I just received a TiVo Bolt from Amazon today. I do have some questions first, though.
How good are the factory seal stickers on the boxes? The one I got seems to have been opened before if I didn't know better. The adhesive on three of the four stickers was gone on the bottom half of the stickers attaching to the bottom of the box. The remote, however, was sealed in bag and appeared to not be tampered with and batteries were intact. The plastic looked undisturbed on the unit, but that doesn't mean much. Mind you, I got a HDHomeRun Extend from Newegg almost two weeks ago with the same kind of factory seals where the side on the flap was actually stuck under the flap intact. Given this, I have not yet activated the receiver with TiVo.
I am testing it though for signal strength on OTA channels and how it renders live tv with closed captioning. I have read several postings about this, but want to know how those of you with Bolts interpret the OTA signal strengths you get. I have 6 main channels, 1 of which is 18 mi away and the other 5 24-25 mi away in the same direction within 6 degrees of each other. I am on a hill and several feet above the houses behind me, which is where the stations come in from. The nearest trees are 1/4 mi. away. I have what you call a perfect unobstructed LOS to the towers. antennaweb.org shows these six stations all in Yellow. I use a top grade ultra flat antenna in the window.
Having said all that, I get a solid constant 72 on all six, with 2 channels sometimes starting at 85 and after a few minutes gradually easing back to 72. Is that a good signal strength? How hard would it have to rain to lose a signal that normally comes in at 72 on a clear day in the middle of the afternoon, which is the worst way to pick up a UHF channel due to the UV radiation (other than severe rain)?
Right now, my main concern in evaluating the Bolt is to make sure that the signal will be solid for the most part given what I have said above. I seem to get that impression from what I have read, but I want to hear from those of you who have had the Bolt for a period of time and watch/record OTA channels.
I have a feeling I might be sending this particular Bolt back due to the faulty factory seals, but I want to fully evaluate its live performance first while I have it.
My wife and I are trying to cut the cord and we have to have a good OTA dvr solution that will properly passthrough Dolby Digital 5.1 and render closed captioning properly (wife is hard of hearing in the vocal range). Other solutions I have tried fail to properly do one or both of the above, so I am thinking that the Bolt is the answer. I just want to make sure of what I am getting into.
If I get mostly good response, I'll probably have Amazon send me another Bolt with factory seals verified intact.
Please advise.
How good are the factory seal stickers on the boxes? The one I got seems to have been opened before if I didn't know better. The adhesive on three of the four stickers was gone on the bottom half of the stickers attaching to the bottom of the box. The remote, however, was sealed in bag and appeared to not be tampered with and batteries were intact. The plastic looked undisturbed on the unit, but that doesn't mean much. Mind you, I got a HDHomeRun Extend from Newegg almost two weeks ago with the same kind of factory seals where the side on the flap was actually stuck under the flap intact. Given this, I have not yet activated the receiver with TiVo.
I am testing it though for signal strength on OTA channels and how it renders live tv with closed captioning. I have read several postings about this, but want to know how those of you with Bolts interpret the OTA signal strengths you get. I have 6 main channels, 1 of which is 18 mi away and the other 5 24-25 mi away in the same direction within 6 degrees of each other. I am on a hill and several feet above the houses behind me, which is where the stations come in from. The nearest trees are 1/4 mi. away. I have what you call a perfect unobstructed LOS to the towers. antennaweb.org shows these six stations all in Yellow. I use a top grade ultra flat antenna in the window.
Having said all that, I get a solid constant 72 on all six, with 2 channels sometimes starting at 85 and after a few minutes gradually easing back to 72. Is that a good signal strength? How hard would it have to rain to lose a signal that normally comes in at 72 on a clear day in the middle of the afternoon, which is the worst way to pick up a UHF channel due to the UV radiation (other than severe rain)?
Right now, my main concern in evaluating the Bolt is to make sure that the signal will be solid for the most part given what I have said above. I seem to get that impression from what I have read, but I want to hear from those of you who have had the Bolt for a period of time and watch/record OTA channels.
I have a feeling I might be sending this particular Bolt back due to the faulty factory seals, but I want to fully evaluate its live performance first while I have it.
My wife and I are trying to cut the cord and we have to have a good OTA dvr solution that will properly passthrough Dolby Digital 5.1 and render closed captioning properly (wife is hard of hearing in the vocal range). Other solutions I have tried fail to properly do one or both of the above, so I am thinking that the Bolt is the answer. I just want to make sure of what I am getting into.
If I get mostly good response, I'll probably have Amazon send me another Bolt with factory seals verified intact.
Please advise.
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