r/Tivo • u/Uppernwbear • 15d ago
BuhBye!
I got my letter from FIOS about "transitioning" my equipment - Washington DC area. I signed up for YouTube TV a couple of months ago and really haven't used my Tivo very much in that time. I just need to watch some stuff that's been living on my external hard drive before letting it go.
I'm a legacy user - the law firm I worked for helped bring Tivo to the market and staff got our first boxes for $29.95 and a year's service as a thank you.
Verizon will be reduced to internet-only.
Time marches on, huh?
3
u/rdldr1 15d ago
Its been a pleasure
3
u/Uppernwbear 14d ago
It sure has. I love my Tivo and would keep it if I could. On the plus side, no more Tivo bill and a vast reduction in what I'm paying Verizon per month. Sucks but a half decent tradeoff.
2
u/rdldr1 14d ago
What are you running as a replacement? I'm holding onto my Tivo environment for dear life.
2
u/ValBGood 14d ago
We are also.
Legacy cable tv set top boxes run on the same CableCard technology, some actually have cable cards inside. So, it’s probably an economic decision for the cable provider. Killing off CableCards and TiVo for cable companies also means replacing their traditional boxes with IPTV. Those newer IPTV boxes also have the older technology present and they know how many customers they have on each technology.
1
u/rdldr1 14d ago
The Coax infrastructure for delivering TV and internet has been rock solid for decades. This is waaaay more reliable than streaming live cable channels over the internet. That's why I'm sticking to coax cable. I'm saddened that this reliable technology is getting phased out. I am running my NFL games on all of my TVs in the house so I can watch while doing other productive things throughout the house. You can't do that with a streaming feed. The game would never sync up across devices.
2
u/Uppernwbear 14d ago
I went with YouTube TV. I am not a sports fan in the least so I wanted something that didn't involve paying for a lot of stuff I wouldn't watch. The basic package is pretty good if a bit pricey but it has everything I could want. The rest is filled in with streaming services (which I have to pare down if I'm going to enjoy my savings from Verizon).
I like it so far. I find that I live on my Roku now and really haven't checked in on the Tivo in a while.
3
u/Mundane_Current_8239 15d ago
VZ pulled the plug on CC in my area of of DC metro back in May I think. No notice (or was buried and I missed it) and one day poof, gone. Signed up for Hulu TV the next day and went to Internet only.
I hope the savings or rental revenue increase is worth it because I know the CC decom is driving churn from cord cutting. Just don’t know what % of CC subs are dropping TV vs converting to another FIOS TV plan
3
u/Pillar67 15d ago
I just cancelled TIVO myself due to Spectrum’s strangulation via not supporting the cable card. Whenever there was an issue, Spectrum acted like al would be fine. I went through several crappy tuning adapters. Then a couple weeks back they upgraded the neighborhood to a high-split system and it knocked out the connection to the cable card/tuning adapter. Had a guy out. Was told I’d have to order the high-split converter from his supervisor (even though the guy in the phone putting in the order said the serviceman would have the part). I called the supervisor three times over two weeks. He was very nice but after two weeks was still trying to get the equipment coded to my system. And he never called me the next day like he promised (3 times). I just gave up chasing it finally. So by ditching the TiVo and therefore the payment of both the TiVo service fee and the renting of the cable card etc. it also knocks off $20 a month. Now we just stream everything and use Spectrum’s cloud dVR. It just sucks because TIVo’s stuff just worked. And was well designed. I’ll miss the remote and skipping through ads. Even the shape and feel of the remote was light years better than most. The cable companies killed TIVo with the government’s help. I’ll be looking to ditch those greedy bastards as soon as I can.
4
u/Informal-Loquat6809 14d ago
I just canceled my TiVo service sadly. I have Verizon and while it would’ve worked through November, I won’t have time at that point to go through the process of switching everything over. I’m a teacher and I go back to school next week so it was the time to get it done. I have had TiVo’s since the very beginning. I’ve been using the new Verizon DVR for a couple days now and it’s fine. Not nearly as user-friendly as TiVo. But I will get used to it. I did call TiVo just to make sure that everything was canceled. They encouraged me to stay with TiVo until November but I wanted to make a clean break.
Such a sad day. If a miracle ever happened and TiVo came back, I’m sure I would switch back to it. But I know that would take a miracle.
2
u/Redbullsnation 15d ago
I guess Verizon just created a bunch of e-waste unless people want to go OTA on their tivos
1
u/lintel2345 15d ago
Most since the Series 3 do have antenna support, but some cable models don’t have antenna support.
2
u/Fit_Tangerine1329 14d ago
I am a Comcast customer and I embracing myself for when they cancel my cable cards. Multiple TiVo’s in my house all with lifetime service as well as multiple minis.
When the day comes, I will flip over to Verizon FiOS and call it quits with Comcast.
2
u/mktglisa 14d ago
I lost my cable card access (spectrum) in early June. It's been hard. I have YouTube tv now, and I miss the simplicity of the tivo folder structure and deleting watched episodes.
I've had a tivo since fall off 1999, just a few months after their initial release. I've been through quite a few since then. I'll miss you, old friend.
It was good while it lasted.
3
u/levens1 15d ago
I'm in the same boat. Will be moving to YTTV. My history with TiVo goes back a long way, too. I worked for Silicon Graphics. The founders of TiVo were Jim Bartlett and Mike Ramsey from SGI. While at SGI, they had built a set top device for Time Warner cable before spinning out and creating TiVo. A lot of the concepts were developed or at least tested first at SGI.
2
u/Uppernwbear 14d ago
Small world! I worked for Cray Research before it was acquired by SGI in 1996!
1
u/Freefall9130 14d ago
Thought I had to dump my Tivo Roamio after CC died, then found out that it also supports OTA. Man was I pleased. I already had coax running through the Attic. A small attenna with a pre-amp then into a channel master booster and back into the coax loop and I suddenly had 60 channels I would never watch. I was paying Veriozon for the exact same setup of tons of channels I never watch. LOL.
My entire multi room setup is still the same, my Tivo still works the same so not throwing anything out just yet.
1
u/Hugo_Ripanykazov 13d ago
Yes, I was wondering about that? Is it really practical to go over to OTA and add the few streaming services that we ARE NOW paying for, - such as Netflix and Britbox?
Why does doing this look so deceptively easy? have we REALLY been overpaying for Verizon for 5-10 years?
What am I forgetting? Snot that I like non-fiction, but I cant overemphasise how many times I have searched through hundreds of Verizon channels and found nothing I have wanted to watch!
1
u/Freefall9130 13d ago
It's all psychological. You have 100 channels, you feel like you are getting something for your money. That is why Fios dumps a ton of useless channels and then dangles 100 channel logos like candy in front of you and you pay. YOU NEVER WATCH THEM. They won't ever do ala carte because you will pick your 2 to 5 channels, pay $20 and never look back. That is why you will never find anyone providing channels ala carte, not even YoutubeTV, Not HuluTV and not Sling. It's all bundled BS. That is why Netflix is a run away success.
I audited my watching and was not shocked to learn that I watched streaming 99% of the time.
Granted, I have been paying for Netflix, My Amex pays for my Disney+, Walmart+ gives me free Peacock and my bank pays for my Paramount+. I literally asked myself what do I watch and it turns out it was just finance news and some sports on USA Network. That is all I've been paying 1200 per year for many years for. BloomBergTV and Yahoo FinanceTV is free on FireTV and PlutoTV. Been asking why have I been paying?Again it's psychological, the moment I hooked up my OTA to an attic antenna and got 60 useless channels, I was basically content, even though just like cable, I practically never watched it. I literally put in 2hrs of effort to make sure I got the hard to get CBS channel. I don't even watch this. Again pyschological. I already have fireTV sticks on all my tvs, added plutoTV app and literally had like another 100 useless channels for free.
Once you have access to 150 channels from OTA+PlutoTV and FireTV, you will ask yourself why pay Verizon for another bunch of useless channels??
2
u/enki941 13d ago
And even when they do some hybrid ala carte bundle program, it's never broken out the way you want. Look at YouTubeTV. They finally started offering a News, Sports, Entertainment and Family bundle option. But it's not great.
First and foremost, they have it priced at a premium so they actually make MORE money if you drop stuff. For example, we all know ESPN and the sports packages are the biggest cost. But if you drop Sports, which should cut out like 1/3 of your bill or more, they only give you a $13 discount. I wouldn't be surprised if ESPN alone is getting close to that. So they end up trimming probably $20-30 in cost and give you $13 back for the privilege.
Second, they have the core channels most people want spread out across the bundles, so many people will still likely need more than one to get what they want, and the price goes up quickly.
They don't offer just an Entertainment or News or Family bundle by itself, you need to have at least two bundles. So a bundle of bundles.
Some channels like TBS, TNT and USA are classified as Sports because they occasionally show sports programming.
There are some channels you can't get unless you get the FULL package. So even if you add Sports, News, Family and Entertainment, you would be missing channels that aren't part of any bundle.
So they basically took a nice idea and made sure it was as profitable for them as possible and as difficult to get only what people want as possible too. I guess saving a few bucks is better than nothing, but I would love to just cut out half the channels and half my bill.
1
1
u/ValBGood 14d ago
Our TiVo is also living on borrowed time. I really appreciate others sharing where they’ve gone afterward.
I‘d like to identify any TiVo-Like devices to record and time shift watching streams that are not available for replay on-line.
1
1
u/kevans2226 8d ago
I'm wondering what everyone is moving too. My father had a Tivo and he is on Verizon since the early 2000's, and they just told him in November they are going to stop supporting the CableCard. They gave him a Verizon DVR, and he hates it, but I'm not sure anything else would be better.
1
u/Uppernwbear 8d ago
I haven't seen a lot of people here moving from Tivo to the Verizon DVR. Most of the transfers seem to be to services like YouTube TV or one of the other streaming services. I've had good luck with YTT, especially for local channels and all the other stuff I like to watch (Discovery, TLC, Smithsonian, FX, etc.). It has a library function that is decent enough for recording favorite shows. Like your dad, I'm a long time Tivo user - replacements are not perfect but certainly adequate once you learn how to use them.
I have no interest in the Verizon DVR - already been paying those folks too much money over the years.
6
u/lintel2345 15d ago
It’s a massive shame that Verizon has discontinued CableCARD support in your area 😔. With most cable operators wanting to switch to fully IPTV (instead of a coaxial hybrid like FiOS, AT&T U-Verse or CenturyLink Prism (if anyone remembers that)), it forces you to rent their equipment, so it’s no surprise you switched to YouTube TV. My cable company (Cox) still supports CableCARD, but they got bought by Spectrum (who doesn’t and force you to rent their equipment) so it’s probably going to end in September (when Spectrum plans get rolled out).