“Can the TiVo Mini be used as a stand-alone substitute for a Comcast cable box? Otherwise, if a TiVo Bolt is required, can different cable shows or content be watched on the Mini Vox as oppose to what is being watched on the Bolt unit?”
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The TIVo mini cannot be used without a Bolt. The mini can access any of the recording from the bolt (regardless what the bolt is showing) and if you elect to watch live TV can use one of the Bolts timers to watch a show. If you are watching live TV on both the bolt and the mini they can be on different tuners and therefor different channels. However if you have a 4-tuner bolt and are recording three programs and simultaneously want to watch live TV on both the bolt and the mini... well that wold require 5 tuners and you only have 4. I have three TiVo minis and a 4-tuner bolt and I think I can count on one hand how many times I couldn’t get a tuner in order to watch live TV. It should be noted if you are using the mini to stream Netflix, Amazon prime, etc this does not need a tuner or any resources, really, from the bolt.
Sorry, there was a problem. Please try again later.No, it cannot be used as a stand-alone substitute for your cable box. Yes, a different cable show can be watched on the mini relative to the show being watched on the bolt- how many minis can be employed and different shows watched and recorded depends on which Bolt you purchase.
Sorry, there was a problem. Please try again later.A Tivo Bolt and a cable card is required. Yes you can watch separate shows from what is showing on the Tivo Bolt. The Tivo mini is not wireless and will require an ethernet cable or MoCA connection to your home network to function. With our cable company we also had to get a tuner adapter (no Charge) which plugs into the Tivo Bolt to recieve the movie channels like HBO, Showtime, Cinemax.
Sorry, there was a problem. Please try again later.The Mini does not have a cable tuner so you will need at least one Bolt in your house. The Bolts come with either 4 or 6 tuners depending which model you chose. How this works in practice might best be described with an example. Say you have one Bolt with 4 tuners connected to one of your TVs. You also have 3 TiVo minis. The Bolt can be using 1 tuner to watch live TV and as long as nothing is recording on that Bolt, each of the 3 minis can watch a different live TV channel using one of the tuners from the Bolt. That means all 4 Bolt tuners are in use. If instead two Minis are watching live TV and one of the Minis is watching a recording (not live TV) stored on the Bolt, then that Mini is not using a tuner and the Bolt has two tuners available - one to watch live TV and one to be recording a different channel for viewing later. The cost savings is that from the Comcast POV you only have one cable box/cable card. Hope that all made sense.
Sorry, there was a problem. Please try again later.The Tivo Mini cannot be used as a standalone device. It Requires a Tivo Bolt to function. We have the original Bolt which has 4 Tuners in it. It lets us view or record up to 4 different channels/shows at a time. Each Mini being used requires the use of a Tuner in the Main Bolt. If recording a show, then it requires a Tuner to do so. Once in the while that will cause and issue when we are recording 2 or 3 shows at the same time so in the case of Three recording then we can only use one additional device to view another channel or we can watch the channel recording on any of the mIni's All recordings get done on the Bolt even if started by a Mini. The bolt either requires a Cable Card from you Cable TV Provider and either a lifetime license or yearly subscription fee. Other option is the Over the Air Bolt which is a one-time cost with no yearly subscription fee. I have compared cost and in the long run even with the up-front cost and yearly subscription fee for our Cable/Tivo setup we have been money ahead with a far superior experience.
Sorry, there was a problem. Please try again later.You need a retail TiVo (A TiVo box you bought online or in a retail store) for this unit(you cannot use this unit with a TiVo box from your cable provider). You also need to make sure you buy a compatible TiVo box (TiVo BOLT, TiVo BOLT+, TiVo BOLT VOX, TiVo Roamio and Roamio Plus or Pro, TiVo Premiere 4 and XL4/Elite, TiVo Roamio OTA with at least 4 tuners). Once you have bought a compatible retail TiVo and this box, you can use this box. You can watch live TV (the same or a different tv channel as your retail TiVo), record shows, and watch content from some streaming channels. Keep in mind that each TiVo mini you connect to the retail TiVo will use up one tuner on your retail TiVo.
Sorry, there was a problem. Please try again later.The TiVo mini is a companion to either a TiVo bolt or roamio. It cannot be used as a stand alone device. Example I have my 6 tuner bolt in the master bedroom and 5 minis around the house in different rooms that are accessing the programming that is saved on the bolt itself. Also you only need a subscription to the bolt or roamio as the minis come automatically with lifetime service built in.
Sorry, there was a problem. Please try again later.The TiVo Mini cannot be used as a standalone. It requires a Bolt DVR to communicate with. The BOLT is capable of 4 tuners (depending on the capacity you get). I believe the 3TB BOLT can do 6 tuners. With that said the you can watch different things on the bolt and the mini.
Sorry, there was a problem. Please try again later.A tivo would be needed. You will use one of the tuner from that tivo. That would be a tivo and a tivo mini. The mini can watch a different channel.
Sorry, there was a problem. Please try again later.The TiVo mini requires the use of a "main" TiVO box like the Bolt. The mini acts as a client of the bolt and leverages the bolts tuners and storage. You can watch anything you want on the mini or the bolt completely independently.
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