The channel up or the green button is used for skip, I use channel up since its easier to find by feel. Plus you can also use it to skip segments of the show between commercials either forward or backwards (channel down). Its a great feature, love it.


Typically skip will show up on the listing within 5 minutes after the show is recorded.


About 90% of the shows I record have skip available.

It would need to have a sata connector, if I remember right some of the portables don't.

Doesn't it bother people that the biggest AV-rated 2.5" drive is only 1TB?
I can't help but feel that putting in a laptop 2.5" drive is asking for trouble.

Can't you attach a usb drive?

I may be in TiVo minority but I've never had my 3TB Roamio Pro over 10% full, even in the peak Prime season.


I got the 500GB Bolt thinking of upgrading the drive soon but so far its never been over 10% either, I'm pretty sure the 1TB would have been plenty for our viewing habits.

Only esata externally.

Today I noticed my local Fry's has both models in stock. With their combined pricing it will be interesting to see how they get discounted.

Oh! Thanks for the explanation. I chase play football games every Sunday, so I understand why one would think this diminishes the usefulness of the feature. However, I still think it sounds pretty cool.

It is very cool. Not as cool if you have to press jump each break however. I used it with WMC and it was amazing how much better the content was since you didn't have to continually break-out of the experience. I think to some degree I have at times watched streaming content strictly because the experience was superior. If I had to skip commercials I would have realized it wasn't worth it... I can think of several seasons of one show I'd like back.

Not only esata, but it must be a Tivo expander drive...you can't just use any external esata drive.

It would be a bit Frankenstein...but if someone really wanted to, they could use a 3.5" external drive with a esata to sata connector....connected inside the Bolt. That will be my next step should my 2TB 2.5" drive ever die.

Yes. But at least the skip option can show up a few minutes after the program airs. I've usually seen it show up quickly. But I've had some shows where it took longer. And i've had some shows where the SKip option never showed up when it should have.

I've read that the USB interface is hardwired into the some of the WD portable drives. And according to one reviewer on Amazon that is the case with this drive.

And if it's actually using a WD 3TB 2.5 inch drive in it then it is very new. The largest capacity 2.5" drive WD advertises is a green 2TB drive. And it was released back in 2013. But if the USB interface is hard wired instead of a SATA to USB bridge(like what was in my external 4TB Seagate)then there is no way to use it in the Bolt.

I've seen the 4TB external Seagate for as low as $160. I picked it up for $180 from Newegg. So far it's been working great in my Bolt. But only time will tell how any drive does long term.

So here is a question maybe someone can help with: How significant is the delay between the Bolt and a mini that is watching streams from a Bolt tuner? This is a big question for sports fans, as a split second delay can result in one room seeing the outcome before another in the same house. I currently have a Moxi system with 3 Moxi DVRs for primary viewing and 2 Moxi Mates for watching where the delay (about 2 seconds) does not matter. I will need to replace the Moxi soon because FIOS is using more and more MPEG-4, but would prefer to go with 2 Bolts and 3 minis, if possible, rather than 3/2 (cheaper upfront, cheaper going forward with TIVO, and cheaper with Verizon because fewer cablecards needed).

With the Roamio and Mini, if there is any delay it is only a split second. But you could easily even out any delay if you wanted to. Since with a DVR you are never watching anything live. Everything is written to the hard drive first. Anything viewed is being read off the hard drive after it has previously been written to it.

I would expect things to be the same with the Bolt.

But the question becomes.. When is it streamed? Does the streaming occur when the material is written to the drive, or when it is played back?

It is streamed after being read off the hard drive. The same as on the TiVo with the hard drive. There is also a 30 minute buffer whether using a Tuner on the Host TiVo or using a Mini connected to the host.

On my Bolt (and also my Roamio) the delay is around 1-2 seconds between the host DVR and the mini, they will each use separate tuners.

One way to have everything in sync is to only use minis at each display. I've tried 3 mini's on the Bolt and they were perfectly in sync while the host was off about 2 seconds.

How's the video quality on this??? Normal cable and then the 4K enabled apps like Netflix, Amazon, and YouTube? I'm thinking of upgrading and giving my wife the Roamio. Just got an LG 65EF9500!

I can't speak to 4K, but normal cable should remain unchanged from the Roamio. I know the menus are HD now.....but honestly I don't see a huge difference from the Roamio. I agree with those who say the Bolt is much faster than the Roamio......it really is noticeably faster.

But I'll tell you what I am really liking...Plex direct playing local files at 1080p with no transcoding! I'm no Plex fan....but it is really nice having so many things in one box.

I wish all the menus were HD, but unfortunately they still aren't on the Bolt. There are still menus I go to where the preview window disappears. While not as many as with the Roamio, it is still annoying when it happens.

As far as video quality with 1080P/720P/1080i, right now there is slightly less detail in the output of the Bolt than from the Roamio Line. Hopefully it will be corrected in a future update. Typically a chipset has certain default settings for output and it looks like something is set that reduces the resolution a little. I've compared 1080P60, 1080i, and 720P from both my Bolts from my three Roamios. The results seem to be the same when comparing either Bolt to any of the Roamios.

[quote=georgeorwell;38202753]I can't speak to 4K, but normal cable should remain unchanged from the Roamio. I know the menus are HD now.....but honestly I don't see a huge difference from the Roamio. I agree with those who say the Bolt is much faster than the Roamio......it really is noticeably faster.

Please confirm you are able to get 1080P with Plex on your Bolt? I have a Roamio and the best I can play my extensive media library is 750. This could be a deal beaker for me, I'm about had it with my CM DVR+ in the bedroom.


vincent

[quote=vince48;38211041] The Bolt can play 1080P content through Plex without transcoding. With the Roamio, Plex needs to transcode 1080P content to 720P for playback.

So with my Roamio, if I play a 1080P file with Plex, My CPU utilization will get close to 100% from the transcoding. With the Bolt it barely registers anything extra since it is just streaming the file without needing to transcode it.

[quote=vince48;38211041] There are some limitations though. First, this is only on the Bolt. If you have minis in your setup, the minis will still need to transcode at 720p. Second, I found that only mp4 files are not being transcoded. MKV would still play at 1080p, but they were being transcoded. Regadless, Plex 1080p playback on the Bolt looks great! We have a large media library as well....you should have seen the pile of boxes and cables I was able to take out of my house setup since the Tivo can handle playing all our files.

The 1080p for Bolt-Plex is welcome but what about bitrate. The Roamio-Plex limit is 720p/4Mbps. What is the top bitrate for Bolt-Plex. This should be in the Bolt-Plex setup screen where you can specify the max resolution/bitrate for the Plex client.

For Plex server there is Direct Play and Direct Stream -- neither of which require re-coding of the source. Direct Play sends the file as-is; Direct Stream unpacks the container and sends the streams. TiVo can download and play .mpg and .mp4 files natively so the Plex server uses Direct Play for them; TiVo can't play MKV natively. For Roamio-Plex, the Plex server sent H.264 encoded MKV files as Direct Stream (no transcoding) as long as the resolution was 720p or 480 and the max bitrate was less than 4Mbps.

I played with this a lot when I set up my Plex server for Roamio-Plex. There is an info window in Plex server you can open up to see what it is doing when sending a source file. I used that in conjunction with the CPU display in Task Manager to monitor the load on the CPU's. Any transcoding operations put a significant load on the CPU's whereas Direct Play/Stream playback hardly caused a ripple from the CPU idle state.

edit: Just to be clear. Even when using an .mpg or .mp4 container which TiVo plays natively and Plex server will send as Direct Play -- that only counts if the video is 720p or 480 and the bitrate is <4Mbps. If it exceeds those limits, Plex server will transcode the stream on the way out to a Roamio or Mini.

Thanks guys for the info. I'm on the fence in selling my CM DVR+ and getting a Bolt

From an operational standpoint, the Bolt OTA experience will be superior, feature-wise and without all the bugs that plague the DVR+. However, the memory of the DVR+ will fade quickly and that $150/yr subscription fee will stick in your craw and grate on you every year when it comes due.

Since you are OTA and the Bolt Aero is supposedly the OTA version, why not sit on the fence a bit longer and see what the Aero offers (pricewise) when it arrives.

yep, that is what I'm going to do. hope Tivo makes a announcement soon