# May finally call it quits with TiVo



## dawgfanjeff (Aug 25, 2004)

Wife and I have separately and together been loyal TiVo users for ~20 yrs. Owned several boxes (with lifetime support). Unfortunately there have been several straws on the camel's back...
1. Mini performance is terrible even wired, requires a restart to use amazon, netflix, or youtube. 
2. Every couple of weeks, my Edge experiences terrible command input lag, necessitating a restart.
2.5. Transferring shows from one TiVo to the other is an absurd joke.
3. Vast improvements in other platforms, particularly Xfinity X1.
and finally,
3. Non Support of out of home streaming, which is something I pay for. It rarely works. Called 'support', who, 30 mins later, finally acknowledged the issue and assured us that they have been working on it. For months. Then they closed the ticket. 
I will miss quick mode though. 

I realize anybody that's made the switch, or dropped tivo is likely NOT seeing messages on tivo community, but any thoughts here?


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## mdavej (Aug 13, 2015)

I switched to streaming with a cloud DVR years ago (first Sony, then A&T, then Philo, then Sling and finally Youtube TV) and don't regret it one bit. Also saved a ton on cable bills in the process. While I was happy with all of the above services at the time I got them, they either shut down, gutted their lineups or had staggering price hikes. But Youtube TV has been quite stable and steadily improving. And I can share it with several family members across several states, saving all of us a lot of money. Also, out of home viewing works beautifully and has never failed.

Since the next post will be from someone asking why I'm still here, if you'll please buy the Mini I have listed for sale, you'll never have to suffer through any of my posts ever again. But until then, I'll keep hanging around and posting. Besides, TCF is barely even a Tivo forum. I just looked at the 35 latest posts at the moment, and only 2 are Tivo related, that's only 6% of the content here having anything to do with Tivo. So before you try to run me off, start with the other 94% of posters on here.

Sorry for the rant, but this happens every time I post anything about Tivo alternatives around here. I'd thought I'd just be pre-emptive this time.


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## Pokemon_Dad (Jan 19, 2008)

dawgfanjeff said:


> I realize anybody that's made the switch, or dropped tivo is likely NOT seeing messages on tivo community, but any thoughts here?


Believe it or not, there are many people still here who have dropped TiVo but hang around to discuss shows, streaming, and general Coffee House topics. I resemble that remark myself, mostly. 

I've transitioned my household to Channels DVR for OTA/cable shows, which these days are less and less of our content consumption anyway, and Fire TV devices like the speedy Fire TV Stick 4K to host the Channels DVR client app plus apps for Netflix, Prime, Hulu, Disney, etc. Others as in the previous post have gone entirely to "the cloud" including for live TV streaming and recording, but just for the record Channels DVR can also save much of that to a local server too. 

If any of that sounds interesting, feel free to reply with questions.


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## eherberg (Feb 17, 2011)

Same here. Although once a TiVo fan (it was a big part of my cord-cutting back before cord-cutting had a name or was usurped by people using the cable model like YouTubeTV and calling it cord-cutting ... but I digress. 😊) -- the last straw for me was the poor way that streaming services were integrated with OnePass and often having programming that I knew was on of the supported streaming platforms like Hulu or Netflix -- but not showing up in OnePass until months later or never. That started me looking for alternatives and found there were plenty out there that were just as good and in some ways had even surpassed what TiVo did.

I still think fondly of the old TiVo - but they are simply not the only game in town anymore (or arguably even the best). They still have a group tied to traditional consumption methods that hold on due to loyalty (?) -- but that group grows smaller every year.

As for people complaining about those former users still hanging around: People in cults just _hate_ to see affirmation of other people leaving the cult.


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## ms602 (Sep 5, 2017)

I own an Edge and a Roamio, both on lifetime subscription. I've also got 3 Premieres unused in a box, all on lifetime subscription. I don't collect DVRs, I just grab them used when a seller doesn't account for a lifetime subscription.

I just purchased the Edge, so I haven't really begun to use it. Roamio is my daily TV driver. I've been a TiVo owner since Series3 (whenever that was around). My primary services are antenna TV (OTA), YouTube, and very occaisionally Netflix or Disney+ on a friends account. YouTube I watch on my computer (as well as any other streaming service) but I also watch OTA -- on my computer. TiVo allows download of OTA content to a computer over LAN. This function isn't widely featured, technically unsupported and unofficial, but has worked since very early days of the service. It really only works with OTA, I've tried it on Cable/Satellite, and such service providers put some sort of copyright guard to force TiVo to prevent computer transfer.

I program the Roamio to record whatever I want from the phone app usually, then once the recording is done, I pull the program onto my computer and do whatever I want with it. Usually I watch it on my computer, or on the TV via my computer video output. The video files are just MPEG format files, so they can really be watched anywhere VLC is available. Due to my routine, I hardly watch TV on the box itself. I use TiVo to record what I want, and then watch the content how I want, when I want. The usability of the DVR interface doesn't really matter that much to me, since I hardly see it. TiVo works and I don't have any big complaints. I appreciate that the company is so open to custom usage.

I like TiVo because it's hassle free (it reliably works), and low cost (all my DVRs are on lifetime subscriptions that someone else paid for). I get free antenna TV, the convenience of a DVR and phone app, and no on-going fees. That's why I'm still a TiVo customer. I plan to get the Edge working on an SSD, which I expect to be more snappy than the Roamio. I've also got one of the companies TiVo Stream dongles on my TV, for the case that I do want to watch streaming on the big screen.

I'm a satisfied TiVo customer. TiVo works for me, and it's low cost (just the price of hardware).


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## Don_Dr (Nov 25, 2007)

I may be approaching my breaking point with TIVO as well. I've owned a Tivo since the very begging, late 90s, have upgraded through Tivo 2, Tivo HD, Tivo HDXL, Tivo Primier XL4, Tivo Stream and Tivo Bolt. One of my recordings is Jimmy Kimmel Live. Last week I tried to watch an 8-day old episode on my Bolt and it is blocking me unless I subscribe to Hulu. Another problem is occurring where I can no longer mute my Sony TV. The Tivo Stream that I access remotely, can almost never get through a 30 minute show without failing. I feel like the system is getting worse and there is no support. The original Tivo interface was simple, intuitive and clean. The current interface is cluttered, kludgy and unintuitive. Settings like sorting my programs by date seem to reset every few weeks back to sorting by episode. 

The breaking point is the forced Hulu. Perhaps ABC or Jimmy Kimmel wants to force subscription, but it seems like, I've recorded these episodes for my own personal viewing, so it should be treated the same as if I had recorded on a VCR. I should be able to watch when I want to as long as I have available storage.


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## Pokemon_Dad (Jan 19, 2008)

Don_Dr said:


> I may be approaching my breaking point with TIVO as well. I've owned a Tivo since the very begging, late 90s, have upgraded through Tivo 2, Tivo HD, Tivo HDXL, Tivo Primier XL4, Tivo Stream and Tivo Bolt. One of my recordings is Jimmy Kimmel Live. Last week I tried to watch an 8-day old episode on my Bolt and it is blocking me unless I subscribe to Hulu. Another problem is occurring where I can no longer mute my Sony TV. The Tivo Stream that I access remotely, can almost never get through a 30 minute show without failing. I feel like the system is getting worse and there is no support. The original Tivo interface was simple, intuitive and clean. The current interface is cluttered, kludgy and unintuitive. Settings like sorting my programs by date seem to reset every few weeks back to sorting by episode.
> 
> The breaking point is the forced Hulu. Perhaps ABC or Jimmy Kimmel wants to force subscription, but it seems like, I've recorded these episodes for my own personal viewing, so it should be treated the same as if I had recorded on a VCR. I should be able to watch when I want to as long as I have available storage.


I suspect you've got the Kimmel pass set up for recording or streaming, when you want it to allow only recordings. That old episode may not have been recorded for some reason, so TiVo is offering you the streaming option. I agree it's a cluttered kludge.


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## Don_Dr (Nov 25, 2007)

Pokemon_Dad said:


> I suspect you've got the Kimmel pass set up for recording or streaming, when you want it to allow only recordings. That old episode may not have been recorded for some reason, so TiVo is offering you the streaming option. I agree it's a cluttered kludge.


Thanks Pokemon, will check that out. You are correct! My season pass setting is to keep only 5 episodes and was set to recording or streaming. I turned that off and the older episodes disappeared. Thank you!


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## wmcbrine (Aug 2, 2003)

dawgfanjeff said:


> 1. Mini performance is terrible even wired, requires a restart to use amazon, netflix, or youtube.


The Minis still work well for second-room viewing of DVR'ed content and live TV, IMHO. I've long since abandoned any attempt to use classic TiVos for streaming services.



> 2.5. Transferring shows from one TiVo to the other is an absurd joke.


I haven't felt the need to do this for some time. Streaming between TiVos (as opposed to Netflix etc.) works pretty well.


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## bbobbyw (8 mo ago)

ms602 said:


> I own an Edge and a Roamio, both on lifetime subscription. I've also got 3 Premieres unused in a box, all on lifetime subscription. I don't collect DVRs, I just grab them used when a seller doesn't account for a lifetime subscription.
> 
> I just purchased the Edge, so I haven't really begun to use it. Roamio is my daily TV driver. I've been a TiVo owner since Series3 (whenever that was around). My primary services are antenna TV (OTA), YouTube, and very occaisionally Netflix or Disney+ on a friends account. YouTube I watch on my computer (as well as any other streaming service) but I also watch OTA -- on my computer. TiVo allows download of OTA content to a computer over LAN. This function isn't widely featured, technically unsupported and unofficial, but has worked since very early days of the service. It really only works with OTA, I've tried it on Cable/Satellite, and such service providers put some sort of copyright guard to force TiVo to prevent computer transfer.
> 
> ...


Thanks for input but several assertions seem to be mistaken and I want to avoid misinforming the community. Just good old Tivo desktop and Directshowdump allow transfer and then CONVERSION to MPEG2 (from encrypted native tivo format) to windows PC for then using as you please. Yes HBO and a few other premium channels have other encryption. I should know as I've been doing this with my two Roamios(OTA and Roamio with cable card that I dropped a 3 tb recommended drive into). I previously added further ease using Archivo which will only work now after a complicated patch. That program allowed selecting which shows to save to pc and then in automated sequence ran multiple processes to transfer/ convert/ repair/ remove commercials / mildly compress file size.
Any remaining Archivo daily drivers out there to help me get it going again? There is a github thread on the subject.
I am still a Tivo customer as Roamio with added hard drive has been nearly flawless for years and the ability to archive what I want on external hard drives is unmatched.


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