TiVo Roamio review

In many ways, TiVo's digital video recorders have become redundant as cable and satellite TV companies offer their own DVR services. Yet the company that pioneered DVRs 14 years ago keeps churning out new products.

Avid television viewers will appreciate that. The fifth-generation TiVos, called Roamio, continue the company's tradition of giving you much more than you can get from your cable or satellite company. That includes the ability to watch recorded shows when you're away from home, starting this fall.

But you'll also pay much more for the experience - $400 for the mid-range model, plus a monthly service fee of $15. By contrast, you can often get DVR service through your TV provider for a comparable monthly fee, with no extra equipment to buy.

If you don't watch a lot of television, Roamio isn't for you. It would be like going to a five-star restaurant when all you want is bread. But Roamio is a worthwhile investment if you have hundreds of television channels and Internet video services and can't figure out where to start.

Like other DVRs, you can pause live television to answer the phone or the door. You can rewind live sporting events and create your own replays. Get home 15 minutes late? You can start watching a show from the beginning as it's still being recorded.

Where TiVo has excelled is in helping you find programs to record. You can create wish lists of favorite actors and have TiVo automatically record movies or talk shows they appear in. You can also do the same with keywords, such as "national park" or "dolphins." You can even have TiVo offer suggestions based on your past viewing, though I have found its picks dubious at times.

TiVos also integrate TV shows and movies from Internet video services such as Netflix Inc., Amazon.com Inc. and Hulu. When you search for "Breaking Bad," for instance, you get a list of episodes the AMC channel is showing over the next two weeks plus all the episodes available on Netflix or Amazon. To watch through TiVo, you still have to get a Netflix subscription or buy individual episodes through Amazon, but it's good to know you can get past episodes there. You can also search for related video on YouTube and see what other shows cast members from "Breaking Bad" are in.

The new TiVo has all that, plus suggestions on what to watch now, rather than just what to record in the future. It's based partly on what other TiVo users are watching at the moment or have watched in that time slot in the past.

Roamio also lets you customize the on-screen television listings. If you're in the mood for a movie, you can have TiVo show you just the movies when you scroll through the listings. You can customize that further and scroll through just comedies or documentaries. Instead of movies, you can also scroll through just sports, news shows or kids programming.

As is the case with previous TiVos, if there are channels you never watch, such as something in Korean or Russian, you can have TiVo remove them from your lineup. Shows on those channels will be filtered out of listings and searches. You can also do that with Internet services you have no interest in paying for.

Roamio also has a number of hardware improvements, mostly on the mid-level Roamio Plus ($400) and the high-end Roamio Pro ($600)

• Those two models will let you watch live or record up to six shows at once. That's up from a maximum of four. (The $200 base model has four tuners, up from two.)

• Both will let you watch your recorded shows on an iPhone or iPad. Before, you needed a separate $130 TiVo Stream box. Streaming is currently limited to iPhones and iPads connected to your home wireless network, but TiVo will start offering out-of-home streaming this fall. Users will be able to stream video in various ways, including through a hotel Wi-Fi on the road. Android streaming is promised by early next year.

• All three models come with a remote that uses radio signals rather than an infrared beam. What that means is you don't have to point the remote at the TiVo.

• All three models also have Wi-Fi built in, so you no longer need to attach an Ethernet cable or buy a separate TiVo Wi-Fi adapter for $90.

• The Roamio offers speed improvements over the previous model, which you'll notice when navigating menus. That said, the system did hang on me for a few seconds now and then as TiVo sifted through all the data.

The base model comes with 500 gigabytes of storage, enough for 75 hours of high-definition recordings. The Plus model, which is the one I reviewed, has 1 terabyte for 150 hours, while the Pro has 3 terabytes for 450 hours. That's nearly 19 days of TV without any sleep. There's even more room for non-HD recordings.

If you bought a new TiVo recently, you probably don't need to upgrade. If you want the streaming, you can simply buy the TiVo Stream device. It will get out-of-home streaming, too, when that's available. You can also get a device called the Slingbox, which essentially mirrors over the Internet what's being shown on your home TV. TiVo has at least one advantage over the Slingbox: It lets you and whoever's home watch different shows.

Roamio isn't compatible with satellite TV or video service through AT&T's U-verse.

It works with cable TV service, but you'll need to keep it. While the base model can accommodate over-the-air broadcasts, the Plus and the Pro models can't process signals from antennas. You would be stuck with TiVo as a streaming device, which isn't its strong suit. Both Roku (Review) and Apple TV offer access to many more Internet services than TiVo. TiVo is largely limited to Netflix, Hulu Plus, Amazon.com and a few others. That said, the Roamio has software changes that's designed to make future apps easier to write.

Game machines such as the Wii U and phones such as Samsung's Galaxy S4 offer apps that let you find shows and control the TV from the device. TiVo can replace your TV's remote, too, but it's expensive if that's all you want.

I have stopped channel surfing since I got my first TiVo in 2001. There's always something better to watch now that TiVo has helped me find and record programming. After just a few hours with Roamio, I was discovering even more shows and movies I want to watch.

And with streaming video, it does a good job of finding all that content. With one search, I can tell that Netflix has only the first four and a half seasons of "Breaking Bad." That same search tells me that if I want more recent episodes, I need to buy them through Amazon Instant Video or wait for reruns on AMC. With Roku, I have to search for online content one service at a time.

You can probably cobble together a bunch of services and devices that do what TiVo does. With the new Roamio, TiVo is the one that does it all and does it well.

Netflix's international subscriber base grows to 7.75 million

Netflix's revival of the comedy series "Arrested Development" didn't reel in as many subscribers to the Internet video service as Wall Street had hoped, turning a solid second-quarter earnings report into a reality check.

Even though Netflix's profit more than quadrupled, the report released Monday flopped among investors because it didn't live up to the lofty expectations propelling the company's high-flying stock. The shares have nearly tripled since the beginning of the year, raising the pressure on Netflix Inc. to deliver spectacular numbers.

That didn't' happen during the three months ending in June, despite the much-anticipated return of "Arrested Development" after a seven-year absence. Netflix's stock slid $9.96, or nearly 4 percent, to $252 in extended trading after the numbers came out.

"It was a very good quarter by most standards, but that doesn't cut it when your stock has risen by 200 percent," said Pacific Crest analyst Andy Hargeaves.

Netflix picked up 630,000 U.S. subscribers during the three months ending in June. That performance was slightly above the mid-range target set by Netflix Inc.'s management in April. But the Los Gatos, Calif., company also had predicted it might end the period with as many as 880,000 more subscribers - a goal that many investors evidently were hoping would be reached.

Expectations had been raised by the Memorial Day weekend release of 15 new "Arrested Development" episodes. The comedy starring Jason Bateman and Michael Cera had built a cult following before its cancellation by the Fox network in 2006, after three seasons on broadcast television.

In a letter to shareholders, Netflix CEO Reed Hastings credited "Arrested Development" for providing a "small but noticeable bump" in subscribers. He praised the company for being able to add more subscribers during the first half of this year than it did last year, despite intensifying competition from other Internet video services run by Amazon.com Inc. and Hulu.

Netflix has added 2.7 million subscribers so far this year, up from 2.5 million at the same time last year.

"We are feeling quite good about the business," Hastings assured investors during an unusual live video presentation that was akin to an Internet talk show. Two hosts, CNBC anchor Julia Boorstin and BTIG Research analyst Rich Greenfield, peppered Hastings and two other Netflix executives with questions that had been emailed and tweeted to them.

The second-quarter gains leave Netflix with 29.8 million U.S. subscribers to an $8 monthly service that streams video to Internet-connected devices.

Netflix also added 605,000 international subscribers in the second quarter to boost its total customers outside the U.S to 7.75 million.

Those figures, particularly the U.S. subscriber count, have become Wall Street's focal point, said Sterne Agee analyst Arvind Bhatia. "This is not about the earnings at this point," he said. "It's about how much of the market for Internet video that Netflix can grab."

Netflix's DVD-by-mail rental service continued a gradual demise as more people embrace the convenience of Internet streaming instead of waiting for discs to be delivered. Netflix lost another 475,000 DVD subscribers in the second quarter, leaving the company with 7.5 million on that side of its service. Netflix has been pushing people toward streaming because the company believes DVDs are destined for obsolescence and it doesn't want to spend a lot on the business any longer.

The company increasingly is relying on programming produced especially for its service to retain current subscribers and lure new customers. Since the beginning of the year, Netflix has released four original series, including the debut of "Orange Is The New Black" earlier this month.

During its first week on Netflix, "Orange Is The New Black" attracted more viewers than "Arrested Development" or the other two original series, "House of Cards" and "Hemlock Grove," released this year, according to Ted Sarandos, the company's chief content officer. He declined to provide any specifics about the audience's size.

Netflix received a major boost from "House of Cards," a political drama starring Kevin Spacey, during the opening three months of the year. That series earned nine Emmy Award nominations, including for outstanding drama, best actor and best actress. No Internet-only series had previously been nominated in those marquee categories.

"Arrested Development" also garnered three Emmy nominations.

No one was counting on "Arrested Development" to attract as many subscribers as the February release of "House of Cards" because the comedy came out during the second quarter, a period when Netflix has more trouble signing up new customers. That's because the longer daylight hours and the start of the summer vacation season translate into a smaller pool of people interested in subscribing to a video service.

"It was a very solid quarter," Hastings told The Associated Press in a Monday interview. "But we are focused on how do we get substantially bigger and how do we get substantially better. The quarter was fine, but it's not our main focus."

Netflix earned $29.5 million, or 49 cents per share, in the quarter, up from $6.2 million, or 11 cents per share, a year earlier.

Analysts surveyed by FactSet had forecast earnings of 40 cents per share.

Netflix's revenue climbed 20 percent from last year to $1.07 billion, mirroring analyst projections.

In the current quarter ending in September, Netflix predicted it will add 690,000 to 1.49 million U.S. subscribers.