TiVo Roamio OTA 500 GB DVR and Streaming Media Player (2014 Model) - Works with HD Antenna

I decided to leave Direct TV after realizing that 9 of the 10 shows that i follow are over the air. I bought the Tivo Roamio and the 2 qty minis. If you are only buying the OTA Roamio then setup is very easy. It has a built in wireless connection if you have a wifi router at home but it also has jack to hardwire the network connection. Hardwire is always preferred for data rates but wifi is convenient and for the most part does what you need it to do. I use the wifi and streams HD without issue. The initial cost for my setup was a little steep. About $500 for the whole setup: Tivo minis/roamio, HD attenna, and power line adapters but our Cable bill every month was over $150. So we figure after four-five months all the system would have paid for itself and then we will only have to pay the $15 a month fee to tivo, $10 Netflix, and $12 Hulu, $37 total for a whole lot of tv. That’s still saving us over a $100 a month and we don’t have to worry about contracts or crazy rate hikes.I love these Tivo boxes so far but there is a learning curve to get a configuration like mine good to go, Roamio plus two minis I’ll try to go over some of the details in hopes that it will help someone else that has question regarding their configuration.First the HD antenna. I bought an amazon indoor antenna that has a 50 mile radius. It works great. The model I bought was “Amplified HDTV Antenna - 50 Miles Range, 1byone” and placed it in a window on my second story. Did I say this thing works great because its pretty awesome for the price. Then I plugged the antenna cable (coax) into the cable (coax) jack of my house so the signal was reachable in any room that had a cable (coax) plug. You lose a little bit of signal strength by doing this but not enough to lose a channel from what I saw. I did this because this signal needs to plug into your Roamio to get the OTA (Over the Air) channels. By having each plug in the house available for connection it allowed me flexibility in deciding which room to place the Roamio in.No where do we place the Roamio? If you have the ability to hardwire do it if not go wifi make sure you can place the Roamio in a room closer to your router than further so you have good signal strength. Reason being is streaming HD video requires a good signal or you’ll get a lot of buffering if the signal is weak. If your router has the ability to use different channels go with the 5Ghz.Theirs less interference in this band but once again signal strength is key. Yes the Roamio does support this band but it may not on the older versions. My current version does. Anyways back to the signal anything over 50% located in the settings part of your Tivo box under network will work. Lower than that it becomes kind of sketchy for the HD streaming from apps like Hulu or Netflix.The minis require a hardwire connection to the network. You can do the Moca suggested version, uses coax for the network connection, but I went with the network over powerline config and it works well. My reason for not going over the coax is because I want those lines to be as clean as possible for my OTA (over the air) channels I was collecting from my HD antenna. The model I used for networking over the power lines is Netgear Powerline 1200.Note: Streaming HD from the Roamio over wifi to your router and then from the router over hardline to the minis does perfectly fine despite what the Tivo rep said in chat.In short:1. Activate your account first on the Tivo website and register the devices first. This sometimes takes awhile for them to process so do it right when you get the equipment.2. Connect your HD antenna. (Try different places in the house for the best signal)3. Setup the Roamio, hardwire if possible, and validate your channels and apps are working4. Install the inline power modules5. Connect your minis to the inline power modules. When you do this give it a few minutes to connect to your Roamio. I was trying to fix a connection issue that wasn’t an issue because I wasn’t giving it time to sync even when the mini’s said it couldn’t find the Roamio. All I had to do was wait and like magic they were talking.Hope this helps someone.

The TiVo Roamio OTA wasn't my first attempt at cutting the cord with my cable company, but it is clearly the best option in terms of quality, usability and price.First, a little history. My first cord cutting attempt was with Tablo TV - a device that creates a whole house DVR using streaming boxes on all TVs. It turned out to be too complicated to operate due to glitchy software and remote control-less interface. The TiVo Roamio OTA DVR performs much better, primarily because the terrific DVR remote and UI are the best in the business. Here's what you need:- TiVo Roamio OTA DVR with lifetime service - available only from Amazon and occasionally on sale. Avoid the full price Amazon offer or DVR without lifetime service, as otherwise you'd end up paying $15/mo.- TiVo Mini that shares the DVR content to other TVs - you'll need one for each TV. I recommend refurbished units available on Amazon, which also include the newer TiVo Mini 2 with RF remote.- HDTV antenna - range rating and placement determine how many channels you get. I tried several models and ended up with the GE 60 mile outdoor antenna sold at Walmart.- Connection 1 : coax from the DVR to the antenna. I used existing coax that ran from our master to the attic where I mounted the antenna.- Connection 2: MoCA connection between DVR and each Mini via coax or Ethernet Cat5 connections from each device to your home network. WiFi is not supported between devices. I went with Ethernet and had to run new Cat5 to our bedroom, but the results have been excellent.CONs:The biggest issue I've found is rationalizing the loss of cable-only programming in favor of reducing our monthly payments to our cable company by $90+. We don't watch a ton of TV, but all three of us will sacrifice a few shows not available outside of cable.PROs:The biggest surprise is TiVo 's tight integration with Amazon, Netflix, YouTube and other streaming services, as searches on the DVR include available shows and movies from all registered services. The experience is clearly better than ROKU and even the new Apple TV box.And perhaps the biggest surprise is how much better the TIVO DVR experience is compared to various others I've used from cable TV companies. I can certainly see why some people rave about the TiVo DVR for cable delivered TV, even if they are paying $15/mo for the service on top of their cable bill.Bottom line is, the TiVo Roamio OTA DVR makes cord cutting as painless as possible.