# Whoah, Roamio Basic simultaneous OTA & cable.....sort of.



## HarperVision (May 14, 2007)

As I mentioned in another thread, I hooked up an antenna and redid guided setup. I left the cablecard and TA connected and only hooked up the antenna and disconnected the coax cable feed. When I got to the section right after it asked if I was setting up antenna or cable (I selected antenna of course), the next screen detected that I had a tuning adapter connected so it asked me if I wanted to setup for antenna AND cable or continue with only antenna setup. I was curios of course so I selected cable and antenna setup. It went through its usual paces and asked what cable provider I have, then downloaded what it usually does, then lo and behold it went to a follow on screen to scan and setup the antenna channels! I did that and once the scan was done it downloaded data again and voila', now both cable and antenna channels all show up in the guide, merged together! Of course only the antenna channels came in since that's what was hooked up, but the interesting part comes in when I swapped the coax cables back to the cable feed and now all of THOSE channels come in too.

I'm thinking if someone really wants, they could use one of those old A/B RF coax switches with both OTA and cable. It could screw up some recordings of course, if the switch is in the wrong position when a recording starts on the other coax feed. 

I think I may have read something like this awhile ago when the Roamio was new and a lot of questions were being asked, but I don't think anyone ever got this far before, where they could feasibly have both at the same time, albeit using an RF switch. If so........never mind!


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## worachj (Oct 14, 2006)

Interesting! I wonder what would happen if you used a splitter in reverse and combined your OTA and cable signals and feed them to the TiVo.


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## HarperVision (May 14, 2007)

worachj said:


> Interesting! I wonder what would happen if you used a splitter in reverse and combined your OTA and cable signals and feed them to the TiVo.


 Yes, very interesting indeed and I'm surprised to wake up this morning to no replies to this very interesting nugget of information on the Roamio basic! People were clamoring and complaining when it first came out that it didn't do both, and now I found a way to do just that (sort of) and not a peep until you posted.  I looked in the system information screen and it shows two input sources, antenna and digital cable, just like older version tivos. It acts like it has the 2 RF coax inputs, but of course it doesn't.

I already tried what you're asking using a splitter, knowing with my background that it probably wouldn't work or at least reliably. The cable signal seemed to come in fine, but the antenna feed must've back fed all that cable co's coax and the signal strength dropped to an unusable level.


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## bootman_head_fi (Aug 3, 2008)

worachj said:


> Interesting! I wonder what would happen if you used a splitter in reverse and combined your OTA and cable signals and feed them to the TiVo.


If the OTA QAM is the same freq as an incoming cable QAM, you would lose both.
I would not recommend this since many OTA QAMs do overlap cable ones in the 500-750 MHz range..

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipe...locations_Chart_2003_-_The_Radio_Spectrum.jpg


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## worachj (Oct 14, 2006)

HarperVision said:


> I tried what you're asking using a splitter, knowing with my background that it probably wouldn't work or at least reliably. The cable signal seemed to come in fine, but the antenna feed must've back fed all that cable co's coax and the signal strength dropped to an unusable level.


Thanks for trying, I was hoping for the best knowing must likely it wouldn't work.


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## HarperVision (May 14, 2007)

bootman_head_fi said:


> If the OTA QAM is the same freq as an incoming cable QAM, you would lose both. I would not recommend this since many OTA QAMs do overlap cable ones in the 500-750 MHz range.. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/45/United_States_Frequency_Allocations_Chart_2003_-_The_Radio_Spectrum.jpg


OTA in the US and Canada doesn't use QAM, it uses ATSC 8-VSB. But yes, they would interfere regardless if they're on or even close to the same frequency.


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## JimboG (May 27, 2007)

OTA HDTV doesn't use QAM, but cable does.

If you multiplex the OTA signal and the cable signal, your OTA signal likely will land in the same frequency as a QAM, thus nuking both.

On the other hand, an A/B switch wouldn't be a problem. It sounds like HarperVision may have found a way to mainly use cable, but add OTA channels that have better picture quality, or aren't included in your cable service, or are from a nearby out of market location.

Examples of nearby local markets include Tucson in Phoenix, Flint and Toledo with Detroit, San Diego and Los Angeles, Baltimore and Washington, DC, etc.


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## telemark (Nov 12, 2013)

That's cool.

Might have better luck with a Band-pass combiner, or notch filter.


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## HarperVision (May 14, 2007)

telemark said:


> That's cool. Might have better luck with a Band-pass combiner, or notch filter.


I was thinking that, but I would think a few of the channels may actually share the same frequencies, so there would be no way to separate them. It would be very location specific I would think.


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## cp2k (Mar 16, 2004)

telemark said:


> That's cool.
> 
> Might have better luck with a Band-pass combiner, or notch filter.


I've wondered the same thing, in our area Charter is all digital with all the HD channels in the 700's and 800's. I wonder if it would be possible to block all but the HD range and combine it with the OTA using this method?


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## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

HarperVision said:


> I was thinking that, but I would think a few of the channels may actually share the same frequencies, so there would be no way to separate them. It would be very location specific I would think.


And you'd lose a bunch of cable channels, not knowing what you're going to lose until you lose them, and then if the cable company shuffles things around...

Yeah, it's not going to work.


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## snowman720 (Nov 23, 2006)

Dave,

I have a Roamio Plus that is the cable ready model, not the OTA one. After reading your post it would appear that I could potentially 'cut the cord' from Comcast (keeping the cable card installed in the Tivo) and get the Tivo to work off an antenna. Would you agree? 

Thanks!

Geoff


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## kokishin (Sep 9, 2014)

snowman720 said:


> Dave,
> 
> I have a Roamio Plus that is the cable ready model, not the OTA one. After reading your post it would appear that I could potentially 'cut the cord' from Comcast (keeping the cable card installed in the Tivo) and get the Tivo to work off an antenna. Would you agree?
> 
> ...


I'm not Dave... Dave was experimenting with a Roamio Basic which has tuners that can support either OTA or cable but not both together. That is why Dave had to use an A/B switch. The Roamio Plus and Pro tuners only support cable; not OTA.


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## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

snowman720 said:


> Dave,
> 
> I have a Roamio Plus that is the cable ready model, not the OTA one. After reading your post it would appear that I could potentially 'cut the cord' from Comcast (keeping the cable card installed in the Tivo) and get the Tivo to work off an antenna. Would you agree?
> 
> ...


You have to give them back the CableCard when you terminate service, since they own it. Also, without their signal, the CableCard does jack ****. So that makes no sense.


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## HarperVision (May 14, 2007)

Bigg said:


> You have to give them back the CableCard when you terminate service, since they own it. Also, without their signal, the CableCard does jack ****. So that makes no sense.


I wouldn't say it won't do "jack****e" since at least with my TWC they do have a lot of channels in clear QAM that aren't protected in both SD and HD, like TBS etc. so that's a channel that you wouldn't normally get OTA and could feasibly get without a Cablecard if you only subscribed to their basic service with Internet, which you'd probably keep even if you "cut the cord".

As stated tho, you have to use the Roamio basic to do this.


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## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

HarperVision said:


> I wouldn't say it won't do "jack****e" since at least with my TWC they do have a lot of channels in clear QAM that aren't protected in both SD and HD, like TBS etc. so that's a channel that you wouldn't normally get OTA and could feasibly get without a Cablecard if you only subscribed to their basic service with Internet, which you'd probably keep even if you "cut the cord".
> 
> As stated tho, you have to use the Roamio basic to do this.


I totally missed that the post I was responding to was discussing a Roamio Plus, so it's even more nonsensical, since the Plus doesn't work with OTA in the first place.

However, they wouldn't let you have a CableCard if you don't subscribe to the service, and Comcast doesn't have ClearQAM anymore. That being said, Limited Basic plus internet is about the same price as internet-only in most markets, and that will get you a CableCard and local channels, and would work with any Roamio model.


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## HarperVision (May 14, 2007)

I give up. You just keep missing the point.


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## telemark (Nov 12, 2013)

I didn't look up the numbers, but thinking aloud...

Wouldn't this work with virtually all the hybrid Analog+Digital cable systems? That is Analog Cable would start at VHF channel 2 and go up from there, until it switches to digital cable at some point. ATSC should be all UHF & VHF depending on city with most of it UHF.

So you just take the VHF+UHF frequencies from the Antenna and above that frequency from the Cable system, for digital cable / QAM.


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## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

HarperVision said:


> I give up. You just keep missing the point.


I understand you can tune a ClearQAM channel without a CableCard, if you have them in the first place. However, it is of no use beyond troubleshooting, as the TiVo doesn't know what it is.



telemark said:


> I didn't look up the numbers, but thinking aloud...
> 
> Wouldn't this work with virtually all the hybrid Analog+Digital cable systems? That is Analog Cable would start at VHF channel 2 and go up from there, until it switches to digital cable at some point. ATSC should be all UHF & VHF depending on city with most of it UHF.
> 
> So you just take the VHF+UHF frequencies from the Antenna and above that frequency from the Cable system, for digital cable / QAM.


Very unlikely to work, and you'd need a whole bunch of notch filters. Most cable systems have stuff on pretty much every frequency except the FM band from 50mhz (upstream internet below that) to whatever they are capable of, anywhere from 550mhz to 1000mhz. And the systems that are still analog are, over time, converting to all digital.

Also, even systems that haven't been converted to all-digital yet have had many channels removed so that they can be recycled for digital, so the band plan is an ugly mess. Comcast did that for several years, removing small batches of analog every so often and then adding more HD's a month or so later until they eventually nuked it completely and went all-digital. All cable systems with the exception of small private systems at hotels, universities, and hospitals are headed to all-digital, it's just a matter of how long the conversion takes.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

While this is cool, I wouldn't rely on it. Sounds like a software glitch that they will probably fix eventually. Also even if you could figure out how to combine the two signals via a notch filter there is no guarantee your cable company wouldn't move the channels. One of the features of CableCARD is that it contains a map between the channel numbers and the actual frequencies. Which means they could change the frequencies at any time and a normal user wouldn't even notice, but it could completely hose someone using a notch filter to block out specific frequencies.


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## nooneuknow (Feb 5, 2011)

Dan203 said:


> While this is cool, I wouldn't rely on it. Sounds like a software glitch that they will probably fix eventually. Also even if you could figure out how to combine the two signals via a notch filter there is no guarantee your cable company wouldn't move the channels. One of the features of CableCARD is that it contains a map between the channel numbers and the actual frequencies. Which means they could change the frequencies at any time and a normal user wouldn't even notice, but it could completely hose someone using a notch filter to block out specific frequencies.


Yes, this.

Cox is always moving what frequencies my channels are on, and moving more to SDV, while holding onto analog, plus adding more QAMs to their already 8 down & 4 up internet. They promise a "free" double of current speeds every year, and deliver. They also promised to continue supporting analog for "free", when the OTA analog was going away, then kept plugging away at how they'd keep it. Sad, that a fully 1GHz network has to have SDV...

As an added note, for future reference, Cox in this multi-regional market has pulled the H.264 channels out of the >860MHz range (this happened a while back, actually. I just didn't notice, until CoxInPHX posted about it). I guess their plan to force everybody to use their Contour platform, or lose those channels, fell apart, so they took them out of the nosebleed spectrum. I guess that will be where they cram in the extra QAMs for next year's "free" internet speed double (which they will then charge for as "due to increased operating costs", 4-6 months later). It's still an overcrowded, and temperamental, system. But, having actual TV channels in the nosebleed spectrum was the only way I discovered one of my Roamios had a defective tuner, just in time to use the return period and transfer lifetime service... If I had bought one with the same defect after they moved them down, I'd have never known the >900MHz range wouldn't tune...


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## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

Dan203 said:


> Also even if you could figure out how to combine the two signals via a notch filter there is no guarantee your cable company wouldn't move the channels.


Quite true.



nooneuknow said:


> Cox is always moving what frequencies my channels are on, and moving more to SDV, while holding onto analog, plus adding more QAMs to their already 8 down & 4 up internet. They promise a "free" double of current speeds every year, and deliver. They also promised to continue supporting analog for "free", when the OTA analog was going away, then kept plugging away at how they'd keep it. Sad, that a fully 1GHz network has to have SDV...


Yeah, that is pretty sad, but eventually they, too, will go all-digital. They might just give out free DTAs to make good on their promise. I'm betting that they've been pruning the analog lineup for a while now? Their network without analog will be a force to be reckoned with. Even Verizon might be in for a bit of shock with that much bandwidth!



> As an added note, for future reference, Cox in this multi-regional market has pulled the H.264 channels out of the >860MHz range (this happened a while back, actually. I just didn't notice, until CoxInPHX posted about it). I guess their plan to force everybody to use their Contour platform, or lose those channels, fell apart, so they took them out of the nosebleed spectrum. I guess that will be where they cram in the extra QAMs for next year's "free" internet speed double (which they will then charge for as "due to increased operating costs", 4-6 months later). It's still an overcrowded, and temperamental, system. But, having actual TV channels in the nosebleed spectrum was the only way I discovered one of my Roamios had a defective tuner, just in time to use the return period and transfer lifetime service... If I had bought one with the same defect after they moved them down, I'd have never known the >900MHz range wouldn't tune...


That's a very interesting point. There could be many others out there that can't tune that high, and no one would know. The highest my Premiere XL4 has ever been is around 510mhz, it will go into the mid 700's to low 800's in June when I give it to my parents, who are on an 860mhz plant.


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## nooneuknow (Feb 5, 2011)

Bigg said:


> Yeah, that is pretty sad, but eventually they, too, will go all-digital. They might just give out free DTAs to make good on their promise. I'm betting that they've been pruning the analog lineup for a while now? Their network without analog will be a force to be reckoned with. Even Verizon might be in for a bit of shock with that much bandwidth!


They really haven't been pruning much that anybody cares about, that is on it still. They still have starter, basic, and basic extended tiers, with a lot of fixed-income people on starter or basic (or gov't assistance provided service). Like all big plants, they have to look at how many subs they'd lose to rabbit ears, rather than upsell to digital. There's also a great deal of people who just don't want to have a STB at all, and Cox's history of hiding their "Free HD" inside the cost of "digital service". DTAs would be "digital service", unless they deviate from the path of shaking us down for every penny they legally can (and charging for "free" things). OTT streaming PQ makes their HD look like watching SD on a HD TV. Not a good way to prevent cord-cutting for linear and SDV, with all the bandwidth they keep adding like it's effortless. 12 down QAM modems were on their supported modem list before they were on the open market. 1000Mbit is listed as available, and Centurylink is running fiber, trying to be a real competitor, rather than TV and internet over decade-old twisted pair, and losing TV channels if using the internet at the same time. It's so bad, if you threaten to leave Cox, for Centurylink, they literally laugh at you, say you'll be back, and rattle off all the costs to come back, and discounts lost. My area isn't worthy of CL's fiber, so TiVo users here are stuck.



Bigg said:


> That's a very interesting point. There could be many others out there that can't tune that high, and no one would know. The highest my Premiere XL4 has ever been is around 510mhz, it will go into the mid 700's to low 800's in June when I give it to my parents, who are on an 860mhz plant.


To make matters worse, it was an internal issue, where if there was a bit of cable tension in the right direction, it would tune, until thermal intermittent factors arose. Any BER testing TiVo does before QC passing a unit might have let who knows how many units with inadequate solder flow pass. I could see that TiVo 2 of 3 had less solder on the topside tuner shield (close to none). Now, every time something HDMI related acts up, I worry that my HDMI ports are suffering a similar issue...

Kind of gone OT, but I'm sure you wouldn't dream of threadjacking...


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## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

nooneuknow said:


> They really haven't been pruning much that anybody cares about, that is on it still. They still have starter, basic, and basic extended tiers, with a lot of fixed-income people on starter or basic (or gov't assistance provided service). Like all big plants, they have to look at how many subs they'd lose to rabbit ears, rather than upsell to digital. There's also a great deal of people who just don't want to have a STB at all, and Cox's history of hiding their "Free HD" inside the cost of "digital service". DTAs would be "digital service", unless they deviate from the path of shaking us down for every penny they legally can (and charging for "free" things). OTT streaming PQ makes their HD look like watching SD on a HD TV. Not a good way to prevent cord-cutting for linear and SDV, with all the bandwidth they keep adding like it's effortless. 12 down QAM modems were on their supported modem list before they were on the open market. 1000Mbit is listed as available, and Centurylink is running fiber, trying to be a real competitor, rather than TV and internet over decade-old twisted pair, and losing TV channels if using the internet at the same time. It's so bad, if you threaten to leave Cox, for Centurylink, they literally laugh at you, say you'll be back, and rattle off all the costs to come back, and discounts lost. My area isn't worthy of CL's fiber, so TiVo users here are stuck.


They could justify DTAs being "analog" since they don't output a digital signal to the TV, only RF and maybe RCA, depending on the model. There's a lot more to analog elimination than just some old people who are stuck in the mud and complain when the cable company eliminates analog. The 1ghz plant rebuilds couldn't have been cheap, and SDV and H.264 aren't cheap either to overcome the bandwidth waste from analog.

However, that's all small compared to cable theft. Comcast had bad issues with cable theft, especially in certain markets (I'm looking at you Detroit). Going to all-digital 100% eliminated cable theft, since it's completely impossible to outright steal it. I'm sure there's still plenty of account sharing going on in multi-family houses, but at least ever CableCard and box is attached to a paying account now.

And then there's the competitiveness. Cox has found a different way to be competitive with 1ghz and SDV, but in Comcast's case, they are at least semi-competitive with plants at low as 550/625mhz, and their 860mhz plants are fully competitive with DirecTV and FIOS. Comcast took all-digital as a cheap way around rebuilds, but even with rebuilds, they might have had room for limited basic in analog, and not much more.

Then there's the sub loss issue. Sure, they might lose a few subs with all-digital, and in my town, where there is a local overbuilder that hasn't yet gone all-digital, they probably did, but in most places, there isn't another provider that offers analog service. DirecTV, DISH, FIOS, U-Verse, and pretty much everything requires a box at this point, so there's little downside there. Also, the customers who b*tch and moan about having to get a box weren't valuable customers in the first place, as they were on relatively low levels of service, not paying a lot, and don't have the ability to order stuff through VOD, order more channels, Double Play, Triple Play, etc.

Not sure where you were going with the competitiveness argument, but AT&T (now Frontier) U-Verse finally lit a fire under cable's butt to do some upgrades around here, although they still don't have the channel lineup that U-Verse does anywhere, but especially on non-rebuild systems. U-Verse is a joke in so many other ways though, like the whole slow internet while watching TV thing, or the limit of 4 tuners, or the overall slow internet speeds (even when not watching TV). What's really weird is that my town has a second cable provider, so Comcast's response was to not bother upgrading our system (both cable companies suck), and AT&T's response (pre-Frontier) was to not build many VRADs at all here, and leave RDSLAMs on ATM lines. It's bizarre. It's like they try to cherry pick the areas with the weakest/fewest competitors instead of really trying to build out and be aggressive to grab market share.



> To make matters worse, it was an internal issue, where if there was a bit of cable tension in the right direction, it would tune, until thermal intermittent factors arose. Any BER testing TiVo does before QC passing a unit might have let who knows how many units with inadequate solder flow pass. I could see that TiVo 2 of 3 had less solder on the topside tuner shield (close to none). Now, every time something HDMI related acts up, I worry that my HDMI ports are suffering a similar issue...
> 
> Kind of gone OT, but I'm sure you wouldn't dream of threadjacking...


Well, this thread started out on pretty shaky ground. 

That sucks. Those types of issues are nearly impossible to pin down. As much as RoHS was a prudent and necessary thing to do, it massively ****ed up the quality of electronics up and down the line. Right about the time RoHS came in, the failure rates of all sorts of stuff went through the roof. The manufacturers didn't (or maybe don't) seem to have a good handle on how to deal with the higher melt points of unleaded solder. I'm not saying that's necessarily what you're seeing here, but I know it messed up a TON of stuff.


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## nooneuknow (Feb 5, 2011)

Bigg said:


> Well, this thread started out on pretty shaky ground.
> 
> That sucks. Those types of issues are nearly impossible to pin down. As much as RoHS was a prudent and necessary thing to do, it massively ****ed up the quality of electronics up and down the line. Right about the time RoHS came in, the failure rates of all sorts of stuff went through the roof. The manufacturers didn't (or maybe don't) seem to have a good handle on how to deal with the higher melt points of unleaded solder. I'm not saying that's necessarily what you're seeing here, but I know it messed up a TON of stuff.


Yeah, not much more to say on local Cox matters, and there was no argument in what I was saying. Just mostly going on about the same "competition" (or kind of lack thereof, if not cherry-picked for fiber), as you went on to.

First ROHS casualties I saw were a dozen WD20EADS (the old non-AF Caviar Green) hard drives, but it was due to green defluxing (I think they used the wrong solvent and/or flux for silver solder), which made the PCB to spring-load drive contacts either coated in resin, or tarnished so bad they were flaky. I just defluxed them and removed the tarnish. All still failed, just within the (then) 3yr warranty. That's partially why I'm so adamant about people considering paying a few bucks more to get a 3yr AV-GP drive, over some 2yr plain green. Sadly, the price gap is getting big, again (I guess WD figured us out), and no newegg sales on them in over six months that I've seen.

Yes, I attributed the tuner issue to ROHS. That's what makes it so scary, that you can lose ONLY a range of channels, due to poor flowing. How can you test >860MHz (or any range), if you don't have channels residing in it at the time? How do I know my HDMI issues are not part of the same thing, when my TiVos (but not the TiVos before them) are the only HDMI problem children in the house... Had I discovered it on day 31 of lifetime service, I'd have went full riot mode.


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## HarperVision (May 14, 2007)

nooneuknow said:


> ......... Kind of gone OT, but I'm sure you wouldn't dream of threadjacking...





Bigg said:


> ......... Well, this thread started out on pretty shaky ground.  ........


Well, as the thread starter, I'd say this thread started out on a pretty cool note, finding a wonderful nugget like the Roamio basic being able to do OTA *AND* cable simultaneously. It was only derailed and placed on shaky ground once you guys showed up! (As usual)


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## nooneuknow (Feb 5, 2011)

HarperVision said:


> Well, as the thread starter, I'd say this read started out on a pretty cool note, finding a wonderful nugget like the Roamio basic being able to do OTA *AND* cable simultaneously. It was only derailed and placed on shaky ground once you guys showed up! (As usual)


I thought so, too, and appreciated you sharing your findings. I even tried to avoid a threadjack. I couldn't really say anything of substance, without sharing some details on my local HFC 1GHz market, which is unlike any other market in the country. Bigg's market is kind of at the opposite end of such extremes.

If the current posts from Bigg and I were never made, including the relevant content, your thread would be buried on page whatever of new posts, rather than being active, like it is. I'm sorry for inadvertently giving your thread a few bumps, and whatever views and subs that resulted in (and I'm about to inadvertently bump it again. So, sorry, again).


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## telemark (Nov 12, 2013)

I would put it as, most cable systems it would not work, but for the small minority of people with systems it's just right for, well, they don't care about most systems.

I feel like this is a recurring theme. The experts around here are often on big CableCo's (Comcast, TWC). And there will occasionally be someone asking an odd question with a no-name CableCo that really depends on their band plan.


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## HarperVision (May 14, 2007)

nooneuknow said:


> I thought so, too, and appreciated you sharing your findings. I even tried to avoid a threadjack. I couldn't really say anything of substance, without sharing some details on my local HFC 1GHz market, which is unlike any other market in the country. Bigg's market is kind of at the opposite end of such extremes. If the current posts from Bigg and I were never made, including the relevant content, your thread would be buried on page whatever of new posts, rather than being active, like it is. I'm sorry for inadvertently giving your thread a few bumps, and whatever views and subs that resulted in (and I'm about to inadvertently bump it again. So, sorry, again).


S'all good. I just like that now there's an easy way to switch between OTA and cable without redoing Guided Setup. All that has to be done is go into the Channel list and swap the check marks after switching out the coax feed.


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## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

nooneuknow said:


> Yeah, not much more to say on local Cox matters, and there was no argument in what I was saying. Just mostly going on about the same "competition" (or kind of lack thereof, if not cherry-picked for fiber), as you went on to.


Yeah, unfortunately that's often the case nationwide.



> First ROHS casualties I saw were a dozen WD20EADS (the old non-AF Caviar Green) hard drives, but it was due to green defluxing (I think they used the wrong solvent and/or flux for silver solder), which made the PCB to spring-load drive contacts either coated in resin, or tarnished so bad they were flaky.


Very interesting. I didn't realize it was that bad. I intuitively sensed it was an issue, the only reason I actually knew it was an issue was because of discussions I had heard from very small electronics manufacturers who make systems for controlling model trains, which effectively use a ~33kbps signal encoded in the nickel-silver rails with copper power feeders to power and control the trains, which are digitally addressable.



> Yes, I attributed the tuner issue to ROHS. That's what makes it so scary, that you can lose ONLY a range of channels, due to poor flowing. How can you test >860MHz (or any range), if you don't have channels residing in it at the time? How do I know my HDMI issues are not part of the same thing, when my TiVos (but not the TiVos before them) are the only HDMI problem children in the house... Had I discovered it on day 31 of lifetime service, I'd have went full riot mode.


You can't. And even if you have channels up there, and you couldn't get certain frequencies, you'd automatically assume that it was a cable plant issue, since that's usually where frequency rolloff happens, not in the tuner in a box. Yeah, I'd be pretty pissed if my Premiere couldn't work on an 860mhz system. Heck, I don't know if it can work above 597mhz, as that's the highest channel I've ever seen (I think there's another QAM or two above that with stuff I don't subscribe to).



HarperVision said:


> Well, as the thread starter, I'd say this thread started out on a pretty cool note, finding a wonderful nugget like the Roamio basic being able to do OTA *AND* cable simultaneously. It was only derailed and placed on shaky ground once you guys showed up! (As usual)


Ok, you found a glitch in the software that's not usable because of the physical configuration of the hardware. That was addressed, and now we're on to a much more interesting discussion.



nooneuknow said:


> Bigg's market is kind of at the opposite end of such extremes.


Yeah, I'm on the low end. There are a few systems that are similar or lower. On the other hand, our 625 system is overbuilt by a 750 system, and borders an 860mhz system to the north, a (presumably) 1ghz system to the east (Cox), and Verizon's 860mhz FTTH to the east as well. I think the typical nationwide is 750-860mhz.



> If the current posts from Bigg and I were never made, including the relevant content, your thread would be buried on page whatever of new posts, rather than being active, like it is. I'm sorry for inadvertently giving your thread a few bumps, and whatever views and subs that resulted in (and I'm about to inadvertently bump it again. So, sorry, again).


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## HarperVision (May 14, 2007)

Bigg said:


> ......). Ok, you found a glitch in the software that's not usable because of the physical configuration of the hardware. That was addressed, and now we're on to a much more interesting discussion. .......


Well, the entire point of the thread was for members here to brainstorm ways that this newfound info COULD be made usable, at least for certain circumstances.

If you want to discuss something else, grow up, graduate from your kindergarten games and go somewhere else and leave this discussion to the topic at hand!


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

I thought it was a cool find. However I don't think there is any practical use for it. Unless you want to get really fancy....

You could get an A/B switch with a remote control, then write some software that monitors your To Do List via the mind interface (kmttg uses this) then have the software switch the A/B switch via an IR blaster when it needs to record something OTA. However this would still only work if there was never any overlap between cable and OTA recordings.


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## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

HarperVision said:


> Well, the entire point of the thread was for members here to brainstorm ways that this newfound info COULD be made usable, at least for certain circumstances.


Except for that fact that there is zero practical use other than maybe setting it up in case your cable goes kaput. Interesting find, but not much more to say about it.


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## cp2k (Mar 16, 2004)

HarperVision said:


> As I mentioned in another thread, I hooked up an antenna and redid guided setup. I left the cablecard and TA connected and only hooked up the antenna and disconnected the coax cable feed. When I got to the section right after it asked if I was setting up antenna or cable (I selected antenna of course), the next screen detected that I had a tuning adapter connected so it asked me if I wanted to setup for antenna AND cable or continue with only antenna setup. I was curios of course so I selected cable and antenna setup. It went through its usual paces and asked what cable provider I have, then downloaded what it usually does, then lo and behold it went to a follow on screen to scan and setup the antenna channels! I did that and once the scan was done it downloaded data again and voila', now both cable and antenna channels all show up in the guide, merged together! Of course only the antenna channels came in since that's what was hooked up, but the interesting part comes in when I swapped the coax cables back to the cable feed and now all of THOSE channels come in too.
> 
> I'm thinking if someone really wants, they could use one of those old A/B RF coax switches with both OTA and cable. It could screw up some recordings of course, if the switch is in the wrong position when a recording starts on the other coax feed.
> 
> I think I may have read something like this awhile ago when the Roamio was new and a lot of questions were being asked, but I don't think anyone ever got this far before, where they could feasibly have both at the same time, albeit using an RF switch. If so........never mind!


Out of curiosity when you did this do you have to enter your zip code separately for the Antenna setup portion AND for the cable portion? I want to insert one local channel along with our cable feed. I've found the necessary hardware to do it but the catch is the channel is from a neighboring market. I can't use my own zip code and get the guide data for it. Will it allow you to run the cable setup, select the correct line-up and enter a separate zip code for the antenna portion?


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

I don't think so. The 2 tuner Premiere units do both cable and OTA officially and I had mine setup that way for a while. IIRC you're only asked for a zip code once. Although it may offer you channels from neighboring markets if it thinks you might be able to tune them. Not sure how it determines which ones to offer.


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## HarperVision (May 14, 2007)

cp2k said:


> Out of curiosity when you did this do you have to enter your zip code separately for the Antenna setup portion AND for the cable portion? I want to insert one local channel along with our cable feed. I've found the necessary hardware to do it but the catch is the channel is from a neighboring market. I can't use my own zip code and get the guide data for it. Will it allow you to run the cable setup, select the correct line-up and enter a separate zip code for the antenna portion?


Dan is right. It only ever asked for one zip, but if you're close enough to receive it with your antenna then the guide certainly may well have the one you're looking for listed.

Can you share what hardware you found to do this?


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## tarheel115 (Oct 21, 2011)

Will this setup still work?? Or has software updates eliminated this?


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## krkaufman (Nov 25, 2003)

tarheel115 said:


> Will this setup still work?? Or has software updates eliminated this?


Good question. I'm also curious if it ever worked for a BOLT (probable) and whether the same glitch exists in TE4 (doubtful).


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