re: Oh this is why people hate cable companies....

Different technologies. Cable hd is different than ota.

But yes, the box should include both tuners.

Really? Damn that's good to know

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Wait TiVo is a monthly cost as well? Ugh. Trying to avoid too many of those. On second though, not a good option. But thanks. I guess I am doubling down on Roku's and Sticks.

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Looking at TiVo's website it looks like they solved it with the TiVo Mini. Now, it's still extra monthly cost, but that's the setup to go for. But I shouldn't be paying another company money to get the best out of another company I am paying money to.

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Yeah, you either need to pay a monthly fee for the DVR guide service, or you have to pay a hefty lifetime fee per DVR to avoid having to pay any monthly fees.

The nice thing is that after you have paid the monthly service for so long, they may offer you lifetime service at a reduced cost. A few years ago I cut the cord and so I called TiVo to tell them I will no longer need their service and I want to cancel. The guy on the other end asked me what I planned on doing with my TiVo box. I told him I'd put it on eBay. He said that if I put it on eBay I would hardly get $40 for it, but he could offer me lifetime service at a reduced cost of $100 for being a loyal customer for many years, and if I put the lifetime service on it I'd get way more than $140 for it because lifetime service boxes are so sought-after. He then let me go on hold and look at eBay prices and he was definitely right. Of course he was probably going to get something out of retaining me as a customer, but that was also good customer service. But I ended up putting lifetime service on the box and keeping it so that I could use it as a DVR for OTA antenna broadcasts, which I am still doing today.

And just last month TiVo sent me an email letting me know that they had a special offer going on where I could transfer my lifetime service to any new TiVo product I purchased for just $100. I didn't do it because I didn't need it, but it's good to know that the option is there for me.

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You know what really ground my gears? My new Vizio M-series TV doesn't have a built-in tuner. Buy a $1200 TV, no tuner. Blew my mind. Tuners aren't expensive to buy, but I'm so accustomed to TVs having built-in tuners I didn't even think to check

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In their defense, they call them "displays" and not "TVs".

I don't think it's a totally bad move, though. On the surface it seems like terrible timing considering more and more people are cutting the cord and going back to OTA channels. But I think people will miss DVR functionality, and will want it for OTA channels. I have a Tablo and I love it, but to be honest I don't know what's taking the market so long to put out more competing OTA DVR products. There's Tablo, HDHomerun (which needs extra hardware for DVR, or their subscription cloud service?), Channelmaster (which connects directly to the TV, bleh), and Tivo (which also connects directly to the TV, bleh). Are there any others? I prefer the Tablo way, where you just have a device that sits in a closet, tuning/recording/streaming over the network to whatever streaming device you decide to plug into your TV (or mobile device at home or away). It seems like a complex setup, but it really simplifies the experience by tucking away the antenna/tuner/DVR stuff behind an "app" interface accessible from basically any device. Why we don't see dozens of copycat devices is beyond me.


So, my point is that I believe the market will mature, and most people will want an OTA DVR/tuner/streamer anyway, so what purpose would a tuner inside the TV serve? I just want a dumb display, and I want to funnel all my media through a media box/stick of my choosing through a single input on the TV. You wouldn't think including a tuner anyway would be very expensive, but maybe it is more than we think. The hardware might only cost a few bucks, but what if they save money on some sort of fee or import duty by classifying them as displays instead of TVs?


Anyway, yeah if I bought what I thought was a TV and expected to hook up an antenna and watch OTA TV, I guess I would be pissed too. But honestly, I'd prefer a standalone device to handle my tuning/recording, and a dumb display would suit me perfectly.

I have the Vizio M-series as well. Had I not had the TiVo box with lifetime service I might not have gotten the Vizio. But since I did, the Vizio was an option and it was one of the cheapest options with a great display. At $700 for a 55" 4K HDR TV with a great picture I am very satisfied with the purchase.


The Vizio also lacks a composite input as well. It's component and HDMI only. But I have an expensive upscaler device used for vintage video games ($400 XRGB-mini Framemeister, which has composite, s-video, RGB SCART, and component inputs and outputs HDMI), so I have no problem with that either.

You just want a dumb display.

Why can't the TV have it's own DVR and storage built in?
How nice would a built in ROKU tv that has a built in DVR for your antenna channels be? It's not like it takes up some inordinate amount of actual space to have 1TB of storage capable in your tv.

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Why can't the TV have it's own DVR and storage built in?

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yep, should have happened 10 years ago but you know..these tv manufacturers kowtow to the media conglomterates who would flip their shite if they tried to let people record the local news OTA without having their fricking cablebox bullshite in the middle.

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Freauxzen

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For me, it's not even about the total cost anymore, although I am kind of lucky in that I have a small local cable company that has a decently-priced internet only plan, and my total internet + SlingTV bill is under $100.


My problem with cable companies isn't so much that they're expensive, it's that they know they're expensive and they try to hide that fact. Not only do they try to hide it, but they straight up lie to you about the actual cost when you ask them directly. As you said, they like to tell you that it's the same price or even cheaper if you add TV to your internet bill. Discounts for buying more services is a thing, sure, but it should never be possible to get more for less. But they are so adamant about it that many people believe them (I did once). I was told $61 for internet+TV vs $70 for just internet. I even said "what will my total bill, taxes and fees included, be each month?", and the answer was $61 and some change, to the penny. It ended up being $80-something, which still wasn't a terrible deal, and if they had told me the truth to begin with I would still be a customer. But no, they prefer to just lie and hope people don't notice when the bill comes in.

I'd rather pay more to companies that are honest about their pricing than pay some rotten company that is dishonest at every turn, even if it's cheaper for essentially the same product. Also not having to worry about promo deals expiring or some other bullshite retention tactic is nice, too. What's so hard about no surprises? I don't get it.

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You just want a dumb display.

Why can't the TV have it's own DVR and storage built in?
How nice would a built in ROKU tv that has a built in DVR for your antenna channels be? It's not like it takes up some inordinate amount of actual space to have 1TB of storage capable in your tv.

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Personally, I would avoid any such TV like the plague. Why would you want those additional costs and potential failure points in your expensive TV? Why would you want your recordings stored in a specific TV, rather than on a standalone device that can be shared by many TVs/devices? What if you decide to switch to FireTV or some other amazing future device, but your $1k+ TV still has 5 years of life left, and it's holding your media hostage inside the Roku ecosystem?


It may seem nice to have that sort of unified TV/device, and some people might want that sort of "simplicity", if you can call it that. But not me. I prefer the "UNIX philosophy" when it comes to tech, both software and hardware. I want my tools to do one thing and to do it well, and I want each tool to be replaceable on its own while impacting the others as little as possible.

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seems stupid. Why can't you get one that can do both? I would have done this but i figured if i buy one, then i'm stuck with cable for a while, even if i don't want it b/c this thing would become useless without cable.

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The white Tivo Bolt boxes can do both, but it will only do one at a time. It's still $15 a month though.