. The first thing a TiVo does when it phones home to get guide information is check that the service plan is active. Putting a CableCARD in a TiVo without an active service plan would be a complete waste of money.

TiVo reps are not employees of TiVo. They are subcontracted to a call center in the Philippines and most of them have never even seen a TiVo. There are many examples from the last couple of years of misinformation coming from them.

----

JoeKustra is correct about a Bolt not being able to use a tuner from the other TiVo. IMO using a TiVo to watch live TV is a waste of resources, but some people seem to like to do this. I myself would rather avoid sitting through commercials.

There are many functions related to managing the other TiVo that can be done easily on a Mini that are difficult or impossible to do from another TiVo. In my opinion this is a minor annoyance, greatly overshadowed by the fact that a Mini doesn't have any tuners or recording space.


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## fcfc2 (Feb 19, 2015)

I really, really love it when a noob starts telling a number the more senior and dare I say renowned members that they are wrong...and based on something a Tivo aka Rovi tech told them. Gotta love it.


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## krkaufman (Nov 25, 2003)

Hey, let's not get carried away with the labels... but I do find it humorous that I've received replies in TWO threads in the last 24 hours citing what they were told by a phone representative as certain proof that my comment was wrong. (above and here, with the latter resulting in the vendor having to step in to correct what their rep _supposedly_ stated on the phone) The trust in phone support is curious.


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## HerronScott (Jan 1, 2002)

joker2008 said:


> The second bolt will get its guide information as it will also be covered under the service plan and that I confirmed with Tivo. Basically all boxes I own are covered under that service plan.


As the others have stated, your annual plan Bolt will only have local viewing capabilities for the shows recorded on it no matter what the TiVo rep told you. Service plans are per TiVo device.



joker2008 said:


> The funny part is that there are people selling minis talking about w/lifetime subscriptions. Tivo doesn't even do subscriptions on mini's anymore.


TiVo Mini's come with lifetime/All-in Service for quite some time now which you can see if you log into your TiVo account. There might even be some original Mini owner's who might still be paying for annual/monthly service before TiVo made that change (although at one time it was reported you could cancel that service and then add the Mini back and get the lifetime/all-in but there were a couple of reports in the past year or so where that didn't work).

Scott


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## krkaufman (Nov 25, 2003)

HerronScott said:


> As the others have stated, your formerly-annual plan but now serviceless Bolt will only have local viewing capabilities for the shows recorded on it no matter what the TiVo rep told you. Service plans are per TiVo device.


OCD corrrction applied.


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