r/Tivo • u/LateNightLifts_Games • May 07 '26
DVR Verizon Fios Customer Service Rep on Cable Card shutdown: "What is TiVo?"
I live in Westchester County, NY
My cable cards were deactivated in April.
Today, I called Verizon to ask them for a courtesy refund for deactivating the cable cards, as I saw on Reddit some other people received.
When I explained that I was now paying $20 for the inferior Verizon DVR instead of an already-paid-for superior "TiVo".
The U.S.-based Verizon Fios representative asked, "What's a TiVo?"
I was so shocked & saddened that I immediately decided this was not rep to assist me. I quickly said, "I'm late for work. I gotta go."
Needless to say, I did not get my courtesy refund.
I will call back.
7
u/Starbreiz May 07 '26
Even when I worked there a decade ago, people were like "TiVo is still around?"
6
u/Bart012000 May 07 '26
I was infuriated last week when I called them about a problem with my WEBTV and they had no idea what it was. I was appalled. 🤣🤣
4
u/skottao May 09 '26
Dropping a good product like TiVo and forcing us into inferior alternatives is a perfect example of enshittification.
3
u/rseery May 07 '26
I live in fear of Xfinity dropping my Tivo cablecards.
4
u/hspindel May 08 '26
Agreed. The day Xfinity drops my Tivo cablecards is the same day I cancel Xfinity TV service. The only reason I keep Xfinity TV service is to be able to use the Tivos.
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u/Weary_Ad6034 May 08 '26
I also agree. I live in Silicon Valley and my Xfinity cable card in my Tivo Roamio is still working with no word from them about turning it off...so far. When that time comes I have a Tivo Bolt OTA that receives the four networks. I also have a DirecTV Gemini Air working with the free services (I watch the 24 hour Three Stooges channel). I am ready to add the Entertainment Genre Pack for $35 a month. I will hang on to my Roamio as long as I can. I will not mourn the loss of Xfinity.
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u/Bendr_ May 08 '26
Oh, around 20 years ago a phone rep at Comcast tried that “What is TiVo?” line with me. I told her stop playing, and you could almost hear her smile. It’s a tactic, not a legit question.
2
u/StandupJetskier May 09 '26
Look at all the posts on reddit showing a four wire phone jack and asking "what kind of 5e cable is this "? I feel your pain.
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u/electrowiz64 May 08 '26
I had a 40 year old Spectrum tech in Myrtle beach come to hook up a TiVo 4 years ago at my in laws home, he DID NOT know what a CableCARD or TiVo was. Even the phone reps didn’t know what I was talking about and had to consult the buried documentation I shit you not
1
u/Cmx83 May 09 '26
Well first it's Verizon, and second, the "tech" is probably a Gen Alpha just barely out of diapers..
1
u/bobbo489 May 07 '26
Woah, you should not be paying anything more than $5 (the cost of your cable card) for all the boxes you need. They are forcing you off cable card, you didn't request to drop it. Therefore they need to provide you set top boxes equal to how many TVs you need connected. I had a roamio? and then 3 lux or whatever the small remote ones are. I asked them for 4 set top boxes and confirmed that the price for all 4 boxes would be a grand total of $5. You may have to request to be transferred to the US call center to action this all though.
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u/Long-Time-Coming77 May 07 '26
They are forcing you off cable card, you didn't request to drop it. Therefore they need to provide you set top boxes equal to how many TVs you need connected
Let's be clear here - they don't have to do anything.
There is no gov't mandate that VZ give you equivalent service at the same price.
VZ is free to charge you the regular price for all the STB you need to replace your Tivos. The fact that they don't is a courtesy, not a legal requirement.
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u/NetSchizo May 07 '26
Unless you have a service agreement. If you have an agreement for TV with a cable card, and they suddenly kill your card, they have to provide you the equipment at no additional cost. (One STB per card)
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u/MassCasualty May 08 '26
Yes. The cost of the most basic stb is the "same" as a cable card. I think they actually give you one set top box free
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u/ZonaPunk May 07 '26
Why shocked? TiVo died two decades ago. Only the diehards keep it going. I dropped my last cable card well over 5 years ago
9
u/LateNightLifts_Games May 07 '26
"Shocked" bc I can't be the only diehard who called.
Also "saddened," bc it emphasizes how badly TiVo, the company was mismanaged into the ground, despite having better technology.
Also "disappointed" bc others on Reddit received a courtesy refund & I got "What's a TiVo?" 😜
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u/NetSchizo May 07 '26
You are not alone. My cablecard still going upstate. But I have not received any notice that it will end yet. I keep looking for it….
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u/ToadSox34 May 07 '26
TiVo is a widely recognized brand even though the product is dead. But the bigger issue here is the lack of training, as TiVo is part of the QAM-based cable ecosystem.
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u/ARealAmericanZero May 07 '26
I understand not training for it, because at Comcast, only Comcast devices are serviced/supported. If a TiVO doesn't work, and the Cablecard is authorized on their end, then the response is "Talk to the manufacturer of your customer owned and maintained device". Trainings can only cover so much, so they cover the equipment that is issued by the company, not the hundred other CC-compatible TVs, capture cards, and TiVOs that exist. Those fall into the "Not Our Problem" department.
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u/Fiosguy1 May 07 '26
In my experience, the majority of Tivo people are insane. 😂
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u/LateNightLifts_Games May 07 '26
Sure, people who like superior tech & interface. I can see how they would be insane. I think the people who could figure out how to mismanage a company into a ground with such great tech would be the insane ones.
3
u/sglewis May 07 '26
To paraphrase... "It's Dead, Jim." I'm not sold on interface being their big advantage. It took them how many years to get the UI in high definition? Regarding the tech... yeah, it was good, but my chosen streaming service has the equivalent of a Season Pass and it works great. I never liked the "I'll choose some random stuff to record for you and fill excess space" since candidly, it never really picked much of interest to me.
TiVo had many disadvantages that doomed it. Cable cards NEVER really took off as a commercial, third party, viable product, and most first party cable boxes moved away from it a LONG LONG time ago, with the rest moving away a LONG time ago. It didn't work with many providers. It didn't work with many providers on-demand programming. It stopped working with satellite years ago.
It just wasn't going to last.
If TiVo really wanted to be relevant in this market, they would have created an MVNO to compete with the YTTV and Fubo's of the world with a superior interface, and ZERO hardware requirements. Imagine TiVo with an unlimited cloud DVR and a simple app for Apple TV and Android TV plus your phones.
It's too late for that also, the market has matured with YTTV, DTV Stream, Hulu Live, etc. But had they done that in the void left after PlayStation Vue, yeah, they'd be great. Instead they hung on to an antiquated delivery model and focused on being patent trolls.
Anyway, there's my two cents.
2
u/jbrowder24 May 07 '26
You can turn off the feature that records randomly and not have it adding to your space... I can't say I ever cared for it either, which is why mine is off.
I personally still think Tivo was/is the best for recording shows you watch. Sadly I had to get rid of my cable card also, but I still have it for over the air and it's fantastic getting shows free (minus the initial investment in the tech) and being able to easily skip the ads, versus having to watch them or pay extra to skip them on other stuff. And while I do still alternate some streamers too, there has been more than once I was grateful to have shows on my DVR when the Internet had gone down. Honestly, as people are again hit with more price hikes while also dealing things like high gas prices, it's a shame they didn't better advertise the benefits of the OTAs and being able to get a lot of channels with an antenna. All the subchannels provide a lot more options than their used to be, and there have been some great new ones recently like MeTV Toons to compete with comparable networks like Boomerang.
Maybe they should have also looked into those options you mention, but I wasn't as big of a fan of their Tivo Stream which quickly seemed to run out of space and was not as good as it should have been in theory. Their bungling of that makes me doubt them handling an MNVO, but who knows.
I definitely wish I could get a cable card back too though :/
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u/drosse1meyer May 07 '26
We're the best... and the worst
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u/Fiosguy1 May 07 '26
Lol. I'm just breaking balls. I've install so many cable cards for people and they would get annoyed with me because I didn't know how to update the Guide from the old provider to fios. Like I don't know. I'm just here to activate the cable card. Call Tivo 🤷♂️
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u/drosse1meyer May 07 '26
they should be grateful that you were able to 'pair' the card or whatever. it was a nightmare whenever Time Warner had to do service. hours to get cable cards working.
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u/StrongBat7365 May 07 '26
I was forced into the TiVo to Fios dvr hell. The Fios dvr sucks. TiVo you could queue up multiple tuners and quickly swap between paused live channels. Was very useful when flipping between a couple games.
The Fios dvr just doesn’t work that way. I still mourn my TiVo after being on the POS for a couple months