Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Having owned (5) Tivos across more than 7-yrs, I have enjoyed them all until purchasing this Bolt Plus product. The first Bolt Plus, died after just a couple days and would not power on at all. Tivo sent me a new in the box replacement Bolt Plus and I've spent more time that I ever want to do again attempting to get the replacement to work. I've been a Comcast customer for 24-yrs, have lots of experience as a cable customer, well know the need for good cable wiring, good signal and using Tivos with cable-cards. I currently own/operate (2) other Tivo Elites that are functioning perfectly connected to the exact same cable location that the Bolt Plus will not tolerate. My signal strength is perfect (according to the two Comcast Techs that spent hours in my home yesterday). These were not "contractors", but long-term Comcast Techs that had many years of excellent knowledge in line requirements and solving problems. They went way beyond what I would have expected of them including running a brand new Coax line direct from the street right to the Tivo Bolt. They even played with attenuating the signal with some of their devices and nothing would work with this Bolt Plus. They used (4) cable-cards (including 2 brand new cards still sealed in the package). There "is" something wrong with the design of the Tivo Bolt Plus. If you do some research online, you will find other people that are having to go through multiples of cable-cards before the Bolt Plus will start to behave properly. Others (as in my case) can't get the Bolt Plus to work at all. The Tivo customer should not have to face trying cable-card after card hoping to find the one that their specific Bolt Plus will tolerate. I've invested many hours of my personal time (across several days) with both Tivo Support and Comcast attempting to get the Bolt Plus to work. Unfortunately, I have arrived at the decision that this new Bolt Plus product is just not ready for "prime time" and I am a long-term Tivo fan. It just has some sort of problem that my other Tivos have never had with the cable TV signal and I'm unwilling to spend more of my time trying to get the Bolt Plus to work. Hopefully Tivo will solve the Bolt Plus problem at some point, but for now I'm not buying any more and can't recommend it. Update 10-21-16: Hey folks, I had to call Tivo yesterday to resolve an issue with a returned Bolt Plus to their RMA dept. I was funneled to Tech Support to handle that RMA issue and also ended up in conversation with the Tech about the Bolt Plus. I learned something important enough from that phone call that I felt it would be useful to share with you. There is a (known to Tivo) reason that the Bolt Plus may not work in place of a predecessor Tivo product as several of us have reported here. The design of the Bolt Plus (and maybe the whole Bolt series) changed significantly from previous Tivo models, especially in the area of Cable signal tolerance. Previous Tivo products such as the Roamio, Premier, etc all used the same Cable signal interface design and have a broader tolerance to the quality and level of the incoming Cable signal. The Bolt Plus has a narrower tolerance and it can be the reason that it will not function in place of an earlier (functioning) design of Tivo DVR. This news raised an important thought that I hope Tivo can address at some point. The Cable customer has no ongoing control over signal strength and quality as new customers are added or Cable provisioning equipment is altered. If you have been a Cable customer long enough, you have likely encountered that issue where one month all is perfect and the next you're having a Cable Tech come to your home to solve a problem. Given that reality, Tivo has actually engineered (via this new design) the problem some of us are seeing with the narrower signal tolerances of the Bolt Plus. I'm of the opinion that I don't want a product that is designed with "less tolerance" to Cable signal changes because it sets me up for more Cable company service calls to tweak signals. I asked the Tivo Support person what are our options if we want a 6-Tuner Tivo with many of the features that the Bolt Plus offers and he said "the Tivo Roamio". He shared that the Roamio uses the same signal interface as the Premier (which I own) and has that wider tolerance in design to Cable signal differences. There are still advantages that are unique to the Bolt series such as a faster processor, etc, but if you are having the problem that others of us are having and want a 6-tuner Tivo, the Roamio might be the better choice. Hope this helps others as they decide what to do and I wish Tivo only the best because they are still light-years better than the DVRs that Cable companies offer (i.e. Comcast X1, etc).