TIVO

Roland wants to know if there's an over the air DVR and if Amazon's new Recast is a good buy. Leo says that Recast is a new product that will work in between the antenna and the TV, but he will also need a FireTV or EchoShow to talk to it. Over the air, DVRs include the TIVO OTA Model. ChannelMaster. Silicon Dust HDHome Run. 

Mike is thinking of getting an over-the-air DVR and antenna. What's the best one to get? Leo says he's a TiVO fan, but it is the priciest option out there. There's also ChannelMaster, which is a nice OTA and they don't charge for the TV Guide. Silicon Dust also makes the HD Home Run. But Leo is a fan of TiVO because it lets him ad-skip. 

As for Antennas, check out TVFool.com and AntennaWeb.org.

Kevin wants to know how he can update the firmware on his old TIVo Roamio. Is there a way to put a new OS on it, like KODI? Leo says that would be difficult, it was designed to be a streaming media player. TIVOCommunity.com is a good place to go to see if anyone is doing that. Another good source is WeakKnees.com since they resell hardware.

Michelle has finally cut the cable and wants to know how to stream her movies and TV shows from the internet. Does she need special equipment? Leo says maybe. If she has a smartTV, then she might not. But Leo recommends getting a streaming device anyway and he recommends the Roku. Streaming services include Netflix, Amazon, and Hulu. But there's also new services coming from Disney and many others. How does she pay for them? Leo says she would have to give them a credit card.

Larry has to find a way to cut the cable and save money. His cable DVR service is over $200 a month now. Leo says that's ridiculous. He can go over-the-air with an antenna and get a TiVo. As long as he gets clear reception. Then anything he doesn't get he can stream online.

Eric cut the cable and wants to know if he can get programs off his old TiVo. Leo says in the first generation TiVos, he would be able to. But copy protection has locked down and encrypted that data. TIVO to Go was an option, but it was a very poor solution. There is one way to do it still, and that's the analog hole. Eric can connect his TIVO using the analog component jacks (red, white and yellow), but it will be standard definition.

Scott has a 500GB TiVo Bolt and wants to set it up to just save the recent week's worth of recordings, not every single recording forever. Leo says it's in the settings. He can set it to just keep a week's worth and delete the rest, as well as to delete when it starts to run out of space. Can he upgrade the hard drive? Leo says yes. He will also probably have to "bless" the hard drive so that TiVo will read it. Leo recommends contacting Weaknees.com.

Michael wants to know if he can get the programs off his TIVO. Leo says it was possible with the Series 1 TIVO. But now the data is encrypted, so it's almost impossible to decrypt it and copy it off. TiVo does have a feature called TIVO to Go, but the only way he could really do it is to exploit the analog hole. That will lower the quality a bit, but he can use the analog connections that would go to his TV and connect them to a recorder. Then he could play the content back and record it in real time. It can be complicated though, because of HDCP.

Ted's dad is going to be in the hospital for a month and he wants to know how he can watch TV from his TiVo at home. Leo says he can use TiVo online and watch it from a tablet where he is. TiVo could play on an Apple TV, but it would have to be AirPlayed from an iPad.