Why You Can Trust CNET Simple.TV 2 review: Great cord-cutting OTA DVR for PCs, not so much for TVs
As a streaming-based DVR the Simple.TV offers a lot of functionality including a novel sharing feature, but if you just want to watch on your TV, instead of a tablet or phone, there are better alternatives.
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The hunger for TV "placeshifting" -- watching your shows from somewhere other than your living room couch -- is arguably greater than ever, only now it's all delivered via the cloud. While legal cloud TV is some way off thanks to the recent Aereo decision, there are several devices which enable you to stream live and recorded TV to mobile devices in addition to your flatscreen.
Simple.TV 2
The Good
The Bad
The Bottom Line
The trend began with the Slingbox in the mid-Noughties, a peripheral that attached symbiotically to your cable box or DVR and streamed to the web. The latest iteration is devices like the Simple.TV and Nuvyyo Tablo , so-called "network DVRs" that don't need a separate cable box or DVR, instead streaming over-the-air (OTA) TV signals. They appeal primarily to people who have cut the cable TV cord.
The Simple.TV is a box to which you can connect the Internet, a hard drive and an antenna. It then streams recorded and live OTA TV shows to a device of your choosing, typically a phone or tablet, through a variety of apps. There's also an app for Roku, and the ability to work with Chromecast, both of which allow Simple.TV to "stream" to any TV.
Before you consider buying a device like the Simple.TV you should ask yourself what you'll be using it for. If you want to watch primarily on a TV as opposed to a mobile device, I'd instead recommend a standalone DVR, like TiVo Roamio or Channel Master DVR+ . But if you intend to watch a lot of OTA TV shows on a tablet or phone, and especially if you want to share those shows with friends or download them to a tablet for offline viewing, the innovative Simple.TV deserves a look.
Design
While the original Simple.TV resembled an Apple device with its white finish and organic curves, the new version is more compact and looks more like a standard streaming box. This is a small device, a little larger than a Roku , with a friendly television logo and a vented top.
Through the grille you can plainly see what is unfortunately the noisiest part of this device: the cooling fan. On startup it makes the unit sound like a PC, and at other times when it activates intermittently. While Simple.TV has issued various firmware updates it is still audible in a quiet room.
Features
This second iteration of the Simple.TV also costs a little bit more: $200 versus $150. The biggest change is dual-tuner support which introduces the ability to record two shows at once or watch one live show while another is recording.
The Simple.TV has software for a variety of platforms including Roku, iOS, Android, Windows 8 (app) and most browsers. Its makers recommend the Android app as the most feature-rich and stable.
Simple.TV says that 50 percent of users watch via Roku or Chromecast ( added earlier this year) -- that is, they watch on a television. Yet, despite its main usage case, this is a "cloud" DVR and cannot be plugged into a TV directly. The only connections you'll find are Ethernet, coaxial antenna and a USB port for connecting external storage. You'll need to supply your own hard drive, and there's no Wi-Fi for networking -- probably a good thing since wired is typically more stable.
You can choose not to pay a $5 monthly/$150 lifetime fee with Simple.TV, but you'll miss out on the ability to stream shows outside the home (called "Whole-planet Remote Access"), access the program guide, the ability to set up TiVo-like "season passes" to shows, and sharing recordings and offline downloads. I think it's well worth the fee to subscribe.
One of Simple.TV's newest and perhaps more "controversial" features in this post-Aereo world is the ability to share your recordings with five other non-Simple.TV users. Once you to add a person's email address they can set up an account and log in to the app or web site themselves. They'll be able to see and watch your recorded shows, but they won't have access to live TV, the program guide or other advanced features.
The DVR enables offline downloads, but you can't simply plug your HDD into your PC to get them. Instead you need to hit the little download icon by your recorded show and the system will upload it to its servers, convert it, and then send it back to you.
As you can imagine for a long recording this can take a long time in the best quality, and though I didn't use a stopwatch it took many hours to render a 2-hour movie in full quality. If your needs are more modest, downloading a 30-minute HD program to "tablet" (640x480) took about 3 minutes and resulted in a 330MB file on the local network. It's still a nice feature though, especially for road trips and plane flights with kids and a tablet away from an Internet connection.
Be aware that you can't archive recordings when on a different network, otherwise you'll get an error message saying "You can only download MP4 files when the Simple.TV is on your local network".
The Nuvyyo Tablo offers neither sharing nor offline downloads, although its web site says the latter feature "is high on our priority list."
Price Comparison
Cord-cutters mainly do so to save money, so it's worth comparing the various OTA DVRs, most of which charge a subscription fee, for long-term as well as initial costs.
TiVo recently announced a new $50 model for the cord-cutting crowd , but the Simple.TV attracts a much more modest cost in the long term. A yearly subscription is $60 while a "lifetime" is $150. As the table below demonstrates, Simple.TV sits in the middle of the OTA DVR pack in terms of total cost.
For Simple.TV and Tablo "accessories" we've budgeted an antenna (they start around $40), a USB hard drive (around $55), and a few cables (around $10), while we've added another $40 to the Channel Master for the Wi-Fi adapter. And as usual, it makes sense to get a "Lifetime" subscription if you plan on keeping the device for longer than a couple years.
Total cost of ownership
| Channel Master DVR+ | Tablo | Simple.TV 2 | TiVo Roamio | TiVo Roamio OTA | |
| Hardware | $250 | $220 | $200 | $170 | $50 |
| Accessories | $145 | $105 | $105 | $50 | $50 |
| Subscription fees | $0 | $150 (lifetime) | $150 (lifetime) | $500 (lifetime) | $15/mo |
| 3-year cost | $395 | $475 | $455 | $720 | $640 |
| 4-year cost | $395 | $475 | $455 | $720 | $820 |
Setup
Without a user interface of its own, the Simple.TV relies on users going to the company's website to set it up. I prefer this approach because doing so with a remote control on a TV screen is the worst part of installing any connected home theater gadget.
After creating a user account, the simple wizard walks you through connecting the hard drive, antenna and Ethernet cables. After this is done it will scan through the available channels, and despite having dozens available in my local area it only took a few minutes to find them all.
Apps
While there are a number of different apps available for use with the Simple.TV there isn't much of a unified look to them.
The Windows 8 app is the most "out there" with a spare, almost iOS 7 appearance. It's also the most unreliable, frequently crashing on our test AMD desktop as well as experiencing lip-sync issues on a Dell Inspiron 11 3000 Windows 8 hybrid.
The Roku app hasn't changed much since Simple.TV first launched and consists of a series of tiles pointing to the different sections such as Live TV. It's not the easiest interface to use, especially when you have to cycle through one tile at a time to get to the live show you want to watch.
The iOS and Android apps are definitely the easiest to use. The main view consists of two main options: "Live TV" and "My Recordings." Pressing Live TV takes you to a grey program guide and clicking on a show brings up a synopsis plus two buttons, "More Episodes" and "Record Series." The Play button itself is located on the thumbnail of the show and can be easily missed.
The Web app is relatively straightforward except for one major quirk: you can't watch live TV from the guide, only record. You need to go to the home page and choose from the channel list. This is unlike most of the other interfaces which allow recording and live TV watching from the guide.
Performance
If you've used devices like the Slingbox previously then you'll know what to expect from the Simple.TV as far as picture quality is concerned. It's perfectly acceptable for tablets and phones but at sizes larger than a laptop screen the side effects of web compression become more obvious.
Compared to the TiVo Roamio OTA , the Simple.TV had a more compressed image on daytime HD TV with aliasing on diagonal edges and compression artifacts in large blocks of color. These Simple.TV problems are very noticeable on a large screen, though when streaming over the Internet to a tablet they are not.
I didn't compare the Nuyyo Tablo directly to the Simple.TV 2 for this review, but the Tablo's highest picture quality setting was superb in our review : "Tablo's image quality is, for the most part, on par with HD from a cable or satellite company." I can't say the same for Simple.TV 2.
While two people can watch live TV at once on different devices, if a third person joins a strange error messages can pop up on two of the three screens: "there is no storage device connected to the Simple TV." It would have been preferable for something specific like "both tuners are in use".
Streaming to a mobile phone was a little spotty even with a good 802.11n wireless signal. If you live in an apartment building like myself, you should try using a 5Ghz connection (if you have a compatible router) or better still via Ethernet.
The sharing and archiving features worked as advertised, though make sure you have a healthy upload speed before giving all of your friends access to your "MasterChef" library.
Conclusion
While its features are innovative and fun, the Simple.TV 2 isn't the best cord-cutting DVR on the market. The TiVo and Channel Master can beat it for image quality and convenience, especially if you're one of the 50 per cent who would buy a Simple.TV to watch on a TV. Meanwhile the Tablo also offers better image quality, if fewer features at the moment.
Simple.TV 2's best use-case would be if you have a household of tablet users who want to watch different programming at the same time. In general use, it's pretty straightforward and setting up recordings is fairly easy. It's also one of the cheapest in the long run. If you're looking for a DVR which can both stream to portable devices and to your TV, and don't want to invest in TiVo (and its Stream attachment), Simple.TV is a versatile and feature-rich choice.