End-user perspective on small office tools & technology

Changing Course: Returning Tivo Edge OTA

We’ve had the Tivo Edge OTA device for a couple of weeks. I had hoped that it would allow us to maintain our Tivo infrastructure to at least provide local channels. Further, the latest Tivo hardware might be acceptable for access to some basic streaming services, like Netflix and Amazon Prime. But I was wrong. So very wrong.

While all the above was true, I failed to consider what version of the Tivo user interface the Edge device would provide. Our Roamio Pro runs what’s known as TE3, which means Tivo Experience 3. This is the menu structure that we’re comfortable using for a decade or more. It’s a bit stodgy looking, but it it’s familiar and works well enough. It’s the experience was wish to sustain.

Tivo TE3 screen sample

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New Gear: Epson EcoTank ET-2850 Inkjet Printer/Scanner

Computer printers suck. Every last one. Maybe some suck just a little less.

Epson EcoTank ET-2850

Over the years, we’ve had a litany of printers in our household. We started with an Epson 870 color inkjet. It was photo printer bought specifically for a project. We wanted to scan a bunch of old family photos, to create a booklet for each of Stella’s brothers and sisters.

It was a nice idea. But it took a vast amount of time. And consumed a monstrous amount of fancy paper and ink, in tiny little, high-priced cartridges. In the end, we might have been better off to have a local pharmacy output the images to real photo paper. It would have cost about the same, and the photos would have lasted longer.

That was over 20 years ago. In many regards, nothing has changed. In a recent podcast, Cory Doctorow reminds us that inkjet inks are the single most expensive fluid in existence.

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Comcast won’t let me be

Comcast Business NotificationWhen the Scientific Atlanta/Cisco CableCard failure occurred on December 1 it was just the push we needed to cut the cord. Since we could not have our beloved Tivo DVR there was no further reason to stay with Comcast. We dropped both Xfinity cable TV and Comcast Business internet access. Both changes were long overdue.

Since then, the company simply won’t stop bothering us. They send us offers in the mail saying how, “they miss us” and, “they want us to come back.” I suppose that’s to be expected. Junk mail.

However, for the past week they’ve been sending me text messages with advice about network upgrade work in the area. We had a Comcast Business account for over a decade and never received anything from them. Now they start sending me messages. A month after we closed the account?!

This is not the sort of thing that inspires. Rather, it highlights just what a senseless and uncoordinated organization they truly are.

As if that’s not annoying enough, they send further text messages asking if the prior messages have been helpful? What sort of idiocy is this? We simply don’t care about a service we no longer use.

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Ubiquiti Unifi UXG-Max Router: The Most Boring Installation in Memory

The transition to AT&T Fiber meant jumping from 60/10 mbps service to 500/500 mbps service. Our old router was SmallWall on a recycled HP T620 Plus thin client. SmallWall is a fork of m0n0wall, which I used for years previously. And a history lesson, m0n0wall was the progenitor of pfsense.

Alas, that little hardware/software combination simply wasn’t up to this new, and much faster, ISP. It could only manage to pass 120 mbps. The CPU tracking in SmallWall didn’t show it to be overburdened. I suspect other aspects of the hardware were the problem. It has a dual-ported Intel NIC. They’re 1G ports, connected to the host via a PCIe x4 connector.

UXG-Max

I could have swapped out the T620 Plus for something newer and faster. However, I decided to extend our installation of Ubiquiti Unifi gear by adding their Unifi UXG Max router. That would allow me to see the ISP/router performance in the Unifi UI, which is handled by the Unifi Controller app running on a local Raspberry Pi400.

We came to use the Unifi line by way of their Wi-Fi access points. That was the end-state of what had been a long-running search to deliver reliable Wi-Fi. When our Ubiquiti PowerAP N died we deployed Unifi AC Pro access points. So began our foray into “software defined networking.”

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Good riddance to Comcast & Xfinity

For many, many years we have been customers of Comcast. We had their consumer cable TV service, which was rebranded Xfinity. We also had Comcast Business Class internet access. We had both services a very long time.

At the time we installed them we were quite happy with both services. As a Tivo household we were compelled to have cable TV service. We adored Tivo. That effectively bound us to Xfinity.

Back in the day (2008-ish) Comcast’s DOCSIS-powered cable internet outperformed the only alternative, which was DSL. It was not without its quirks. We were compelled to switch to business class service because consumer service was badly degraded at certain times of the day. Basically, it slowed to a crawl when the kids got out of school.

In the early days, we’d occasionally hear from some salesperson who claimed to be our new account rep. They came and went. Every time they offered us faster service, it was for way more money. Occasionally they’d have some deal, but the special offer always evaporated if I wanted to use my own cable modem and router. Or if I didn’t want a bundle that included their voice service.

Eventually, they stopped calling on us. We’ve not been bound to a contract since 2012. We’ve just been grandfathered in on a legacy “Deluxe 60/10” service that cost around $100/mo.

Tivo is the glue

We’ve been a Tivo household since 2001. We currently have a Tivo Roamio Pro with 6 tuners. It’s on the main TV in the house. Other TVs are connected to Tivo Mini’s and a Tivo Mini LUX. A total of four TVs can access any content.

Tivo is still the superlative DVR. Nothing else comes even close. Some cable and satellite providers licensed Tivo tech for their own use. Their own DVRs are absolutely lame in comparison. The fact that they could not match Tivo in 25 years is, I think, testament to the fact that they just didn’t care about the user experience.

Our cable TV bill was over $200/mo. If it were not for our investment in, and admiration of Tivo, we would have long ago dumped Comcast.

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