Hey there, I'm Josh Goldman with CNET and this is a look at the TiVo Mini.
Now, unlike most of what TiVo sells, this is not a DVR so you cannot record TV directly to it, but instead it connects to a TiVo Premiere 4 or XL4 DVR over your home network extending access to your Premiere's recordings as well as live TV.
Now, there is no wireless support, so it connects to your network either by Ethernet
or over MoCo which uses your coaxial cable in your home to meet the high bend with demands for smoothly streaming live TV.
Set-up is fairly straightforward, just connect the coaxial or Ethernet to your wall, HDMI to your display and plug it in for power.
It's small and like lightweight too, so you can easily hide it by mounting it behind the TV or somewhere else out of sight.
So once it's connected and find your DVR, you'll have
pretty much the same experience on the Mini as you do on the Premiere.
All controlled with the included standard Peanut remote along with access to recorded in live TV, you also get on demanding streaming content services, though at the moment, Netflix and Amazon Instant Video aren't available.
However, if only you're after is streaming services, you'll probably better off going with something like a Roku.
Also, you currently have to dedicate one of your tuners for the Mini to stream
live TV, which means you lose it for recording.
Though, TiVo says this eventually won't be necessary.
Now, the price.
Because you're getting the TiVo service experience on the Mini, there is a subscription fee involved, 6 bucks a month or $150 lifetime and the device itself costs $100.
This isn't entirely out of line with the cost of similar set-ups from other providers, but still might be more than some TiVo users are willing to spend.
I'm Josh Goldman and that's a look at the TiVo Mini.
