I wanted to post a message in the hopes of helping those who might come here looking for information on using Tivo Roamio DVR and Mini's to replace ALL of the rented cable TV gear in their house.
This is precisely what I embarked on back in November. I too came to this forum and posted asking lots of questions about whether or not it was feasible to actually do this and not have a full scale revolt from their family members.
Here's my setup:
(1) Roamio DVR connected to a 65' TV in my family room
(6) Mini's connected to TV's in the Basement, Kitchen, Kid 1, Kid 2, Kid 3 and Master Bedroom.
Understand we don't use VOD from FIOS, never had, never will. I've got custom built streaming boxes on all of the TV's with my content on a NAS. We also use Amazon Prime Video to stream on the Mini's. That's one thing Tivo can't do on some networks, it can't bring VOD services that their gear can. Never used it so we don't miss it.
My concern was whether a ethernet network could really carry the load of a large number of the TV's were streaming at the same time. I decided to isolate the Tivo ethernet network so instead of just connecting to the switch or router that I dedicated a gig switch that all of my mini's and romaio connect to. This makes the network flat and eliminates multiple hops. That switch is uplinked to the rest of the network so they can obtain guide data and streaming services. Don't skimp here. I've read about some people trying powerline network, wireless setups etc. Do it the right way, with good quality CAT5E or 6 wire. I took the time to pull all new dedicated cat5e wire to the switch. Isolation in this case is a good thing. 6 months in and we have not had any problems. Can't say all 6 have been on at one time, but probably have had 5 going. I was pleasantly surprised here and back in November I asked a lot of questions about this.
My next concern was how much different was the Tivo gear than the FIOS cable box UI that my family had grown so used to. I was really expecting them to tell me they can't work it and that I've made things so much worse. Turns out that was not a problem at all. They adapted to it really well and love the DVR features. I also have Amazon Prime Video on all the boxes and they do use that as well. I was concerned about the fact that the streaming stops after 4 hours. They had no problem with that at all.
6 months in and there's no looking back. Now, there have been a few little things that aren't perfect. I don't love the tivo remote, it just never feels great in my hands and it's hard to enter number in the dark. Fios remote was super easy, tivo just isn't that way. Occasional momentary freezes but for all I know it could be the cable card. Not enough of a problem to worry about. Another problem is that my wife still watches things in SD because she still remembers her stations by channel number and types them in directly. I've given up on trying to fix this. FIOS had a feature where you could hit the C button on the remote and if there was an HD version it would automatically tune to it. I miss that feature on Tivo. I've locked out all the SD's that have HD and everyone think's I've taken channels away. This is their shortcoming not Tivo. It would be nice if there were a mapping feature in Tivo that would let you organize the channels. FIOS has a number of good SD only channels that I rarely watch because I always forget to go down to the low channel numbers and everything is spread out all over the place. A mapping feature would allow me to put things straight. There are favorites but I just won't really add any value for me.
So I went from 40-50/month hardware rental with Verizon to 4.99/month for the cable card.
I went with Lifetime Subscription on the Roamio and put free lifetime on all of the mini's
I can say for my family putting in Tivo has been a complete success and we are very happy with what we have. It makes me feel good that I took the revenue away from Verizon. I say that because anytime I ever asked for something from them, I never got it and their policies and pricing structures are so stringent that you lose no matter what. In all actuality this all started when i tried to switch my phone service to magic jack and that broke my bundle and Verizon took the liberty to take away my lifetime DVR credit and even after I brought my phone service back to verizon they wouldn't budge on giving back the credit. Take from me and I take from you.
So for now we are very happy with our entire Tivo Household. Really did exceed my expectations. I had to go all in (buying equipment, running cable, setting up boxes) before I really knew if it would work. Turns out it does work well.
Feel free to ask any questions and i'll do my best to give accurate answers.
Roveer
This is precisely what I embarked on back in November. I too came to this forum and posted asking lots of questions about whether or not it was feasible to actually do this and not have a full scale revolt from their family members.
Here's my setup:
(1) Roamio DVR connected to a 65' TV in my family room
(6) Mini's connected to TV's in the Basement, Kitchen, Kid 1, Kid 2, Kid 3 and Master Bedroom.
Understand we don't use VOD from FIOS, never had, never will. I've got custom built streaming boxes on all of the TV's with my content on a NAS. We also use Amazon Prime Video to stream on the Mini's. That's one thing Tivo can't do on some networks, it can't bring VOD services that their gear can. Never used it so we don't miss it.
My concern was whether a ethernet network could really carry the load of a large number of the TV's were streaming at the same time. I decided to isolate the Tivo ethernet network so instead of just connecting to the switch or router that I dedicated a gig switch that all of my mini's and romaio connect to. This makes the network flat and eliminates multiple hops. That switch is uplinked to the rest of the network so they can obtain guide data and streaming services. Don't skimp here. I've read about some people trying powerline network, wireless setups etc. Do it the right way, with good quality CAT5E or 6 wire. I took the time to pull all new dedicated cat5e wire to the switch. Isolation in this case is a good thing. 6 months in and we have not had any problems. Can't say all 6 have been on at one time, but probably have had 5 going. I was pleasantly surprised here and back in November I asked a lot of questions about this.
My next concern was how much different was the Tivo gear than the FIOS cable box UI that my family had grown so used to. I was really expecting them to tell me they can't work it and that I've made things so much worse. Turns out that was not a problem at all. They adapted to it really well and love the DVR features. I also have Amazon Prime Video on all the boxes and they do use that as well. I was concerned about the fact that the streaming stops after 4 hours. They had no problem with that at all.
6 months in and there's no looking back. Now, there have been a few little things that aren't perfect. I don't love the tivo remote, it just never feels great in my hands and it's hard to enter number in the dark. Fios remote was super easy, tivo just isn't that way. Occasional momentary freezes but for all I know it could be the cable card. Not enough of a problem to worry about. Another problem is that my wife still watches things in SD because she still remembers her stations by channel number and types them in directly. I've given up on trying to fix this. FIOS had a feature where you could hit the C button on the remote and if there was an HD version it would automatically tune to it. I miss that feature on Tivo. I've locked out all the SD's that have HD and everyone think's I've taken channels away. This is their shortcoming not Tivo. It would be nice if there were a mapping feature in Tivo that would let you organize the channels. FIOS has a number of good SD only channels that I rarely watch because I always forget to go down to the low channel numbers and everything is spread out all over the place. A mapping feature would allow me to put things straight. There are favorites but I just won't really add any value for me.
So I went from 40-50/month hardware rental with Verizon to 4.99/month for the cable card.
I went with Lifetime Subscription on the Roamio and put free lifetime on all of the mini's
I can say for my family putting in Tivo has been a complete success and we are very happy with what we have. It makes me feel good that I took the revenue away from Verizon. I say that because anytime I ever asked for something from them, I never got it and their policies and pricing structures are so stringent that you lose no matter what. In all actuality this all started when i tried to switch my phone service to magic jack and that broke my bundle and Verizon took the liberty to take away my lifetime DVR credit and even after I brought my phone service back to verizon they wouldn't budge on giving back the credit. Take from me and I take from you.
So for now we are very happy with our entire Tivo Household. Really did exceed my expectations. I had to go all in (buying equipment, running cable, setting up boxes) before I really knew if it would work. Turns out it does work well.
Feel free to ask any questions and i'll do my best to give accurate answers.
Roveer
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