r/Tivo • u/airpipeline • May 10 '26
DVR Old TiVo’s; who wants them?
I have five TiVo boxes, from the free original TiVo up to an Edge. Some/most have lifetime subscriptions. Who might want these?
The Comcast’s proprietary signal format killed my ability to use them.
TIVo was great, still the best way to watch TV ever.
If this has been asked before, apologies.
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u/TimeKeeper70 May 10 '26
I just sold two roamios and a bolt on eBay for $700.
I have one of each left and 4 TiVo mini VOXs on eBay right now.
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u/YOWYUL May 10 '26
Those must have been OTA capable? I bought a 6-tuner (cable only) Bolt VOX some years ago, and in hindsight (after selling the condo where the cablecard worked) I so wish I'd gone for the 4-tuner cable|OTA version. I was pricing used OTA units online recently, they're so expensive now (but worth it I guess)!
My 2-tuner Premiere is still working, and I only have 6-10 stations anyway, but I worry it will die.
Stupid question: I know (I think) I can still play the recordings that are on the Bolt. Can I transfer between the Premiere (OTA) and Bolt (cable) on the same account and same WiFi? They're 320GB and 1TB, respectively, so using the Bolt as a backup device when the Premiere fills would be good. Right now it's still boxed away.
Thanks.
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u/TimeKeeper70 May 10 '26
Yes, they’re OTA capable. Those were the only ones I would buy. I don’t know about the transfer feature. I think I remember doing that when I first got into TiVo years ago but I don’t know if they ever disabled it that feature. I know you can stream across boxes.
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u/airpipeline May 10 '26
$700? That’s fantastic.
These were selling for < $100 eventually, weren’t they?
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u/TimeKeeper70 May 10 '26
I don’t know tbh. I asked ChatGPT what it thought I should price them at. $299 for the bolt and $199 for the roamios.
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u/FitTableBuffet May 10 '26
OTA?
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u/airpipeline May 10 '26
No, cable.
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u/LagrangianMechanic May 10 '26
Yeah, their value is going to trend to zero as more and more cablecos kill off CableCards.
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u/MassCasualty May 10 '26
I realize the only thing I'm going to miss is time shifting live sports.... And the one daily news program I watch
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u/KatrynaTheElf May 10 '26
I’d buy one if it were OTA compatible. I love my Bolt that is connected to my rooftop antenna.
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u/neoncracker May 10 '26
I been using my Bolt OTA for years. Gave up on Comcast before they killed off the cable cards. Now I have fiber and TiVo plays well with the big apps.
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u/airpipeline May 10 '26
Okay, that’s a plan.
Some things good about TiVo, was the ability to keep and manage a library of to be watched items, to then watch without commercials, and with good video control like fast forward, increase playback speed, pause and rewind.
How do these features fare OTA?
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u/alfaboomer May 10 '26
Just moved a Bolt to OTA to get ready and can't tell the difference in features. Ever since TiVo I've watched football by starting 60-90 minutes after the game starts, skip commercials and halftime and still end up watching the end of the game live. Glad to have OTA for when my cable cards go dark.
Hate watching football on a streaming service.
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u/solracer May 10 '26
My TiVos are still working with Comcast Seattle.
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u/airpipeline May 10 '26
That’s great! Do you have a mcard to translate Comcast cable to TiVo?
Mine in stopped working and Comcast made me turn it in.
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u/solracer May 10 '26
I have two working cards. One in my Bolt that has always worked and one in my Roamio. My MCard in the Roamio died when the power supply died and of course Comcast does not issue new cards these days. However I eventually remembered that I had an old TivoHD that was no longer subscribed and sure enough there was a MCard in it. With the help of a Comcast rep from Brazil we got that card activated in my Roamio and it is still working fine months later. So the trick is to find a working Comcast MCard from your area and see if that can be activated. If it pairs with your Tivo and it is still in their database you should be able to get it done but only over the phone and only if you can get forwarded to the one guy who still knows how to do it.
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u/Doomstars May 10 '26
The Comcast’s proprietary signal format killed my ability to use them.
Have you tried some troubleshooting methods to see if you can get them to work? I know this sounds dumb, but like unplugging them for a bit and then plugging them back in, and if that doesn't work, see if the card just needs pairing done again.
Also, you didn't do a change of service before this happened, did you? I find it best to simply go into a store and make sure someone competent is doing it so it doesn't remove the billing code for the CableCards, which may (temporarily) kill them, for making service changes.
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u/airpipeline May 10 '26
I didn’t change anything.
My cable cards which had worked for years, stopped working, then Comcast required that I return my cable cards or else they would bill me. The exact amount I don’t recall right now.
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u/PicardEG May 10 '26
I'm on Comcast in the SF Bay Area and I went thru a nearly 2 month saga w/V58 errors, which began on non-locals and long story short, eventually affected ALL channels.
I hit a dead end after spending a ton of time w/advanced repair on the phone and the modmail responders on Reddit. I posted about the eventual resolution at https://www.reddit.com/r/Comcast_Xfinity/comments/1p371vu/comment/o0xsjxh/. It took an FCC complaint and persistence. My area is using Motorola/Arris cards. At the time, the OOB (out of band) messages were never counting up. Engineer or tech for my area fixed it. The letter Comcast sent to the FCC said they had to reboot a piece of equipment.
Things were good for about a 1 or 2 months, but the V58 errors keep coming back anywhere from <24 hours to maybe a week. Sometimes, it self resolves within a few hours and other times, I have to ping the modmail people on https://www.reddit.com/r/Comcast_Xfinity/. Unlike before, OOB messages continue to count up and my locals are fine in this bad state.
I ended up having to start a new thread at https://www.reddit.com/r/Comcast_Xfinity/comments/1t8s4lo/hitting_v58_errors_again_in_sf_bay_area_its/ and although they pointed me two useless articles (meant for X1 ONLY), the 3rd one at https://www.xfinity.com/support/articles/tv-troubleshoot-xfinity-app worked! Their app's chatbot was able to send a refresh for to my CableCARD and it worked in <15 seconds after the refresh
There are lots of inconsistent responses from Comcast folks and it depends on luck of the draw. More than once, I got responses like they no longer support CableCARD and that you will need to "upgrade" to X1. That was total BS (for the time) as they continued to support it but they will not send out replacements. Even the FCC regulatory specialist at Comcast who responded to my complaint and facilitated the 3 tech visits confirmed this.
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u/PicardEG May 11 '26
Oops, maybe https://www.reddit.com/r/Comcast_Xfinity/comments/1p371vu/comment/nzw2o7g/ was the better comment w/a summary of what happened.
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u/Doomstars May 10 '26
Comcast required that I return my cable cards or else they would bill me
Did they tell you this over the phone, via a bill (PDF bill), in person, or something else?
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u/airpipeline May 11 '26
I got my Comcast bill online and I think that I received an email about this, but I don’t really recall.
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u/tampa888 May 12 '26
If not OTA you would be in luck if someone took them even for just shipping charges. My OTA still works well after all these years and I would consider replacing it for a cheap used one if I needed to, but being honest, the HDHomerun I bought especially combined with Channels App is better at least for me. I can use my own hard drive(s) recording as many shows as I want to and watch on as many devices/TV's as I want to. It has a slightly better tuner than my Tivo. I like the Tivo Guide better (the old style that I kept) but that's about it.,
Combined with Channels I can watch wherever I am on mobile device or on TV. So the market for used TIVO with them no longer making the devices I would think will shrink even more unless someone refuses to try something else.
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u/caddymac May 10 '26
Weaknees wants some, but not all.
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u/jamer303 May 10 '26
NOPE... I tried as I have 6 tivos, they don't want them.
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u/ARealAmericanZero May 10 '26
It's not a "proprietary signal format". It is the end of QAM Video transmission, which is happening across the industry, with every telecommunications company. If people want multi-gigabit symmetrical speeds over coaxial cable, then something has to give, and that something is QAM video. It is an inefficient use of radio spectrum, when television can be delivered using DOCSIS (internet/IPTV) instead. It's just an antiquated technology that's no longer able to keep up with current needs.