# I wish TiVo would... 4 OTA tuners!



## RockinRay (Aug 25, 2004)

It sure would be nice if they would come out with a 4 tuner - OTA box.

The Elite would b enice to have, but you are tied to cable. We do have some overlap on what we record, and that would be a big win for us.

There, enough "ranting" as I am sure it will not happen!


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## tootal2 (Oct 14, 2005)

RockinRay said:


> It sure would be nice if they would come out with a 4 tuner - OTA box.
> 
> The Elite would b enice to have, but you are tied to cable. We do have some overlap on what we record, and that would be a big win for us.
> 
> There, enough "ranting" as I am sure it will not happen!


i would buy one if it had 4 ota tuners.


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## ScottE22 (Sep 19, 2003)

tootal2 said:


> i would buy one if it had 4 ota tuners.


Me, too. I can kind of see the logic in only two tuners for the OTA box since we have, presumably, fewer channels to worry about. But how hard could it be to add ATSC tuners to the Elite? They already have tuners and Cards in the Premiere and the Premiere XL...


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## mr.unnatural (Feb 2, 2006)

It probably all boils down to the cost of the Tivo. Tivo is heavily subsidizing the cost of the DVR with their current pricing structure. Adding more tuners would make it difficult to be able to sell the boxes cheap and still make enough profit on the service fees to come out ahead. They'd have to jack up the monthly rates and/or lifetime service fees to make up the difference, both of which have gotten way out of hand, IMHO.

If you want a cheap DVR with ATSC tuners and you've got a Windows 7 PC then you've already got the basic hardware and software to build one yourself with no monthly fees. You can pick up an inepxensive AverTV or Hauppauge dual-tuner ATSC PCI-E tuner card for your PC and hook it up to an antenna. Windows Media Center has built-in DVR software that downloads guide data for your zip code and costs you nothing. You can set up wishlists and season passes just like a Tivop as well as schedule manual recordings. You can also watch live TV with DVR functionality like pause, fast forward, and rewind.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

Never going to happen! OTA only boxes would be such a niche product they'd never even recoup the R&D. I read a stat somewhere that suggested that less then 20% of households in the US received TV via OTA, and most of those are poor. Hardly an ideal market to dedicate a $400+ box to.

Dan


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## innocentfreak (Aug 25, 2001)

I would rather see an Elite XL with 3TB+ once drive prices come down and 6 tuners.


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## Jonathan_S (Oct 23, 2001)

ScottE22 said:


> Me, too. I can kind of see the logic in only two tuners for the OTA box since we have, presumably, fewer channels to worry about. But how hard could it be to add ATSC tuners to the Elite? They already have tuners and Cards in the Premiere and the Premiere XL...


Apparently it is hard because there isn't an existing DVR chipset that supports 8 tuners.

My understanding is that both the Premier and the Elite use 4 tuner chipsets. In the premier there are two cable tuners and two OTA tuners, but the sofware will only let you use two at once. In the elite all 4 are cable tuners and the software allows simultanious use of all.

It should be straightforward from a design standpoint to use that chipset to make a 4 tuner OTA-only TiVo; or a 2 by 2 that allowed simultanious use of all tuners. (Although the later could lead to customer confusion about why you can sometimes record 4 things, but other times only 2; depending on what channels the shows are on)

But having a cable/ota unit of more than 4 total tuners would apparently take a custom chipset (very expensive) or some tricky coordination between two copies of an existing 4 tuner chipset (somewhat expensive).


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## ScottE22 (Sep 19, 2003)

Jonathan_S said:


> Apparently it is hard because there isn't an existing DVR chipset that supports 8 tuners.


I didn't think of that. See? There's always a reason...


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## mattack (Apr 9, 2001)

ScottE22 said:


> Me, too. I can kind of see the logic in only two tuners for the OTA box since we have, presumably, fewer channels to worry about. But how hard could it be to add ATSC tuners to the Elite? They already have tuners and Cards in the Premiere and the Premiere XL...


Fewer channels *total*, but as I have said in other threads, the vast majority of my conflicts are due to shows on broadcast channels, since they (typically) don't rerun them like many cable channels do.


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## mattack (Apr 9, 2001)

Jonathan_S said:


> My understanding is that both the Premier and the Elite use 4 tuner chipsets. In the premier there are two cable tuners and two OTA tuners, but the sofware will only let you use two at once. In the elite all 4 are cable tuners and the software allows simultanious use of all.


I think you are misstating the issue. I believe there are *essentially* two tuners in the Premiere (non-Elite), and each tuner can tune to EITHER a cable channel or an OTA channel.

That is, I think it's a hardware issue, not a software issue. If you have an AM/FM radio, you can't tune to both AM and FM at the same time, even if you have "two" tuners.


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## tootal2 (Oct 14, 2005)

You can put 2 ceton cable card adaptors in a windows 7 computer and have 8 cable tuners. and you can add 2 ota tuners. for 10 tuners. there are people that have done this. but seems like overkill to me. who needs that many tuners?



Jonathan_S said:


> Apparently it is hard because there isn't an existing DVR chipset that supports 8 tuners.
> 
> My understanding is that both the Premier and the Elite use 4 tuner chipsets. In the premier there are two cable tuners and two OTA tuners, but the sofware will only let you use two at once. In the elite all 4 are cable tuners and the software allows simultanious use of all.
> 
> ...


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

tootal2 said:


> You can put 2 ceton cable card adaptors in a windows 7 computer and have 8 cable tuners. and you can add 2 ota tuners. for 10 tuners. there are people that have done this. but seems like overkill to me. who needs that many tuners?


I have that many tuners right now with TiVos. I did the HTPC thing back in 2001 and used a couple for my HD recordings and playback. The TiVos are a more elegant solution. Especially when you start talking about extenders and using Xbox360s that draw four times the power of a four tuner TiVo.


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## mr.unnatural (Feb 2, 2006)

tootal2 said:


> You can put 2 ceton cable card adaptors in a windows 7 computer and have 8 cable tuners. and you can add 2 ota tuners. for 10 tuners. there are people that have done this. but seems like overkill to me. who needs that many tuners?


I do. My HTPC currently has seven cablecard tuners (one InfiniTV 4 and one SiliconDust HDHomeRun Prime that's shared on my network) and four ATSC tuners for a total of eleven tuners. I used to have two InfiniTV 4's in the PC but I got a great deal on the HDHR and decided to go with that for my shared tuners. I pad all of my recordings so I need the extra tuners to pick up the overlap.



aaronwt said:


> I have that many tuners right now with TiVos. I did the HTPC thing back in 2001 and used a couple for my HD recordings and playback. The TiVos are a more elegant solution. Especially when you start talking about extenders and using Xbox360s that draw four times the power of a four tuner TiVo.


"More elegant" is purely a matter of opinion. They have their own set of issues, as do HTPCs. 2001 was back in the early days of HTPCs when you were probably limited to NTSC tuners. HTPCs have changed dramatically since that time. Cablecard tuners have changed the way I look at both HTPCs and Tivos. I used to have a house full of Tivos, but having to coordinate recording schedules between them and the clunky MRV setup pushed me even closer to using HTPCs.

I'm no big fan of using extenders, although they do work perfectly fine for remote viewing of live TV and sharing recordings from the main HTPC. The Linksys and HP extenders, while no longer in production, are readily available on ebay and probably use less power than the average Tivo. Even the latest X-Box 360 slim models draw less power than their predecessors. I anxiously await the release of the Ceton Echo extenders to see how they do with a WMC PC.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

mr.unnatural said:


> I do. My HTPC currently has seven cablecard tuners (one InfiniTV 4 and one SiliconDust HDHomeRun Prime that's shared on my network) and four ATSC tuners for a total of eleven tuners. I used to have two InfiniTV 4's in the PC but I got a great deal on the HDHR and decided to go with that for my shared tuners. I pad all of my recordings so I need the extra tuners to pick up the overlap.
> 
> "More elegant" is purely a matter of opinion. They have their own set of issues, as do HTPCs. 2001 was back in the early days of HTPCs when you were probably limited to NTSC tuners. HTPCs have changed dramatically since that time. Cablecard tuners have changed the way I look at both HTPCs and Tivos. I used to have a house full of Tivos, but having to coordinate recording schedules between them and the clunky MRV setup pushed me even closer to using HTPCs.
> 
> I'm no big fan of using extenders, although they do work perfectly fine for remote viewing of live TV and sharing recordings from the main HTPC. The Linksys and HP extenders, while no longer in production, are readily available on ebay and probably use less power than the average Tivo. Even the latest X-Box 360 slim models draw less power than their predecessors. I anxiously await the release of the Ceton Echo extenders to see how they do with a WMC PC.


In 2001 I was watching and recording HD from my ATSC tuners. I had a couple of HTPCs setup with the Telemann DTV200 cards. I recorded 25GB to 40GB of HD programming each week. What I couldn't record on HD I used my DireCTV TiVos to record in SD and also as backups for my HD recordings. Since back then they messed up the broadcasts a lot from the local stations in DC and Baltimore.

Yes the 360 slims draw less power but it is around four times the power draw of a TiVo Elite. I use three of the 360 slims. I had tried the original 360 boxes as extenders but that was in the last couple of years of my HTPC use when I had several USB ATSC tuners attached to the HTPC. But I barely used them since I had been using the HD TiVos more and more since getting them in 2004. And then eventually I dumped the HTPCs completely and have no desire to go back.


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## mr.unnatural (Feb 2, 2006)

aaronwt said:


> What I couldn't record on HD I used my DireCTV TiVos to record in SD and also as backups for my HD recordings. Since back then they messed up the broadcasts a lot from the local stations in DC and Baltimore.


That's funny because the very thing you mentioned about local Baltimore and DC stations is what made me start using HTPCs back when I still had DirecTV. DTV only carried a few local stations in one of the two adjacent markets and the only way to get certain locals was via OTA antenna or sign with Comcast. Rather than tie up one or more of my HR10-250 Tivos for recording OTA channels I decided to give HTPCs a try. This was probably somewhere around 2006-2007.

I can see why Tivos would be attractive to someone if they just want a plug and play box for convenience. I've always been more of a DIYer and take great pleasure in creating things myself. It's one of the main reasons I was attracted to Tivos in the first place. In fact, I hacked my first Tivo with a bigger hard drive while closely following the development of Dylan's Boot Disc back in the day when the Tivo forum was part of the AVSForums before it split off and became the TCF.

These days, most of the hacks that were developed for the older Tivos have been rolled into current production models so there's very little need to hack them anymore. Frankly, Tivos have become rather boring appliances rather than a cool device you could hack and tweak to my heart's delight. HTPCs open up a whole new world of custom tailoring the device anyway I like with far more capabilities than any model Tivo, IMHO.

The idea of freeing myself from the Tivo shackles has been quite rewarding. Don't get me wrong because I think Tivos are still the best standalone DVRs available. I just don't like the company and the way they constantly change their business structure, usually for the worse. I haven't seen any meaningful innovations in any current model that would make me want to upgrade from the last remaining S3 I still own. At least with my HTPCs I never have to deal with Tivo customer service. I can't think of a better incentive to own one.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

mr.unnatural said:


> That's funny because the very thing you mentioned about local Baltimore and DC stations is what made me start using HTPCs back when I still had DirecTV. DTV only carried a few local stations in one of the two adjacent markets and the only way to get certain locals was via OTA antenna or sign with Comcast. Rather than tie up one or more of my HR10-250 Tivos for recording OTA channels I decided to give HTPCs a try. This was probably somewhere around 2006-2007.
> 
> I can see why Tivos would be attractive to someone if they just want a plug and play box for convenience. I've always been more of a DIYer and take great pleasure in creating things myself. The idea of freeing myself from the Tivo shackles has been quite rewarding. Don't get me wrong because I think Tivos are still the best standalone DVRs available. I just don't like the company and the way they constantly change their business structure, usually for the worse. At least with my HTPCs I never have to deal with Tivo customer service. I can't think of a better incentive to own one.


At the end of 2006 is when I got my first three S3 boxes and got Comcast. I ran Comcast and DirecTV together for six months before dropping DirecTV for good. I would have never left DirecTv if they had continued to support the HR10-250 boxes. But between my OTA antenna and comcast I was covered.

OF course a few months after dropping DirecTV , FiOS came to my development and I swithed to them, dropping Comcast in 2008. And now I rarely use my OTA. Which is why I want to get a second elite. That will leave me with one OTA premiere in case I still need my OTA channels for something.

HTPCs are certainly a good alternative. It's just not for me, anymore. I used to love putting together PCs in the 90's and 2000's. But now I just want preconfigured boxes and not deal with anything else. I'll still put Pcs together. But not like I used to. I used to upgrade my PCs every few months. Now I've been using the same PCs for over 3 years. I haven't messed with any builds except for my two unRAID builds I put together last year and this year.


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## Chris Gerhard (Apr 27, 2002)

After decades of having a pay TV service, I am OTA and internet TV only now and I wouldn't even buy a 4 tuner OTA DVR and the market that would is so tiny, I believe it will never happen. I am afraid there isn't even a market large enough to justify our dual tuner TiVo and it could become a thing of the past. I sure don't want to mess with a PC to record OTA. We sure haven't seen companies trying to compete with TiVo by offering a full-featured DVR for OTA. There are probably more households in the US playing audio cassettes or VHS tapes than there are using an OTA DVR.


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## Jebberwocky! (Apr 16, 2005)

I'd buy one in a heart beat - I need more than the two I currently. Going from 8 turners to 2 is hard


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## KingSparta (Apr 4, 2003)

I would buy one, I dropped Direct TV over a year ago, sometimes there is something on 3 or 4 of the channels I get (I have a large antenna with a rotor on it and get channels from two states).


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## mr.unnatural (Feb 2, 2006)

aaronwt said:


> At the end of 2006 is when I got my first three S3 boxes and got Comcast. I ran Comcast and DirecTV together for six months before dropping DirecTV for good. I would have never left DirecTv if they had continued to support the HR10-250 boxes. But between my OTA antenna and comcast I was covered.
> 
> OF course a few months after dropping DirecTV , FiOS came to my development and I swithed to them, dropping Comcast in 2008. And now I rarely use my OTA. Which is why I want to get a second elite. That will leave me with one OTA premiere in case I still need my OTA channels for something.
> 
> HTPCs are certainly a good alternative. It's just not for me, anymore. I used to love putting together PCs in the 90's and 2000's. But now I just want preconfigured boxes and not deal with anything else. I'll still put Pcs together. But not like I used to. I used to upgrade my PCs every few months. Now I've been using the same PCs for over 3 years. I haven't messed with any builds except for my two unRAID builds I put together last year and this year.


Your situation almost exactly parallels mine, except I was with Comcast prior to DirecTV and then switched to FIOS because DirecTV wasn't supporting DTivos anymore. The only difference is that I used OTA and my HTPC to supplement DirecTV and then kept using the HTPC for OTA after switching to FIOS (I get over 40 OTA channels in my area from both Baltimore and DC). When the InfiniTV 4 was released that was pretty much all she wrote for my Tivos.

HTPCs are a hobby and one that I enjoy immensely. The hardware and software has become so stable for HTPC use that it's basically a set and forget situation. Once you've installed the software and made the initial setting you can pretty much leave it alone (in fact, it's recommended that you do exactly that). I don't spend any extra time tweaking my HTPC unless there's something new I want to try out. It's become as stable and easy to use as any Tivo I've ever owned, and I've literally owned dozens of them.

I also don't upgrade my PCs every time some new hardware technology gets released. I used to do it all the time until I realized I was spending money without appreciating any real improvement in performance. The beauty of HTPCs is that you can get away with using a basic configuration with minimal performance specs (kind of like a Tivo). I generally upgrade just my motherboard, CPU, and memory once every 3-4 years. I don't do any gaming so I can get away with using older graphics cards in my PC.

I assume you're enjoying unRAID seeing as how you built two servers with it. I built mine over four years ago and I love it (20+ TB and counting). I primarily use it for streaming ripped Blu-Rays and DVDs to other PCs in the house (just one more thing you can't do with Tivos).


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## Chris Gerhard (Apr 27, 2002)

I wonder how many would actually buy one when it is determined what the retail cost would be. My guess, none of you, the hardware would have to be sold at cost plus if the service fees remained the same.



RockinRay said:


> It sure would be nice if they would come out with a 4 tuner - OTA box.
> 
> The Elite would b enice to have, but you are tied to cable. We do have some overlap on what we record, and that would be a big win for us.
> 
> There, enough "ranting" as I am sure it will not happen!





tootal2 said:


> i would buy one if it had 4 ota tuners.





Jebberwocky! said:


> I'd buy one in a heart beat - I need more than the two I currently. Going from 8 turners to 2 is hard





KingSparta said:


> I would buy one, I dropped Direct TV over a year ago, sometimes there is something on 3 or 4 of the channels I get (I have a large antenna with a rotor on it and get channels from two states).


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## atmuscarella (Oct 11, 2005)

Well I will go against the flow and say I personally wouldn't want a 4 tuner OTA unit (or a cable one if I had cable) if it was going to be my only DVR. 

I regularly use 3 or 4 tuners to record OTA but want and value redundancy and the extra storage that having 2 units with 2TB drives in each gives me over any manual conflict resolution I have to do. 

Simple put with 1 unit if it fails you have no DVR and maybe no TV if your TV doesn't have a tuner.


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## mr.unnatural (Feb 2, 2006)

atmuscarella said:


> Well I will go against the flow and say I personally wouldn't want a 4 tuner OTA unit (or a cable one if I had cable) if it was going to be my only DVR.
> 
> I regularly use 3 or 4 tuners to record OTA but want and value redundancy and the extra storage that having 2 units with 2TB drives in each gives me over any manual conflict resolution I have to do.
> 
> Simple put with 1 unit if it fails you have no DVR and maybe no TV if your TV doesn't have a tuner.


Ideally you would want a DVR that can record both digital cable and OTA. You would also want a DVR setup with redundancy should the main DVR fail. Guess what? My setup has it covered without using a single Tivo.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

mr.unnatural said:


> Ideally you would want a DVR that can record both digital cable and OTA. You would also want a DVR setup with redundancy should the main DVR fail. Guess what? My setup has it covered without using a single Tivo.


and my setup has it covered with multiple TiVos


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

mattack said:


> I think you are misstating the issue. I believe there are *essentially* two tuners in the Premiere (non-Elite), and each tuner can tune to EITHER a cable channel or an OTA channel.
> 
> That is, I think it's a hardware issue, not a software issue. If you have an AM/FM radio, you can't tune to both AM and FM at the same time, even if you have "two" tuners.


I can't say for sure about the Premiere, but that's not how the S3 units are setup. In the S3 units there are 4 physical tuners, 2 for OTA and and 2 for cable.

I suspect the Premiere is the same since, if they were using tuners capable of either OTA or QAM, then there would be no reason not to allow OTA recording on the Elite. I suspect that Jonathan_S is right and that there are basically 4 tuner slots on the chipset. In the Premiere they used two for cable and two for OTA and in the Elite they used all four for cable. He's likely also right that it would be possible for a Premiere to record 4 things at once, 2 OTA and 2 cable, but TiVo artificially limited this ability via software to prevent consumer confusion. (there might also be I/O limitations with RAM, etc.. that make it impossible)

Dan


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## janry (Jan 2, 2003)

mr.unnatural said:


> Ideally you would want a DVR that can record both digital cable and OTA. You would also want a DVR setup with redundancy should the main DVR fail. Guess what? My setup has it covered without using a single Tivo.





aaronwt said:


> and my setup has it covered with multiple TiVos


and my setup has it covered with mutiple TiVos and a HTPC. :


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

innocentfreak said:


> I would rather see an Elite XL with 3TB+ once drive prices come down and 6 tuners.


+1. I don't really need one, but I think a 6 tuner box and a couple of those streaming only devices they're coming out with would really make a cool whole house solution.

Dan


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## daveak (Mar 23, 2009)

If they could only make a box with modular tuners - You would just order the number of tuners you wanted when you purchased the box and they would simply fit into a slot in the back. And if you wanted you could even by additional tuners separately. Like with an HTPC...


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

A better option would be for the FCC to just force through AllVid. Then the tuners would be in the box you get from your provider and the TiVo would simply talk to it over IP. That way a single TiVo could record up to 6 channels from ANY cable, DSS, fiber, etc... provider in the US.

Dan


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## daveak (Mar 23, 2009)

Dan203 said:


> A better option would be for the FCC to just force through AllVid. Then the tuners would be in the box you get from your provider and the TiVo would simply talk to it over IP. That way a single TiVo could record up to 6 channels from ANY cable, DSS, fiber, etc... provider in the US.
> 
> Dan


Allvid.  I trust it will run just as smooth as the cable card requirement. Sadly.


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## mattack (Apr 9, 2001)

mr.unnatural said:


> Your situation almost exactly parallels mine, except I was with Comcast prior to DirecTV and then switched to FIOS because DirecTV wasn't supporting DTivos anymore.


Huh what? You can still use DirecTivos.. My friend had one that only started going flaky a few months ago (and he got an Elite and went to cable).


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

Yes, The DTiVos I owned in the early 2000's I gave to some friends years ago. They are still using them daily.(at least they were at the beginning of the year when I last brought the topic up)


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## mr.unnatural (Feb 2, 2006)

mattack said:


> Huh what? You can still use DirecTivos.. My friend had one that only started going flaky a few months ago (and he got an Elite and went to cable).


Not for HD. DirecTV had just introduced their new HD DVR and it was extremely buggy initially. I had to decide whether or not to bite the bullet and go with a questionable DVR and another 2-year commitment or switch to FIOS and still be able to use Tivos. I chose FIOS and two S3 Tivos.


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## RockinRay (Aug 25, 2004)

Since we are in contract with DTV, I bit the bullet and negotiated the HR34 DVR and installation for free (we have had their service since 1995). And, I have to say, 5 tuners is quite nice. No more conflicts like we had on the TiVo. I also have an AM21 and have integrated the locals in via OTA. Much nicer picture and will not go away when we have bad storms. Seems to me a nice solution. We are under $60 per month with two receivers and this new DVR.

I have no intention of giving up on TiVo. Our XL box works well and is very reliable. It sits with the DTV stuff and frankly, we watched Idol last night and the TiVo gave us a stellar picture!

When we grow tired of DTV, we will simply cancel and I will suck up any disconnect fee. It's only money right! 

I also found out that the new antenna I put up recently was only for the UHF stations. Here in Minneapolis, we also have two VHF stations. The VHF stations would come and go so to speak. I put the original antenna back up yesterday after work and all is once again perfect. 70's or better on all stations. :up:


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## ScottE22 (Sep 19, 2003)

RockinRay said:


> Since we are in contract with DTV, I bit the bullet and negotiated the HR34 DVR and installation for free (we have had their service since 1995). And, I have to say, 5 tuners is quite nice. No more conflicts like we had on the TiVo. I also have an AM21 and have integrated the locals in via OTA. Much nicer picture and will not go away when we have bad storms. Seems to me a nice solution. We are under $60 per month with two receivers and this new DVR.


I admit I'm a little jealous. But not jealous enough to sign back up for DTV... It sounds so good, but every TV on which you want to watch the content is an extra $6 or $7/month which kinda kills it.


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## uw69 (Jan 25, 2001)

ScottE22 said:


> I admit I'm a little jealous. But not jealous enough to sign back up for DTV... It sounds so good, but every TV on which you want to watch the content is an extra $6 or $7/month which kinda kills it.


Sound a lot like the Comcast "digital outlet" fee!


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## RockinRay (Aug 25, 2004)

ScottE22 said:


> I admit I'm a little jealous. But not jealous enough to sign back up for DTV... It sounds so good, but every TV on which you want to watch the content is an extra $6 or $7/month which kinda kills it.


Well, I cut down to their "Entertainment" package, and we have an additional receiver in the kitchen and the basement. When I spoke with retentions, they were quite nice and gave us a $10 per month credit for two years and an additional $5 per month credit good for 16 months. I was nice to them, but I told them my "hard line" was $60 per month. The way they worked it we are just under that amount.

This being said, my TiVo XL is still up and running and I have no plans to turn it off. I did however shut down the two Premiers as well as the S3 to save power... No need in having those running at this time. If TiVo had a 4 tuner option for us OTA guys, or a unified playlist, I would have never made this move...

It will be intersting to see which unit we watch the most.


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## mr.unnatural (Feb 2, 2006)

ScottE22 said:


> I admit I'm a little jealous. But not jealous enough to sign back up for DTV... It sounds so good, but every TV on which you want to watch the content is an extra $6 or $7/month which kinda kills it.


And how is that different from paying for Tivos at every TV? You need some kind of box to transmit the image to your display and it's going to cost you regardless of your provider.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

RockinRay said:


> Well, I cut down to their "Entertainment" package, and we have an additional receiver in the kitchen and the basement. When I spoke with retentions, they were quite nice and gave us a $10 per month credit for two years and an additional $5 per month credit good for 16 months. I was nice to them, but I told them my "hard line" was $60 per month. The way they worked it we are just under that amount.
> 
> This being said, my TiVo XL is still up and running and I have no plans to turn it off. I did however shut down the two Premiers as well as the S3 to save power... No need in having those running at this time. If TiVo had a 4 tuner option for us OTA guys, or a unified playlist, I would have never made this move...
> 
> It will be intersting to see which unit we watch the most.


If you are trying to save power you should keep one of the premiere S4 boxes on instead of the S3 box. The S4 boxes draw 33% less power than the Series 3 boxes do.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

daveak said:


> Allvid.  I trust it will run just as smooth as the cable card requirement. Sadly.


I'm sure all the providers will resist Allvid with everything they have. They like that buying equipment locks you into their service and they like having control over the hardware so they can force you to look at their ads in the UI. An Allvid TiVo would allow you to subvert their ads and have ultimate power to switch providers whenever you wanted. That's going to scare the hell out of them.

Although with more and more people "cutting the cord", they're going to have to do something to become more consumer friendly or they're going to start losing customers in droves anyway.

Dan


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## Chris Gerhard (Apr 27, 2002)

Dan203 said:


> Although with more and more people "cutting the cord", they're going to have to do something to become more consumer friendly or they're going to start losing customers in droves anyway.
> 
> Dan


I cut the cord simply because of cost and I don't see anything DirecTV can do to change that issue. It certainly cost a lof of money to put a satellite in the sky and maintain it, DirecTV profits are slim or none as is. I had no problem with service, equipment, customer support or anything else DirecTV did. I subscribed from 1997 through 2009 and I don't know if DirecTV ever managed to breakeven, much less make a profit on me with several moves and equipment upgrades. Now they send me a letter almost monthly offering me great deals to come back but unless OTA goes bye bye, I am not changing anything.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

Chris Gerhard said:


> I cut the cord simply because of cost and I don't see anything DirecTV can do to change that issue. It certainly cost a lof of money to put a satellite in the sky and maintain it, DirecTV profits are slim or none as is. I had no problem with service, equipment, customer support or anything else DirecTV did. I subscribed from 1997 through 2009 and I don't know if DirecTV ever managed to breakeven, much less make a profit on me with several moves and equipment upgrades. Now they send me a letter almost monthly offering me great deals to come back but unless OTA goes bye bye, I am not changing anything.


I left DirecTV in 2007 and I still get at least one letter a week from them with an offer asking me to come back. Comcast is also the same way. At least one mailing a week with an offer.

Heck, even though I have FiOS I get mailings from them too. But only two or three times a month.


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## ScottE22 (Sep 19, 2003)

mr.unnatural said:


> And how is that different from paying for Tivos at every TV? You need some kind of box to transmit the image to your display and it's going to cost you regardless of your provider.


Fair enough. I guess it's different in my mind since I've got lifetime on my two TiVos and use OTA TV. The boxes are paid for so I don't really consider them to be an ongoing expense. For my guest room TV I'll probably have to buy a $40 digital to analog tuner at some point (like the next time I have guests...), but that'll be a one-time expense.

I'm one who is admittedly easily seduced by the promise of "$29.99/month" DirecTV plans, but they quickly lose their luster when you start adding in the HD fee, the Whole-Home DVR fee, and the per-TV fee for every TV you actually want to watch programming on.

So, I guess that's how it's different in my world.


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## mattack (Apr 9, 2001)

mr.unnatural said:


> Not for HD. DirecTV had just introduced their new HD DVR and it was extremely buggy initially. I had to decide whether or not to bite the bullet and go with a questionable DVR and another 2-year commitment or switch to FIOS and still be able to use Tivos. I chose FIOS and two S3 Tivos.


You didn't say HD, you just said they didn't support DirecTivos.


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## RockinRay (Aug 25, 2004)

aaronwt said:


> If you are trying to save power you should keep one of the premiere S4 boxes on instead of the S3 box. The S4 boxes draw 33% less power than the Series 3 boxes do.


Sorry! I meant to say that I am leaving my Premier XL running and I have powered off the other two Premiers as well as the S3...


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## RockinRay (Aug 25, 2004)

ScottE22 said:


> Fair enough. I guess it's different in my mind since I've got lifetime on my two TiVos and use OTA TV. The boxes are paid for so I don't really consider them to be an ongoing expense. For my guest room TV I'll probably have to buy a $40 digital to analog tuner at some point (like the next time I have guests...), but that'll be a one-time expense.
> 
> I'm one who is admittedly easily seduced by the promise of "$29.99/month" DirecTV plans, but they quickly lose their luster when you start adding in the HD fee, the Whole-Home DVR fee, and the per-TV fee for every TV you actually want to watch programming on.
> 
> So, I guess that's how it's different in my world.


I hear you, I am the same way! I was totally prepared to cancel my service and walk away but they gave me such a nice "deal", I decided to stay a while longer.

All of my TiVo's are lifetime too. It would be very easy to run the DTV bill up to $100 per month if I had receivers at all TV's, but. the agreement with the family was to have a max of three.

I can live with $60 per month for a while! I feel that is "fair" pricing for what I am getting from them. Now had they not offered anything when I called to cancel, this would be a totally different story.


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## ScottE22 (Sep 19, 2003)

I was actually on the Dish and DirecTV websites last night to check out the "Hopper" and the "Home Media Center" DVRs, respectively. (What can I say? I can't help myself...) They look really cool, but at the end of the day I want TV in my guest room (rarely used) and my basement "media" room (rarely used for TV). I never got boxes for those rooms because it was hard for me to justify the extra $6/month for each of those when they're used so rarely.

And then there's this $20 "advanced equipment" fee on DTV. So the $29/month "deal" really costs upward of $80/month by the time you get what you want -- and that's the promotional rate.

To each his own, absolutely. If they'd made me the "killer deal" when I called to cancel, I might be in the same boat. But the retention offer was ho-hum at best.

One of the unexpected side effects of having OTA only and Netflix is that we have been able to start exploring some older series that we never watched when they were on and that we otherwise might never have caught up on. My wife is into "Downton Abbey" and I've been enjoying "Burn Notice." Now that "Man vs Wild" is done, all that we've basically given up is "House Hunters International" and "Storm Chasers," the latter being a bit harder to swallow, but that's what Amazon Streaming is for...


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## Jebberwocky! (Apr 16, 2005)

Scott - I had 6 HD DVRs when I quit DTV last month. 

I admit that I'm thinking of buying another premiere for my upstairs TV room. Currently I have no feed to it, I'm planning on routing the antenna feed to it when I get motivated but having another device that I can record would be good. Then I think about having another monthly bill (12.99) to pay the Tivo fee. 

I told my wife last night that we need to do something about cell phones, I'm paying close to 300/month for cell phones and that doesn't even include mine. She didn't seem too keen on giving up her iPhone though. I even mentioned that her cell phone bill would pretty much have covered our old DTV bill.

It's hard to reconcile the two expenditures.


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## ScottE22 (Sep 19, 2003)

Jebberwocky! said:


> Scott - I had 6 HD DVRs when I quit DTV last month.
> 
> I admit that I'm thinking of buying another premiere for my upstairs TV room. Currently I have no feed to it, I'm planning on routing the antenna feed to it when I get motivated but having another device that I can record would be good. Then I think about having another monthly bill (12.99) to pay the Tivo fee.
> 
> ...


It's become a little bit of an obsessions for me. We started by cutting the $50/month Comcast Digital Voice service last December and going with an Ooma. I loved it so much I did pop for the $10/month Premium service (payable in one $120 installment) just to have the "Blacklist" feature. We weren't quite ready to cancel the home phone completely so the Ooma, with its occasional quirkiness, is a nice compromise. We are just about at the break-even point with that.

Next went DTV this month and with 2 Premieres + Lifetime we will hit the break even point around November.

I'm not quite ready to give up my iPhone yet, though, or I'd be looking at pre-paid phone service.

There's something very validating about reclaiming what others consider "necessary" expenses and having the extra cash to splurge on other things like outstanding Fort Collins craft brews and the occasional trip to Whole Foods for meat and produce.



(This should totally be in the Cord Cutting thread... )


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## RockinRay (Aug 25, 2004)

ScottE22 said:


> I was actually on the Dish and DirecTV websites last night to check out the "Hopper" and the "Home Media Center" DVRs, respectively. (What can I say? I can't help myself...) They look really cool, but at the end of the day I want TV in my guest room (rarely used) and my basement "media" room (rarely used for TV). I never got boxes for those rooms because it was hard for me to justify the extra $6/month for each of those when they're used so rarely.
> 
> And then there's this $20 "advanced equipment" fee on DTV. So the $29/month "deal" really costs upward of $80/month by the time you get what you want -- and that's the promotional rate.
> 
> ...


I hear you... If I were to take DTV out of our picture, what I have done in the past is:

1. OTA TiVo
2. Apple TV, buying season passes for what we could no longer get
3. Netflix

This actually worked out very well for us. We like a couple of the shows from FX and they were available as season pass purchases the day after each of these shows started to air. Now that the Apple TV is a 1080P streamer, the pictures look very good and we also liked the fact that there are no commercials. Once I get DTV out of my system, we will go back to this setup.

In a perfect world, I agree with others on this post that TiVo will not offer a 4 tuner OTA box. So what I would like to see from them is:

1. Allow me to schedule from the "main" DVR to record on any other DVR in the house of there will be a conflict.
2. Give us a"unified" My Shows list. It is kind of a hassle to try and remember what was recorded where. THis would be a very nice improvement.

Scott, I would be you get a call from DTV within the next 30 days inviting you back. If so, see what you could work out. I have found that different retention reps will give you better promotions. Tell them about your concerns on your rooms that will not get much "watch" time and ask them to give you a credit for that amount. In order to keep your business, they just might do it.

While I admit that I am not a BIG DTV fan, the new HR34 Media Server is a killer box...


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## RockinRay (Aug 25, 2004)

Oh, and my wife and kids would never give up their iPhones! 

I would question their long-term survival if they had to do that! LOL......

I would not give mine nor my iPad up, so I am in the same boat...


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## ScottE22 (Sep 19, 2003)

RockinRay said:


> 1. Allow me to schedule from the "main" DVR to record on any other DVR in the house of there will be a conflict.
> 2. Give us a"unified" My Shows list. It is kind of a hassle to try and remember what was recorded where. THis would be a very nice improvement.


Thanks for bringing this back on track... YES to both of these. It would be awesome if, when setting up a recording, it allowed you to choose which box you want to record on. Or, even cooler, it just virtually "pooled" the four tuners and My Shows lists.

I can dream...



> While I admit that I am not a BIG DTV fan, the new HR34 Media Server is a killer box...


That HR34 would be the only thing that could get me back. But I like more money in my wallet and craft brewed beer, too.


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## RockinRay (Aug 25, 2004)

No arguments and like I say, I am not a DTV fan boy - Apple Fan Boy, yes... 

I actually at one time, set my Premier XL up in my basement and all it did was record. I used my S3 in the basement for the kids, a Premier in the family room, and a Premier in the master bedroom. This did work out well for us when they turned streaming back on. Now, the Premier XL is in the family room and the others are unplugged. The thing that I did not like was having to run to the basement to check or setup new recordings and if there was a conflict, which "other" box would record it. Hense, the single play list and dvr selection for recording. That would be quite nice.

This weekend, I am going to attach my AM21 OTA tuner appliance to the HR34. From what I understand, the HR34 will scan for sub-chanels witch the other DVR's will not, and will allow locals to be viewed if the SAT signal is lost due to rain fade. I asked in another forum if the OTA pictures were better and was generally told yes. So, worht a try.

One thing is for sure, the OTA picture from the TiVo is excellent. We feed to a 9G Pioneer Elite Kuro 50" plasma and the pictures are no less than stunning!


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## mr.unnatural (Feb 2, 2006)

mattack said:


> You didn't say HD, you just said they didn't support DirecTivos.


Sorry. I didn't think it needed explaining since it's common knowledge that the HR10-250 was basically abandoned by DirecTV, but I guess I was mistaken. Besides, who watches SDTV anymore?


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