TiVo Mini extender hands-on

Who doesn't want to be able to watch whatever they want, in any room that they want? Of course this was possible for years using TiVo's Multi-Room Viewing, but that required multiple DVRs which meant multiple Now Playing lists and multiple ToDo lists -- not to mention other costs. In comes the TiVo Mini, a smaller, more efficient set-top box that extends your TiVo Premiere into other rooms of the house. The Mini can connect to the TiVo via Ethernet or coax (MoCA) and has HDMI output as well as component and composite (via a dongle). The box is a trapezoid shape, so don't try stacking anything on it, and is about four times as wide and deep as the TiVo Stream and about the same height -- and of course uses the famous TiVo peanut remote.

The TiVo Mini is expected to ship this Spring, and the price is still yet to be determined. At launch, the Mini will take over one of the four tuners of the XL4, but dynamic tuner allocation is on the road map. The XL4 will support two Minis and can work with them both at the same time, and you can easily configure the Mini to switch to any TiVo in your house. The experience is almost identical to that of the Premiere, except its much faster. The only missing features are the Premiere's Live TV window in the menus and not all the streaming apps that the Premiere has will make it to the Mini -- have to wait for launch for a list.

Gallery: TiVo Mini extender hands-on

Filed under: HD

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