# OTA problem



## guyincog

My new Premiere arrived today and I'm having serious problems with my OTA reception. With my TiVo HD I get signal strengths of 60-85 across all of my local channels (10 channels + various sub-channels) with every channel being perfectly watchable. Minor artifacts were occasional on a couple of the weaker stations. With my new Premiere in the same spot connected to the same antenna via the same piece of coax I'm getting signal strengths of 20-35 and not a single watchable channel. 

I swapped the boxes back and forth about 3 time to verify this behavior, and it was the same every time. I even tried a different piece of coax, just in case, and still got the same behavior. 

Does anybody have any suggestions for things I should try? I'm OTA only, so my spiffy new TiVo is absolutely useless to me at the moment.


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## kylemax

I can tell you that I didn't get the greatest impression on the strength of tuning in channels either. I could view most of my channels though. Not sure what kind of antenna you have but you might want to try a pre-amplifier if you have an outdoor antenna or if you have an indoor-try an amplified antenna.


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## bjm951

I'm having a similar problem and have spent all afternoon debugging it. It seems like the Premiere is a serious step down from the HD in OTA tuner strength. I checked my HD against my Panasonic plasma and it was somewhat weaker - maybe 10&#37;. Now the Premiere is significantly weaker than the HD - at least 20%. I already have an amplified antenna that works perfectly when going straight to the Panasonic TV but is borderline to the Premiere. Today's a perfectly clear day and I know the signal will go down on a stormy day. I'm only 5 miles from the major antennas in Boston (I'm not *too* close) so there's plenty of signal there. 

The Premiere ATSC tuner is clearly defective. This behavior has been reported by multiple people now. I've already told Tivo support about it through online chat. I assume it's a hardware problem. I'll hold on to my box for a couple of days on the outside chance that Tivo responds and says it's a fixable software problem. Otherwise the Premiere is going back.


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## Dreamin

+1 Same problem here... though not as severe.
I posted my data in the Bug thread: http://tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?p=7859316#post7859316

What's strange is that the HD and S4 use the same tuner (Microtune MT2131).

I seem to recall problems with the HD not being able to handle too hot a signal? I wonder if the S4 has an attenuator added inline?

Maybe you could try an amplifer.


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## bjm951

Good to hear that the Premiere has the same tuner chip. So I wonder if they changed the circuit at all, or these are just manufacturing defects.

My problem has been elevated to "Level 2" support by Tivo. It could take up to a week for them to get back to me.

In the meantime it would be interesting to hear from other Premiere users about their OTA reception. The most useful would be direct comparisons to the HD, next most useful would be comparisons to other QAM tuners like a TV. Saying "it works fine for me" is better than nothing but hard draw any conclusions from.


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## aaronwt

I set up OTA on some of my boxes and noticed that the signal level shows lower. But it's also possible that the signal level is calculated differently. Since even when I had a signal level of 30 on the Premier the picture was as rock solid as on the TiVoHD with the signal level showing higher.


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## Dreamin

aaronwt said:


> ...Since even when I had a signal level of 30 on the Premier the picture was as rock solid as on the TiVoHD with the signal level showing higher.


Do you mean Signal Strength? or SNR?

I am getting 'RS Uncorrected' errors and seeing pixelation on channels with a Signal Strength of ~65 or lower. I NEVER got pixelation on my S3.

A few of my channel Signal Strengths...
Channel: S3 / S4
5-1: 97 / 81
7-1: 86 / 70
11-1: 84 / 64
28-1: 99 / 95
50-1: 89 / 65

Channel 11-1 RS Errors: S3 / S4 (after 6000 seconds; back to back testing)
RS Corrected: ~1400 / ~1100
RS Uncorrected: 0 / ~1000 (I see pixelation with RS uncorrected errors)

To check error counts: 
Messages & settings -> Account & System Info -> DVR Diagnostics -> Scroll down to RS Uncorrected / RS Corrected counts for each of the tuners

RS Corrected errors: No big deal.
RS Uncorrected errors: Pixelation / Picture problems


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## TVCricket

I was going to get mine specifically to cancel my Directv and use OTA. So glad I didn't. Way too many problems for a so called top notch product.


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## aaronwt

Even with a signal meter of 30 I get no pixelation from the channel. When it's in the low 20's I noticed issues but nothing when it's above that.

I'll have to check that menu for errors.


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## bleeman

We purchased the Premium XL last Sunday and have been using it all week without issue on an OTA setup. I just looked at our settings and our channels average signal strength ranges from 58 to 88. All of our channels are coming in nice and clear and the transmission towers average about 40 miles away.

Our antenna is in our attic and has a single level of "arms" that point in the direction of the towers

On the diagnostics we have around 350 uncorrected, but I haven't seen any issues as a result.

Granted it has only been a week, but the picture has been great.


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## _Ryan_

My signal strength took a sharp dive when I switched from the Tivo HD to the Premiere... several channels became unwatchable that were coming in crystal clear on the Tivo HD... very strange... (I started a thread about this too)


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## guyincog

Got back home from vacation today, so I finally had a bit more time to experiment. I decided to install a splitter on my antenna, so that I could compare the Tivo HD and the Premiere at the same time with the same signal from the antenna.

My experimentation today was far more encouraging than on Friday. All of my channels were now viewable on the Premiere (in spite of the reduced strength from using the splitter). Signal strengths ranged from 45-60 on the Premiere and 60-80 on the Tivo HD. The picture quality seemed to be roughly the same on each box in spite of the major difference in signal strength. 

I suspect that there was some kind of unusual interference on Friday that the TiVo HD was able to filter out, and the Premiere was not. I will do a bit more poking around and compare the SNR on a few of the channels when I get some time.


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## Dreamin

My problem appears to be very random... sometimes I can go a full day with only a ~1000 RS Uncorrected Errors. Then last night the channel was unwatchable with over 800,000 RS Uncorrected Errors over 9 hours


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## S3-2501

Wow, this thread is an unpleasant surprise. I'm OTA-only and have been very happy with the tuners in my S3 and HD. I sincerely hope this is a temporary issue for Premiere users, since there is precious little reason for OTA-only users to upgrade to the Premiere as it is, and if these reports of reception problems continue then I would never be able to upgrade even if I wanted to or if my current Tivos were to break down (heaven forbid!.)

I'm surprised they used the same tuner chip in the Premiere. As good as the HD/S3 tuner is, the latest chips as used in the subsidized analog converter boxes and newer TVs outperform it slightly and would have been a logical choice for the newest iteration of Tivo. Here's hoping they can fix this in software!


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## bkdtv

S3-2501 said:


> I'm surprised they used the same tuner chip in the Premiere. As good as the HD/S3 tuner is, the latest chips as used in the subsidized analog converter boxes and newer TVs outperform it slightly and would have been a logical choice for the newest iteration of Tivo. Here's hoping they can fix this in software!


The "demodulator" -- the part primarily responsible for reception -- changed in the Premiere.


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## _Ryan_

bkdtv said:


> The "demodulator" -- the part primarily responsible for reception -- changed in the Premiere.


I'm assuming that's hardware... If there is a hardware problem here, that's really unfortunate for us OTA folks who upgraded...

(as for me, I'm still having trouble. Adjusted antenna twice now to get ABC, FOX and MyTV to come in w/out artifacts, but still getting way less signal strength than with my TivoHD)


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## bkdtv

_Ryan_ said:


> I'm assuming that's hardware... If there is a hardware problem here, that's really unfortunate for us OTA folks who upgraded...


Both the TiVo HD and Series3 used the same ATI Theater 314 demodulator so TiVo had plenty of time to "perfect" that firmware. The Premiere is the first TiVo product with a Micronas DRX demodulator, so the implementation (i.e. internal system settings) may not be as mature.


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## spongeweed

bkdtv said:


> Both the TiVo HD and Series3 used the same ATI Theater 314 demodulator so TiVo had plenty of time to "perfect" that firmware. The Premiere is the first TiVo product with a Micronas DRX demodulator, so the implementation (i.e. internal system settings) may not be as mature.


Is it even possible to adjust the OTA chip sensitivity via firm/software? Or is this another example of fixing something that's not broken? Either way, this is a big blunder. Just when people were beginning to really consider the idea of going OTA only, you reduce it's OTA sensitivity? C'mon guys.


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## bkdtv

spongeweed said:


> Is it even possible to adjust the OTA chip sensitivity via firm/software? Or is this another example of fixing something that's not broken? Either way, this is a big blunder. Just when people were beginning to really consider the idea of going OTA only, you reduce it's OTA sensitivity? C'mon guys.


There should be a number of different parameters adjustable in firmware. Based on reports so far (almost universally negative) regarding OTA reception, TiVo doesn't appear to have done much in the way of off-air testing.


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## theoryzero

I'll chime in. The Premier is my first Tivo so I can't do comparisons to S3 models but the signal values I'm getting match those that I get on my 2005 Panasonic plasma. My weakest signal was mid 30s on my TV's tuner and unwatchable but the Premier hasn't failed to display it properly. So in my case, the unit is receiving OTA broadcasts to my expectations.


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## _Ryan_

bkdtv said:


> There should be a number of different parameters adjustable in firmware. Based on reports so far (almost universally negative) regarding OTA reception, TiVo doesn't appear to have done much in the way of off-air testing.


That's comforting. Here's hoping that Tivo tweaks the firmware in the near future.

I must say that I'm impressed with the quality of these forums, by the way. (I'm new)


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## guyincog

After some more testing, SNR values are within 1 or 2 dB on all of the OTA channels that I receive. This makes me less worried about the generally weaker signal strength numbers. 

However, I did notice a strange problem on the Premiere that I would best describe as a "pulsing signal" on the weaker stations. Watching the diagnostics screen, the signal would be ok for a few seconds (35-40), drop to 0, then immediately return back to the prior range, and repeat. This made the picture pixelate and stutter every few seconds, but the odd thing was that this had little effect on the RS error rates. This was not occurring on my TiVo HD box when I checked it on the same channels.

I will update a bit more when I have another chance to play around.


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## spongeweed

Waiting patiently for an update to address the lower than normal signal strength issue. I am missing reliable reception on several stations that my HR10 has no trouble displaying day or night.


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## Dreamin

spongeweed said:


> Waiting patiently for an update to address the lower than normal signal strength issue. I am missing reliable reception on several stations that my HR10 has no trouble displaying day or night.


Nothing helpful here...

I did report my problem to Tivo Customer Service... after being on hold forever, the tech informed me that all Premiere problems are currently going to engineering to look at. And this problem should get addressed as the engineers are "Very Actively Working on the Premiere Software".

I told him that if it didn't get addresses in the next ~3 weeks, i'd have to return my Tivo... after being on hold forever again, he came back and said he had extended my 30-day money back to 60-days.

People with this problem should definitely call Tivo Customer Service to get the issue logged: *877-367-8486*


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## Dreamin

guyincog said:


> After some more testing, SNR values are within 1 or 2 dB on all of the OTA channels that I receive. This makes me less worried about the generally weaker signal strength numbers.
> 
> However, I did notice a strange problem on the Premiere that I would best describe as a "pulsing signal" on the weaker stations. Watching the diagnostics screen, the signal would be ok for a few seconds (35-40), drop to 0, then immediately return back to the prior range, and repeat. This made the picture pixelate and stutter every few seconds, but the odd thing was that this had little effect on the RS error rates. This was not occurring on my TiVo HD box when I checked it on the same channels.
> 
> I will update a bit more when I have another chance to play around.


Yes, I have seen the "pulsing signal" also... signal strength: 50 to 0 to 50, etc. This is when the picture is the worst... it stops after a few hours by itself.


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## daveak

Dreamin said:


> People with this problem should definitely call Tivo Customer Service to get the issue logged: *877-367-8486*


Get it in writing with a case number.


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## thgood

Similar situation - had perfect reception on all major networks with Tivo HD for the last 3 years. Replaced my Tivo HD with Premiere and immediately lost 2 of the major networks entirely.

Same coax, same antenna positioning (antenna in different room). 

It is a powered antenna, I reduced the attenuation and the 2 channels came back. However one of them still has drop outs.

:down: no no no no no :down:


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## rattlebone

My Premiere tunes at least as good as my Sony 1080P Bravia TV (2008). I get 90-94 &#37; signal strength on more powerful stations, and 80%+ on weaker stations. I am using a 10' outdoor antenna from Radio Shack (supports the required VHF lo, VHF hi, and UHF bands)


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## Dreamin

Quick video showing my SS going from 50's to 0 to 50's...


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## Dreamin

And i moved my Tivo and tried a shorter cable run... so i went from ~60 feet to ~10 feet. NO difference in Signal Strength at all.


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## S3-2501

Dreamin said:


> Quick video showing my SS going from 50's to 0 to 50's....


 In my experience, this kind of signal fluctuation is typical with a tuner that doesn't handle multipath problems well. If that's indeed the cause, it would be a big step backwards from the Series 3/HD tuners.


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## Dreamin

S3-2501 said:


> If that's indeed the cause, it would be a big step backwards from the Series 3/HD tuners.


This channel with the exact same Antenna and cabling had a rock-solid SS of 85-90 with my S3, and no RS uncorrected errors.



S3-2501 said:


> In my experience, this kind of signal fluctuation is typical with a tuner that doesn't handle multipath problems well.


If so, what could I do (externally) to reduce/solve a multipath problem?


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## S3-2501

Dreamin said:


> If so, what could I do (externally) to reduce/solve a multipath problem?


 Multipath is when the signal bounces around and the various reflections hit the antenna at different times, confusing the tuner/decoder. Common causes are trees (especially when it's really windy,) reflections off of urban or geographic structures, and (in my area) an overhead flightpath. Other than trying to get the antenna to a place where it's pointed at the signal's origin and away from sources of reflection, there's not a lot you can do. Recent tuner generations have come a *long* way in coping with these problems. There are antennas that are supposed to be better at rejecting multipath reflections, but honestly if the Sereis3/HD was working for you, there's no reason you should need anything new in that regard.

I live in a multipath prone area (surrounded by trees at the bottom of a hill and near a major flight path) and until I got my Series 3 I thought reception with an attic or indoor antenna would not be possible. Thankfully the series 3 handles things really well unless there are wind gusts of around 20mph or higher, and there's really nothing that can be done when the planes happen to be traveling in just the right places to mess up the signal.

I'm not a technical expert on this, but I had lots of unpleasant experience testing out different indoor and attic antennas, and in my experience if the tuner/decoder can't handle multipath well then there is little you can do to completely solve the issue. I get a great signal on my Series 3, but the tuner in my 2003 HDTV simply cannot cope and is practically unusable with the same signal that's going to the Tivo.

There's really no excuse for the Premiere to have any significant issue with multipath (or any other reception issues) at this stage in the DTV game.


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## _Ryan_

In case anyone is wondering, the new software update today did not seem to change the poor signal strength on my Premiere. 
(The consensus on this thread seems to be that it should be adjustable via firmware somehow, but that does not seem to have happened yet)


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## BigOtter

To begin with: I am new to TiVo, so my premiere is my first and only box. I am in the woods about 40 miles west of Bangor. TV transmitters range from 15 miles to 35 miles away over hilly terrain, with a compass spread of 45 degrees. My old antenna only received one channel, PBS. I put up a Winegard 8200 with a cable run of 75 feet, no pre-amp and split once very near to the antenna. The longer run goes to my TiVo and I must say that I am now receiving SIX channels, four are broadcast in HD and I get an amazing picture on each. I'll admit that I am not interested in the strength numbers, only what kind of reception that I get. FYI, my TiVo is connected to an HDMI splitter, one HDMI going to the nearby TV and the other going to an HDMI extender, which uses 2 CAT5E cables that run upstairs (a 50 foot run) to another splitter. These lines go to a TV in the bedroom and one in the bathroom (yeah! but we like to soak in the tub and watch stuff). All are HDMI connections and all are great pictures but of course, it is the SAME thing on all TVs, which works for us. All of this gear was ordered from Firefold.com., which I would highly recommend.


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## Upstate NY

I'm new to DTV OTA, as my old S2 didn't do it and we never bothered trying when we had cable service. Figured I would give it a shot with the S4, as I only have lifeline cable and would gain a few new channels. I'm within seven miles of the transmitters for our area, so I decided to try an indoor antenna.

Two the channels I can get are in the VHF band. These come in with signal levels in the 50s and low corrected errors. No issues with them.

Two more channels are in the UHF band. I get one of them in the 60s on the signal meter, again with low corrected errors. The other one comes in the high 40s/50s, has a lot of corrected errors and some uncorrected ones at times. I haven't seen this affect picture quality but I haven't watched it much yet either.

I wonder how an S3 would manage with this same setup?


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## 241705

I have the same Winegard antenna connected to both a TivoHD and a Premiere. I get the same OTA channels on each: about 25. Although the signal strength meters may read differently, and the Premiere reads a little lower, I get solid reception on both for all of the same channels. No dropouts or anything. I am about 35 miles from the Philly/Roxbororough antenna farm.


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## DaveWhittle

guyincog said:


> However, I did notice a strange problem on the Premiere that I would best describe as a "*pulsing signal*" on the weaker stations. Watching the diagnostics screen, the signal would be ok for a few seconds (35-40), drop to 0, then immediately return back to the prior range, and repeat. This made the picture pixelate and stutter every few seconds, but the odd thing was that this had little effect on the RS error rates. This was not occurring on my TiVo HD box when I checked it on the same channels.


Ugggg... last night's American Idol recording was doing this "pulsing signal" thing via OTA.  This is the first time seeing this issue since getting the Premiere last month.

I found out when I tuned in to the show halfway through, so I set up the other tuner to record the rest of the show off cable, which was fine. The reason I have locals set up to record OTA is because I thought OTA would be more dependable than cable.

The other local OTA channels were not doing this. Also, I adjusted the antenna and checked signal strength, and the adjustment seemed to fix the pulsing problem for now. But I've never had this happen with this antenna setup before the Premiere.

I'm glad others are reporting this problem so it's not just me, but with the HD-UI lock-ups on the previous version of software and now this OTA pulsing problem, my confidence is very low with the Premiere.


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## TVCricket

Ugh. I was really hoping that some of these Premiere issues would be fixed by now.


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## guyincog

Just a small update on my experiences. I traced a large part of my OTA issues down to a small HP branded UPS that I had my AV equipment plugged in to. It was throwing out some kind of interference that was giving the Premiere fits, but didn't really have a noticeable effect on any of my other gear. 

Removing that UPS and using a simple power strip in its place cleared up about 70% of my OTA troubles. Signal strengths are 45-60 on all channels with SNRs of 24-29 (that's a 3 or 4 dB improvement compared to before). I still have the occasional bout of "pulsing" signal issues on a number of channels. I have yet to identify any particular event that seems to correlate with the pulsing issue.


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## VideoGrabber

When I spoke to a TiVo person yesterday (when I called to cancel my service after returning my S4 to BestBuy), he indicated that TiVo is not only aware of this issue with the OTA tuners on the Premieres, but has a fix for it as well. He claimed it would be pushed out on Monday (May 3rd)!?

Whether that information is correct or not, I can't say. He also said that another update would be released next Saturday, to start to deal with known TTG issues.

Of course, these were the 2 issues I indicated as reasons for returning my S4, and his job is likely customer retention, so take it for what it's worth. While one may be possible, it seems pretty unusual to me that they'd be pushing TWO updates out that close together. Especially 2 that were important to me. But perhaps they're in a different mode than usual with the S4's.


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## orangeboy

VideoGrabber said:


> ...While one may be possible, it seems pretty unusual to me that they'd be pushing TWO updates out that close together. Especially 2 that were important to me. But perhaps they're in a different mode than usual with the S4's.


It may be that the updates are coming out with greater frequency to stem the amount of 30 day returns due to bugs experienced by a significant portion of customers...


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## _Ryan_

VideoGrabber said:


> When I spoke to a TiVo person yesterday (when I called to cancel my service after returning my S4 to BestBuy), he indicated that TiVo is not only aware of this issue with the OTA tuners on the Premieres, but has a fix for it as well. He claimed it would be pushed out on Monday (May 3rd)!?


That's great news!


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## aaroncgi

Wow, so my OTA reception is going to get even better? I am already at 60-80 signal strength on the UHF channels and 45-60 on VHF. Anything over 35-40 seems to be pretty solid with no blocking or drop outs. Cool.

I was all set to get a preamplifier, but then I replaced a 25' + 6' run of RG59 with a 50' run of RG6 and removed a splitter from the line, and voila, my signal jumped tremendously.


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## thgood

Also still having dropouts where a TivoHD worked perfectly. Called to return and Tivo did 30 day extension of return policy.


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## _Ryan_

Now that the 14.4 update has been rolled out to some people (not me), has anyone using OTA checked to see if this update addresses the reception issues with the new demodulator in the Premiere? Other users previously reported that TiVo reps promised this update would specifically address this issue, so I'm really curious if anyone has anything to report.

I'll chime in once I get the update.


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## Dreamin

There was an earlier post stating that the OTA would be fixed in the 'next release' not 'this release'... the same one that supposedly activates the second CPU core. Can't remember if the source of this info was Margaret or a CSR.

And there is a post in the 14.4 thread confirming that the OTA problem is not fixed in 14.4


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## _Ryan_

Dreamin said:


> There was an earlier post stating that the OTA would be fixed in the 'next release' not 'this release'... the same one that supposedly activates the second CPU core. Can't remember if the source of this info was Margaret or a CSR.
> 
> And there is a post in the 14.4 thread confirming that the OTA problem is not fixed in 14.4


Darn. I had my hopes up they would make some improvements to that in this release. (Especially in light of the earlier post here claiming TiVo planned to release a fix for this on May 3rd). The reception problems are annoying enough that I'm probably going to subscribe to cable again... something I'm not at all excited about since nearly all the shows I watch are on network TV...


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## aaroncgi

We got the 14.4 update a few days ago, and signal strength _seems_ higher, but only on some channels. So it could just be more favorable atmospheric conditions today. The channels which were already in the 70+ signal strength category have stayed about the same, while those which were in the 40-50 range have gone up about 5-10 points. These aren't all closely clustered in terms of frequency though, so who knows? The ones which improved were (real channel) 9, 11, 33, and 39.


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## orangeboy

Dreamin said:


> ... the same one that supposedly activates the second CPU core. Can't remember if the source of this info was Margaret or a CSR...


Citation needed. I think if a release was announced that the second core was going to be enabled, there would be a LOT more talk about it on this forum, and on the tech blogs. Especially if it were to be the "next" release...


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## bkdtv

Dreamin said:


> There was an earlier post stating that the OTA would be fixed in the 'next release' not 'this release'... the same one that supposedly activates the second CPU core. Can't remember if the source of this info was Margaret or a CSR.


Only a single core is enabled in 14.4. Last I heard, TiVo planned to enable the second core in the second half of this year.


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## LoREvanescence

guyincog said:


> After some more testing, SNR values are within 1 or 2 dB on all of the OTA channels that I receive. This makes me less worried about the generally weaker signal strength numbers.
> 
> However, I did notice a strange problem on the Premiere that I would best describe as a "pulsing signal" on the weaker stations. Watching the diagnostics screen, the signal would be ok for a few seconds (35-40), drop to 0, then immediately return back to the prior range, and repeat. This made the picture pixelate and stutter every few seconds, but the odd thing was that this had little effect on the RS error rates. This was not occurring on my TiVo HD box when I checked it on the same channels.
> 
> I will update a bit more when I have another chance to play around.


I have noticed a type of pulsing. On my weaker channels, I notice that I get into a pattern where I have perfect reception for 8 seconds, then a second where the picture freezes and audio drops out, then it's perfect and it repeats over and over again! It makes watching these channels impossible. I when looking at the diagnostic screen I notice sudden drops in the signal when this happens. In my cuase though, my RSUncorrected errors skyrocket. watching the channel for an hour or so will have 6 figure number or RS Errors.

Now, I believe this issue to be software / firmware related after fooling around some. I found that once this issue starts in a recording or live tv it wont end. However, once that recording ends, magicly the station has perfect reception again! Or if the channel has been doing this and a recording starts, magically this pulsing goes away!

Another way to fix it is to get both turners to a different channel, then go back to this channel and the pulsing goes away.

The channels where I get the pulsing, my S3 reported a signal strength of 68% and a SNR of 23dB. My premiere reports a signal strength of 32% and an SNR of 23dB as well.

My S3 what having problems as well with these channels, though far worse then pulsing. My S3 would pixilate, then the tuner would freeze. You would be left at a sill screen of either a good picture or a pixilated still. Hitting live tv twice would either leave you at a blank black or gray screen depending on what color my letter boxing was set too. What ever was recording would end at that time of the tuner freeze, and would leave me a partial recording. The channel also remained unwatchable. The only way to get that channel back was the same way I get the pulsing to stop on the premiere. A new recording starts, a recording ends, or taking both tuners off the channel and going back to that channel.

With my S3, I was wondering if it could have been caused by a bad HDD, I'm doubting that now. Next I was thinking it may have been caused by my expander being bad, since that is now hooked up to my Premiere. But then, why would it only happen on the weaker signal channels and not the rest of them?

I can go a couple days without the pulsing issue, and then on some days it wants to start up every 20 minutes or so with maybe a couple hour stretches here and there where it is perfect. The same was true with the tuner freezes on my S3.

Does anyone have any incite to what I am experiencing or been running into a similar situation or know what may be causing it? I do know for a fact if I have my antenna plugged directly into my tv, I get perfect reception. Not once has any of these weaker channels ever pixelated on my tv directly. When the signal gets so bad I can't get anything to work with my tivo's, tested both the S3 and S4 at the same time, I can hook my tv directly in and get perfect reception!


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## S3-2501

LoREvanescence said:


> I can go a couple days without the pulsing issue, and then on some days it wants to start up every 20 minutes or so with maybe a couple hour stretches here and there where it is perfect. The same was true with the tuner freezes on my S3.


 It sure sounds like you've got multipath issues in your area. If the problematic channels are being broadcast on UHF frequencies then you need to look into possible causes of multipath. If your antenna is pointed through nearby tree branches, winds can cause multipath and significant signal fluctuations. In that case you need to try moving the antenna to a spot that is less impacted. Depending on your location and weather climate, there may be some days where receptions is going to be worse than others.

If the problematic stations are being broadcast on VHF frequencies, then electronic interference can cause weird pixelation, signal drops and freezing picture. When I first setup my TivoHD in my room with an amplified Terk HDTvi antenna I found that whenever I turned on my notebook computer the channels on VHF would go nuts. Eventually a combination of tinkering with the antenna and the local VHF stations increasing power stopped the problem.

The bottom line is that if you are having the same fluctuations with both the S3 and premiere, the problem is likely due to the antenna, the antenna placement or to environmental factors.


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## LoREvanescence

S3-2501 said:


> It sure sounds like you've got multipath issues in your area. If the problematic channels are being broadcast on UHF frequencies then you need to look into possible causes of multipath. If your antenna is pointed through nearby tree branches, winds can cause multipath and significant signal fluctuations. In that case you need to try moving the antenna to a spot that is less impacted. Depending on your location and weather climate, there may be some days where receptions is going to be worse than others.
> 
> If the problematic stations are being broadcast on VHF frequencies, then electronic interference can cause weird pixelation, signal drops and freezing picture. When I first setup my TivoHD in my room with an amplified Terk HDTvi antenna I found that whenever I turned on my notebook computer the channels on VHF would go nuts. Eventually a combination of tinkering with the antenna and the local VHF stations increasing power stopped the problem.
> 
> The bottom line is that if you are having the same fluctuations with both the S3 and premiere, the problem is likely due to the antenna, the antenna placement or to environmental factors.


Well, two channels show this problem all the time, the rest don't. And unfortunately for me, these are the channels I watch the most.

One is WWLP. It broadcasts it's digital signal on 11 and it's virtual channel number is 22-1 where it's old analog part used to be. 11 would be VHF correct?

The other station is WTIC. This station broadcasts its signal on 31, and its mapped location is 61-1 where it's old analog counterpart was. 31, would be UHF Correct?

IF that is the case, one station is VHF, and one is UHF. Yet I have the same pulsing on both. How does that fit in to what you said above?

As for weather, at first I thought windy and cloudy days it was at its worst. but then I have had some windy and cloudy days where it's at it's bessed. Them there cam be fair weather days with out a cloud in the sky or an ounce of wind and the signal is worse then ever. I do notice though, when thunderstorms are due south I get no signal.

As for interference, could wireless G do it? Other then that there is nothing in the house. However, we live about 1 mile form WHAI's radio transmitter, so could that be my issue?


----------



## S3-2501

LoREvanescence said:


> 11 would be VHF correct?


 Correct.



> 31, would be UHF Correct?


Correct.



> As for interference, could wireless G do it?


I haven't had any problems with interference from my g router, so I don't think that should be a problem, though I suppose if your router has a noisy power supply and is near the antenna then it could conceivably have the same effect that my notebook did. Neighbors using heavy equipment or even household appliances or air conditioners can also create problematic interference. I never let the dishwasher run during inportant progrmming becuase it often creates breakups in the signal when it starts or stops part of a cycle.



> However, we live about 1 mile form WHAI's radio transmitter, so could that be my issue?


 [Edit] Didn't realize you were talking FM radio tower and not TV tower. I don't know if that would be a problem or not...

If you're having reception problems on all your receiving equipment (TV, Tivo etc.) it may be best for you to look on AVS Forum's local section and see if people in your area can help you resolve your reception problems.


----------



## LoREvanescence

Well, my signal may not be the greatest, but it's not the worst either. I blame TiVo for these issues. Not just the premiere but the s3 too. 

Here is why.

When that pulsating skipping signal starts happening, it seems to always start on the hour or half hour. Once it starts it run a half hour, then the next half hour will either be the same or perfect. Some times it will start in the middle of the program, but it will only continue to the half hour block marks. 

Also, when I am experiencing this issue, I can change the channel on both tuners to a different channel, then change it back and I have perfect signal again.


When the antenna is plugged directly into my tv there are no issues ever.


Anyone else experiencing anything similar to this?


----------



## Dreamin

orangeboy said:


> Citation needed. I think if a release was announced that the second core was going to be enabled, there would be a LOT more talk about it on this forum, and on the tech blogs. Especially if it were to be the "next" release...


You're right... I've searched and searched and cannot find where I saw this... I probably hallucinated it.


----------



## Dreamin

LoREvanescence said:


> Well, my signal may not be the greatest, but it's not the worst either. I blame TiVo for these issues. Not just the premiere but the s3 too.
> 
> Here is why.
> 
> When that pulsating skipping signal starts happening, it seems to always start on the hour or half hour. Once it starts it run a half hour, then the next half hour will either be the same or perfect. Some times it will start in the middle of the program, but it will only continue to the half hour block marks.
> 
> Also, when I am experiencing this issue, I can change the channel on both tuners to a different channel, then change it back and I have perfect signal again.
> 
> When the antenna is plugged directly into my tv there are no issues ever.
> 
> Anyone else experiencing anything similar to this?


No, nothing like this. My pulsing is not time related. And I think most of the people discussing this problem in this thread did NOT have a problem with their S3/HD... it is new to their S4.

A few of my channel Signal Strengths...
Channel: S3 / S4
5-1: 97 / 81
7-1: 86 / 70
11-1: *84 / 64*
28-1: 99 / 95
50-1: *89 / 65*


----------



## Dreamin

I can definitely confirm that 14.4 does not improve the OTA issues AT ALL.

Signal strengths and RS error counts are *identical* before and after the upgrade.


----------



## LoREvanescence

Dreamin said:


> No, nothing like this. My pulsing is not time related. And I think most of the people discussing this problem in this thread did NOT have a problem with their S3/HD... it is new to their S4.
> 
> A few of my channel Signal Strengths...
> Channel: S3 / S4
> 5-1: 97 / 81
> 7-1: 86 / 70
> 11-1: *84 / 64*
> 28-1: 99 / 95
> 50-1: *89 / 65*


Yeah, I picked up on that people did not have problems with the S3/THD, but the pulsating fit what was happening.

My signals are quite a bit weaker then that, here is what I get

Channel: S3 / S4
22-1: 68 / 42
61-1: 62 / 38
11-1: 78 / 63
40-1: 74 / 52
57-1: 72 / 49
31-1 52 / 32
30-1 49 / 28

My issues happen on 22-1 and 61-1. 31-1 and 30-1 come in better.

The other day though, this issue has happening on all channels (clear weather day too with no wind) then went to being only 22-1 the next day.


----------



## orangeboy

The problem with comparing signal strengths is the may be a scaling factor between the two platforms that hasn't been taken into consideration...


----------



## Dreamin

orangeboy said:


> The problem with comparing signal strengths is the may be a scaling factor between the two platforms that hasn't been taken into consideration...


I only quote signal strengths for typing convenience... it's much easier than typing:

Chnl // S3 RS Uncorrected Errors / S3 RS Corrected Errors / S3 seconds // S4 RS Uncorrected Errors / S4 RS Corrected Errors / S4 seconds
11-1 // 0 / 1,039 / 28,903 // 839,467 / 4,087,578 / 35489 
etc.

Or making a movie of my drop-outs/pixelated shows, compress it, upload it to Youtube, post it, etc.

I supposed I could post screen shots: :up:


----------



## orangeboy

Dreamin said:


> I only quote signal strengths for typing convenience...


I understand completely. I've put my Series3 and Premiere side-by-side using my TV's PiP/PoP features, both tuned to the same channel, both using the same antenna, and can see visible differences in picture quality. Watching side-by-side eliminates any doubts about time of day issues, or other factors (like UFO interference?) that could effect one and not the other. I only mentioned the scaling factor because the same result could be represented in more than one way: 100mph = 160kph, 100F = 38C, 1 yard = .9 meters...


----------



## JimboG

orangeboy said:


> I understand completely. I've put my Series3 and Premiere side-by-side using my TV's PiP/PoP features, both tuned to the same channel, both using the same antenna, and can see visible differences in picture quality. Watching side-by-side eliminates any doubts about time of day issues, or other factors (like UFO interference?) that could effect one and not the other. I only mentioned the scaling factor because the same result could be represented in more than one way: 100mph = 160kph, 100F = 38C, 1 yard = .9 meters...


One more reason we shouldn't use the metric system. Who knows if units will convert up, down, or sideways?

Now excuse me, I need to go help my cousin sneak a few keys of coke in from Tijuana.


----------



## thgood

thgood said:


> Similar situation - had perfect reception on all major networks with Tivo HD for the last 3 years. Replaced my Tivo HD with Premiere and immediately lost 2 of the major networks entirely.
> 
> Same coax, same antenna positioning (antenna in different room).
> 
> It is a powered antenna, I reduced the attenuation and the 2 channels came back. However one of them still has drop outs.


I returned my premiere.
Back to Tivo HD and tuned all channels instantly.


----------



## _Ryan_

thgood said:


> I returned my premiere.
> Back to Tivo HD and tuned all channels instantly.


Rumors of an update that will address the issue have kept me from doing that. In the meantime, I'm constantly adjusting the antenna on my balcony...


----------



## rthurlow

I have a Premiere that I ordered and was enroute when I discovered this thread :-( I had been using a Hughes HR10-250, and the Premiere is a better performer than that, but it's not as good as the tuner in my Samsung TV. Other than my only local news (which isn't great shakes anyway), programs are recording pretty reliably, and the channel with the local news is on the edge for all tuners in the house. It's got more multipath than most others, as it's coming off the back of my antenna, so I do wonder if a regular S3 would be better for me. Hard to know without spending money to try, as usual.


----------



## halbbd01

I just hooked this piece of crap up and started searching for my picture was so terrible and found this thread. It looks to me like I should return this immediately and get a TIVO HD?


----------



## _Ryan_

halbbd01 said:


> I just hooked this piece of crap up and started searching for my picture was so terrible and found this thread. It looks to me like I should return this immediately and get a TIVO HD?


The TiVo HD has better OTA reception right now, so yes, that's an option. However, you may want to wait a couple weeks because there is a rumor that the Premiere's reception issues will be improved with an update. (if you are at the end of your 30-day return period already, though, you probably won't want to wait)


----------



## CrossCheck

Is the rumored update a hardware update (that would appear only in new units) or a software update (that would appear in all units)?


----------



## _Ryan_

CrossCheck said:


> Is the rumored update a hardware update (that would appear only in new units) or a software update (that would appear in all units)?


Software. Presumably by adjusting the demodulator settings. Still just a rumor though. Look earlier in this thread for more info.


----------



## VideoGrabber

_Ryan_ said:


> The TiVo HD has better OTA reception right now, so yes, that's an option. However, you may want to wait a couple weeks because there is a rumor that the Premiere's reception issues will be improved with an update. (if you are at the end of your 30-day return period already, though, you probably won't want to wait)


I wouldn't recommend waiting. I was one who posted about the rumored update, based on specific information given directly to me by a TiVo CSR. It turned out to be either BS or optimistic, depending on how charitable you'd like to be. It was "for sure" within a week. It's now been *over 2 months* and no sign of it.

Of course, I do expect they'll address this issue some day. While for those with strong enough signals it's not a problem, for those in more marginal situations they have the unpleasant situation where the older TiVo models are better (actually, much better) than their new flagship. I could move the antenna coax from my S3, where the reception was rock-solid, to the Premiere, where it was *completely unwatchable*. Same time of day, same channel, same everything. But not on EVERY channel... just half of them.

A fix could show up a week from now, or in 6 months or more. I'd suspect its on their "eventually" list. Though it's even possible that people could be complaining about this same issue a year from now. There's really no way to tell. But to keep something that's plainly not working for you now, in hopes that they will fix it "soon", is not a wise decision in my book. Not to mention that doing just that removes their incentive to fix it, while unit returns at least let them know they have a significant problem.


----------



## orangeboy

VideoGrabber said:


> I wouldn't recommend waiting. I was one who posted about the rumored update, based on specific information given directly to me by a TiVo CSR. It turned out to be either BS or optimistic, depending on how charitable you'd like to be. It was "for sure" within a week. It's now been *over 2 months* and no sign of it.
> 
> Of course, I do expect they'll address this issue some day. While for those with strong enough signals it's not a problem, for those in more marginal situations they have the unpleasant situation where the older TiVo models are better (actually, much better) than their new flagship. I could move the antenna coax from my S3, where the reception was rock-solid, to the Premiere, where it was *completely unwatchable*. Same time of day, same channel, same everything. But not on EVERY channel... just half of them.
> 
> A fix could show up a week from now, or in 6 months or more. I'd suspect its on their "eventually" list. Though it's even possible that people could be complaining about this same issue a year from now. There's really no way to tell. But to keep something that's plainly not working for you now, in hopes that they will fix it "soon", is not a wise decision in my book. Not to mention that doing just that removes their incentive to fix it, while unit returns at least let them know they have a significant problem.


While it is possible to receive OTA signals with the Premiere, unfortunately I think it's intended market is geared toward "a cable DVR". I don't think getting the OTA tuning performing well is high on the priority list, given the smaller market of OTA only users.


----------



## aaronwt

orangeboy said:


> While it is possible to receive OTA signals with the Premiere, unfortunately I think it's intended market is geared toward "a cable DVR". I don't think getting the OTA tuning performing well is high on the priority list, given the smaller market of OTA only users.


And the OTA market just gets smaller and smaller.


----------



## MacQ2

My comments here may not be worth much but perhaps adds to this thread. In short, I agree that Tivo may not view OTA as a high priority for the Premiere.

I tuned in to their latest quarterly results conference call in late May. I was hoping for news on the upcoming DirecTivo HD. That is now hoped for by year-end but that's a whole other (sad) story.

What struck me is how excited the Tivo folks were about the Premiere and particularly how it is such a great platform for cable and how easily and quickly it could be rolled out on new cable vendor platforms. They are hoping this will result in expanded business in these target markets (the cable companies). No new partnerships were announced on the call but they often mentioned RCN as an example of what they were looking to do more of.

The Premiere's main benefits (for these markets) were:
1) More flexible Flash platform rather than C to allow faster tailoring of the product for other vendor platforms
2) More cost effective hardware which allows them to break-even on hardware sales (rather than suffering a loss on each box)

OTA is very important to me so I'll be buying a Tivo HD XL while I still can. Don't want to wait for fixes on Premiere for OTA - I've been waiting ages for DirecTivo HD and I don't want to trade one set of problems for another as I switch some of my viewing to cable from DirecTV.

Tivo's written earnings report is at:
http://investor.tivo.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=106292&p=irol-newsArticle&id=1431001

You can listen to an archived copy of the call at:
http://biz.yahoo.com/cc/1/113871.html


----------



## S3-2501

OTA may not be a priority for Tivo, but that's no excuse for the tuner in the Premiere to be so bad. ATSC is now the standard for all full-power TV broadcasts in the US, available in every TV sold, whether the owner has cable or not. Tuner performance has vastly improved and costs have obviously dropped significantly. From a consumer's perspective it almost seems like Tivo must have gone out of their way to find an inferior tuner/demodulator for the new box. If it wasn't broken, why fix it?

My whole immediate family is OTA only, and we intend to stay that way. There should be a reasonable market for OTA DVRs since NTSC VCRs clearly won't work out of the box with ATSC signals. They just need to be affordable and widely available. One would think Tivo could actually make a profit on an OTA-only box that uses the S3/HD hardware and software without the cable card components and license fees etc. 

For now I'll just be grateful I have my TivoHD and S3 and hope I can keep them functioning for years to come while I keep a close eye on this thread.


----------



## aaronwt

DVD burners have had tuners for the digital channels for years.


----------



## aaronwt

MacQ2 said:


> My comments here may not be worth much but perhaps adds to this thread. In short, I agree that Tivo may not view OTA as a high priority for the Premiere.
> 
> I tuned in to their latest quarterly results conference call in late May. I was hoping for news on the upcoming DirecTivo HD. That is now hoped for by year-end but that's a whole other (sad) story.
> 
> What struck me is how excited the Tivo folks were about the Premiere and particularly how it is such a great platform for cable and how easily and quickly it could be rolled out on new cable vendor platforms. They are hoping this will result in expanded business in these target markets (the cable companies). No new partnerships were announced on the call but they often mentioned RCN as an example of what they were looking to do more of.
> 
> The Premiere's main benefits (for these markets) were:
> 1) More flexible Flash platform rather than C to allow faster tailoring of the product for other vendor platforms
> 2) More cost effective hardware which allows them to break-even on hardware sales (rather than suffering a loss on each box)
> 
> OTA is very important to me so I'll be buying a Tivo HD XL while I still can. Don't want to wait for fixes on Premiere for OTA - I've been waiting ages for DirecTivo HD and I don't want to trade one set of problems for another as I switch some of my viewing to cable from DirecTV.
> 
> Tivo's written earnings report is at:
> http://investor.tivo.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=106292&p=irol-newsArticle&id=1431001
> 
> You can listen to an archived copy of the call at:
> http://biz.yahoo.com/cc/1/113871.html


I forgot all about the BestBuy-Insignia TiVo deal.

And TiVo has no debt, which is always good.


----------



## _Ryan_

Question for OTA users that have rec'd the 14.5K1 update: 
Any indication about whether OTA reception was adjusted/improved in this update?


----------



## Dreamin

I need to check a few more times... But after 12 hours... YES!
A few of my channel Signal Strengths...
Channel: S3 / S4 / S4 14.5K
5-1: 97 / 81 / 84
7-1: 86 / 70 / 70
11-1: *84 / 64 / 74*
28-1: 99 / 95 / 95
50-1: *89 / 65 / 74*


----------



## JimboG

Dreamin,

The moderate increase in reported signal strength sounds promising.

Could you look at the signal to noise ratio and Reed Solomon corrected and uncorrected error rates and see whether the Tivo Premiere is tuning as well as the Series 3? It still is possible that the Tivo Premiere uses a different scale for zero to 100 signal strength and a 74 on the Premiere may be as good as or better than an 84 on the Series 3.


----------



## Dreamin

I am tracking RS errors... This morning at ~29K seconds:

Channel: 11-1
RS Uncorrected Errors / RS Corrected Errors / Seconds 
S3: 0 / 1,039 / 28,903
S4: *839,467* / 4,087,578 / 35,489 
S4-14.5K: *39* / ~4,000,000 / ~29,000

For whatever reason the Corrected errors is the same, but Uncorrected Errors (the ones that matter) are WAY down.

More data tonight... :up:


----------



## hmm52

I assume you have two Premieres, one updated, one not, and that you're checking values at more or less the same time. In any case channels 11.1 and 50.1 are good ones to play with. In my experience with an S3, an indicated SS of 65 is near or just below the threshold for stable signal lock OTA - provided the weather is quiet; less than that will bring tiling, dropouts and so on. You could rotate your antenna if it's not a PITA until the signal drops enough on those stations to cause problems. If that's in the high 60s with the S4, then I think the scaling is similar to the S3's. The RS Corrected numbers on the two versions of S4 seem way high even if they don't make a practical difference.


----------



## Dreamin

hmm52 said:


> I assume you have two Premieres, one updated, one not, and that you're checking values at more or less the same time. In any case channels 11.1 and 50.1 are good ones to play with. In my experience with an S3, an indicated SS of 65 is near or just below the threshold for stable signal lock OTA - provided the weather is quiet; less than that will bring tiling, dropouts and so on. You could rotate your antenna if it's not a PITA until the signal drops enough on those stations to cause problems. If that's in the high 60s with the S4, then I think the scaling is similar to the S3's. The RS Corrected numbers on the two versions of S4 seem way high even if they don't make a practical difference.


I have one S4... It's SS has been very steady since April: 59-65 (except during pulsing issue, where it drops to 0). It has never been in the 70s. Uncorrected Errors have consistently been in the 100K+ range for the 36K second range. With corresponding heavy pixelation occurring at the worst possible times during a show  So I am constantly checking error counts.

*Immediate* difference after 14.5K was installed... Uncorrected errors have NEVER been ~100 over any length of time.

I'm cautiously optimistic at this point... Uncorrected errors look really good... but I suppose the last 24 hours could be a freak coincidence.

At ~75000 seconds:









I'll keep tracking...


----------



## bks

I am new to Tivo and just bought a Premiere. I have an antenna on the roof and get all the main channels with full signal strength when hooked up directly to my TV (SD & HD). However, when I hook up Tivo, the only channels which I am able to tune are the SD channels. If I try to tune an HD channel, I just get a message that it is searching for the signal. This is true for all the HD channels (when I go to the signal strength test, all of them show 0 signal).

Has anyone run across this? It appears that it's is not even a problem of weak signals, but no signals. I've called Tivo several times and all they suggested was to get a signal amplifier. I did buy one yesterday and installed it, but nothing changed. Is this a hardware problem? Software? Settings? Or should I try to get an older Tivo box?? Thanks.


----------



## stujac

Sorry for this possibly stupid suggestion but did you have the Premier scan for the channels or did you just simply plug in the antenna?


----------



## bks

Fair question. Yes, I have had it scan multiple times (as well as do a full restart of the box twice).


----------



## S3-2501

bks said:


> I am new to Tivo and just bought a Premiere.


 If you just got it, there's a chance it hasn't gotten the latest software version yet. If you're running an older version, forcing the Premiere to connect to Tivo should get it updated (after a manual or automatic late night restart.)

If you have the latest software and are still getting no signal with a rooftop antenna then something's not right.


----------



## kettledrum

Has anyone else other than Dreamin seen an improvement with the 14.5 update?

I'm trying to decide on whether to get an HD or a Premiere, and I'll be going exclusively OTA with it so I'm very interested to see if this issue is now resolved.


----------



## stujac

This is also my situation. While I'll add an M card later, I'm starting the new one on ota only and won't get the Premier if this signal issues doesn't get resolved.


----------



## Dreamin

After 84 hours... Uncorrected is still very acceptable. Can't explain why Corrected is off the charts.










This concludes my testing. I am satisfied that my OTA problem is resolved :up: (and I need to change channels.)


----------



## Dreamin

kettledrum said:


> Has anyone else other than Dreamin seen an improvement with the 14.5 update?
> 
> I'm trying to decide on whether to get an HD or a Premiere, and I'll be going exclusively OTA with it so I'm very interested to see if this issue is now resolved.










A sample size of one is statistically irrelevant. Someone could have just cut a tree down the block and fixed my problem


----------



## _Ryan_

Dreamin said:


> This concludes my testing. I am satisfied that my OTA problem is resolved :up: (and I need to change channels.)


Thanks for keeping us posted. I'm really looking forward to testing out the reception myself whenever the update gets pushed out to the rest of us. Hopefully your experience wasn't just coincidental.


----------



## LoREvanescence

This is good news. I'll have to keep my eye out for the update and then see if it improves my reception


----------



## hmm52

Dreamin said:


> After 84 hours... Uncorrected is still very acceptable. Can't explain why Corrected is off the charts.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> This concludes my testing. I am satisfied that my OTA problem is resolved :up: (and I need to change channels.)


303729 seconds!??! What's going on? You lose the remote? They running a marathon of Alfred Hitchcock movies? The RS corrected are way high because that tuner's probably burned out being locked on the same frequency for so long. Time to give it, and yourself, a rest. Case closed. There's no remuneration by the TCF for exhaustive testing AFAIK...


----------



## kettledrum

Now that 14.5 have gone live to everyone, can anyone report on their signal strengths? 

I'm extremely interested to hear some consensus on if 14.5 has fixed the OTA problems...


----------



## DaveWhittle

kettledrum said:


> Now that 14.5 have gone live to everyone, can anyone report on their signal strengths?
> 
> I'm extremely interested to hear some consensus on if 14.5 has fixed the OTA problems...


A purely unscientific test, one channel I was having fringe problems with on the older software is now reporting improved reception in the upper 70s.


----------



## orangeboy

Simultaneous side-by-side comparison of my Series3 and Premiere (using the same antenna, tuned to the same channel), Series3 reception continues to outperform the Premiere.

Edit: And I did get the 14.5 update last night after forcing a connection to the TiVo Service.


----------



## Daniel Skeen

Looks like a incorrect casting of a data type to me.


----------



## Dreamin

Daniel Skeen said:


> Looks like a incorrect casting of a data type to me.


More likely Tivo rescaled the Signal Strength... to give a wide range of "acceptable".

But the problem we (the OTA only people) are having is RS Uncorrected Errors and severe pixelation. At the end of the day, I don't care what my SS value is... I just want to be able to watch TV (like I could with my S3). :up:


----------



## crxssi

Dreamin said:


> But the problem we (the OTA only people) are having is RS Uncorrected Errors and severe pixelation. At the end of the day, I don't care what my SS value is... I just want to be able to watch TV (like I could with my S3). :up:


That kind of problem is certainly not restricted to "OTA only people". Cable compression of signals SUCKS. I, for one, disable all local channels in the cable channel lineup and use OTA for those. The picture quality is much higher (because the bitrate is much higher). Those doing something similar will, indeed, be affected by OTA reception issues, also.


----------



## LoREvanescence

Dreamin said:


> More likely Tivo rescaled the Signal Strength... to give a wide range of "acceptable".
> 
> But the problem we (the OTA only people) are having is RS Uncorrected Errors and severe pixelation. At the end of the day, I don't care what my SS value is... I just want to be able to watch TV (like I could with my S3). :up:


Do you use an expander?

When ever I disconnect or reconnect the expander from my premiere the pixilation issue goes away for a day or two.

I mean like I can set up the dvr to not use the expander and I get perfect reception (RS Errors are still there but I don't get the pixelation) for a few days. Same when I hook up the expander I get a good day or so and the issue starts up.

But when the issue is occuring, it always seems to be worse while I have the expander attached. My issue affects the s3 too before I replaced it with the premiere. So I dunno if maybe the expander is a contributing part of making my issue work or not. I'm starting to think so


----------



## crxssi

LoREvanescence said:


> When ever I disconnect or reconnect the expander from my premiere the pixilation issue goes away for a day or two.


What exactly is an "expander". Are you talking about an external hard drive or something???


----------



## kettledrum

Dreamin said:


> More likely Tivo rescaled the Signal Strength... to give a wide range of "acceptable".
> 
> But the problem we (the OTA only people) are having is RS Uncorrected Errors and severe pixelation. At the end of the day, I don't care what my SS value is... I just want to be able to watch TV (like I could with my S3). :up:


Exactly. The actual SS number doesn't matter, what matters is if the picture quality is acceptable or not. I suppose I should have phrased my question differently above.


----------



## LoREvanescence

crxssi said:


> What exactly is an "expander". Are you talking about an external hard drive or something???


Yes, the external hard drive


----------



## Dreamin

LoREvanescence said:


> Yes, the external hard drive


Wow... That's a pretty crazy bug you've discovered... PQ issues related to an external HD!

However, I do not have an external HD.


----------



## Dreamin

kettledrum said:


> Exactly. The actual SS number doesn't matter, what matters is if the picture quality is acceptable or not. I suppose I should have phrased my question differently above.


...I understood your question. I just wanted to be clear... The guys whining in this thread aren't complaining about the math... We're complaining about PQ!


----------



## _Ryan_

I'll chime in with my experience: 

so far, I've noticed no substantial difference in OTA reception after the latest update (either in terms of the reported signal strength, or in terms of actual picture drop-outs). My problem stations are still a problem at certain times of the day.

If anyone is somehow able to compare two Premiere's, one using 14.4 and one using 14.5, side-by-side, I'd be interested to see what they find. Otherwise, I'm not yet convinced that anything has changed regarding OTA reception in 14.5. I'm wondering if the folks reporting improvements actually had an unrelated change in their surrounding environment?

Thoughts?


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## fstyron

I'm getting similar results...

Prior to the 14.5 update, the signal strength on my Premiere was 55-65 on stations that my Sony Bravia was seeing at 80-95. The SNR was about 8-10 DB down from the SNR reported by the Sony. Several channels that were perfectly displayed on Sony were pixelated using the Premiere.

I received the 14.5 update on August 8th with no significant change in signal strength, SNR, or (most importantly) picture quality. 

The Premiere has been returned.

I've ordered an HD XL in hopes of owning a Tivo that will provide respectable OTA performance.


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## aaroncgi

Our Premiere updated to 14.5 just a few days ago, and there have been no significant changes in OTA reception for most channels. Most signal strengths are unchanged, though the lowest VHF channel (frequency 9) seem to have lost about 10-20&#37; of it's previous strength. The picture is still fine though, with no significant dropouts or pixelization, even with the signal strength meter in the low-mid 30's !! Before it would be almost unwatchable if the strength dropped below 40. ??


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## fstyron

The refurbed HD XL arrived today. Signal strength/SNR/Picture quality on this series 3 unit are far above what I experienced with the Premier. Signal strength on all channels is at least 85 (several at 97-100) with all SNRs above 30 DB and best of all, no drops or pixelation. 

The HD XL appears to be a much better box for OTA use.


----------



## orangeboy

fstyron said:


> The refurbed HD XL arrived today. Signal strength/SNR/Picture quality on this series 3 unit are far above what I experienced with the Premier. Signal strength on all channels is at least 85 (several at 97-100) with all SNRs above 30 DB and best of all, no drops or pixelation.
> 
> The HD XL appears to be a much better box for OTA use.


Although I agree that the older models perform better than the Premiere regarding tuning OTA signals, you can't judge it by signal strength between the different models. To use an analogy, the older models may be measuring in kilometers per hour, and the Premiere measuring in miles per hour.


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## Andrel

orangeboy said:


> Although I agree that the older models perform better than the Premiere regarding tuning OTA signals, you can't judge it by signal strength between the different models. To use an analogy, the older models may be measuring in kilometers per hour, and the Premiere measuring in miles per hour.


Although I agree about the signal strength, I have to disagree about the SNR as this should be all calculated the same way (like a kilometer, Lets not use the US and British gallon as an example) as the SNR is a standard measurement. Unless their calculation is incorrectly done on the premiere, there is most likely something there.

I have gone OTA since April and have been experimenting between my Toshiba TV, the Premiere and 3 roof mounted antennas:

1. The Premiere has a less sensitive tuner (may be software or hardware) by about 2 DB with a good antenna
2. Seems like the Premiere Tuner doesn't like amplified antenna (at least the cheap or medium cheap one) and loses DBs that makes it unwatchable when amp is on although the SNR is OK but low (Toshiba TV SNR increased, Premiere loses it like there is no tomorrow) ; and

3. There are a lot of uncorrected or corrected errors that are not warranted even when the SNR/signal is excellent.

It would be interesting to know if the users having many DBs SNR difference between the Tivo HD and Premiere are using amplified antenna


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## kettledrum

Still on the fence over buying a premiere because of this OTA problem, as that is how I would exclusively use my new TiVo.

I finally got around to redoing the lines from my antenna to where my new TiVo would go. I sit only 10 miles from all of the antennas of the channels I care about.

I am receiving 100 signal strength via a channelmaster digital to analog converter. I also show upper 20s to 30 SNR on all the important channels when hooked up to my TV (TV does not show signal strength #s, only bars).

Being so close to the antennas, and receiving rock solid #s through my other sources, does any of the OTA experts here (or anyone else for that matter) have an opinion as to if I might be okay with a Premiere? 

I suppose I could always get one and try it and then use the 30 day policy, but I'd have to pay return shipping, and wait for $500 to come back into my account.


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## stujac

Mine is sitting in my dining room ready for hook-up on Sunday. I also plan to start it on ota only then add a cc later. I have high hopes.


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## 241705

I am about 34 miles from the Philly antenna farm and get reliable OTA reception on both my TivoHD and my TivoPremiere. I am using an attic-mounted antenna - I do sometimes have problems with channel 6 (which is on low-VHF 6) but it affects both Tivos equally.


----------



## Torgo

blackngold75 said:


> I am about 34 miles from the Philly antenna farm and get reliable OTA reception on both my TivoHD and my TivoPremiere. I am using an attic-mounted antenna - I do sometimes have problems with channel 6 (which is on low-VHF 6) but it affects both Tivos equally.


I'm <2 miles from the antenna farm, and I have problem w/ 6 occasionally. Their issue is the specific channel they use, and they've been transmitting at higher power than proposed since the transition. Not much that can be done outside of switching frequencies, which isn't likely.

Of course, I'm using some glorified rabbit ears being this close, but the 6 channel issue is not you.


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## crxssi

I got my Premiere on Monday and so far, I do not notice any difference in OTA reception compared to the HD. Yes, the signal strength meters were all lower, but the pictures are just fine on all the channels. I don't know if the tuner is weaker or if the scale is just different, but so far it is not a problem. I am about 17-20 miles away from the broadcast antennas and use an attic-mounted UHF antenna.


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## Kyoootee

I got a Premiere and am only going to use an Antenna and was thinking of using a splitter to send the signal from the antenna to the Tivo and to my TV. (2 tuners on Tivo, another live TV) i would like to know if anyone has done this, and will i lose signal strength,If I do?


----------



## crxssi

Kyoootee said:


> I got a Premiere and am only going to use an Antenna and was thinking of using a splitter to send the signal from the antenna to the Tivo and to my TV. (2 tuners on Tivo, another live TV) i would like to know if anyone has done this, and will i lose signal strength,If I do?


Sure, you can do that and it will work. Yes, you will lose some signal. You just have to try it to see. But is there really enough OTA that you would ever have the opportunity to record two and watch something else live? Three different things that interest you on OTA?? (Would never happen for me).


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## steve614

Speaking for myself, I'm strictly OTA and there's plenty of stuff to watch. During the broadcast season, there's plenty of times that I have to use my second Tivo to catch everything I care about watching. On rare occasions, I have to watch something live even with 4 tuners recording.
I *still* have stuff to watch from last season. I'd probably be caught up if it wasn't for Netflix.


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## orangeboy

Kyoootee said:


> I got a Premiere and am only going to use an Antenna and was thinking of using a splitter to send the signal from the antenna to the Tivo and to my TV. (2 tuners on Tivo, another live TV) i would like to know if anyone has done this, and will i lose signal strength,If I do?


What is this "live TV" of which you speak?


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## buellwinkle

I lost CBS and ABC by going to Premier and I just got the box, upgraded to 14.5 and still not good. I have a small antenna amp that came with the antenna. Would it help to get a more powerful amp at Rat Shack or Home Depot? I can always trade with my kid for her Tivo HD since she has cable and I want to use this one OTA. At least I know, I was going to get another Premiere for my other daughter that is OTA, but I now know that this is not a good box, that's why they are selling it so cheap. 

I asked Tivo support if they will trade my brand new Premiere for a refurb HD and they said no.


----------



## crxssi

buellwinkle said:


> I lost CBS and ABC by going to Premier and I just got the box, upgraded to 14.5 and still not good. I have a small antenna amp that came with the antenna. Would it help to get a more powerful amp at Rat Shack or Home Depot?


An amp is no substitute for a better antenna, aimed correctly.


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## JimboG

Go to tvfool.com, plug in your address, and post the link that shows the results for your address.

The solution probably is to get a proper TV antenna, mount it as high as possible, and avoid as many obstacles as possible.

While many may wish that the fundamental laws of physics might have changed in the last 50 years, they haven't. If a proposed super-antenna doesn't look like a large, ugly rooftop antenna, odds are that it won't perform as well as a real large, ugly, rooftop antenna.

If you live anywhere near a major TV market, odds are that you can get excellent performance from a proper terrestrial antenna. The hunk of metal on your rooftop might not be "pretty", but the savings in your wallet every month surely will be!:up::up:


----------



## crxssi

JimboG said:


> Go to tvfool.com, plug in your address, and post the link that shows the results for your address.
> 
> The solution probably is to get a proper TV antenna, mount it as high as possible, and avoid as many obstacles as possible.
> 
> While many may wish that the fundamental laws of physics might have changed in the last 50 years, they haven't. If a proposed super-antenna doesn't look like a large, ugly rooftop antenna, odds are that it won't perform as well as a real large, ugly, rooftop antenna.
> 
> If you live anywhere near a major TV market, odds are that you can get excellent performance from a proper terrestrial antenna. The hunk of metal on your rooftop might not be "pretty", but the savings in your wallet every month surely will be!:up::up:


With HDTV, it is a UHF-only antenna now, so it doesn't have to be that huge anymore. Besides, I mounted mine in my attic so you can see nothing (and requires no grounding)  Radio Shack sells nice UHF-only models in various strengths. Took me all of 45 min to mount and run cable. Done.


----------



## JimboG

Be careful before you buy a UHF-only antenna for over the air TV. Go to antennaweb, TV Fool, or Zap2it and see what physical channel your local broadcasters use. Most markets have one or more high band VHF stations (channels 7-13). Some major stations such as WPVI in Philadelphia are even on low band VHF still.

I agree, a good UHF only antenna can be considerably smaller than the rooftop behemoths of yesteryear. The newly released high band VHF and UHF combo antennas from Antennacraft, Winegard, and Channelmaster are quite a bit smaller than the old full band antennas. Typically those old antennas focused more on VHF reception and scrimped on UHF reception.

I agree that UHF only is awfully nice if you can get away with it. Just make sure that you pick an antenna designed for all of the channels you want to watch.:up:


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## stujac

JimboG said:


> Be careful before you buy a UHF-only antenna for over the air TV. Go to antennaweb, TV Fool, or Zap2it and see what physical channel your local broadcasters use. Most markets have one or more high band VHF stations (channels 7-13). Some major stations such as WPVI in Philadelphia are even on low band VHF still.
> 
> I agree, a good UHF only antenna can be considerably smaller than the rooftop behemoths of yesteryear. The newly released high band VHF and UHF combo antennas from Antennacraft, Winegard, and Channelmaster are quite a bit smaller than the old full band antennas. Typically those old antennas focused more on VHF reception and scrimped on UHF reception.
> 
> I agree that UHF only is awfully nice if you can get away with it. Just make sure that you pick an antenna designed for all of the channels you want to watch.:up:


Does anyone think the Philadelphia ABC affiliate will get a break and move to UHF or a higher band VHF? Signal strength for this ota station is horrible and I'm only about 20 or so miles from the towers.


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## HD4me2

Most OTA here in San Diego are UHF. The exceptions are CBS and ABC which are on VHF 8 and VHF 10.

I have 2 RS UHF Yagies on the roof and get excellent signal strength form every OTA broadcast here at my location 540 ft ASL. Since 8 and 10 are just 2 miles north of here the signal is excellent even though they are on the back of the UHF antennas.

Then again because I have LOS to every transmitter a Hauppauge 950Q USB tuner connected to the computer gets all the stations using a UHF loop hanging on the wall above the computer as does a HDHomerun using a UHF indoor 8 inch diameter loop.

As a long time Amateur Radio operator we learn that it is all about location and antennas !


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## aaronwt

stujac said:


> Does anyone think the Philadelphia ABC affiliate will get a break and move to UHF or a higher band VHF? Signal strength for this ota station is horrible and I'm only about 20 or so miles from the towers.


If it's like here in DC, the station chose to got to VHF instead of sticking with the UHF frequency prior to the transistion.
Our ABC and CBS affiliate here chose to VHF too. So instead of being the strongest signal for me when they were on UHF, they are now the worst. FOrtunately I can watch the channels from FiOS. But my girlfriend does not have that luxury since she is OTA only. Prior to the transistion her signals were very good. Now the VHF ones are crap. I've tried several table top antennas for her and can't get a consistent signal like I could when they were all UHF.


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## wbertram

aaronwt said:


> If it's like here in DC, the station chose to got to VHF instead of sticking with the UHF frequency prior to the transistion.
> Our ABC and CBS affiliate here chose to VHF too. So instead of being the strongest signal for me when they were on UHF, they are now the worst. FOrtunately I can watch the channels from FiOS. But my girlfriend does not have that luxury since she is OTA only. Prior to the transistion her signals were very good. Now the VHF ones are crap. I've tried several table top antennas for her and can't get a consistent signal like I could when they were all UHF.


The Philly ABC and NBC digital stations were on high UHF channels, which were not available for TV usage after the digital cut over. The NBC station won a new UHF assignment. For whatever reasons, the ABC station could not get a UHF or hi-VHF digital channel assignment. So, ABC digital is stuck on VHF 6. Shame. But there are no UHF channels available in the Philly area.


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## stujac

wbertram said:


> The Philly ABC and NBC digital stations were on high UHF channels, which were not available for TV usage after the digital cut over. The NBC station won a new UHF assignment. For whatever reasons, the ABC station could not get a UHF or hi-VHF digital channel assignment. So, ABC digital is stuck on VHF 6. Shame. But there are no UHF channels available in the Philly area.


So, it's buy one of the UHF channels or stay unavailable to most of the viewership that uses ota?


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## crxssi

I admit- I am confused. I thought that all digital was UHF, period. Here (Hampton Roads), everything moved to UHF/digital. VHF was supposed to be dead and auctioned off. Am I missing something?

EDIT: yep, I was sucked into the myth as described here: 
http://www.kake.com/blogs/dtv/15819067.html
And here: http://antennaweb.org/aw/info.aspx?page=FAQ#_Ref28770295 (second to last paragraph)

Digital can be either UHF or VHF, it just so happens some markets are all or mostly UHF, which was apparently the case here. This is why I originally was suggesting a UHF-only antenna.

As is turns out, one station here (ABC) *IS* on VHF (13), but I seem to get it just fine with my smaller UHF-only antenna. Go figure. Maybe because it is at the high-end of the VHF spectrum.


----------



## Dreamin

crxssi said:


> An amp is no substitute for a better antenna, aimed correctly.


Switching back to his TiVoHD would be easier...


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## buellwinkle

Dreamin said:


> Switching back to his TiVoHD would be easier...


You are absolutely right. I tried a more powerful amp and it's the same. ABC and CBS comes in once in a while. There's really no substitute for good engineering, something that Tivo totally missed on the Premiere.
. 
BTW, TV Fool says I should get CBS and ABC with an indoor antenna, that would be true but clearly they Fools don't have a Tivo Premiere.


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## robin50

This is the usual channel lineup (Detroit area) on my three Series3 units (with quite solid reception on all):

2 Fox
4 NBC
7 ABC
20 MyNetworkTV
50 CW
56 PBS

Of these channels, but one survives on the Premiere:

2 Fox

Interestingly this channel is the only one broadcasting on VHF (on channel 7).

Ugh.


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## kettledrum

So I did end up taking the plunge and trying a Premiere with OTA only.

I haven't used it too much until just this week as new shows are starting their new seasons. My reception was good when I got the Premiere a few weeks ago, but last night I noticed some hiccups. I took a look and two channels are now coming in horribly. 30-40 points lower in signal strength than earlier. It just so happens that both are VHF, while all of the other stations I receive are in the UHF band.

We also had rain last night (for the 1st time in almost 2 months). I did accidentally leave some exposed coax connections outside that got wet. If that were the problem, wouldn't it cause problems on all channels, and not just those two? My antenna is also mounted in my attic. Is it possible that the fact that the roof is wet could cause reception problems?


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## orangeboy

I wrote a little program that parses the TiVo's ToDo Lists on my account at tivo.com. Found some interesting data:



Code:


TivoS3   has  94 recodings scheduled - mine, OTA only
TivoS4   has 109 recodings scheduled - mine, OTA only
DVR 1FA0 has  21 recodings scheduled - sister's, cable only


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## crxssi

kettledrum said:


> 30-40 points lower in signal strength than earlier. It just so happens that both are VHF, while all of the other stations I receive are in the UHF band.


So need to be more specific. Are you saying that ALL your VHF is lower? Some of your VHF is lower? Is it all the time now or sometimes? Did you test levels on ALL the UHF also? There is not enough information to make any specific conclusions.



> We also had rain last night (for the 1st time in almost 2 months). I did accidentally leave some exposed coax connections outside that got wet. If that were the problem, wouldn't it cause problems on all channels, and not just those two? My antenna is also mounted in my attic. Is it possible that the fact that the roof is wet could cause reception problems?


If your connections were solid, rain shouldn't bother them. If not, it could tend to short the signal to ground. However, you are correct, in that it would affect all channels, not just VHF.

Rain, itself, is unlikely to interfere with TV broadcast. It might make a slight difference to an attic antenna if the roof is wet (because it will be more dense), but I don't think it would be enough to worry about. Again, it should make no real difference VHF vs. UHF (theoretically, VHF would have slightly more penetration power and be slightly LESS affected by density).


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## steve614

orangeboy said:


> I wrote a little program that parses the TiVo's ToDo Lists on my account at tivo.com. Found some interesting data:
> 
> 
> 
> Code:
> 
> 
> TivoS3   has  94 recodings scheduled - mine, OTA only
> TivoS4   has 109 recodings scheduled - mine, OTA only
> DVR 1FA0 has  21 recodings scheduled - sister's, cable only


 Does that data only span the two weeks of guide data that we get?
If so, that's a lot of recordings!


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## orangeboy

steve614 said:


> Does that data only span the two weeks of guide data that we get?
> If so, that's a lot of recordings!


Yep, that's from 9/23 to 10/5. The python script that I'm working on is intended to help target an available tuner if you have multiple (HD) TiVos on your account and a scheduling conflict arises. I'm still having a hard time making it legible and pretty. An example of the current output can be found here. I can see that Thursday primetime could be a problem if something new is scheduled, since all 4 of the tuners I have are busy at 9:00!


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## kettledrum

crxssi said:


> So need to be more specific. Are you saying that ALL your VHF is lower? Some of your VHF is lower? Is it all the time now or sometimes? Did you test levels on ALL the UHF also? There is not enough information to make any specific conclusions.


Yes, it was the only VHF I receive. Two stations in all. I did scan through all of the other channels I receive, and the rest of them were behaving normally.

When this first popped up it was late Wednesday night and I didn't really get a chance to try much at all. I decided sleep was more important  But when I got home from work yesterday those two channels were still unacceptable. I pulled the TV stand out away from the wall and the channel I was on at the time jumped from being in the 30s with SNR in the teens up to 85 with the SNR in the upper 20s/lower 30s.

So it appears there's some sort of interference coming from some other wiring behind the TV. There's speaker wires, electric, and ethernet all back there in close proximity to each other.


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## caseybea

Ugh. Well... brand new premiere user/owner-- never had a tivo before (used the dvr that was built inside my old tv!).

menus/user-interface issues aside ("mixed" HD/sd menus? yuck) - I ran into the "pulsing" issue almost right away - at first, I ran into this on a station that I don't watch too often, and is one of the lesser/weaker stations around town. Annoying, but I blew it off to a bad antenna day.

But than last night I had this happen in one of my recordings - and was not only so annoying it made the show unwatchable-- but happened on one of the stations around here that has the clearest and strongest signals. I have since seen this happen multiple times. To say that I'm disappointed is putting it lightly. I spent a hell of a lot of money for.. pixelating and dropouts??? 

To date, I never - NEVER had signal issues on my tv/dvr. As soon as I fire up this new tivo-- bam. Reception problems.

I'm very close to returing it to the store and getting my money back and canceling my service and getting a tivo HD.


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## JimboG

caseybea said:


> But than last night I had this happen in one of my recordings - and was not only so annoying it made the show unwatchable-- but happened on one of the stations *around here* that has the clearest and strongest signals. I have since seen this happen multiple times. To say that I'm disappointed is putting it lightly. I spent a hell of a lot of money for.. pixelating and dropouts???


Care to mention where "around here" is? That "location" section of the user profile can be awfully helpful if someone wants to help you out.

If you could, please post the TV Fool .com results for your location as well as the indoor or outdoor antenna that you are using. While the Tivo Premiere may not have as strong of over the air reception as the older Series 3 Tivos, the folks on this forum would be happy to help you get the best possible reception at your location.:up: You should try for optimal reception before returning the Tivo Premiere for an earlier generation product.


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## _Ryan_

Now that another update is being rolled out (14.6) with an unknown number of mysterious unnamed bug fixes and performance tweaks, I guess it's time to ask around here if anyone's OTA reception issues improve with this update. I'll chime in with my experience whenever I get 14.6 rolled to my box. Thanks in advance to all.

Ryan


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## caseybea

So, I spent a lot of time concentrating on my antenna setup, etc. Even though that to date (before installing the premiere), I had NO problems with OTA reception on 4 different devices (I have always had fantastic reception on all stations) - I checked it out anyway.

(setup review: Area: Milwaukee, WI. Antenna: Large combo UHF/VHF antenna, mounted in rafters of garage attic).

Finally, I borrowed a better quality compass from a friend, and checked it out. While I had things aimed relatively well, I found that I needed to shift to the right about 5 degrees to better match what the (better qualty) compass was telling me. 

So far, with my limited tv watching since then, I'm not getting dropouts. 

THEORY: I think what was going on was the tivo premiere's chip reacting to "multipath" issues caused by the antenna not being aimed to the (majority of the broadcast tower) **dead**on. 

Anyway... regardless of whether or not I have this fixed for sure-- I'm still a bit stunned that my new shiny tivo premiere is MORE sensitive to this kind of thing than any other DTV device I have in the house to date. I'm hoping that perhaps future firmware updates deal with the tuner sentitivity. We'll see.

I am quite worried about the author a few posts back that said "I can sometimes go a day with less than 1,000 corrected errors". I'll need a week for me to discern if I still have a problem or not.


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## vulture99

I am experiencing the same OTA problem others have described here. I have an HD and a Premiere. The HD can pull in weaker channels just fine, but on the Premiere those channels are often pixelated or just drop out altogether. With the Premiere signal strength meter on the screen I can see the "pulsing" that others have described.

I am getting NO help from Tivo customer service. No matter how many times I tell them that the problem exists even when I swap the two units between upstairs & downstairs, they keep blaming the antenna. The antenna is fine...the Tivo HD, TV, and DVD recorder can all tune in the channels just fine....it's the Premiere that has the problem. I have a quality Winegard UHF/high-band VHF antenna mounted in the attic, along with a Winegard pre-amp. What do you think they said when I told them that?? "Try moving your antenna or installing a signal booster." Aaarghh!


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## _Ryan_

After observing my Premiere's signal strength and reported RS uncorrected errors on the diagnostics screen for about a week after receiving 14.6, I find no evidence of any changes to the OTA reception performance on my Premiere. (A completely unscientific test, of course). 
It seems to me that 14.6 does nothing regarding the OTA tuner/demodulator. Oh well.


----------



## _Ryan_

vulture99 said:


> I have a quality Winegard UHF/high-band VHF antenna mounted in the attic, along with a Winegard pre-amp. What do you think they said when I told them that?? "Try moving your antenna or installing a signal booster." Aaarghh!


You may want to try removing the pre-amp, just for kicks, and see if there's any improvement with the Premiere. It probably won't help, but other forum members have mentioned that in-line signal boosters can exacerbate multipath problems sometimes, so it may be worth a shot...

Good luck.


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## timatkn

I am getting worried now with all these posts 

This is my first TIVO so I cannot compare from previous models but I had a Dish VIP 722 and right away the Premiere picked up more OTA channels than my old dish receiver or my Sony TV's built in receiver. I have another OTA DTV converter upstairs as well which picks up all of the same statiosn as my Premiere. Prior to getting the premiere I had frequent drop outs from public television in the Twin Cities area on my Sony and the dish receiver.

One thing I noticed was that the signal strength of the Premiere is noticably lower than on the other 3 receivers, but I can pick up and watch stations on the Premiere all the way into the mid teens or low 20s while the Sony or the Dish receivers lose the signal at anything below 50 and anything below 60 will be in and out. So in my case the Preniere seems to tune a station better, but is pulling in less signal. On my DTV converter most local stations are 100% strength and 100% signal quality--while the premiere is in the 60's. My end result is the same so I am good just curious as to the differences.

With all of the reports there has to be something different about the problem with Premieres tuner though. In my case I am happy because things got better, but I would be upset if I was someone having issues. If the TIVO HD had better reception makes you wonder why they changed? As others have described maybe the Premiere Tuner is more susceptable to multipath? But once again that sounds like a downgrade from previous tuners. Not sure a software upgrade will ever fix that?

T


----------



## forum junkie

The power level readings are as varied as the no. of boxes out there and always has been. Some things however should be easy to state. The dish VIP722 isn't exactly new tech. compared to what a new premier should be. That the premier doesn't perform as well as the HD has been pointed out by numerous people and that shouldn't be. If an antenna works well on a HD, an older TV, and other boxes, it's not rocket science to know the antenna is not the problem. Since multipath was a problem when the 8VSB was adopted by the FCC and they were told that the problem had to be fixed, it's not reasonable to blame premier sensitvity to multipath when the HD was about a 5th gen 8VSB and the premier should be at least a 7th, meaning it should better handle it.


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## caseybea

I still have issues, after moving the antenna. Guess I was looking at the display on a good day - there's no rhyme or reason to this - sometimes it's OK, other times I get the 'pulsing' issue with my signal and I get dropouts.

On the tivo premiere ONLY.


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## Befazzled

I'm so glad I found this thread. I've been planning on buying a Premier but I am OTA only so I'm not so sure it would be a good choice for me. I already have a Tivo HD and I love it so I'm thinking maybe I should just get another one of them while I still can. This is really a shame because I would love to buy a Premier. Would you Premier owners buy a Tivo HD if you had it to do over?


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## efrsysop

Befazzled said:


> I'm so glad I found this thread. I've been planning on buying a Premier but I am OTA only so I'm not so sure it would be a good choice for me. I already have a Tivo HD and I love it so I'm thinking maybe I should just get another one of them while I still can. This is really a shame because I would love to buy a Premier. Would you Premier owners buy a Tivo HD if you had it to do over?


Granted I've only had my Premiere for about a day now, I can honestly say that for my use, the only thing that really stands out is the HDUI.

I think the only thing that you would miss is the HDUI and maybe Hulu Plus, otherwise I'd buy another TiVo HD no question.


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## vulture99

Befazzled said:


> Would you Premier owners buy a Tivo HD if you had it to do over?


Yes.


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## vulture99

forum junkie said:


> If an antenna works well on a HD, an older TV, and other boxes, it's not rocket science to know the antenna is not the problem.


Exactly. But try getting the Tivo CSR's to understand that...you'll be pulling out your hair


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## fstyron

Befazzled said:


> I'm so glad I found this thread. I've been planning on buying a Premier but I am OTA only so I'm not so sure it would be a good choice for me. I already have a Tivo HD and I love it so I'm thinking maybe I should just get another one of them while I still can. This is really a shame because I would love to buy a Premier. Would you Premier owners buy a Tivo HD if you had it to do over?


If you want good OTA performance, stay with the HD - at least for the time being. I bought two Premier units and both of them have been returned.


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## tenthplanet

vulture99 said:


> Yes.


No. And I own one HD and one premiere


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## Befazzled

Thanks for the replies to my question about whether you would buy a Tivo HD instead of a Premiere. I don't think a Premiere would be a good choice for me since I only have OTA channels. If they get it working on the OTA channels as well as the Tivo HD does I will certainly get one.

Tenthplanet, are you using your Premiere for OTA?


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## kettledrum

My experience with the Premiere and OTA has been fine. I migrated from a Series 2 to the Premiere so I don't have any experience with an HD, but my strength and PQ with the Premiere has been fine. However, I am only 10 miles from the antenna farm in my city and am using an attic antenna. Perhaps I've also just been lucky.


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## _Ryan_

Befazzled said:


> Thanks for the replies to my question about whether you would buy a Tivo HD instead of a Premiere. I don't think a Premiere would be a good choice for me since I only have OTA channels. If they get it working on the OTA channels as well as the Tivo HD does I will certainly get one.


It will entirely depend on whether or not the Premiere affects your reception noticeably or not. If you are close to the towers and have a sufficiently large outdoor antenna correctly positioned, you will likely receive all local OTA channels on either box. If this is the case, the Premiere is a no-brainer (less power consumption, faster SD menus, more storage, HD menus available, etc)
IMHO, the only way to justify getting the outdated Series 3 hardware is if you are ABSOLUTELY SURE the Premiere will prevent you from getting a consistent signal on some of your channels. Unfortunately, trying it out for yourself is the only way to check... just make sure you buy the Premiere from somewhere with a reasonable return policy (like from TiVo directly, or Costco for example) so you can bring it back if you find out you lose channels.

For what it's worth, in my case, upgrading to the Premiere from the TiVo HD has made one of my local OTA channels inconsistent. (actually, other channels were inconsistent too until I purchased a larger antenna). Despite that, I still prefer the Premiere over the HD and I use the HD menus.


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## Befazzled

I'm about 60 miles from my stations and even the TivoHD's picture breaks up occasionally so I probably would have problems with a Premiere. 

I was considering getting another TivoHD but I think I will just hold off awhile and see if Tivo fixes this problem with the Premiere. 

Actually, I'm not sure I even need a second Tivo anymore. I had wanted to get a second one for the bedroom but thanks to some posts in this forum I realized that all I needed to do was buy a remote extender, signal splitter and a second hdmi cable and run it from the Living room Tivo into the bedroom. 

Why didn't I think of that?


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## BigOtter

I have both a Premiere and an HD connected to the same antenna (a Winegard 8200 with pre-amp), similar brand-new cable runs, and without a doubt, the HD gets a perfect picture at the same time the Premiere is pixalating and dropping the signal completely. Too bad the TiVo people will not at least address this problem instead of denying it exists. My suggestion would be that if you are depending on OTA and are in a fringe area, stick with the HD for now. FYI: I am about 35 miles west of Bangor, Maine


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## 241705

Befazzled said:


> Would you Premier owners buy a Tivo HD if you had it to do over?


Nope. I have a Premiere and TivoHD both running off of the same antenna, and both get the same channels consistently locked in. I'm 33 miles from the towers using an attic antenna.


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## forum junkie

BlacknGold - at 33 miles you shouldn't have a problem even with a tuner more than 5 years old but read the threads and you'll be hard pressed to find those at more than 40 who aren't having problems with the premier and this shouldn't be. Even using the older tech. tuner used in the HD would be an improvent in the premier for most who are not as close as you. The farther a digital signal travels, the weaker it gets, and the HD can handle it.


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## 241705

I'm not saying the problem doesn't exist. I am saying it doesn't exist for me - so I wouldn't choose a TivoHD over a Premiere. 

I haven't read enough of these posts to see that distances over a certain number of miles were the common factor. I would like to know the cause (and more importantly, if a solution is possible), just in case I decide I want to roof-mount my antenna to go after more distant signals.


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## stujac

In my case, the ota tuner on the Premier is definitely inferior but I also run an M card so I just switch the antenna to the TivoHd. I think they will fix the issue. I'm about 12 miles out but with terrain issues. I usually get the Philly locals at about 87 strength on the TivoHd but it's at about 60-65 on the Premier. I know it's supposed to be calibrated differently so the numbers don't tell the whole story but the signal is just plain weaker on ota through the Premier. No denying that in my case.


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## forum junkie

When the FCC had to choose a module for the digital transition, they had two to choose from, the 8VSB and it's been long enough I forgot the other. The other handled multipath well but government is goverment and they chose the 8VSB and told them to fix the problems. Each generation module has improved ( I have had 4 gen. so far ) with the one in my HD, Samsung TV and Zenith converters all being equal. They are all I belive 5th gen.. The Premier (if using newer modules ) should be 6th or 7th. It's not likely that the performace would have gone backward. So the question would be, what in the premier is the cause and does TIVO care enough to fix it? My bet is that right now, OTA is low priority.


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## _Ryan_

forum junkie said:


> When the FCC had to choose a module for the digital transition, they had two to choose from, the 8VSB and it's been long enough I forgot the other. The other handled multipath well but government is goverment and they chose the 8VSB and told them to fix the problems. Each generation module has improved ( I have had 4 gen. so far ) with the one in my HD, Samsung TV and Zenith converters all being equal. They are all I belive 5th gen.. The Premier (if using newer modules ) should be 6th or 7th. It's not likely that the performace would have gone backward. So the question would be, what in the premier is the cause and does TIVO care enough to fix it? My bet is that right now, OTA is low priority.


Apparently the Premiere uses the same type of OTA tuner as the S3/HD. The demodulator, however, changed from an ATI Theater 314 demodulator in the S3/HD to a Micronas DRX demodulator in the Premiere.

See page 1 of this thread and the stickies on the Premiere's hardware for more info.

(i agree, by the way - OTA performance seems to be very low on TiVo's priority list right now)


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## forum junkie

Yes the change in demodulators could do it but that would also mean the solution is an easy fix - just go back to ATI. Unless of course it would need a redesign of the actual physical unit.


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## doksoul

UPDATE: if anyone read my below post, it is wrong. I'm eating humble pie. My premiere works fine. I ended up not having the tivo on a good antenna, it was an old vhf/uhf. It worked fine on my older SD tivo with Hd channel converter box, but I believe the signal was just too weak for the premiere. Tivo personnel were very curteous and worked with me on this whole issue. My signal on all channels is now around 80. I'm happy.

My old wrong post: "I'm in Salt Lake City. channel 4.1 (uhf 40) does the pulsating signal bit and drops from 60 signal strength down to mid 20's. below 50 it starts pixelating. Channel 2.1 transmitter is adjacent (same physical location) with similar transmitting power and noise. However, I get in the 80s signal strength from that channel and no issues. All other channel work fine, its just 4.1 ABC I have an issue with. If I unplug my antenna from my Tivo Premiere and go directly to my TV, the channel plays fine. Tivo is definitely the issue."


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## tenthplanet

Befazzled said:


> Thanks for the replies to my question about whether you would buy a Tivo HD instead of a Premiere. I don't think a Premiere would be a good choice for me since I only have OTA channels. If they get it working on the OTA channels as well as the Tivo HD does I will certainly get one.
> 
> Tenthplanet, are you using your Premiere for OTA?


Yes. Both the hd and premiere are ota.


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## Eamus Catuli

I get 18 digital OTA stations. Comparing 4 different tuners (Sharp Aquos, Toshiba, DTVpal DVR, and TiVo Premiere), the poorest performer is the TiVo Premiere, The Premiere handles 15 of the 18 fine, 2 more pixilate continually, and 1 almost never locks. The other 3 tuners I have handle all 18 fine. Lucky for me, the 3 the TiVo struggles with I rarely want to record from.

The 2 that pixilate are off at an angle to my usual antenna direction. I can repoint my antenna and they are fine, but other channels get worse. Pretty sure this is a multipath issue. 

For the one that doesn't lock, that's a distant, weak signal issue.


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## Michael in Maine

Hi,

This was my old configuration: Terk TV-55 Amplified HDTV antenna in my attic, Tivo Series 2 with a converter box, and Tivo Series 3. Everything worked fine.

I received a Tivo Premiere upgrade offer in the mail and decided to upgrade both boxes to Tivo Premiere.

When I swapped the Tivo Series 2 and converter box with the Tivo Premiere, I lost all but one DTV channel. I figured that I needed to replace the Terk TV-55 Amplified HDTV antenna with a larger antenna. I purchased an AntennaCraft C490 antenna, which is very big and fill up my antire attic space. Now I can receive most of the stations (but not all) that I used to receive with the Series 2 and the converter box.

When I swapped the Tivo Series 3 with the Tivo Premiere, I thought they would both work the same, but now I can't get NBC with the Premiere.

I read through the forums and saw that other people have had similar problems and have returned their units. Today I called Tivo support to see what they would say and they told me that they have never heard of this problem before. I found this very surprising.

PLEASE anyone who has this problem (especially people who have returned their units becaus of it) CALL Tivo support and report the problem so they can fix it. Make sure you get a case number.

In the meantime, I was thinking about buying an amplifier to see what that would do. I know that amps also amplifiy noise so that isn't always a good thing. Since the antenna is in my attic, I don't need anything weather proof. I was thinking about getting a Channel Master CM-3412 Digital Distribution Amplifier, since it would be one box that would also replace the splitter I'm using to feed both Tivo. I thought that this would be better than a pre-amp unit that usually is in two pieces and would still require a splitter. Any thoughts on this?

Thanks.


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## crxssi

Michael in Maine said:


> PLEASE anyone who has this problem (especially people who have returned their units becaus of it) CALL Tivo support and report the problem so they can fix it. Make sure you get a case number.


Not sure how far you are from the towers, I am about 20 miles. I also use an antenna for locals (because bitrate OTA is *much* better than cable, so why not take advantage of it). I seem to get all the same channels with the Premiere as with my TiVo HD with my relatively small, unamplified attic antenna.

Luckily, all the towers here are in nearly the same spot. If you get a VERY directional antenna and your towers are not in nearly the same spot, that could be causing some of your problems? I am not, however, saying the Premiere doesn't have a worse OTA tuner, it very well may.


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## S3-2501

Given all the posts in this thread from people who have directly compared the S3 and the Premiere, it seems pretty clear to me that the problem is in how the Premiere is handling issues like multipath and/or RF interference. It's the only practical explanation for how so many people have fed the same exact signal from a stationary antenna with the same cabling to both boxes and had inferior results with the Premiere. It's a real world apples to apples comparison, and one of the apples is clearly not quite ripe.

If you live in an area where multipath or RF interference is an issue, no antenna, amp, preamp or distance to the towers will make up for a receiver that can't directly compensate for them. Perhaps Tivo can fix this in software/firmware, but clearly they aren't reading this thread and haven't taken note of those in this thread who have already called them and even returned their Premieres as a result experiencing inferior OTA performance.


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## Michael in Maine

In case this helps at all, here are my channels, the distance away, direction (0-359), and peak signal:

Real____Virtual_Dist____Dir_____Signal
10______10.1____37.2_____21_____57
23______23.1____37.2_____21_____65
45______26.1____31.2____238_____45
_8_______8.1____27.9____299_____68
44_______6.1____26.2____303_____23
38______13.1____21.8____330_____88
35______35.1____14.1____349_____44
43______51.1____14.1____349_____65

I think it's interesting that real channel 35 and 43 are probably on the same tower, yet one has 44 signal strength and the other has 65.


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## crxssi

S3-2501 said:


> it seems pretty clear to me that the problem is in how the Premiere is handling issues like multipath and/or RF interference.


Seems like a reasonable conclusion and would explain why some people (myself in that category) seem to get similar performance while others have horrible problems.


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## Supermike

My S3 just died (house guests + liquids + tomfoolery) so I upgraded to a Premier. I have a decent outdoor antenna and enjoyed a ton of stations. I've lost about half of them (the farther away ones) and since the thread indicates that it's likely the premier's fault, looks like I'll be returning this and checking the market for a used S3...or an HD I suppose.


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## JimboG

Supermike said:


> My S3 just died (house guests + liquids + tomfoolery) so I upgraded to a Premier. I have a decent outdoor antenna and enjoyed a ton of stations. I've lost about half of them (the farther away ones) and since the thread indicates that it's likely the premier's fault, looks like I'll be returning this and checking the market for a used S3...or an HD I suppose.


Hmm, given that you lost about half of your over the air stations, I would hesitate to call replacing the S3 with a Tivo Premiere an _upgrade_.

Unless you really, really like them, methinks the tomfoolery and the liquids should leave your house guests footing the bill to buy you a replacement Tivo S3.

That S3 didn't die, it was killed before its time!


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## atmuscarella

Supermike said:


> My S3 just died (house guests + liquids + tomfoolery) so I upgraded to a Premier. I have a decent outdoor antenna and enjoyed a ton of stations. I've lost about half of them (the farther away ones) and since the thread indicates that it's likely the premier's fault, looks like I'll be returning this and checking the market for a used S3...or an HD I suppose.


I have a Series 3, TiVo HD, & Premiere all used for OTA. The Premiere shows much lower signal strength but for actual use there appears to be no difference. If a channel is having reception problems on the Premiere it is the same on the Series 3 and the TiVo HD. My reception varies greatly - just seems to depend on the day. That said my TV gets better reception than any of the TiVos all the time so TiVo does need to do a better job with OTA.

Before you return the Premiere I would see how your reception is on your TV if possible. Perhaps something else also happened at the same time your Series 3 was destroyed.

Good Luck,


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## TVCricket

The only channel that is low &#37; out of the 4 broadcast networks is CBS, but it's still high enough not to cut in and out. After reading most of this thread, I was expecting the worst. All 4 come in crystal clear.


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## VideoGrabber

Michael in Maine said:


> When I swapped the Tivo Series 2 and converter box with the Tivo Premiere, I lost all but one DTV channel. I figured that I needed to replace the Terk TV-55 Amplified HDTV antenna with a larger antenna.


Logically, if you were receiving your channels OK before the TP, you shouldn't have had to change anything AFTER the TP. Of course, the OTA reception on the TP is significantly worse. Many will tell you they've had no problems with their units, and can tell no difference. Inquire further and you find they're 10, 15, or 20 miles from their local towers. Those of us who are 35-40 miles from our towers have had nothing but grief with the TPs. I've owned two, and both performed identically, which is to say, poorly. Move the exact same coax feed line from the TP to my S3, and everything is fine.



> When I swapped the Tivo Series 3 with the Tivo Premiere, I thought they would both work the same, but now I can't get NBC with the Premiere.


That's a reasonable assumption, that a new unit would perform at least as well as a several-year older unit, if not better. Unfortunately, that is not the case. 



> I read through the forums and saw that other people have had similar problems and have returned their units. Today I called Tivo support to see what they would say and they told me that they have never heard of this problem before. I found this very surprising.


While it is possible than an individual CSR may not have heard of it, TiVo as a company is well aware of the problem.



> PLEASE anyone who has this problem (especially people who have returned their units becaus of it) CALL Tivo support and report the problem so they can fix it. Make sure you get a case number.


You can try, but I suspect the problem is so far down the priority list at TiVo that this will do no good at all. They have inadequate manpower to address all the issues, so non-critical items get deferred... sometimes for years. Don't hold your breath.



> In the meantime, I was thinking about buying an amplifier to see what that would do. I know that amps also amplifiy noise so that isn't always a good thing. Since the antenna is in my attic, I don't need anything weather proof. I was thinking about getting a Channel Master CM-3412 Digital Distribution Amplifier, since it would be one box that would also replace the splitter I'm using to feed both Tivo. I thought that this would be better than a pre-amp unit that usually is in two pieces and would still require a splitter. Any thoughts on this?


Sure. How long is the coax run from your attic to your TiVos? Are you using RG6, or RG59?

The DA is designed to take a good quality signal, and amplify it to overcome losses in splitting, so it can be sent to multiple receivers (and they all have a quality signal). If you install the DA *at the antenna* then you'll reap maximum benefits. If you install it far from the antenna, at the end of the coax, it will be next to worthless. If you have a feed line going direct into your TP and are unhappy with the reception, installing the DistAmp and sending signals to 2 TiVos will be no better.

No matter what amplification you use, your reception will never be better than if you were to hook your TiVo up directly in the attic with a short piece of coax. All a preamp will do is overcome losses in lower-quality cable, or long cable runs to get to your viewing location. A DistAmp overcomes losses when you split one signal many times. With a decent preamp mounted at the antenna in the attic, you should be able to split your signal 2 ways (after the power-inserter) to drive 2 TiVos, without needing an extra DA.


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## Papageno

My new Premiere's OTA reception is close to nonexistent compared to the tuner of the TV it's connected to, with the same antenna in the same place. What is this "multipath" interference people are talking about? Is that something that can be fixed in software? BTW I'm probably less than 15 miles away from the towers I care about (ABC, CBS, NBC, FOX etc.)


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## forum junkie

Multipath is when the signal is multiplied by reflections off of other objects or passing through things like trees. These signals arrive at the antenna at slightly differing times causing the demodulater to struggle with which to lock on. When the FCC chose the 8VSB module for the digital transition they were aware of this problem but chose it anyway and told them to fix the problem. Each generation has improved the ability to handle multipath but a hardware change in the Premier is causing this problem. Someone mentioned earlier in this thread what that change was but I would have to find it again to say what it was. As others have mentiond, OTA only customers are not a high priority so don't expect a quick change. So it's hang on to my HD until they do or till Channel Master makes theirs a bit fancier.


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## Eamus Catuli

> So it's hang on to my HD until they do or till Channel Master makes theirs a bit fancier.


Don't count on the Channel Master changing. The source code for the firmware is owned by Echostar and I understand they aren't developing it anymore.


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## forum junkie

The news story I read about it on, mentioned that Echostar had dropped it but it also said that Channel Master wern't just using it but had actually bought it. Guess only time will tell but then CM hasn't exactly been at the front of the pack. Just as the big digital transition was getting started, they quit producing the best UHF antenna out there. It was a 5 or 6 ft. parabolic dish. Stores that still had some (mostly in a back corner somewhere) started asking a fortune for them.


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## JimboG

forum junkie said:


> The news story I read about it on, mentioned that Echostar had dropped it but it also said that Channel Master wern't just using it but had actually bought it. Guess only time will tell but then CM hasn't exactly been at the front of the pack. Just as the big digital transition was getting started, they quit producing the best UHF antenna out there. It was a 5 or 6 ft. parabolic dish. Stores that still had some (mostly in a back corner somewhere) started asking a fortune for them.


Yes, and when Andrews bought out Channelmaster they closed the American production line, redesigned a number of the antennae (poorly) and moved manufacturing to China where the build quality has suffered compared to the old American-made designs. Andrews then jacked up the retail prices on these inferior new antennae.

I'm usually not one for economic nationalism. Odds are, there's probably someone in China or India who is willing to work harder for an honest buck (per day) than the average unskilled American laborer. However, I hate to see product quality drop while prices rise. Channelmaster used to make the best quality consumer-grade antennae available. Now I'd rather give my money to Winegard, Antennas Direct, or even Antennacraft.


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## TVCricket

All 4 major networks come in fine for me. I get 4 others, but the programming isn't what I'd ever watch.


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## facted

Has anyone with the multipath issue tried a variable attenuator? I've been reading up on the topic a bit and it sounds like this might do the trick. I picked one up for $15 online and I'll let you guys know if it helps at all.


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## S3-2501

Here's yet another post from someone doing a direct comparison using a Tivo HD and a Premiere and discovering inferior OTA reception from the Premiere being fed the same signal.


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## kturcotte

I don't think it's any secret at this point that Tivo went with an inferior OTA tuner on the Premiere.


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## L David Matheny

S3-2501 said:


> Here's yet another post from someone doing a direct comparison using a Tivo HD and a Premiere and discovering inferior OTA reception from the Premiere being fed the same signal.


That post appears to be mostly a rant about pricing, so it may not provide an entirely objective comparison. And according to this FAQ the Premiere uses the same tuner ICs as the TiVo HD, and any differences should be due to the different demodulator ICs. And IME the Premiere actually does a better job on my local OTA stations with severe multipath (or possibly overload) problems. And there is the possibility that what appears to be a reception problem in the Premiere is actually due to inadequate cache buffering in the disc drives used. I don't consider the matter settled. Anyone interested should do some thread searching or (even better) some actual independent experimentation, assuming that they have both units.


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## S3-2501

L David Matheny said:


> That post appears to be mostly a rant about pricing, so it may not provide an entirely objective comparison.


 I respectfully disagree. IMHO the poster is a long-time Tivo user who has been frustrated to discover that their new Premiere does not receive a signal as well as their HD, costs more to keep active and offers no new features that justify the added expense coupled with its inferior reception performance.


> IME the Premiere actually does a better job on my local OTA stations with severe multipath (or possibly overload) problems.


 Those are two very different problems. Given the poster is in northern MN, severe tree-induced multipath is far more likely than overload from being too close to the towers or over amplification of a strong signal. This points back to the hypothesis periodically expressed throughout this thread that regardless of whether it's due to software or hardware changes, the Premiere does not appear to handle challenging mutipath issues as well as the HD.


> . I don't consider the matter settled. Anyone interested should do some thread searching or (even better) some actual independent experimentation, assuming that they have both units.


 Independent testing would be all well and good, but I consistently read here and elsewhere that Tivo customers who own an both an HD and a Premiere find that the HD handles difficult reception issues better. I have no reason to think these people are being insincere or unfairly critical in posting their experience directly comparing the two , nor in the disappointment they tend to express with the results.

There will never be any way to completely settle the issue since reception conditions vary so widely, and given that fact the best we can do is have threads like this one and hope that at some point the posts favorably comparing the OTA reception of the Premiere and HD begin to outnumber the unfavorable ones. I'm sure hoping that happens, since I know my S3 and HD can't last forever, and I fully intend to stay OTA-only.


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## L David Matheny

S3-2501 said:


> Independent testing would be all well and good, but I consistently read here and elsewhere that Tivo customers who own an both an HD and a Premiere find that the HD handles difficult reception issues better. I have no reason to think these people are being insincere or unfairly critical in posting their experience directly comparing the two, nor in the disappointment they tend to express with the results.


I'm not accusing anybody of being insincere or unfair, but I can only report my personal observations and my interpretation of them. It's the interpretation part where people disagree, since we're all speculating about causes. We need more data points.



S3-2501 said:


> There will never be any way to completely settle the issue since reception conditions vary so widely, and given that fact the best we can do is have threads like this one and hope that at some point the posts favorably comparing the OTA reception of the Premiere and HD begin to outnumber the unfavorable ones. I'm sure hoping that happens, since I know my S3 and HD can't last forever, and I fully intend to stay OTA-only.


Yes. The more such things are discussed, the more likely it is that TiVo will eventually notice and fix whatever may be causing the problems that some people see. And I also intend to stay OTA-only, which avoids many problems right from the start.


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## atmuscarella

S3-2501 said:


> I respectfully disagree. IMHO the poster is a long-time Tivo user who has been frustrated to discover that their new Premiere does not receive a signal as well as their HD, costs more to keep active and offers no new features that justify the added expense coupled with its inferior reception performance.


First it is B.S. that the Premiere costs more than an TiVo HD it does not, you just pay for it differently they lowered the price of the unit $200 (and yes the TiVo HD was also $299) and raised the price of service to off set it (my Premiere with lifetime actually cost less than my TiVo HD with lifetime).

Secondly while the Premiere isn't a revolutionary upgrade to the TiVo HD it is an upgrade and it does have more features. And like I said the cost remained flat so again complaining about getting more for the same price is B.S.

Now onto the OTA reception problem. This maybe a real problem no one knows. I pretty much agree with the rest of your post and will post my experience at the end:



S3-2501 said:


> Those are two very different problems. Given the poster is in northern MN, severe tree-induced multipath is far more likely than overload from being too close to the towers or over amplification of a strong signal. This points back to the hypothesis periodically expressed throughout this thread that regardless of whether it's due to software or hardware changes, the Premiere does not appear to handle challenging mutipath issues as well as the HD. Independent testing would be all well and good, but I consistently read here and elsewhere that Tivo customers who own an both an HD and a Premiere find that the HD handles difficult reception issues better. I have no reason to think these people are being insincere or unfairly critical in posting their experience directly comparing the two , nor in the disappointment they tend to express with the results.
> 
> There will never be any way to completely settle the issue since reception conditions vary so widely, and given that fact the best we can do is have threads like this one and hope that at some point the posts favorably comparing the OTA reception of the Premiere and HD begin to outnumber the unfavorable ones. I'm sure hoping that happens, since I know my S3 and HD can't last forever, and I fully intend to stay OTA-only.


I currently have a Series 3 HD, TiVo HD, & Premiere all used for OTA only. They are all fed by the same antenna and come off the same splitter with identical cables to each unit. I am 35+ miles from the towers with line of sight and tend to loose signal depending on the time of year and weather. The Premiere doesn't do as good as job as the other units but it really is very close I have not found a time when the Series 3 HD or TiVo HD are watchable and the Premiere is not but the Premiere seems to have more glitches. The one thing I am certain is that the Premiere does not have better reception than the other 2, but is close enough not to matter.


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## crxssi

atmuscarella said:


> I currently have a Series 3 HD, TiVo HD, & Premiere all used for OTA only. They are all fed by the same antenna and come off the same splitter with identical cables to each unit. I am 35+ miles from the towers with line of sight and tend to loose signal depending on the time of year and weather. The Premiere doesn't do as good as job as the other units but it really is very close I have not found a time when the Series 3 HD or TiVo HD are watchable and the Premiere is not but the Premiere seems to have more glitches. The one thing I am certain is that the Premiere does not have better reception than the other 2, but is close enough not to matter.


I noticed when I "upgraded" from an HD to a Premiere that my OTA signal was not as high of quality as the HD. I seem to remember the power level might be the same, but I experience breakup on two stations on the Premiere on which one I didn't have an issue on the HD (same antenna). My guess is that the Premiere's OTA tuner is not as good as the HD, but only by a little.


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## S3-2501

Thanks for the posts crxssi and atmuscarella! It's always good to see some more direct Premiere vs. HD comparisons from people who own both units!

I hope others who own both will decide to chime in here as well. For those reading this who are considering adding their experience to the mix, please be sure to include information about things that may make reception more difficult such as distance from the towers, lack of line of sight, or significant sources of multipath such as trees, tall buildings etc. Under ideal conditions there is probably little to no difference in reception between the Premiere, the HD, or any other current tuner. The real question is how does it compare under more challenging reception conditions. 

My location is essentially multipath hell, so even a slight decrease in multipath performance could result in an unwatchable signal. The S3 and HD have been champs though, only having problems when there is air traffic passing directly overhead or there are especially strong wind gusts during bad weather. 

Unfortunately, my lack of a Premiere means I am currently unable to contribute another direct comparison data point, though I'll definitely be keeping an eye on this thread with great interest.


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## craigf

S3-2501 said:


> Thanks for the posts crxssi and atmuscarella! It's always good to see some more direct Premiere vs. HD comparisons from people who own both units!
> 
> I hope others who own both will decide to chime in here as well. For those reading this who are considering adding their experience to the mix, please be sure to include information about things that may make reception more difficult such as distance from the towers, lack of line of sight, or significant sources of multipath such as trees, tall buildings etc. Under ideal conditions there is probably little to no difference in reception between the Premiere, the HD, or any other current tuner. The real question is how does it compare under more challenging reception conditions.
> 
> My location is essentially multipath hell, so even a slight decrease in multipath performance could result in an unwatchable signal. The S3 and HD have been champs though, only having problems when there is air traffic passing directly overhead or there are especially strong wind gusts during bad weather.
> 
> Unfortunately, my lack of a Premiere means I am currently unable to contribute another direct comparison data point, though I'll definitely be keeping an eye on this thread with great interest.


I use my Premiere right next to my Series 3 (yeah, the one with the OLED display). I get much better OTA reception from the Series 3 than the Premiere using the same feed. I called TiVo tech support on the day I got the Premiere and they told me that there must be something wrong with the feed from the antenna and said there was no issue. To this day, I only use the Series 3 for OTA reception and transfer the shows as needed to the Premiere.


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## JimboG

I've had a Series 3 since 2007 and used it exclusively for OTA from 2008 through the present day. About a year ago I purchased a TiVo Premiere and compared it to the Series 3 with the same antenna, preamp, coax cable, etc.

The Premiere was dicey and problematic on a couple of full power ATSC stations that come in reliably on my S3. My antenna is only 10 feet off the ground on the balcony of my condo. Perhaps I could get better results if I were able to mount the antenna on the roof, but my S3 works just fine at this location.

The S4 has a different signal strength measurement than the S3. However, when I dove into the service menus I found that the TiVo Premiere consistently had much higher corrected and uncorrect Reed Solomon errors than the S3. It's galling to see TiVo sell this product as an "upgrade" from the reliable old S3 with the OLED screen.

I gave the Premiere to my in-laws who subscribe to cable. The S4 is ok I guess if you use cable, but in my experience it's a step backwards from the performance of the previous generation for OTA HDTV.


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## 241705

I have a Premiere XL and a TivoHD. I have CableCards in both, but I still use OTA for my locals since the picture quality is so much better. I am about 33 miles from the antenna farm and use an attic-mounted antenna to feed both. The antenna cable run to the Premiere is about 30 feet longer than the run to the TivoHD. Although the signal strength meter for the Premiere shows lower values, I get the same channels - reliably - on both. 

As has been mentioned in this thread and others, the issue seems to be the Premiere tuners' inability to handle multipath. That's not really an issue in my location.


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## S3-2501

Here's a post directly comparing the Premiere and S3/HD reception after the new 20.2 software update. Not very encouraging for anyone holding out hope that the Premiere's oft-reported reception issues could be fixed by software updates.


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## ncted

I have found the Premier to receive the same stations about as well as my HD. Each seems to have issues with one station, but the others all come in great.

-Ted


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## Mister B

I thought I would post my testimonial here also to help anyone in a similar situation. I struggled with the OTA reception with the Premiere. I tried a new antenna, mounted it higher and replaced the lead-in cable. Nothing made any difference.
Finally, I purchased a "still new, in box" previous model Tivo HD or model TCD652160. It arrived yesterday and the difference was amazing. Signal to noise ratios that had fluctuated continously were now rock steady and all problems with drop-outs and pixelation are solved.
The lady at Tivo said she had never changed some one's account from a Premiere back to a Model HD and she asked for the reason why. I explained it to her but she was amazed that one can actually connect an antenna to a Tivo and get a picture in HD, which speaks to how little emphasis Tivo puts on OTA customers.


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## aaronwt

Mister B said:


> ............she was amazed that one can actually connect an antenna to a TiVo and get a picture in HD, ............


That is pathetic.


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## MacQ2

TVCricket said:


> I was going to get mine specifically to cancel my Directv and use OTA. So glad I didn't. Way too many problems for a so called top notch product.


Then don't go over to the D* boards at dbstalk. You'll see so many problems with the D* DVRs that you'll want to get rid of yours


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## MacQ2

I get signal quality of 96-98 on most OTA channels and mid-80s for the others. This is on a Premiere XL. The "Uncorrected Error" count is zero in the diagnostic display. I have an unplugged S3 HD I will soon be selling but it's hardly worth plugging it back in to compare - hard to beat 96-98.

I am over 20 miles from the nearest antenna farm. I have an amplified antenna in my attic - properly aimed at the farm with the main channels I watch. The channels that are mid-80s are probably because they don't broadcast from my main targetted antenna farm. It doesn't matter, in all cases the signal quality is very good.

BlackAndGold75 may be on to something. Perhaps you folks are having problems because you have multipath interference. An antenna geared for that might help.


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## atmuscarella

MacQ2 said:


> Then don't go over to the D* boards at dbstalk. You'll see so many problems with the D* DVRs that you'll want to get rid of yours


That is the nature of bulletin boards, people with problems are more likely to post than people without problems. However it seems pretty clear that while the Premiere is a very good OTA DVR, it has more reception issues that the older Original Series 3 or TiVo HD units.

For me Personally (I have a original Series 3, TiVo HD, & Premiere all used for OTA) the Premiere works great over 95% of the time, there are times when all three units loose signal and then there are times when the Premiere looses signal and the other 2 units are still working ok. In any event I do recommend the Premiere for people looking for a good OTA DVR.


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## atmuscarella

MacQ2 said:


> I get signal quality of 96-98 on most OTA channels and mid-80s for the others. This is on a Premiere XL. The "Uncorrected Error" count is zero in the diagnostic display. I have an unplugged S3 HD I will soon be selling but it's hardly worth plugging it back in to compare - hard to beat 96-98.
> 
> I am over 20 miles from the nearest antenna farm. I have an amplified antenna in my attic - properly aimed at the farm with the main channels I watch. The channels that are mid-80s are probably because they don't broadcast from my main targetted antenna farm. It doesn't matter, in all cases the signal quality is very good.
> 
> BlackAndGold75 may be on to something. Perhaps you folks are having problems because you have multipath interference. An antenna geared for that might help.


With reception like that it is pretty much impossible for you to know if there is any difference in reception abilities between different units without some testing equipment.

I agree Multipath interference is likely an issue many of us have - however how the equipment deals with it is what counts. In the rare times when my Premiere looses a channel and my Series 3 & TiVo HD do not it really doesn't matter if it is a multipath issue or a fringe reception issue, the older units deal with it better than the Premiere which shouldn't be.


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## MacQ2

atmuscarella said:


> With reception like that it is pretty much impossible for you to know if there is any difference in reception abilities between different units without some testing equipment.
> 
> I agree Multipath interference is likely an issue many of us have - however how the equipment deals with it is what counts. In the rare times when my Premiere looses a channel and my Series 3 & TiVo HD do not it really doesn't matter if it is a multipath issue or a fringe reception issue, the older units deal with it better than the Premiere which shouldn't be.


The cause does matter if you are trying to find a remedy. Waiting for "something" from Tivo is one option. Improving your reception is another - but you have to know what sort of reception problems you are having.

We can discuss all we want about whether it should or should not exhibit these issues - that's mostly academic. Focusing on resolving the problem relies on suitably identifying it. It is clear that not all Premiere's have tuning issues. So, only some do. It may be due to hardware differences but more likely due to environmental ones.


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## hefe

My new premiere is doing very well OTA.

I used to have a HR10-250 tuning OTA from a rooftop antenna installed in the attic. There is an amplifier up at the antenna, then it feeds down to the basement, splits and one leg goes to the TiVo, the other to the tuner in a PC. Oh, and I'm ~42 miles from the transmitters in downtown Chicago.

Always did very well. I would occasionally get momentary blocking on the lowest frequency of the OTA channels, channel 7.

So I recently replaced the HR10-250 with a Premiere. I had some concern that I'd at least maintain the same performance. Also, I was planning on splitting the line to a third location, reducing the signal going out each leg. So I made the switch, including the additional split, and performance has not suffered one bit. If anything, I haven't yet noticed the blocking on channel 7, so it looks like I may be getting better performance than I did before.


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## atmuscarella

MacQ2 said:


> We can discuss all we want about whether it should or should not exhibit these issues - that's mostly academic.


When someone buys a new Premiere and plugs it in where a older Series 3 or TiVo HD was working and the Premiere doesn't preform as good as the older unit did it is a failure on TiVos end.



MacQ2 said:


> The cause does matter if you are trying to find a remedy.


I agree completely and many time people who post they are having problems with OTA reception (with anything not just a TiVo) can do lower cost minor things that will be of great benefit. Other times it may take a complete and expensive rework of their cable and antenna system to fix the problem and of course in some situations there is no fix.



MacQ2 said:


> It is clear that not all Premiere's have tuning issues.


Well I wouldn't actually say it that way. What is clear is that in many (most?) instillation situations a Premiere will function without tuning issues. However all Premieres will have tuning issues in certain instillation situations.

I have used 6 different devices with OTA tuners on my current antenna feed and there are noticeable differences between the worst and the best devices abilities. What rubs me and many other people wrong, is that it appears the Premiere's tuning abilities are not as good as the Series 3 units abilities in certain situations.


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## S3-2501

MacQ2 said:


> It is clear that not all Premiere's have tuning issues. So, only some do.


 I respectfully disagree with this assessment. IMHO it is likely that all Premieres have the same tuning issues, but not all receiving environments cause those issues to appear.

I urge people posting their experience here not to just mention the distance from the towers and signal readings, but also any features of your environment that would increase multipath issues. For example, if you are surrounded by trees, have air traffic passing overhead, are at the bottom of a hill, surrounded by other taller buildings that would reflect the signal, etc.

In order to do an apples to apples comparison of reception quality, we must be sure that we are comparing reception in similar environments. Someone 20 miles from the towers with nothing but farm land between them and the towers will have different reception than someone 20 miles from the towers but stuck at the bottom of a hill with a dense forest on that hill between them and the towers.


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## L David Matheny

MacQ2 said:


> I get signal quality of 96-98 on most OTA channels and mid-80s for the others. This is on a Premiere XL. The "Uncorrected Error" count is zero in the diagnostic display. I have an unplugged S3 HD I will soon be selling but it's hardly worth plugging it back in to compare - hard to beat 96-98.
> 
> I am over 20 miles from the nearest antenna farm. I have an amplified antenna in my attic - properly aimed at the farm with the main channels I watch. The channels that are mid-80s are probably because they don't broadcast from my main targetted antenna farm. It doesn't matter, in all cases the signal quality is very good.
> 
> BlackAndGold75 may be on to something. Perhaps you folks are having problems because you have multipath interference. An antenna geared for that might help.


I'm glad to see more reports of good OTA reception using a Premiere. As I've reported several times, I get better reception with my Premiere than with my TiVo HD. The signal strength number is lower on the Premiere, but ultimate reception quality (as measured by uncorrected error counts) is about the same (excellent) on most of my stations, which are about 70 miles away in the same general direction. The biggest difference is on a couple of local stations which I receive off the back or side of my C.M. 4228 antenna (with C.M. 7777 preamp). I may even be getting one of them via a reflection off a nearby hill. On those, the Premiere often has much better (like 100x lower) error counts than the HD. I've attributed this to the likelihood of severe multipath on those stations, but it has also occurred to me that they could just be overloading the tuning circuitry in the HD. That seems a less likely explanation because the actual tuner chips are the same in the Premiere and the HD (from what I've read), with the difference being the demodulator chips. I've also speculated about possible effects of hard drive cache size, but I won't go into that again.


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## MacQ2

S3-2501 said:


> I respectfully disagree with this assessment. IMHO it is likely that all Premieres have the same tuning issues, but not all receiving environments cause those issues to appear.


Yes, your wording is more correct. I should have said it was clear that not everyone with a Premiere is having OTA tuning problems. It is difficult for one person to simulate significantly different antenna environments.

What might be helpful is for someone in a multipath area to report how they do with and without antennas designed for that purpose. There is probably a Premiere owner with such an antenna - although they may not be on this board.


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## MacQ2

L David Matheny said:


> I'm glad to see more reports of good OTA reception using a Premiere. As I've reported several times, I get better reception with my Premiere than with my TiVo HD. The signal strength number is lower on the Premiere, but ultimate reception quality (as measured by uncorrected error counts) is about the same (excellent) on most of my stations, which are about 70 miles away in the same general direction. The biggest difference is on a couple of local stations which I receive off the back or side of my C.M. 4228 antenna (with C.M. 7777 preamp). I may even be getting one of them via a reflection off a nearby hill. On those, the Premiere often has much better (like 100x lower) error counts than the HD. I've attributed this to the likelihood of severe multipath on those stations, but it has also occurred to me that they could just be overloading the tuning circuitry in the HD. That seems a less likely explanation because the actual tuner chips are the same in the Premiere and the HD (from what I've read), with the difference being the demodulator chips. I've also speculated about possible effects of hard drive cache size, but I won't go into that again.


Hmmm. Speculating on this ... if you're receiving better pic quality on a far distant reception ... perhaps Tivo somehow modified the Premiere to get better distant reception at the cost of reducing picture (increased interference?) from very strong near signals.

The chips may be the same but it's possible they allow some sort of configuration and tuning options internally.

It's just a guess.


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## L David Matheny

MacQ2 said:


> Hmmm. Speculating on this ... if you're receiving better pic quality on a far distant reception ... perhaps Tivo somehow modified the Premiere to get better distant reception at the cost of reducing picture (increased interference?) from very strong near signals.


But it's the other way around. Reception of distant stations by my Premiere and my TiVo HD is similarly excellent. It's on a couple of local stations, where multpath and overload problems are presumably more likely, that the Premiere does so much better.


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## MacQ2

L David Matheny said:


> But it's the other way around. Reception of distant stations by my Premiere and my TiVo HD is similarly excellent. It's on a couple of local stations, where multpath and overload problems are presumably more likely, that the Premiere does so much better.


Ah, nevermind, bad guess 

Although, you do have a good antenna so maybe not the best example of near farm multipath issues.


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## Rodwalls

Hey All,
I have noticed the same issues with my Premiere and OTA reception, My Series 3 HD always displays much higher signal levels than the new unit, though I couldn't tell a difference in the picture quality. 
One thing I just did was remove my amp from the antenna, this made almost all of my local channels jump from 45/50's to 70/90 signal strentghs, I have never had any readings this high with my premiere until now. I just thought I would throw that out there, maybe it will help someone..thanks Rod


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## aaronwt

But what differecne does the signal level make if the signal is solid? Any signal level of 30 or higher on my Premieres for OTA gives me a rock solid signal. So it doesn't matter whether it is at 90, 60 or 30. The result is the same. A glitch free picture. I have signal levels in all those ranges.


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## S3-2501

Those of you following this thread know I've been watching it carefully. Well, I managed to snag a closeout 320GB Premiere to test OTA reception at my location, so I can finally contribute my first-hand experience to the discussion.

I've conducted three different experiments in three different scenarios, and below are my results. (Long post warning)

*First, the receiving environment*: Multipath hell. At the bottom of a hill, surrounded by houses and trees, with frequent air traffic overhead or nearly overhead.

Distance from towers is roughly 15 miles, with one station 40 miles away. It is worth noting that the trees are not yet full of leaves, so that is one variable that could further complicate matters later in the year.

*Test 1: Original Series 3 (OLED) vs. Premiere* in main viewing room. Antenna is a Winegard SquareShooter and rabbit ears in the attic attached to the respective UHF and VHF inputs of a Channelmaster 7777 preamp. Signal was spit once to allow connection to the TV and Series 3 at the same time. For this test, I moved the antenna connection from the TV tuner to the Premiere. Both the Series 3 and premiere were running simultaneously for direct comparison.

*Results*: Within minutes after completing setup, air traffic could be heard nearby. Both the Premiere and Series 3 were tuned to a channel broadcasting on UHF35. The Series 3 maintained a rock-solid signal despite the air traffic nearby, while the Premiere broke up constantly. To ensure that the cable going to the premiere was not the problem, I replaced it with a different cable. Same result. The series 3 was stable, the Premiere broke up regularly.

At this point I decided to see if I could move the antennas to improve performance. I used the real-time signal meter (and some help via phone intercom) to maximize signal strength and stability. As others have reported, the meter on the Premiere gives much lower values than the Series 3 that do not necessarily indicate stability.

After some tinkering, I managed to get the problematic station to around the low 60s, and managed to improve reported signal strength for most channels.

Returning to live TV revealed much improvement, but the Series3 still held on better in the face of the air traffic and a north wind of about 12MPH.

*Test2: TivoHD vs. Premiere* in a bedroom installation. Antenna is a Terk HDTVi connected to the combined UHF/VHF input of a Channelmaster 7778 preamp. Signal is split 3 ways to the TV, TivoHD and a PC. For this test I moved the PC connection to the Premiere. Again, both the HD and Premiere were running simultaneously for direct comparison. Air traffic was still present, but given the difference in room position, the sound was less noticeable.

*Results:* The premiere fared better than in test one, but there were two channels, one on UHF 23 and one on UHF 32, that the Premiere could not pull in without incessant pixelation and breakup. It would momentarily clear, but not for long. The TivoHD was rock solid on both channels that the Premiere had issues with.

Aside from these two channels, the Premiere's performance seemed acceptable, but was a little more shaky than the TivoHD. Due to the lack of positioning options in the room, the antenna was not moved after initial performance was observed. It is worth noting that neither the TivoHD, the TV nor the PC had issues with either of these two stations.

*Test 3:* Lower level/basement installation. Antenna is a Terk HDTVi connected to an ancient amplifier. The antenna in this case is pointed out a window at a house that is positioned in such a way as to catch and reflect the signals from the broadcast tower. The antenna feed was moved from a DTV PAl CECB converter box to the Premiere.

Results: The Premiere actually seems to be performing well in this installation, perhaps due to the fact that it is getting the signal after it has passed through the trees, the hill and bounced off the house opposite the towers. Even the station located from a different tower 40 miles away seems to be coming in stable. The Premiere currently remains in this room to see if reception remains stable during the rest of the trial period.

So in tests 1 and 2 the Premiere proved inferior to a TV, a PC, a Series 3 and a TivoHD when dealing with dynamic multipath. In test 3, it initially seems on par with a CECB at handling the static multipath associated with the nearby home opposite the towers.

Before anyone asks, the amplifier and preamps I'm using are there because they do in fact stabilize the signal at my location. Without them no tuner I have ever tried performs as well.

Take from all this what you will, but it seems clear to me that the issue with the Premiere's reception is indeed its handling of dynamic multipath. The Series3, TivoHD, PC and both of my TV tuners appear to perform better when confronted with the identical signal and its inherent dynamic reflections.

If I decide to spend the additional cash to fully activate the Premiere I will post any noteworthy updates here in the future. In the meantime, I hope this insanely long post is of some help to those in challenging reception areas considering a Premiere for OTA use.


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## atmuscarella

S3-2501:

I have had about the same results as you. I have an original Series 3, TiVo HD, & Premiere all used for OTA and connect to the same TV and antenna I have seen the same results as you. Started this thread about it - it outlines the last time I had a problem and all the details about my setup.

So I have come to the same conclusion, while the Premiere works fine 95% of the time for OTA it has more issues in adverse conditions than the original Series 3 or the TiVo HD.


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## L David Matheny

S3-2501 said:


> Take from all this what you will, but it seems clear to me that the issue with the Premiere's reception is indeed its handling of dynamic multipath. The Series3, TivoHD, PC and both of my TV tuners appear to perform better when confronted with the identical signal and its inherent dynamic reflections.


That's very interesting. Thanks. My praise of my Premiere's handling of multipath (or possibly some type of overload) would relate to _static_ multipath. I don't have planes or trucks or tree leaves or anything else moving (near enough to matter) in the direction in which my antenna is aimed. So presumably I have little or no dynamic multipath. And I assume that the type of multipath could affect demodulator performance.


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## S3-2501

In my previous post I detailed a lower level installation of a Premiere that initially got pretty good reception reflected off of a house opposite the broadcast towers. However, yesterday was rainy with winds gusting over 35MPH, and every channel became unwatchable on the Premiere due to the constant breakups. I spent considerable time moving the antenna around the room but never found a a spot where the reception improved. I was forced to reconnect a DTV Pal converter box just so I could watch TV in that room. The converter box handled the bad conditions beautifully, with no picture breakups despite the on-screen signal fluctuating constantly due to the conditions.

When I returned upstairs, I found that the TivoHD there had recorded one of the programs I was unsuccessfully attempting to watch on the Premiere downstairs, and while there were some very brief weather related breakups, the show was still very watchable.

For now I have split the signal on the lower level to feed both the Premiere and the DTV Pal for times when the Premiere chokes. Of course, this won't help when I go to watch a recording and discover that the Premiere didn't receive it well enough for me to be able to watch it.

I don't understand what Tivo did (or didn't do) to make the Premiere so inferior at handling dynamic multipath reflections, but it's pretty poor performance for a recent DTV receiver, to say the least.


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## MacQ2

S3-2501 said:


> ...
> 
> I don't understand what Tivo did (or didn't do) to make the Premiere so inferior at handling dynamic multipath reflections, but it's pretty poor performance for a recent DTV receiver, to say the least.


You have some pretty solid data and circumstances. What response have you gotten from Tivo when you've presented your results to them?


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## S3-2501

MacQ2 said:


> You have some pretty solid data and circumstances. What response have you gotten from Tivo when you've presented your results to them?


 I've read here and elsewhere about Tivo's poor responses to complaints about the Premiere's OTA reception. At this point and time, I'm just not interested in getting my blood boiling by calling them and getting a similarly maddening response.

I got my Premiere dirt cheap on closeout and my goal was just to experiment and post my results here in a comprehensive manner to help others thinking about the Premiere for OTA. If Tivo reads this thread, acknowleges the problem and is somehow able to resolve the reception issues that would be fantastic, but I'm not holding my breath. For now I'll just keep reporting back here if anything noteworthy changes.

In the meantime, if anyone knows if dynamic multipath performance is something that can be fixed in software, or if it is tied to hardware, please post and let us know. If it's fixable in software then Tivo may actually fix it at some point, but if it's tied to the hardware I doubt Tivo will ever even acknowledge the problem since it would be too costly for them to fix.


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## S3-2501

I decided to go ahead and email Tivo regarding my reception difficulties with dynamic multipath. I submitted a support form under the category compatibility & Standards/Over-the-air antenna. I basically summarized my experience and asked if there were any plans to fix the handling of dynamic multipath in software. I'm not expecting much of a response, but I'll post back with news of whatever reply I get.


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## S3-2501

Here's the response I got:


> We do apologize that you are having that problem with your TiVo box and the reception over the antenna. If by moving around the antenna to try and get a better signal you are unable to change the outcome, you do have the option to cancel the service within 30 days of the activation and get your money back on the service that you purchased. For this you would need to contact our Customer Support over the phone 1-877-367-8486. They will be able to assist you with that. Again, we do apologize that you are having issues with good signal on your TiVo box. If you have any further questions, please contact us again.


Yeah, that's about what I was expecting...


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## MacQ2

S3-2501 said:


> Here's the response I got:
> Yeah, that's about what I was expecting...


Hmmm. Yes, disappointing.


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## S3-2501

Here's one last update from me on my experience with the Premiere OTA. I tried updating my online support ticket to press them on any possible software fix for the handling of dynamic multipath, and the response I received included the following:


> We are always looking at possible software updates, but unfortunately I could not speculate if that would be included in a future update. One thing I would recommend is trying a signal amplifier or booster, but as that may not affect the reflection issue it would be your call to try.


 I spent another week or so in denial trying different antennas, antenna placements and amps, preamps and even no amp/preamp.

I finally came to the firm conclusion that there was no way I could justify paying for service on a device that has such unreliable reception at my location. Today I called to cancel service under the 30-day guarantee. The woman on the phone claimed to be surprised that I was having the issue. I asked if there was any way I could exchange the Premiere for a refurbished Tivo HD or Series3 that they may have on hand, and I was told that the only way to get one of those is via Ebay or Amazon Marketplace. I expected that answer, but had to ask to be sure.

Sadly, unless I read here at some point that Tivo has fixed the reception issues in a future software update or in a new piece of hardware, it looks as if I'll never be able to buy another Tivo again, since I have no intention of subscribing to cable or satellite.:down:

I'll keep watching this thread hoping for good news, but my guess is that that news won't be coming soon if at all.


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## proudx

audio only ota channels don't work. 32.22,32.23,etc in Atlanta. 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
In Atlanta we have some ota digital audio only channels that rebroadcast local radio stations. They will not tune on the premiere but tune fine on the series 3. the dvr statistics show a solid signal strength and good SNR. Has a channel lock and signal lock, with no errors showing up, but the premiere just says problem with the signal on this antenna channel, it tunes the same sub-channels that have video and audio just fine.


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## davfromga

_Ryan_ said:


> My signal strength took a sharp dive when I switched from the Tivo HD to the Premiere... several channels became unwatchable that were coming in crystal clear on the Tivo HD... very strange... (I started a thread about this too)


Used Series 3 OTA only (antenna array in attic, with pre-amps, distribution amp in attic, and amp downstairs behind TV) for 4 years...Series 3 unit finally died. 
Replaced with Premier...lost half my channels.
Removed downstairs amp from system, now the Premier tunes even better than the Series 3.
New tuners must be more sensitive, and therefore more prone to multipath interference.
Less signa/better picture....whodathunkit?


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## L David Matheny

davfromga said:


> Used Series 3 OTA only (antenna array in attic, with pre-amps, distribution amp in attic, and amp downstairs behind TV) for 4 years...Series 3 unit finally died.
> Replaced with Premier...lost half my channels.
> Removed downstairs amp from system, now the Premier tunes even better than the Series 3.
> New tuners must be more sensitive, and therefore more prone to multipath interference.
> Less signa/better picture....whodathunkit?


Your case wouldn't really relate to multipath interference. Better reception after removing a signal amp makes it sound like the Premiere's tuners may be more sensitive to overload. Or possibly your downstairs amp was just noisy or defective somehow. Thanks for the data point.


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## hefe

Sounds like overload on the receiver, or a small signal to noise ratio or too much noise in the amp. Always best to amplify close to the antenna where S/N is high. Don't amplify too close to the receiver if you don't need to.


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## jamkor

I just went looking for info on this issue today and this thread popped up. I am extremely disappointed in the OTA tuner of the Premier. I have an old antenna that worked great on the TiVO HD and straight into my TVs. I have seen that people have removed amps, etc from their setups and that has corrected the problem. Do I just need to get a better / amplified antenna? Like I said the ss on the TiVO HD was in the 80s and is now 0-50 on the Premiere.


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## L David Matheny

jamkor said:


> I just went looking for info on this issue today and this thread popped up. I am extremely disappointed in the OTA tuner of the Premier. I have an old antenna that worked great on the TiVO HD and straight into my TVs. I have seen that people have removed amps, etc from their setups and that has corrected the problem. Do I just need to get a better / amplified antenna? Like I said the ss on the TiVO HD was in the 80s and is now 0-50 on the Premiere.


The Signal Strength is just a calculated number, and apparently it's not calculated the same way by the TiVo HD and the Premiere, with the Premiere's number being lower for a given signal. What counts is the actual reception quality as indicated by the error counts, especially uncorrected errors since those cause the glitches we see and hear. Based on my experience and what I've read here, I think the Premiere's tuners are better for static multipath (reflections from nearby hills, buildings, etc) but probably worse for dynamic multipath (reflections from passing planes, trucks, etc). This thread seems to suggest that the Premiere's tuners are also more susceptible to overload from signals that are too strong. If you're close to your broadcast towers (say 20 miles or less) you may not need any amplification at all, especially if you use a proper outside antenna.


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## jamkor

Thanks - I always try and include some form of quantification to these kinds of threads. I will go back and look for the error rates and counts. Bottom line is that I get constant pixelation and lag now, were i didn't before. I am about 22 miles from the antennas and will be trying a new antenna later this week. I will report back on what I experience.


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## videobruce

In the two years these have been out, no firmware corrections have been made?
Has anyone compared another *current* (as in up to date technology) tuner to these?


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## L David Matheny

videobruce said:


> In the two years these have been out, no firmware corrections have been made?
> Has anyone compared another *current* (as in up to date technology) tuner to these?


TiVos are basically Linux computers. Their firmware performs (I assume) a hardware self-test while booting, then it loads Linux from the hard drive. Then Linux loads the TiVo application software from the hard drive. There haven't been any updates to the (minimal) firmware, but the software that does all the work (including managing the tuners) has been updated several times.

I'm OTA only, and I find the TiVo Premiere's tuners to be pretty good, similar to those in my (several years old) Mitsubishi TV. I have nothing newer with which to compare them.


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## atmuscarella

videobruce said:


> In the two years these have been out, no firmware corrections have been made?
> Has anyone compared another *current* (as in up to date technology) tuner to these?


Little hard to understand what exactly you are asking/saying.

If someone is having reception issues they have to decide is the issues are being caused by a weak signal or by multipathing.

The bottom line is the TiVo Premiere does not handle over the air (OTA) multipath issues as well as either the original Series 3 or TiVo HD. Multipath issues are not directly related to signal strength, in fact too strong of a signal can cause multipath issues.

If the Premiere can pick up weak signals as good as other TiVos or even other devices with an OTA tuner is harder to figure out - remember the first thing a TiVo does with an OTA signal is split it which likely reduces the signal strength to both tuners.


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## replaytv

videobruce said:


> In the two years these have been out, no firmware corrections have been made?
> Has anyone compared another *current* (as in up to date technology) tuner to these?


I have a old Humax HFA100 HDTV Tuner that is better than any converter box or Tivo HD box. But it isn't supported by Tivo for use in Series 2 boxes. I use it in the garage to watch football on my SD TV while working out there.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Humax-HFA10...0862?pt=US_Cable_TV_Boxes&hash=item337de0dd7e


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## videobruce

> Little hard to understand what exactly you are asking/saying.


What's hard to understand. Compare tuner A with tuner B off the same down-lead with the same troublesome stations that are 'on the cliff'.

Newer tuners usually are better, sometimes far better than older generation tuners which includes TV's & DVR's with stations that are sometimes there and other times not due to BER, multipath, or just low signal.


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## atmuscarella

videobruce said:


> What's hard to understand. Compare tuner A with tuner B off the same down-lead with the same troublesome stations that are 'on the cliff'.
> 
> Newer tuners usually are better, sometimes far better than older generation tuners which includes TV's & DVR's with stations that are sometimes there and other times not due to BER, multipath, or just low signal.


Well at this point the actual OTA tuner hardware in a Premiere is over 3 years old as people have Premieres with build dates in 2009 (sales started around 3/10) and there haven't been any know changes in the tuner hardware since then.

Regarding comparing the Premieres tuners to other tuners that only tells anyone something if there are issues one tuner can handle and the other can not (the signal strength information ect. is not set to a standard so direct comparisons can not be made using that info), so there are a limited number of people with a situation that will be able to tell anyone anything. For those of us in that limited situation what we seem to be agreeing on is that the older Series 3 units handle multipath issues lightly better than the Premiere. I do have a silcondust's networked OTA tuner (the newer version) that might have newer hardware than my Premiere, but I haven't spent allot of time comparing the 2, the next time I have issues with the Premiere I will check and see.

As I have stated in previous posts 95+% of the time I have no issues with my Premiere and OTA reception. Because OTA reception is so tied to location and the actual antenna setup without testing equipment there isn't much more that can be said.


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## videobruce

I have numerous and very easy ways to make those comparisons due to borderline reception from a few Canadian & American stations.


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## rainmain7771

Hi all,

I had dropped channels and pixelated channels that were coming in fine when my OTA cable was plugged directly into the tv. This solved the problem for me. I am sorry in advance if this does not work for you but it is worth trying. Here is what I did:

1) Put the channel that you are having problems with on so you can watch it pixelate.

2) Go to the back of your Tivo box and slowly loosen the cable connection on the back of the OTA input receptacle and keep your eye on the screen for when the picture/signal improves.

3) Keep the cable in this position and do not re-tighten as this will cause the issues again.

Hopefully your signals have improved.

Good luck,
Ray


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## schwaps

Greetings. I am a new TiVo Premier OTA-only customer. I recently sent back a TiVo Premier box and my replacement box has the exact same issues.

I think I've made a discovery regarding the OTA tuners on the Premier. They do not appear to be properly "yoked", meaning, one tuner is stronger than another or exhibits more severe symptoms than the other.

I have one channel that consistently exhibits the pulsing signal (0 to 55 on signal strength) while using TUNER 1. When using TUNER 0, that signal is nearly always solid. I was quite shocked to see that my replacement TiVo Premiere behaved exactly the same way.

I am using a CM-4248 and YA-1713 and a CM-7777 pre-amplifier, all at around 50 feet and stations ranging from 35 to 55 miles. I do live in the woods, so multipath is likely an issue.

My question: Has anyone else discovered that Tuner 1 is significantly weaker than Tuner 0 on the TiVo Premiers? Put another way, has anyone experienced pulsing signals on anything other than Tuner 1? I am very curious, there appears to be a major design flaw here after having tried two NEW TiVo Premier units.

Another test to do:

1. Go to the signal strength meter / test under Settings -> Channels, this will force your TiVo to tune a single channel on BOTH TUNERS.

2. Go to the DVR Diagnostics menu and view the Signal Strength and SNR values.

3. In both of my TiVo Premier boxes, Tuner 0 performed better than Tuner 1 in all areas, particularly with respect to errors which were significantly LOWER on Tuner 0. Now, if only there was a way to force the TiVo to record using Tuner 0 when available! Anyone know of a way to do this??

As an electrical engineer myself, I am struggling to understand how the Premier is designed to have Tuner 1 be weaker than Tuner 0. What sort of reasoning might explain this? Any ideas?

The TiVo Premier (in my opinion) has the worst OTA tuners I have ever seen. The best OTA tuner I have ever used was on a Zenith CECB. To TiVo -> "This isn't rocket science here, honestly how hard is it to manufacture a new box with good quality OTA tuners?" There are areas to cut cost, but the tuner is absolutely NOT a wise area to do so. I'd rather have a hard drive that's 10% of the size and an effective tuner than my current Premiere box with a mediocre Tuner 0 and poor Tuner 1. Come on, TiVo!!

Thank you!

schwaps


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## bbweiners

Hi,

I found a fix that is easy and works. 

You want the central core of your coax cable to barely make a connection with the antenna connector on your Tivo. You can experiment with that and should see that it works. The problem is getting the cable to stay in place. There is an easy solution so that you can screw the coax cable in like normal and have a solid connection with good reception.

What I did was trim the central core (the pin that sticks out of the coax cable) of the coax cable down to about 25%. It is very easy and only requires a tin snip.

I was then able to fully screw the coax cable into the antenna connector for a secure connection and much much better reception. (I went from about 25-30 percent to about 70-75 percent).

This is very easy and takes about 10 seconds to do. I hope it helps since it solved my issue.


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## schwaps

Wow! Thanks for the tip, it worked like a charm!! I am trying the loosey-goosey connection method as I'm not brave enough yet to snip my coax as it was difficult to get up through the basement so I'm afraid to make any mistakes.

But, honestly, how and why does this help? There must be an unusual design flaw on the Premier boxes.

Thanks a million for the tip!

- schwaps


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## bbweiners

No problem, Schwaps.


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## atmuscarella

schwaps said:


> But, honestly, how and why does this help? There must be an unusual design flaw on the Premier boxes.


My understanding is that too strong a signal from one or more of your stations can cause problems just the same as too week of a signal. If that is your issue anything that reduces the offending channel(s) signal's strength will appear to increase the strength on all your channels. I have read posts on various forums where removing signal amplifiers fixes what appeared to be a week signal problem and I have also seen people talk about using Variable Attenuators that allow you to dial down the signal strength.

It really all depends on what is causing your individual problem what will end up helping.


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## rainmain7771

To bbweiners,

Are you seriously taking credit for this fix? Really??? I posted this fix on 1/28/12 and you post right after me that you found the fix. It doesn't really matter, but I trouble shot the crap out of the Tivo to figure this out. Now I see you are posting all over the place that you figured this all out yourself. A simple thanks would have been good enough. Anyway I just think what you did was really lame.


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## jvradar

I purchased my 1st Tivo recently to cut the directv. I am glad I did, but I also began to have the issues that many on this thread have complained about. 
I am a techie, but not in the antenna dept. 
I started with an indoor amplified antenna, but could not get all the stations that I wanted. 
I then purchased the AntennaCraft HDX1000 and installed it with the amplifier. 
The major problem I was having was 2 strong channels that I was getting well through my indoor antenna. 
They were lousy on the outdoor 30 ft high mounted, amplified antenna... go figure!
I was getting pixelated and sometimes complete loss of signal on the strongest signals. 
I thought I was going to have to get a stronger amplifier.
then I attached my OTA cable directly to my TV. Channels came in fine. 
I was discouraged and thought that the Tivo had rotten tuners. 
Then I came to this forum and began to read. 
I started to read through all the threads, then cut straight to the last. 
I came across the idea that snipping the inner core of the coaxial back could solve the problem. I laughed on the inside!
(another note, I could bring in the channels better in the day than in the night. At night, they barely came in at all. )
So, here I am at almost midnight, I grabbed a 3 foot cable and a coupler, coupled it onto the end of the antenna cable (my experiment section of cable) and snipped it back tremendously. A lot!
I am now watching Letterman (there are better things to watch) clear as a bell, where 1 hour earlier was major pixilation and black figures walking around, with weird alien looking faces. 
Thank you for your help, I don't care who gets the credit, someone needs to call Tivo and give this fix to their help support desk. I will tomorrow after I get some sleep and get off work. 877-367-8486


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## replaytv

Had you tried inserting a attenuator in the path to reduce the signal strength as suggested? I am thinking of trying that.


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## jvradar

I have not. The reason being is that that all the stations now come in fine. But let me ask this, do you think it would even give visibly better, measurable (by sight) reception? If you do this and it works, let me know how it turns out.
Also, would a simple 1-2$ attenuator be available at Radio Shack?


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## atmuscarella

replaytv said:


> Had you tried inserting a attenuator in the path to reduce the signal strength as suggested? I am thinking of trying that.





jvradar said:


> I have not. The reason being is that that all the stations now come in fine. But let me ask this, do you think it would even give visibly better, measurable (by sight) reception? If you do this and it works, let me know how it turns out.
> Also, would a simple 1-2$ attenuator be available at Radio Shack?


I decided to oder the one I linked to in my post above. I should have it latter this week will post back on my results.


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## atmuscarella

atmuscarella said:


> I decided to oder the one I linked to in my post above. I should have it latter this week will post back on my results.


Well I got my Variable Attenuator yesterday. Rochester NY Channel 13 was breaking up on my Premiere pretty bad, but still ok on the TiVo HD, put the Variable Attenuator on the Premiere and set it to max. The signal strength went from 30 to 64 and the channel become rock solid. The same channel was also breaking up on my HTPC so I will play with the placement of the variable attenuator over the weekend to see how it affects my various OTA tuners. Looks like this may clear up my multi path issues which are likely caused by a very close broadcast tower (9 miles versus the other 6 towers which are 35 miles away in another direction).


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## Chesterton

What is the conclusion? Is it that the Premiere tuners actually have a better ability to pull in very weak signals than the Series 3 or HD, so you have to be careful to not overload them?

My situation: I'm going to switch from the ChannelMaster CM7400 DVR, that died over the weekend, to Tivo Lifetime. I live 50 to 60 miles from the antennas I'm picking up. With antenna directly attached to my TV, the signals are near the pixelation margin but usually fine. With the antenna attached to the ChannelMaster CM7400, some stations were not very watchable due to pixelation. I have an deep fringe directional antenna on a pole outside, with a preamp at the antenna itself.

I need a tuner that can pull in weak signals. No stations I receive are are very strong. So do you think a Premiere or a Series 3/HD would be better?

Thanks for any comments.


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## atmuscarella

Chesterton said:


> What is the conclusion? Is it that the Premiere tuners actually have a better ability to pull in very weak signals than the Series 3 or HD, so you have to be careful to not overload them?
> 
> My situation: I'm going to switch from the ChannelMaster CM7400 DVR, that died over the weekend, to Tivo Lifetime. I live 50 to 60 miles from the antennas I'm picking up. With antenna directly attached to my TV, the signals are near the pixelation margin but usually fine. With the antenna attached to the ChannelMaster CM7400, some stations were not very watchable due to pixelation. I have an deep fringe directional antenna on a pole outside, with a preamp at the antenna itself.
> 
> I need a tuner that can pull in weak signals. No stations I receive are are very strong. So do you think a Premiere or a Series 3/HD would be better?
> 
> Thanks for any comments.


The only way you are going to know for sure is to test one out. I think most of the issues I have seen personally or seen posted about are not weak signal reception issues but rather multi-cast interference issues. Again the only way to know for sure is to test with an actual TiVo DVR. Without testing equipment hard for the normal Joe do know for sure why they are having issues I have had nothing but problems all summer long and really wish I could figure out what to do myself.


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## consumedsoul

For S4 Premier users that upgraded to the Roamio basic, are you guys still seeing issues where you have to adjust the coax connecting to the TiVo to get a better signal?


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## Chesterton

I don't have a premiere, but I did see this post in the "Roamio OTA reception?" thread, in the TiVo Roamio DVRs forum:



utcompeng said:


> Hey Guys, I'm happy to report the tuner is a million times better than the premier. No more issues with high signal channels interfering with low signal channels. I was able to remove a splitter I was using to downgrade my signal. The tuner is just as good as my Samsung TV...enjoy!!


Also, there's this feedback on the Amazon site:

ASTONISHING OTA RECEPTION QUALITY

OTA reception was the biggest surprise for the Roamio. I read some anecdotal reports on the TiVo Community Forums about improved OTA reception over the Premiere box but the improvement is DRAMATIC compared to my 2-tuner Premiere box. Every single available OTA channel is coming in with fantastic quality. Granted I'm in the downtown Tampa, FL area but I'm using an internal Moho HDTV antenna and I'm just shocked at how good it is. This OTA reception leads me to believe that Roamio is a cord-cutters dream box.​


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