Whole-home DVR
A long time ago, we had believed that the
key for an amazing whole-home DVR experience was consistency. The viewer didn’t
have to worry about which room they were in when trying to schedule the memos
or watch the favorite programs. Bad news: Mini doesn’t provide completely
smooth experience. Good news: TiVo Mini experience is actually faster than of TiVo
Premiere, and all the important features are present – or will be.
TiVo
Mini experience is actually faster than of TiVo Premiere.
A slightly slow but important feature on Mini
is switching channel while watching live TV (progress indicator in the below
image is added to make time elapse). TiVo users seldom watch TV than most, but
who likes to surf the channels will have to bear channel-switching time that is
2 times longer than the time on TiVo Premiere (4.5 seconds vs. 2.5 seconds). However,
luckily that’s the place the tardiness ends, with the functions like pause,
skip, fast-forward and rewind working as fast as on an official TiVo DVR. Talking
about this, Mini experience in looping the memos is the same, with 30sec scan
set as default and the renowned 30-sec-skip backdoor still working. And of
course, continuing a memo in a room work as expected: you pause at this room
and choose exactly that moment in another room.
Another noticeable difference when watching
live TV is the lack of 2 live buffers and 1 buffer in the currently recorded
programs. On TiVo DVR, if you adjust to a currently recorded program, buffer will
be available for you to rewind to the opening of the program. With Mini, if you
want to start from the beginning, you will have to choose the program from My
Shows instead of the instruction. That’s because Mini can only use 1 tuner
assigned from Premiere. We were told that the ability to use 1 tuner for live
TV will arrive on future update, but lacking a buffer is our smallest concern.
The huge disadvantage for the current function is assigning a tuner for live TV
on Mini which means lessen an existing tuner for recording. This is right even
when you’re not using Mini. If you don’t watch live TV much, there’s another
acceptable solution. We have disabled sharing tuner for live TV through
settings of Premiere and realize that we can start recording from the
instruction on Mini, then watch live by choosing it from My Shows on Mini. Basically,
this is the way live TV on TiVo Stream works, with the main difference is that
recording is stared automatically when you choose a program from the mobile app
instruction
On
TiVo DVR, if you adjust to a currently recorded program, buffer will be
available for you to rewind to the opening of the program
A lacking feature stopping Mini from
providing consistent TiVo experience is the lack of Manage Recordings and
Downloads menu. Being one of the six main menu options on Premiere, this
special section is the key for what we call DVR maintenance. This means that
you can review To Do List, manage Season Passes or even define why a program is
not recorded from Mini. Good news is all of these functions are easier to
control than the TiVo mobile apps, and the core ability to schedule recordings
and set up the new Season Passes can be done through Mini. We still think that
this is a shortage, as we don’t understand why we have to go to another room to
cancel Season Pass.
TiVo always specifies TiVo Premiere as a “expunging
the boundaries between TV and broadband" device, and our hope for Mini is
that it will do the same thing. But you can’t do that, or provide consistent TiVo
experience without Netflix. TiVo has guaranteed that the company is working to
add Netflix as well as Amazon for Mini, but they will be obvious shortcomings
if Mini release without them. Many flagship contents are present, including Hulu,
Pandora and YouTube.
Conclusion
As the other launches of other TiVo products
recently, Mini will requires the promised updates – including the tuner rake-off
for live TV, Amazon and Netflix supports – before the expectation can be
satisfied. TiVo has provided consistently in the past but not as fast as
expected from users, and we think that Mini won’t be and exception. Right from
the beginning, the core function works well enough to satisfy most of the users
when they’re waiting. How the whole-home function will work after a few updates
is something worth to follow, but like the present, Mini falls behind the rival
in consistency. Ceton Echo, Dish Joey and DirecTV RVU client apps all provide a
smoother whole-home DVR experience than Mini. But none of them works with your TiVo,
and to those who believe that there’s no replacement, finally you can enjoy the
real-time whole-home DVR experience while paying less than the price of other DVRs.
As
the other launches of other TiVo products recently, Mini will requires the
promised updates
Info
·
Price: $100 + $6/month
Advantages
·
A cheap way to have TiVo on the second screen
·
UI is faster than TiVo Premiere
·
MoCA is pre-installed to have the reliable and
accessible network connection.
Disadvantages
·
Require a 4-tuner TiVo for setting up
·
Assigning 1 tuner for live TV means fewer tuners
to record
·
No Netflix, Amazon or the ability to control the
memos
Key point
·
TiVo Mini is an amazing way to expand the TiVo experience
in a cheap way, but we have to wait for some updates to complete the
experience.
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Technical
specs
·
Storage: USB 2.0: (1 ports)
·
Remote: Remote (included): Yes
·
Power: Power adapter: External
·
Outputs: Video outputs: Component (1 outputs),
HDMI (1 outputs, v1.4), RCA / composite (1 outputs)
·
Networking: Ethernet 10/100: [Fast Ethernet]
·
Size & weight: Dimensions 1.3 inches (h)/
6.09 inches (w)/ 6.09 inches (d), Weight .78 ounces
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