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rlyacht83
join:2008-03-01
New York, NY

rlyacht83

Member

[TIVO] More Tivo/FiOS questions

As mentioned on this thread my building is switching to FiOS from RCN.

I plan to keep my Tivo, and have two questions:

1. My Tivo is a series 3 with two cablecard slots. It currently has a single multistream cable card in it, but I ordered two cablecards from Verizon before I remembered this. Does VZ have multistream cards? Do I care about this?

2. I'm willing to sacrifice VZ on demand and MPEG channels to keep the Tivo. But someone told me that having the VZ DVR will allow me to stream from it to any device on my home network, e.g. iPad or laptop. Is that correct?

Thanks!
uncle6
join:2005-04-03
Marriottsville, MD

uncle6

Member

[TIVO] Re: More Tivo/FiOS questions

VZ does have multi-stream cards; that's what I have in my TivoHD. With the TivoHD you only need one multi-stream card. I don't recall if that's the case with the original Series 3 or not. When I ordered my service several years ago, all they had were multi-stream cards.
marc3565
join:2009-10-08

marc3565 to rlyacht83

Member

to rlyacht83
1. If you TIVO can run with a multi-stream only use one. I think Verizon only sends out multistream cards now. Otherwise you'd be paying for 2 cards instead of 1..

2. At this time there is no streaming from DVRs old or new to devices. There is a Fios Mobile App that can run and play a limited number of live channels on your home network and a smaller number will play live anywhere in the US.
rlyacht83
join:2008-03-01
New York, NY

rlyacht83

Member

Thanks for the replies uncle6 and marc3565! I'll switch my order to just have the one multi-stream.
ajricaud
join:2002-02-04
91745-2638

ajricaud to rlyacht83

Member

to rlyacht83
The original Series 3 will only record 1 thing at a time with a single CableCard whether it's single or multi-stream. You must have 2 cards to record more than 1 thing whether it's over the air with an antenna, a cable program, or a combination of the 2.
rlyacht83
join:2008-03-01
New York, NY

rlyacht83

Member

System Information says the "platform" is series 3, and that I have one multistream card, but the unit has XL and HD on it, so perhaps I have a later model. I know I can record two shows at once, or record one and watch a different channel.
ajricaud
join:2002-02-04
91745-2638

ajricaud

Member

said by rlyacht83:

System Information says the "platform" is series 3, and that I have one multistream card, but the unit has XL and HD on it, so perhaps I have a later model. I know I can record two shows at once, or record one and watch a different channel.

Yeah, that's the later model.

aaronwt
Premium Member
join:2004-11-07
Woodbridge, VA

aaronwt to rlyacht83

Premium Member

to rlyacht83
With the older S3 TiVos you won't be able to view any of the H.264 channels on FIOS. You need a Series 4 or Series 5 TiVo to view H.264 channels.
dfwguy
join:2013-10-24

dfwguy

Member

True, but only a concern for those who subscribe to Ultimate, one of the sports packages, or the Spanish movie channels.
BosstonesOwn
join:2002-12-15
Wakefield, MA

BosstonesOwn to aaronwt

Member

to aaronwt
My tivo s3 HD plays x264 fine..

aaronwt
Premium Member
join:2004-11-07
Woodbridge, VA
Asus RT-AX89

aaronwt

Premium Member

said by BosstonesOwn:

My tivo s3 HD plays x264 fine..

The H.264 channels? The S3 is perfectly capable of playing back h.264 content but it needed a software update to playback H.264 channels. And from what I've read, I thought only Austrailia got that software update.

So are you saying you can playback the H.264 channels on your S3?
BosstonesOwn
join:2002-12-15
Wakefield, MA

BosstonesOwn

Member

yeap.. all the fios x264 channels play fine, heck I can even transfer in x264 files from my home network and they work fine.

aaronwt
Premium Member
join:2004-11-07
Woodbridge, VA
Asus RT-AX89

aaronwt

Premium Member

said by BosstonesOwn:

yeap.. all the fios x264 channels play fine, heck I can even transfer in x264 files from my home network and they work fine.

Then that is good news. They must have updated the software at some point. The last I heard(Early 2014) that was not the case and they were pushing people to get the S4 or S5 boxes on cable systems with H.264 channels.

Thinkdiff
MVM,
join:2001-08-07
Bronx, NY

Thinkdiff

MVM,

The Series 3 TiVos have not received an update to play MPEG4 QAM channels. The last update was around a year ago (11.0m) and just fixed some security certificate issues. I suppose they could've rolled in support for MPEG4 over QAM, but nobody else has reported that.
Thinkdiff

Thinkdiff to BosstonesOwn

MVM,

to BosstonesOwn
Do you know what software release your TiVo is running? It's on the System Information screen. Wondering if there was a newer release that wasn't reported to enable this. And playing network transferred MPEG4 files is irrelevant. There was a different limitation specifically with MPEG4 QAM streams.
BosstonesOwn
join:2002-12-15
Wakefield, MA

1 recommendation

BosstonesOwn

Member

11.0m-01-2-652

Series 3 HD Its a lifetime unit.

Tuner 0 Channel 599 Cars.tv MPEG-4 h.264 is working fine here.
Tuner 1 Channel 598 BEIN1HD MPEG-4 h.264 as well.

Recently I replaced the hard drive and had to force the software install. Wonder if this may have been why, but I do not believe this unit is Australian.

I purchased the drive on ebay from dvr_dude. Maybe he is using Australian disk images ? Dunno on this one except that it works for me.

wmcbrine
join:2002-12-30
Laurel, MD

wmcbrine

Member

Perhaps, in your area, those channels are actually MPEG-2? (There's no way to check this from the menus in 11.0m, although you could extract a recording and check that.) Someone else in the area could check.
BosstonesOwn
join:2002-12-15
Wakefield, MA

BosstonesOwn

Member

Ill give it a shot when I can. Very possible its mpeg-2 we are a very old fios base here.

Mike Wolf
join:2009-05-24
Tuckerton, NJ

Mike Wolf to Thinkdiff

Member

to Thinkdiff
There won't be an update. TiVo released a notification recently regarding Comcast's move to MPEG4 and it stated that Series 3 TiVo's won't be compatible and advises to upgrade to Premieres or Roamios. »support.tivo.com/app/ans ··· _id/2921
BosstonesOwn
join:2002-12-15
Wakefield, MA

BosstonesOwn

Member

of course they won't they want to sell upgrades

I hope the community can come up with a clever way to get mpeg4 on these units.

wmcbrine
join:2002-12-30
Laurel, MD

wmcbrine

Member

said by BosstonesOwn:

I hope the community can come up with a clever way to get mpeg4 on these units.

It's not gonna happen.

bohratom
My Jersey Giants finally winning again..
join:2011-07-07
Red Bank NJ

bohratom to BosstonesOwn

Member

to BosstonesOwn
said by BosstonesOwn:

I hope the community can come up with a clever way to get mpeg4 on these units.

They could easily update the software to support mpeg4 but the problem with the older Tivo's is they do not have the processing power to re-encode it. Sort of like trying to have an older Pentium-4 PC process mpeg4 without having a newer video card that can hardware re-encode it.

Thinkdiff
MVM,
join:2001-08-07
Bronx, NY

Thinkdiff

MVM,

That's not the issue. The TiVo HD has an on-board h.264 decoder (it plays MPEG4 files back no problem) and TiVos never re-encode anything anymore (excluding the TiVo Stream).

There could be other technical limitations with what h.264 features are supported or TiVo just doesn't want to spend time supporting an ancient platform.

Mike Wolf
join:2009-05-24
Tuckerton, NJ

1 recommendation

Mike Wolf

Member

I think we can all agree the THD and Series 3 has lived a long and entertaining life.
Betamax76
join:2008-10-16
Canonsburg, PA

Betamax76

Member

said by Mike Wolf:

I think we can all agree the THD and Series 3 has lived a long and entertaining life.

For those who receive over-the-air broadcasts using an antenna (roughly 15% of the American population by some counts), the TiVo Series 3 boxes will continue to function since MPEG-2 isn't going away for a long, long time. But with TiVo releasing an over-the-air only DVR at Best Buy for $50, Series 3 units have increasingly less value.

Mike Wolf
join:2009-05-24
Tuckerton, NJ

Mike Wolf

Member

Even though from what I've been hearing about the OTA Roamio, most people find it pointless because of how limited it is. Are you sure it's 15% that seems high.
crgauth
join:2004-05-18
Glen Burnie, MD

crgauth

Member

I read an article from April that said approx 21M homes have antennas. But it was looking at cord cutters more than people that have antennas only.
This does make way for an OTA DVR. I thought there was someone that had one already, but don;t remember the brand.
Betamax76
join:2008-10-16
Canonsburg, PA

Betamax76

Member

said by crgauth:

I read an article from April that said approx 21M homes have antennas. But it was looking at cord cutters more than people that have antennas only.
This does make way for an OTA DVR. I thought there was someone that had one already, but don;t remember the brand.

You are correct. It is Channel Master. From multichannel.com:

TiVo isn’t the only DVR-maker that’s pursuing consumers who don’t take a pay-TV service. Channel Master sells a line of subscription-free “DVR+” products that are designed to work with OTA antennas, including a new two-tuner model that sports a broadband connection, 1 TB of internal storage and runs $399. Last week, Channel Master introduced $10 indoor, 13-inch OTA HD antenna that works with its DVR+ line.

Thinkdiff
MVM,
join:2001-08-07
Bronx, NY

Thinkdiff

MVM,

Dish also released one a while ago, but has since discontinued it (presumably for poor sales). Maybe it was ahead of its time:

»www.amazon.com/Dish-Netw ··· 02CO2HO4
»www.cnet.com/products/di ··· vpaldvr/
Betamax76
join:2008-10-16
Canonsburg, PA

Betamax76 to Mike Wolf

Member

to Mike Wolf
said by Mike Wolf:

Even though from what I've been hearing about the OTA Roamio, most people find it pointless because of how limited it is. Are you sure it's 15% that seems high.

It is actually 17%. From multichannel.com on June 5, 2014:

Seventeen percent of TV households receive television programming through an antenna, with only 6% relying exclusively on an antenna for their TV, in line with 2013 findings.

That 6% figure are households NOT using streaming services such as NetFlix or Hulu. Purely over-the-air, no fees to watch TV.

See the entire article here:
»www.multichannel.com/new ··· e/374958

TiVo estimates that about a third of its new retail customers buy a Roamio for use with an antenna. So they feel there is a need for an ultra low cost model.