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jduffy
Premium Member
join:2006-08-20
Cincinnati, OH

jduffy

Premium Member

Tivo Roamio with Fioptics

Folks, I have TWC now and I am thinking of getting a Tivo Roamio. I know it will work with using a Cablecard, but IF I ever decide to go to Fioptics, will the Roamio work with Fioptics and if so, how?

Also, while I am asking, I have cable running to each room in the house. I cannot go to CAT5 cable because what they put in is unshielded. Since I am a amateur radio operator, unshielded cable does not work well with RF from the transmitters. In the past when I had Zoomtown, transmitting would knock the Internet off-line. So I need to keep the shielded coax to keep the RF out. So can Fioptics use the existing coax and if so, how is it accomplished? Thanks for any info. Happy New Year.

dcurrey
Premium Member
join:2004-06-29
Mason, OH

dcurrey

Premium Member

Setup would depend on how CB sets you up.

In general the can use coax cable lines to feed your tvs. This is how it is done here. I have FTTH setup and its a cat5 line from ONT to the router that also MOCA connection to backfeed tv boxes

Everything is ip based so I don't think the tivo will work.

jduffy
Premium Member
join:2006-08-20
Cincinnati, OH

jduffy

Premium Member

I believe the Verizon system is IP based and Tivo states it will work with Verizon. Since Cincinnati Bell is so small, they are not mentioned.
CVGNet
join:2012-04-10
Cincinnati, OH

CVGNet

Member

I believe the unit uses a cablecard to support FiOS. FiOS is a split technology - not pure IP like Fioptics.

jduffy
Premium Member
join:2006-08-20
Cincinnati, OH

jduffy

Premium Member

I was doing some more reading and it appears that cable TV companies are required by the FCC to offer cable cards. I think that just because Fioptics uses a different (IP) technology, it does not exempt them from the requirement. I've also read about the MoCA adapters and I guess they could be the answer. Was hoping someone here had already used the Tivo with Fioptics and described the process.

Might be best to call CB and ask them. The only reason I asked here first is that sometimes the support people on the phone are not real bright.
CVGNet
join:2012-04-10
Cincinnati, OH

CVGNet

Member

IPTV systems are exempt from the cablecard requirement and the requirement expires in December 2015.

jduffy
Premium Member
join:2006-08-20
Cincinnati, OH

jduffy

Premium Member

Great, typical of an agency controlled by Democrats. All should be required to provide a cable card no matter the technology being used by the programming provider.
PW3ND
join:2014-12-06
Cincinnati, OH

PW3ND

Member

That has nothing to do with this....

IPTV encryption completely different from cablecard. It will take a while for Tivo to catch up. There are several encryption methodologies, Tivo has to onboard them all.

jduffy
Premium Member
join:2006-08-20
Cincinnati, OH

jduffy

Premium Member

I called CB today and it will not work. Too bad for CB as I will not move over until there is a way to use Tivo. CB needs to come up with an adapter in my opinion.
CVGNet
join:2012-04-10
Cincinnati, OH

CVGNet to jduffy

Member

to jduffy
Actually it was Congress that ended the cablecard requirement.

jduffy
Premium Member
join:2006-08-20
Cincinnati, OH

jduffy

Premium Member

You are correct, Congress did remove the requirement. But it was the Democrats in the Senate that passed the law with the Republicans in the House and signed into law by Democrat Obama. This is surprising because aren't the Democrats the ones who claim to want to protect the consumer? Guess the Democrats caved into the cable companies yet again.

In any case, looking at my cable bill, $31 a month is coming from the rental of two STBs and two little Cicsco TAs. Another $13 was the DVR service fee. So $44 in hardware and DVR charges. I already bought my own cable modem two years ago.

It's easy to see now why so many people each quarter are simply dropping the TV service and going all Internet in combination with an Antenna.

I am seriously considering doing the same as the Tivo will support an antenna as well as the cable service. Might lose a few channels but as more and more people drop from cable or IP TV service, those channels will have to figure out a way to stream their programs or lose ad revenue.

Without consumers being able to buy their own equipment on equal footing, in this case TWC or Fioptics, then people are eventually going to say enough and drop the services from either vendor altogether.

JMHO
jduffy

jduffy

Premium Member

After making the above post, here is something interesting that I just read:

"Fortunately, there is an opportunity to repeal this outdated rule, with fresh momentum in Congress. The House passed the repeal with bipartisan agreement, and the Senate Commerce Committee approved similar legislation on a bipartisan basis. Some repeal opponents have argued that the current proposal would undermine the limited marketplace for third-party retail CableCARD devices. That is not the case. The current proposal does not affect cable operators' ongoing support for retail CableCARD devices; it only eliminates the CableCARD requirement for leased boxes. In other words, customers who have or want to buy a TiVo or similar retail CableCARD device can still do so, and cable operators would still be required to provide CableCARDS for those purchased set-top boxes."

»thehill.com/blogs/pundit ··· -economy
CVGNet
join:2012-04-10
Cincinnati, OH

CVGNet

Member

Let's keep jaded party political viewpoints off this forum. There are clearly a lot of voters around Cincinnati who do not agree with you.

Tivo have certainly made use of cablecards but the larger market for third party STBs never really took off. A bigger issue affecting consumer choice today is the neutrality of the internet itself. Many consumers simply do not want to pay for 150 channels that they don't care for in order to get the 10 that they actually watch. Many "cable companies" do not want to be "dumb pipes" - they far prefer controlling the bundles of channel on offer, but being a "dumb pipe" is exactly what many of us want from our ISP - we want to buy our news/sports/entertainment directly from the source. Hopefully in 2015 we will see some moves in that direction.

jduffy
Premium Member
join:2006-08-20
Cincinnati, OH

jduffy

Premium Member

Well I agree with your second paragraph.

The issue with TWC and CBT is that the equipment they provide is garbage. Unfortunately, people are willing to pay outrageous prices to rent the garbage and TWC, CBT and the like make a bundle off this. If more consumers would pay attention, there would be a market for STBs, etc. I hate these boxes that TWC uses because it takes so darn long for them to boot up. Sometimes they just lock-up and you have to re-power them and it takes forever for them to come back on-line.

I agree, there are only about 10 cable channels we watch on a regular basis in addition to the local stuff. The FCC really needs to stop some of the practices employed by the programming creators. For instance, to get X channel you must take, A,B and C channel. This drives up the pricing the carriers have to pay.

Same goes for satellite radio. I listen to mostly news and other non-music programming, but I had to pay for the royalties to get the music. When the cost kept going up and up, I dropped satellite.

I would be nice to just be able to get stations ala carte with maybe a $25 a month minimum and buy the equipment that works best for me.

What it all comes down to is the business model is breaking. More consumers are saying no to constant price increases and leaving. The TWCs and CBTs of the world are going to have to change if their businesses are to survive.
CVGNet
join:2012-04-10
Cincinnati, OH

CVGNet

Member

It would be great if there was an open standard framework for STBs which could become a de facto standard. Hardware vendors could provide competing hardware to use it and content providers could implement their required functionality in software knowing that it will run on hardware which implements the standard.

Maybe we will get there but the path is unclear. Even the Roku platform (which is a great little piece of hardware) shows signs that Roku want to "control" that delivery channel. Apple certainly controls Apple TV and maybe Google would control Google TV if they could ever get it off the ground. Other more open designs exist but they simply aren't as popular with consumers.

Maybe one of the problems is that as consumers we all want the "choice" but we don't always make purchasing decisions which support choice - we are attracted by the cool features and flashing lights on the shiny proprietary designs.

The Tivo Roamio looks cool. If there was a single open standard for subscribers to receive decryption keys on IPTV then presumably Tivo could implement the scheme on the Roamio. Unfortunately IPTV is still in its infancy and no single standard has emerged. Would mandating one help consumer choice in the long run? Possibly, but the consumers would have to vote with their wallets and the history of cablecard suggests that we don't always do so in sufficient numbers even when a government mandate tries to give us the option!