How To Access Your Tivo Remotely

Do you hate it when you’re away on a business trip and you want to catch up on your favorite show but can’t?  

Or how about when you’re on vacation with the family and the kids get upset because they can’t fast forward through the commercials or watch their favorite shows on demand?

Wouldn’t it be great if you could access your Tivo remotely?  In our last Tivo article, we told you about how we can easily find Movies through Tivo’s great collections and comprehensive search.  In this article, we focus on a great feature you’ll love, namely the roamio part of the Tivo Roamio Plus DVR.  One of the beauties of the Roamio is that now you can “roam” around the world and still access and view your Tivo!  With the Roamio Plus and the Roamio Pro you can watch your shows from anywhere with Internet access with your iPhone, iPad, or iPod Touch.

We’ll show you how to access your Tivo remotely to watch your favorite shows and movies on the road…or even from your kids’ bedrooms…minus the TV!  With the Tivo app, you can now download your favorite movies and TV shows directly onto your Apple phone or tablet.

The Tivo app is available for both Android and iOS devices, however, if you would like to download shows, you can only do so on iOS 7.0 or later (Apple) devices at this time.  With the Android app, you can only schedule and browse for shows.

Here is a summary of what you can do with the Tivo app, dependent upon your device…

Do you have a previous version of Tivo?  You can still remotely view your Tivo shows.  You just need to buy the Tivo Stream and hook it up to your Tivo to do the same thing. Compatible with the 4-tuner TiVo Roamio and all TiVo Premiere DVRs.

How to Access Your Tivo from Afar

There are a number of steps to go through first before you can access your Tivo Roamio remotely.  Before you leave home, you need to set up your Tivo so you can send your Tivo information to your mobile devices.  Here are the steps:

1.  In your Tivo Central menu, to to Settings & Messages.  Then select Account & System Info..

2.  Within the Account & System Information menu, select System select Media Access Key.

3.  Write down the Media Access Key # to enter later on your computer, phone, and or tablets to access your Tivo box.  This is your own personal number, ensure that no one else has it.

4.  Now go to your tablet or phone and ensure you have downloaded the Tivo App.  Open up the app and you’ll see this screen above.  Click on the name of your Tivo box (ours is called Media Room).

5.  Enter your Media Access Key number and click OK and you’re ready to go!  You will soon see your Tivo recorded shows and have the option to watch TV live from your Tivo box…whether in the house or on the road, as long as you are connected to the Internet.

6.  Here is what you’ll see on your iPad or iPhone.  The interface looks just like the Tivo interface on your TV that you are used to.  In the upper right-hand corner, you have the option to watch live TV, record a show, even delete a show.  But the real magic is with the “Download” option.  Clicking on Download will allow you download the highlighted show onto your iPad.

7.  You usually have 1-3 choices of the ” Quality” in which you download.  Choose one to begin downloading your show.

• Best will take up the most space on your iPad, but it will have the best looking quality
• Medium looks pretty good but takes less space
• Basic– which downloads the fastest and takes the least amount of storage space

How many shows/movies you can download is dependent upon what quality you download and how much available space is on your iPad.  For our family’s recent road trip, I downloaded 4 full-size movies for my kids.

8.  To see your downloaded shows, click on the “On iPad” (or “On iPhone”)  section in the middle of the screen above to see what you have downloaded already.  As you can see, I have three downloaded and I am in the process of downloading two more – Shrek 2 and Factory Made.

As we watched the shows while vacationing, I would erase them and download new movies over night.  You can download more than one movie at a time.  I started the download process for several movies then went to sleep.  In the morning, the movies were ready for the next leg of our road trip.

The Roamio Plus and Roamio Pro Tivo systems sell for $399 and $599 through Tivo.com plus service.

Although it does help to have plenty of available space on your iPad to save movies, Tivo uses special coding so that movies/shows don’t take very much space, it’s really amazing.

Having the Tivo app was a great travel entertainment resource for us.  It’s much more convenient than DVD’s and a DVD player, I loved the flexibility of downloading new movies while we slept at night, and there’s no extra cost.  Oh, and of course, if there was a movie that was scheduled to air while we were vacationing, I could schedule it, record it, and download it all while we were on the move.  Awesome!

Wouldn’t it be great for you to access your Tivo remotely while traveling?  Which shows/movies would you take with you on the road if you could?

I was given a Tivo Roamio with service as a part of the Tivo Moms team.  All opinions are my own.