# Tivo abandoning us cord cutters?



## jgantert (Jan 24, 2008)

So is TiVo officially abandoning us cord cutters by not including OTA tuners in any of their new products? Looks like there is only one Tivo left that has an OTA tuner, and I suspect it's days are numbered.

With the number of people leaving cable, I would suspect there would be a market for OTA DVR's, but I guess not.

Hopefully my Series 3 never dies, because when it does, it looks like there might not be an OTA alternative.

-John
OTA/streaming only since around 2005


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## GriffithStrife (Oct 30, 2010)

You know I don't want to come off as a ass but I know I am so sorry in advance. 

I am so tired of cord cutters crying about Tivo not loving them, the whole point of cutting the cord is saving money, it would be stupid to invest in cord cutters for they are by definition not interested in spending money.

there is no device that I can find capable of recording 4 programs OTA, so why would Tivo invest in creating it from scratch? 

Also you stated you have a series 3 Tivo HD what is you want that would make you upgrade to a premiere 4 tuners or something else?

Once again not trying to be a ass, I just don't get what you and a lot of other cord cutters want.


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## SullyND (Dec 30, 2004)

The Elite/XL4/P4 are retail versions of a device built for Cable Companies (the Q). It would have made no sense for the Q to have OTA. While it can't yet be said for sure, I fully expect the difference between the XL4 and the P4 to be only hard drive size, and THX label.


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## unitron (Apr 28, 2006)

GriffithStrife said:


> You know I don't want to come off as a ass but I know I am so sorry in advance.
> 
> I am so tired of cord cutters crying about Tivo not loving them, the whole point of cutting the cord is saving money, it would be stupid to invest in cord cutters for they are by definition not interested in spending money.
> 
> ...


Actually what cord cutters are trying to avoid is getting screwed by the cable companies and the content providers.

(not to say anything nice about cable companies, but content providers force them to accept bundles of channels in order to get the ones they want, and they pass the "action without lubrication" on to customers)


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## jfh3 (Apr 15, 2004)

TiVo's flagship product, the TiVo premiere, supports OTA and/or cable. No reason to see this changing with future products. With the current hardware, if you want 4 tuners, they have to be all cable or all OTA. That is why the Elite/Premiere 4 only supports cable, not some master plan to drop OTA support - if TiVo is going to sell a 4 tuner device, they are going to pick one for the biggest market (cable users).


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

SullyND said:


> The Elite/XL4/P4 are retail versions of a device built for Cable Companies (the Q). It would have made no sense for the Q to have OTA. While it can't yet be said for sure, I fully expect the difference between the XL4 and the P4 to be only hard drive size, and THX label.


That's basically it. The Elite, XL4, and now Premiere 4 are simply ways for TiVo to monetize via retail something they developed for the cable industry.

There is also a technical limitation. The current generation hardware can not support more then 4 tuners. The standard Premiere has two OTA and two cable tuners, the XL4 has 4 cable tuners. That's all the mobo, and the case, can handle. I guess they could technically create a unit that has 4 OTA tuners, but I doubt there are enough cord cutters to justify it.

Dan


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## unitron (Apr 28, 2006)

Dan203 said:


> That's basically it. The Elite, XL4, and now Premiere 4 are simply ways for TiVo to monetize via retail something they developed for the cable industry.
> 
> There is also a technical limitation. The current generation hardware can not support more then 4 tuners. The standard Premiere has two OTA and two cable tuners, the XL4 has 4 cable tuners. That's all the mobo, and the case, can handle. I guess they could technically create a unit that has 4 OTA tuners, but I doubt there are enough cord cutters to justify it.
> 
> Dan


A tuner is just a way to take in an RF signal, beat it against a local oscillator to generate sum and difference, and use one of them to feed through an Intermediate Frequency amplifer chain (known for ages now as the IF Strip) and then sent to a demodulator of some sort.

If a tuner can tune cable frequencies, it can tune OTA frequencies.

What's needed is something to switch a tuner's input to either the cable nipple or the antenna nipple, and then something to route the IF Strip output to either one of 4 OTA demodulators or one of 4 cable demodulators.

So it is more stuff on the mobo, it's just not necessary that it be more tuners.


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## S3-2501 (Jun 2, 2007)

GriffithStrife said:


> the whole point of cutting the cord is saving money,


 There are a lot of people who are OTA-only who have never had a cord to cut. The last time anyone in our house paid for cable was back in the late 80s. At this point getting cable would be adding significantly to our monthly budget, not reducing it.



> it would be stupid to invest in cord cutters for they are by definition not interested in spending money.


 Everyone in my family is extremely interested in spending money on a reliable and affordable device that is the functional replacement to the old analog VCR. OTA viewers need to record programming just as much as cable users do. In fact, it's what made me a Tivo customer in the first place. I would even go so far as to speculate that an OTA-only Tivo could be made at lower cost to Tivo and sold at a higher profit, since there would be no cablecard or other such cable-related components and/or licensing fees needed.



> there is no device that I can find capable of recording 4 programs OTA, so why would Tivo invest in creating it from scratch?


 There's definitely a market out there for such a device. I can't speculate as to how large that market is, but there definitely is one. We have over 20 channels of unique content OTA in my area and recording conflicts are not uncommon. We are fortunate to have more than one Tivo in our family, so typically conflicts can be resolved by recording on a different box and then transferring it for watching later. Eliminating the need for an extra box would be a very good thing for both budgetary and convenience reasons.



> Also you stated you have a series 3 Tivo HD what is you want that would make you upgrade to a premiere 4 tuners or something else?


 I can't speak for the OP, but I gave the Premiere a try when I was able to score one on clearance. I was curious to see if I would prefer the HD interface, faster network performance and new internet applications. Additionally, at the time it was known how to easily upgrade a Premiere to 2TB, but an original S3 was still limited to 1TB for DIY upgraders.

Unfortunately, the Premiere's tuner proved to be vastly inferior to our S3 at receiving OTA signals at our location and I was forced to cancel the Prrmiere's service before our 30-day trial ended.

So IMHO Tivo has abandoned OTA users, but manly because (as has been documented elsewhere in this forum,) the Premiere's OTA performance is a significant downgrade from the Series 3 platform and Tivo has thus far completely failed to address that issue. The poor reliability of Tribune with regard to channel lineup and programming changes hasn't helped matters either.



> I just don't get what you and a lot of other cord cutters want.


 I can't speak for all OTA viewers, but I hope this gives you an idea what my family and I want from Tivo.


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## rainwater (Sep 21, 2004)

jgantert said:


> So is TiVo officially abandoning us cord cutters by not including OTA tuners in any of their new products? Looks like there is only one Tivo left that has an OTA tuner, and I suspect it's days are numbered.


The new devices are using the same basic hardware as the Premiere with OTA. How have they abandoned your or anyone else? They still sell the Premiere with OTA tuners and will continue to do so. The new products run the same software and don't have any software features that the OTA version has.


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## unitron (Apr 28, 2006)

rainwater said:


> The new devices are using the same basic hardware as the Premiere with OTA. How have they abandoned your or anyone else? They still sell the Premiere with OTA tuners and will continue to do so. The new products run the same software and don't have any software features that the OTA version has.


I believe you mean don't have any software features that the OTA version does not have.


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## ade333 (Jun 2, 2012)

sucks


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## L David Matheny (Jan 29, 2011)

S3-2501 said:


> Unfortunately, the Premiere's tuner proved to be vastly inferior to our S3 at receiving OTA signals at our location and I was forced to cancel the Prrmiere's service before our 30-day trial ended.
> 
> So IMHO Tivo has abandoned OTA users, but manly because (as has been documented elsewhere in this forum,) the Premiere's OTA performance is a significant downgrade from the Series 3 platform and Tivo has thus far completely failed to address that issue. The poor reliability of Tribune with regard to channel lineup and programming changes hasn't helped matters either.


I agree with most of your other points, but when I see comments about how bad the Premiere's OTA tuners are, I occasionally feel the need to note that for some of us those tuners work better than the tuners in older TiVos. It could be due to sample variation, but I suspect it may be due to signal variation by location, possibly related to the amount and type of multipath interference. I won't defend Tribune Media.


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## atmuscarella (Oct 11, 2005)

L David Matheny said:


> I agree with most of your other points, but when I see comments about how bad the Premiere's OTA tuners are, I occasionally feel the need to note that for some of us those tuners work better than the tuners in older TiVos. It could be due to sample variation, but I suspect it may be due to signal variation by location, possibly related to the amount and type of multipath interference. I won't defend Tribune Media.


My Premiere has significantly inferior OTA tuning abilities compared to either my TiVo HD or my original Series 3. Most of this summer one or more of my OTA channels have not been available on the Premiere but are on the TiVo HD and Series 3. I have given up that TiVo will fix the problem and have decided to just keep the other units running.


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## atmuscarella (Oct 11, 2005)

GriffithStrife said:


> I am so tired of cord cutters crying about Tivo not loving them, the whole point of cutting the cord is saving money, it would be stupid to invest in cord cutters for they are by definition not interested in spending money.


You have no data to support that. I have a $2000 sound system, over $2000 TV (when I purchased it) and 3 HD TiVos and I do not have cable or Satellite. Over 90% of what I watch comes from OTA with the other 10% being blu-ray and streaming. Which is more than enough content for me - no need to pay for any more. Many people are starting to find cable/satellite a bad value and find OTA with some streaming services a better value while providing sufficient content for their needs/desires.



GriffithStrife said:


> there is no device that I can find capable of recording 4 programs OTA, so why would Tivo invest in creating it from scratch?


TiVo has enough data to know what is likely to make sense to develop. My guess is that without the cable companies they couldn't have developed the 4 tuner cable DVRs so I tend to believe we will not see a 4 tuner OTA one. However I do believe they will continue to support OTA with what ever ends up being their enter level DVR for a long time.



GriffithStrife said:


> Also you stated you have a series 3 Tivo HD what is you want that would make you upgrade to a premiere 4 tuners or something else?


I am guessing most OTA users would be looking at upgrading for exactly the same reason someone using a Series 3 on cable would want to upgrade.



GriffithStrife said:


> Once again not trying to be a ass, I just don't get what you and a lot of other cord cutters want.


The same thing people who purchase cable or Satellite want. Why would you think that the source of someone's TV changes what they want in a DVR?


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## unitron (Apr 28, 2006)

atmuscarella said:


> My Premiere has significantly inferior OTA tuning abilities compared to either my TiVo HD or my original Series 3. Most of this summer one or more of my OTA channels have not been available on the Premiere but are on the TiVo HD and Series 3. I have given up that TiVo will fix the problem and have decided to just keep the other units running.


In the very early days of FM radios, the receivers had to be of very high quality, compared to AM sets, in order to work at all.

Later they figured out how to get away with making them less expensively with performance that was "good enough".

I suspect that may be what's happening with digital TV tuners in general and the ones in the TiVo in particular.


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## jgantert (Jan 24, 2008)

Dan203 said:


> There is also a technical limitation. The current generation hardware can not support more then 4 tuners. The standard Premiere has two OTA and two cable tuners, the XL4 has 4 cable tuners. That's all the mobo, and the case, can handle. I guess they could technically create a unit that has 4 OTA tuners, but I doubt there are enough cord cutters to justify it.


So far this is the best reason that I have heard for the 4-tuners not to support OTA in the current generation. I guess they could use plug-in tuners like the Voom STB did, but that would be too costly I would suspect.

I'm looking to upgrade because with the DTV switchover there are now over 50 OTA channels here, and it is not uncommon to want to record more than 2 shows at once. One of these new 4-tuner models would really come in handy for me. Back when the Tivo HD premiered, there were very few (if any) digital subchannels, and most of them were not content subchannels (ie: weather or SD versions of HD channels). Now there are TONS of quality subchannels (BounceTV, AntennaTV, ThisTV etc...) and more being announced every month (MeTv - Oct 12, MundoFox - Sep 12).

As for the reason I switched, it wasn't only for cost savings. I was with Verizon Fios TV at the time, and they used to have the horrible Scientific Atlanta 8300HD DVR with absolutely horrible guide from the 80's. It kept dropping recordings and rebooting late at night. Eventually I got tired of paying for such cr*p and drop the TV (kept the internet), and went OTA only. I had initially planned to switch back to DirecTV, but we ended up getting used to OTA only and stuck with it.


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## ntarvin (Jan 29, 2011)

I got my Premiere last summer when there was the "buy an antenna for $99, get the Tivo Premiere free, and get service for $9.95 a month." A few months later, I was given a Series 3 (with lifetime) by my son. 

The Series 3 is a far better OTA tuner than the Premiere and gets OTA channels that the Premiere can't even recognize, much less tune in. 

BUT, I very much prefer the Premiere's HD interface, and the interface for Netflix. (I'm not sure, but I don't think the Series 3 gets PlayOn, YouTube, Amazon or Hulu + - let me know if that's wrong.) StreamBaby works well on both. (I have other means of accessing PlayOn, Hulu +, Amazon, etc, but i like the idea of everything being in one package... plus, my wife definitely does not want to mess around with too many remotes!)

It really comes down to form versus function - does the Premiere's interface trump the Series 3 tuners???? Right now I can't make a definitive choice...


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## Puppy76 (Oct 7, 2004)

atmuscarella said:


> My Premiere has significantly inferior OTA tuning abilities compared to either my TiVo HD or my original Series 3. Most of this summer one or more of my OTA channels have not been available on the Premiere but are on the TiVo HD and Series 3. I have given up that TiVo will fix the problem and have decided to just keep the other units running.


Scary...

I actually came to these forums when I noticed today that the Premiere XL is gone.

Now technically I guess you can buy a Premiere from Weaknees with a larger hard drive, but I'm disappointed they have these 4 tuner ones that don't support OTA. OTA's always been a huge market, and I'd assume it's only growing...


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

In my setup I can get the same dozens of OTA channels with my Premiere as I could with my S3 boxes. And the Premiere has a rock solid signal for me even when it's at a signal strength of 30. Although if it gets down to 25 or so it will start to have issues. I have one channel that hovers around 30, but it never has any issues with the Premiere. 

My dual, combined antenna setup has been working great since I set it up in 2004 when I got my HR10-250 boxes for DirecTV.

Although OTA is only a backup to my FiOS connection since they have the OTA channels and sub channels. I did end up using OTA recently when FiOS botched my upgrade to the 150/65 tier and my three FiOS services were down for several days. The streaming from my Premiere with OTA to my Elites came in handy during those days.


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## hefe (Dec 5, 2000)

I think my Premiere has a slightly better OTA tuner than the HR10-250 that it replaced.


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## BigJimOutlaw (Mar 21, 2004)

I look at it this way: Tivo at best has sold only a few hundred thousand Premieres as it is to the broadest number of possible people -- digital cable, OTA, and analog customers collectively. That's been hard enough, even when hardware prices were under $100.

Making a product specifically for the OTA 15-percenters alone is not likely to be worthwhile. It would also probably add as much as $100 to the retail cost if it were crammed into existing 4-tuner configurations. Tivo made a choice with their 4-tuner platform and it was the right one at the time.

This could definitely be re-examined if something in the landscape changes (particularly, technology costs) but until then they did what they had to do.

I do believe they'll continue to have SOME kind of OTA support.


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## Teeps (Aug 16, 2001)

OTA is very good where available. My S3OLED was connected to cable and OTA until they changed the DTV frequencies. Now it's just cable.

"Cord Cutters" that brag about streaming; what will you do when the Internet provider throttles the connection or puts a meter on download data?
The phone companies are already doing this...


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## Tony Chick (Jun 20, 2002)

The DirecTV HR21 and later receivers support an external OTA tuner (AM21) that plugs into the USB. Technically, Tivo could do something like that


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## L David Matheny (Jan 29, 2011)

BigJimOutlaw said:


> Making a product specifically for the OTA 15-percenters alone is not likely to be worthwhile. It would also probably add as much as $100 to the retail cost if it were crammed into existing 4-tuner configurations. Tivo made a choice with their 4-tuner platform and it was the right one at the time.


But the only difference between tuning OTA and cable signals is the frequency mapping and the modulation scheme. Traditionally both the tuner chips and the demodulator chips could handle both OTA and cable. Maybe some more recent chipsets can't tune OTA frequencies or (more likely) can't handle 8VSB-encoded signals, but my point is that handling OTA shouldn't require adding more chips but rather just choosing the right chipsets, which shouldn't add a lot of extra cost.



BigJimOutlaw said:


> I do believe they'll continue to have SOME kind of OTA support.


I would certainly hope so.


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## rainwater (Sep 21, 2004)

L David Matheny said:


> but my point is that handling OTA shouldn't require adding more chips but rather just choosing the right chipsets, which shouldn't add a lot of extra cost.


That isn't true for the chips that TiVo uses in their DVRs. They are very specialized and require supporting decoding in the hardware chips themselves. TiVo can't buy an off-the-shelf tuner that would work with the lower powered CPUs they use.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

The chipset is also a limitation, and is the reason the 4 tuner units don't support analog cable. The chipset can only encode two analog streams at a time. So rather then deal with asynchronous scheduling of analog stations they just disabled analog completely.

Hopefully the next generation hardware will have a better chipset capable of supporting a wider range of tuner configurations. But I don't expect to see a new hardware platform for at least another year, so don't hold your breath.

Dan


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## hefe (Dec 5, 2000)

Teeps said:


> OTA is very good where available. My S3OLED was connected to cable and OTA until they changed the DTV frequencies. Now it's just cable.
> 
> "Cord Cutters" that brag about streaming; what will you do when the Internet provider throttles the connection or puts a meter on download data?
> The phone companies are already doing this...


Brag? That's a weird choice of words. I'm a cord cutter now, but was streaming before I left DTV. Nothing to brag about, it's just something I use to watch some shows and movies.

What will I do if/when I'm throttled? I'll watch less TV.


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## unitron (Apr 28, 2006)

Dan203 said:


> The chipset is also a limitation, and is the reason the 4 tuner units don't support analog cable. The chipset can only encode two analog streams at a time. So rather then deal with asynchronous scheduling of analog stations they just disabled analog completely.
> 
> Hopefully the next generation hardware will have a better chipset capable of supporting a wider range of tuner configurations. But I don't expect to see a new hardware platform for at least another year, so don't hold your breath.
> 
> Dan


I've got a feeling we aren't going to be seeing any new analog cable capable units in the future.

I'm sure the cable companies would like to see it go away.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

Well analog is left over from the 20th century. Digital is where it's at in the 21st. Plus it's more efficient and the cable companies have an easier time protecting their content. Over time the analog connections will be phased out from electronic devices too.

Sent from my HTC ReZound using Forum Runner


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

Unfortunately our cable company is not on that bandwagon yet. We still have about 35 channels that are analog only. Most have HD equivalents or are crap I don't care about (music stations or 24 hours news stations), but there are a few like Comedy Central, AMC and FX that have original programming I enjoy and can't get any other way.

Dan


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## lessd (Jan 23, 2005)

L David Matheny said:


> But the only difference between tuning OTA and cable signals is the frequency mapping and the modulation scheme. Traditionally both the tuner chips and the demodulator chips could handle both OTA and cable. Maybe some more recent chipsets can't tune OTA frequencies or (more likely) can't handle 8VSB-encoded signals, but my point is that handling OTA shouldn't require adding more chips but rather just choosing the right chipsets, which shouldn't add a lot of extra cost..


I would assume the OTA stations are far fewer than cable making the 4 tuner OTA not a must have product for most people, cable with what, 300+ useful channels and OTA maybe 16 in a big city five or six in other places.


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## zob (Mar 25, 2007)

lessd said:


> I would assume the OTA stations are far fewer than cable making the 4 tuner OTA not a must have product for most people, cable with what, 300+ useful channels and OTA maybe 16 in a big city five or six in other places.


I get about 45 OTA channels in the DFW aera, thats alot more than 16. Had cable & satellite, over half of it wasn't worth a flip IMO. I can only get analog cable were I current live. So the new tivo 4 channel won't work for me.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

zob said:


> I get about 45 OTA channels in the DFW aera, thats alot more than 16. Had cable & satellite, over half of it wasn't worth a flip IMO. I can only get analog cable were I current live. So the new tivo 4 channel won't work for me.


You get 45 separate channels or 45 channels including sub channels? If it's 45 separate plus the sub channels that is certainly a lot to choose from.

Sent from my HTC ReZound using Forum Runner


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## loganasu (Jan 17, 2005)

aaronwt said:


> You get 45 separate channels or 45 channels including sub channels? If it's 45 separate plus the sub channels that is certainly a lot to choose from.
> 
> Sent from my HTC ReZound using Forum Runner


Wouldn't that still come out to 45 channels to watch?


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

loganasu said:


> Wouldn't that still come out to 45 channels to watch?


It depends on how you look at it. The sub channels are still part of the main channel broadcast. I can record the main channel on a PC and all the other sub channels are still part of that frequency. They will all be recorded as well and can be separated out later.

Around here the sub channels are typically SD. I rarely watch SD. Even eleven years ago SD comprised lesss than half of what I watched from broadcast. Now(not counting upconverted Network content like Hells Kitchen), it extremely rare for me to watch any broadcast SD content.

Sent from my HTC ReZound using Forum Runner


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## S3-2501 (Jun 2, 2007)

aaronwt said:


> The sub channels are still part of the main channel broadcast. I can record the main channel on a PC and all the other sub channels are still part of that frequency. They will all be recorded as well and can be separated out later.


 You may be able to do this on a PC (I'd like to know how you do that) but a Tivo is not capable of doing this. Each program requires its own tuner, so recording a main channel and a sub channel would tie up a two tuner Tivo. The Tivo also records only the audio track that the Tivo is set to when the recording begins. So if someone wants descriptive audio, commentary-free sports or Spanish audio, that needs to be set before the recording starts.

The bottom line is that however you count the number of channels, there are plenty of ways that recording conflicts can occur on a two tuner Tivo receiving OTA broadcasts.


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## unitron (Apr 28, 2006)

Dan203 said:


> Unfortunately our cable company is not on that bandwagon yet. We still have about 35 channels that are analog only. Most have HD equivalents or are crap I don't care about (music stations or 24 hours news stations), but there are a few like Comedy Central, AMC and FX that have original programming I enjoy and can't get any other way.
> 
> Dan


One man's unfortunate is another man's "they haven't gotten around to screwing me entirely yet".


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## lessd (Jan 23, 2005)

zob said:


> I get about 45 OTA channels in the DFW aera, thats alot more than 16. Had cable & satellite, over half of it wasn't worth a flip IMO. I can only get analog cable were I current live. So the new tivo 4 channel won't work for me.


45 HD OTA channels to watch ?? WOW I guess i was incorrect, do you get stations like *Comedy Central*, the *History ch*. ect. In the Hartford CT area we get about 7 english HD OTA channels.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

S3-2501 said:


> You may be able to do this on a PC (I'd like to know how you do that) but a Tivo is not capable of doing this. Each program requires its own tuner, so recording a main channel and a sub channel would tie up a two tuner Tivo. The Tivo also records only the audio track that the Tivo is set to when the recording begins. So if someone wants descriptive audio, commentary-free sports or Spanish audio, that needs to be set before the recording starts.
> 
> The bottom line is that however you count the number of channels, there are plenty of ways that recording conflicts can occur on a two tuner Tivo receiving OTA broadcasts.


The information is typically there in the data stream when it's recorded. The program/device just needs to be able to use it. My HD recorder I used eleven years ago could view the sub channels with all my OTA recordings of the main channel.

ON the TiVo I can watch a recording and have audio choices when watching the recording, like descriptive audio. I have never looked at the alternate audio tracks on my Elites before. But I don't recall doing anything with those settings.


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## jgantert (Jan 24, 2008)

lessd said:


> In the Hartford CT area we get about 7 english HD OTA channels.


Looks like Hartford CT can get a lot of OTA channels.

http://www.tvfool.com/?option=com_wrapper&Itemid=29&q=id=9900fa942eadd6

25 are LOS alone, and that is before counting in subchannels. I would bet you can probably get 40 OTA channels, but that's just a guess without knowing anything about your location or DMA.

Anyways, there's tons of OTA content out there, but the current generation Tivo's can only tune to two subchannels at a time. This is a real limitation, IMO.


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## S3-2501 (Jun 2, 2007)

aaronwt said:


> ON the TiVo I can watch a recording and have audio choices when watching the recording, like descriptive audio.


How do you access this? On my Series 3 boxes, the Dolby Digital icon that is used to change audio tracks is completely absent from the program information display when viewing recordings.


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## steve614 (May 1, 2006)

jgantert said:


> Anyways, there's tons of OTA content out there...


That's subjective.
OTA is more like cable now that it is digital. 
Lots of channels, but only a few are worth watching. 
I'd say it's at about the same ratio as cable.


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## innocentfreak (Aug 25, 2001)

hefe said:


> Brag? That's a weird choice of words. I'm a cord cutter now, but was streaming before I left DTV. Nothing to brag about, it's just something I use to watch some shows and movies.
> 
> What will I do if/when I'm throttled? I'll watch less TV.


There are those that brag the same way some brag about not owning a TV.


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## danjw1 (Sep 13, 2005)

There is still the Premier, the four tuner versions are cable only. I wouldn't expect that Tivo would abandon the OTA market. They just aren't going to be giving you 4 tuner versions. I can certainly sympathize with those that choose to cut the cable, I don't care much for cable companies either. For the price of a Premier XL4, you can buy 2.6 Premier's. You can get the multi service on any more then one. Tivo is working on a device you can use without subscription to stream to additional rooms, as well. I can understand that it would be nice to have 4 OTA tuners and 2TB in a single device, but cable cutters are a niche market at this time. Some retailers still have some XLs (I only checked Amazon), so if you act quickly, you can get one of those.


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## plasmadrive (Aug 19, 2012)

atmuscarella said:


> My Premiere has significantly inferior OTA tuning abilities compared to either my TiVo HD or my original Series 3. Most of this summer one or more of my OTA channels have not been available on the Premiere but are on the TiVo HD and Series 3. I have given up that TiVo will fix the problem and have decided to just keep the other units running.


I have a Premier and I can tell you the tuner SUCKS! I have six TVs and only one with the Tivo. I can watch all the local channels on every TV but not the Tivo. I have even moved it to where one of the other TVs sits and used that connection but the Tivo still won't pick up half the stations.

As for the Netflix and Hulu Plus, it works but inferior to the Ruko I bought for $89. Slower, takes longer to update, loses data on a regular basis.

I was so disappointed with Tivo, whom I have always loved in the past.. They sold me a pile of crap.

Anyone want to buy my new hardly used Premier?


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## plasmadrive (Aug 19, 2012)

I have a Premier and I can tell you the tuner SUCKS! I have six TVs and only one with the Tivo. I can watch all the local channels on every TV but not the Tivo. I have even moved it to where one of the other TVs sits and used that connection but the Tivo still won't pick up half the stations.

As for the Netflix and Hulu Plus, it works but inferior to the Ruko I bought for $89. Slower, takes longer to update, loses data on a regular basis.

I was so disappointed with Tivo, whom I have always loved in the past.. They sold me a pile of crap.

Anyone want to buy my new hardly used Premier?


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## hefe (Dec 5, 2000)

I'm glad I got a good one.


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## lessd (Jan 23, 2005)

jgantert said:


> Looks like Hartford CT can get a lot of OTA channels.
> 
> http://www.tvfool.com/?option=com_wrapper&Itemid=29&q=id=9900fa942eadd6
> 
> ...


In Hartford CT you can't get the Springfield MA stations without a big antenna and correct positioning, but I have not kept up with OTA HD as i don't use it and you still can't get CNBC, the History Ch and many more. Your list had 5 CBS, 2 NBC, 5 ABC and 2 FOX stations, so I would get at best 14 stations having only only 4 different network programs, OTA is sure not for me or my family.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

S3-2501 said:


> How do you access this? On my Series 3 boxes, the Dolby Digital icon that is used to change audio tracks is completely absent from the program information display when viewing recordings.


While the recording was being played back I hit the info button and then selected the audio options at the bottom left. Then a menu came up with the audio tracks I could choose.

Of course not every channel or program has different options. I first tried it on a CNN recording which had no options. So then I checked CNN live, and there were still no options. I had to select a recording from another cable channel and it gave me the audio options while playing back the recording.



hefe said:


> I'm glad I got a good one.


Me too. I had six or seven Premieres running at one time and they were all fine with OTA. Now I'm only down to one Premiere(with a subscription) with an OTA tuner and it works great with my OTA channels.

If anything I would say the OTA tuner in my Premiere is better than my Toshiba and Samsung HDTV tuners. And also better than the tuner I have for my Boxee Box. Since the Premiere picks up a few more channels than all of those devices.


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## S3-2501 (Jun 2, 2007)

aaronwt said:


> While the recording was being played back I hit the info button and then selected the audio options at the bottom left. Then a menu came up with the audio tracks I could choose.


 Thanks for the information. I'm guessing that's a feature only available on a Premiere. Virtually all my OTA channels have at least one alternate audio track, but when I view recordings and press the info button as you described, I get no options to choose from other than accessing captioning and parental controls.


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## plasmadrive (Aug 19, 2012)

plasmadrive said:


> I have a Premier and I can tell you the tuner SUCKS! I have six TVs and only one with the Tivo. I can watch all the local channels on every TV but not the Tivo. I have even moved it to where one of the other TVs sits and used that connection but the Tivo still won't pick up half the stations.
> 
> As for the Netflix and Hulu Plus, it works but inferior to the Ruko I bought for $89. Slower, takes longer to update, loses data on a regular basis.
> 
> ...


When I went into chat support with Tivo.. here is one comment from the support personnel: 
"The TiVo has been known to degrade signal quality for antenna and cable channels."
So TiVo knows the tuner sucks.. they just haven't done anything about it.


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## plasmadrive (Aug 19, 2012)

hefe said:


> I'm glad I got a good one.


I doubt you got a "good one".. you got one that works for you perhaps.. but regarding the OTA Tuner.. I don't believe there are any actual "good ones". The tuners are inferior to even my little cheap D to A converter box..

OH.. and TiVo's original reason to me months ago for their tuner not working well.. "TiVo's tuner is more sensitive because it does so much with the signal than the TV".. 
Yup.. that was what the customer service agent without a clue actually told me.


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## hefe (Dec 5, 2000)

plasmadrive said:


> I doubt you got a "good one".. you got one that works for you perhaps.. but regarding the OTA Tuner.. I don't believe there are any actual "good ones". The tuners are inferior to even my little cheap D to A converter box..
> 
> OH.. and TiVo's original reason to me months ago for their tuner not working well.. "TiVo's tuner is more sensitive because it does so much with the signal than the TV"..
> Yup.. that was what the customer service agent without a clue actually told me.


I believe it's a good tuner. I get all my networks without a problem, and better than my previous tuner that I used on the same antenna setup. And 41 miles from the transmitters. (Attic antenna)

Sorry you didn't get a good one.


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## S3-2501 (Jun 2, 2007)

hefe said:


> I believe it's a good tuner. I get all my networks without a problem, and better than my previous tuner that I used on the same antenna setup. And 41 miles from the transmitters. (Attic antenna)
> 
> Sorry you didn't get a good one.


 There is no "good one" or "bad one" just good and bad receiving environments. A good receiving environment will make the Pemiere shine, while a bad receiving environment will reveal how it's a big step backward from its predecessor.

I think people are confusing tuner sensitivity with a tuner's multipath handling capability. High sensitivity allows a tuner to do more with a weaker signal, while multipath handling allows a tuner to deal with dynamic reflections of a signal that could be either weak or strong. The Premiere may be really good at detecting and displaying weak signals under ideal conditions, but add in any significant dynamic signal reflections and its performance tanks big time. There was speculation that the Premiere's multipath performance could be tweaked in software, but obviously if this is possible, it has not happened yet.

Because most OTA TV is broadcast on UHF frequencies, it is extremely prone to multipath problems and it doesn't matter how sensitive the tuner is if the presence of dynamic multipath reflections confuses the tuner.

Early tuners couldn't handle multipath at all. I live in an area that could safely be called multipath hell: Bottom of a hill, surrounded by trees and other houses, with frequent air traffic overhead. My first HDTV used to lock up whenever it was windy or a plane flew overhead. By the time we got to the series 3, tuners had improved dramatically, and some of the digital converter boxes are outstanding at rejecting multipath reflections.

Anyway, the Series 3 was the first tuner that allowed me to watch TV at my location without incessant breakups. In direct comparison, the Premiere failed the multipath test at my location miserably, while my Series 3 units, current TV tuners, PC tuner, etc. all continue to sing along just fine in such an unfriendly reception environment.

I'm in no way challenging anyone who touts the Premiere as working very well for them OTA, I'm just trying to point out that it's most likely working well for them because their receiving environment doesn't tax the tuner in any way that would reveal its faults.


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## atmuscarella (Oct 11, 2005)

S3-2501 said:


> I'm in no way challenging anyone who touts the Premiere as working very well for them OTA, I'm just trying to point out that it's most likely working well for them because their receiving environment doesn't tax the tuner in any way that would reveal its faults.


Unfortunately I agree completely


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## steve614 (May 1, 2006)

Me too.

It has to be a local reception issue.

I have an unsubscribed Premiere on a home made antenna like this:










And I get my OTA channels just fine.

Edit: I will say that the signal strength meter does register lower on the Premiere as opposed to the TivoHD I have on the same antenna, but I don't notice any appreciable difference in the reception.


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## seattlewendell (Jan 11, 2006)

atmuscarella said:


> You have no data to support that. I have a $2000 sound system, over $2000 TV (when I purchased it) and 3 HD TiVos and I do not have cable or Satellite. Over 90% of what I watch comes from OTA with the other 10% being blu-ray and streaming. Which is more than enough content for me - no need to pay for any more. Many people are starting to find cable/satellite a bad value and find OTA with some streaming services a better value while providing sufficient content for their needs/desires.
> 
> TiVo has enough data to know what is likely to make sense to develop. My guess is that without the cable companies they couldn't have developed the 4 tuner cable DVRs so I tend to believe we will not see a 4 tuner OTA one. However I do believe they will continue to support OTA with what ever ends up being their enter level DVR for a long time.
> 
> ...


Why don't you Google "cord cutting movement" and you will see the poster is correct in statement the movement is about saving money. Or you can just continue to think that you're the center of the universe, and that your situation is the rule and not the exception. That seems to be working out well for you thus far.


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## atmuscarella (Oct 11, 2005)

seattlewendell said:


> Why don't you Google "cord cutting movement" and you will see the poster is correct in statement the movement is about saving money. Or you can just continue to think that you're the center of the universe, and that your situation is the rule and not the exception. That seems to be working out well for you thus far.


If you have any real data go ahead and post it. All I no is no one has contacted me or any the other people I know that don't currently have pay TV to obtain information on why we don't have pay TV. Lots of people try to save money on lots of things just because someone isn't willing to spend money on pay TV doesn't mean they are unwilling to spend money on a good OTA DVR. I know plenty of people who cut coupons to save money on their food bills but they still are willing to spend money on going out to eat at good restaurants.

Until someone can prove otherwise, I will continue to think it is foolish to assume someone/everyone who isn't willing to pay for cable/satellite automatically isn't willing to pay for a DVR and isn't interested in a good DVR.


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## atmuscarella (Oct 11, 2005)

steve614 said:


> Edit: I will say that the signal strength meter does register lower on the Premiere as opposed to the TivoHD I have on the same antenna, but I don't notice any appreciable difference in the reception.


I have to believe there is no standard for signal meters. I have 6 devices with OTA tuners and other than my 2 Series 3 units none of them show very similar signal strength.


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## moedaman (Aug 21, 2012)

While I don't feel that Tivo will be abandoning the ota market soon. The recent deals with pay-tv providers show that it's not a market they consider that important. I'm sure the next-gen Tivo's will have an ota enabled model. It will either be a base model with minimal features or even a rebadged current-gen Premiere. Signing up with the pay-tv providers tells me that ota support days are numbered. Which is really too bad. Tivo was a prime example for people to cut the cord. But Tivo is probably making more money working with the cabelco's than they are by challanging the status quo.


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## moedaman (Aug 21, 2012)

atmuscarella said:


> Until someone can prove otherwise, I will continue to think it is foolish to assume someone/everyone who isn't willing to pay for cable/satellite automatically isn't willing to pay for a DVR and isn't interested in a good DVR.


I totally agree with you on this. Currently I have Dish Network, but I do have an ota usb tuner connected to a pc w/ Media Center. I was using it as a ota dvr before we signed with Dish 2 /12 years ago. I've had it for about 5 years now and still use it to record hd programs on local channels that Dish doesn't broadcast in hd. We also have a Panasonic DMR-EH75V dvd recorder that was used as a dvr before the digital transition was completed. It's currently used to archive shows from my 722K dvr. And of course there was the trusty vcr before that. Nearly a decade ago we also paid around $400 to get a roof top antenna installed. So I spent a decent amount of cash to record tv before we ever had pay-tv.

Now that are kids are doing their own thing, my wife and I have been thinking about dropping Dish to go back to the ota and streaming model (we have had Netflix for quite some time now). So I've been investigating to see which will work out better for us, Tivo or adding a couple of pc tuners. Once again we're willing to spend upfront to save in the long run.


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## jasew (Jun 12, 2012)

It's kind of interesting this debate on whether Tivo views OTA clients as valulable and that their focus is on cable/satellite subscribers. As an OTA Tivo user, I was actually surprised to hear that the primary market is within the cable/satellite community. I never would have guessed that.

I figure most cable users use the DVR from their provider. To get them to switch from that DVR to Tivo, you'd have to expose them to Tivo, demonstrate that it's superior, and convince them it's worth extra money on top of what they're already paying.

For instance, my dad is a cable subscriber with a Cox DVR which costs $10/month. If he were to switch to Tivo, he'd be paying $17/month (15 tivo + 2 cable card) plus the cost of the Tivo box itself. Even if you go the lifetime service approach, it'd take 6 years to break even on service costs alone. An extra $7/month seems like a lot just to improve your DVR experience. My dad has seem my Tivo and he finds it interesting, but not nearly enough pay more and switch from his current setup.

So from that perspective, I don't understand why cable people use Tivo unless they're rich or if their provider's DVR is utterly inadequate. I would've have thought the bigger market would be OTA people since Tivo is almost the only viable DVR option for them. Maybe it has to do with the fact that the majority of people still watch live tv.

I'm not disputing the cable market is bigger. I was just surprised to hear it.


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## Aero 1 (Aug 8, 2007)

i am a cable cutter going on 2 years now and i have enough disposable income to pay for tv, i choose not to because it is not valuable to ME and MY FAMILY. I have 3 lifetimed tivos, a 3k main tv with a 7.1 sound system, the issue for us was not about the money. 90+% of what we watch is OTA and now with a 15 month old, we had no time nor did it make sense to pay for tv. That was especially reinforced when i figured out how to watch MLB without blackouts. I will be looking at the tivo mini if they get the premiere tuner issue fixed and i will buy the tivo 5 if such thing comes out for ota.

the one upside of this for us is that our daughter will be raised without the temptation of commercials and kid marketing assaults that you see on Nick jr. at 15 months, she knows that netflix is where her backyardigans, barney and sesame street are and she can watch it anytime without the temptation of whatever super sugary drink or cereal is a must have.

The $150 i save from tv/internet (work pays for internet), goes to the college fund.


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## compnurd (Oct 6, 2011)

Aero 1 said:


> i am a cable cutter going on 2 years now and i have enough disposable income to pay for tv, i choose not to because it is not valuable to ME and MY FAMILY. I have 3 lifetimed tivos, a 3k main tv with a 7.1 sound system, the issue for us was not about the money. 90+% of what we watch is OTA and now with a 15 month old, we had no time nor did it make sense to pay for tv. That was especially reinforced when i figured out how to watch MLB without blackouts. I will be looking at the tivo mini if they get the premiere tuner issue fixed and i will buy the tivo 5 if such thing comes out for ota.
> 
> the one upside of this for us is that our daughter will be raised without the temptation of commercials and kid marketing assaults that you see on Nick jr. at 15 months, she knows that netflix is where her backyardigans, barney and sesame street are and she can watch it anytime without the temptation of whatever super sugary drink or cereal is a must have.
> 
> The $150 i save from tv/internet (work pays for internet), goes to the college fund.


How do you watch MLB without blackouts


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## L David Matheny (Jan 29, 2011)

seattlewendell said:


> Why don't you Google "cord cutting movement" and you will see the poster is correct in statement the movement is about saving money. Or you can just continue to think that you're the center of the universe, and that your situation is the rule and not the exception. That seems to be working out well for you thus far.


I'm sure many cord-cutters are motivated by the savings. But many also feel that a dozen or more OTA channels, including all the major networks, is sufficient, especially now that it can be supplemented by streaming. A lot of it is garbage anyway. How much more do you want to pay to move up to 150 channels of mostly garbage? And then there's the cable pricing structure. Someone isn't going to be OK with getting mugged just because he has a lot more money in the bank than in his wallet so he can afford it.


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## Aero 1 (Aug 8, 2007)

compnurd said:


> How do you watch MLB without blackouts


with unblock-us.com. $5 a month or $50 a year. its a dns service and it works great. it doesnt slow down your connection like vpn. It even gives me full access to the BBC iplayer and it allows you to pick which netflix streaming catalog you want, either US, UK, Ireland, canada.

you change the dns settings on the device like apple tv or on the router level so everything in the network has access to it.

here is a list of supported sites but these are mostly for people out of the country that want to access US based stuff. I only use it for BBC iplayer and MLB.

http://support.unblock-us.com/customer/portal/articles/291570-supported-and-unsupported-sites


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## rainwater (Sep 21, 2004)

atmuscarella said:


> Until someone can prove otherwise, I will continue to think it is foolish to assume someone/everyone who isn't willing to pay for cable/satellite automatically isn't willing to pay for a DVR and isn't interested in a good DVR.


I think it is also foolish to think TiVo doesn't know if it is economically feasible to continue supporting OTA. They know more than anyone if OTA users are willing to pay for a premium DVR. They have the data and are able to see where the trends are.


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## hefe (Dec 5, 2000)

GriffithStrife said:


> You know I don't want to come off as a ass but I know I am so sorry in advance.
> 
> I am so tired of cord cutters crying about Tivo not loving them, the whole point of cutting the cord is saving money, it would be stupid to invest in cord cutters for they are by definition not interested in spending money.
> 
> ...





atmuscarella said:


> You have no data to support that....
> 
> ...
> 
> The same thing people who purchase cable or Satellite want. Why would you think that the source of someone's TV changes what they want in a DVR?


Indeed. My reasons are primarily to save money. I cancelled DTV, bought a Premiere with Lifetime service, (not cheap) but in the end will wind up saving a lot of money. If I felt that the value I received was worth the money I was spending on pay TV, I'd have kept it. I'm not cheap for the sake of being cheap. I'm more concerned with the value I'm getting for what I use. And I didn't use much of the Pay TV channels. So why would I throw away money for no good reason?


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## unitron (Apr 28, 2006)

rainwater said:


> I think it is also foolish to think TiVo doesn't know if it is economically feasible to continue supporting OTA. They know more than anyone if OTA users are willing to pay for a premium DVR. They have the data and are able to see where the trends are.


Remember last fall the OTA only $10 per month Premiere deal?

I wonder how much response that got.


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## shwru980r (Jun 22, 2008)

If I had a 4 tuner Tivo, I'd still need 2 more Tivo's to share the content with 2 additional TVs. The 4 tuner tivo might resolve a few scheduling conflicts, but the cost isn't worth it to me. The 2 tuner Tivos find more programming than I have time to watch as it is. Plus, MRV works with all OTA channels, so I don't need streaming.


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## moedaman (Aug 21, 2012)

jasew said:


> It's kind of interesting this debate on whether Tivo views OTA clients as valulable and that their focus is on cable/satellite subscribers. As an OTA Tivo user, I was actually surprised to hear that the primary market is within the cable/satellite community. I never would have guessed that.
> 
> I figure most cable users use the DVR from their provider. To get them to switch from that DVR to Tivo, you'd have to expose them to Tivo, demonstrate that it's superior, and convince them it's worth extra money on top of what they're already paying.
> 
> ...


$10 for a dvr is on the low end of the cabelco spectrum. Is that a sd or hd model? I know that Comcast has HD DVR's for $16 - $18 per month, so going with a Tivo w/lifetime makes more sense. I've always considered Tivo's to be "luxury" products anyway. Same reason people buy BMW's when a Hyundai will get to where your going. And now, pay-tv providers are offering Tivo's to lease. The leased cabelco market looks to be the growth market for Tivo. Especially since Motorola and Cisco are making noises about leaving it.

When you're in bed with the cabelco's, why would you encourage people to be cord-cutters? To me, this is the reason why Tivo will eventually leave the ota market.


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## atmuscarella (Oct 11, 2005)

rainwater said:


> I think it is also foolish to think TiVo doesn't know if it is economically feasible to continue supporting OTA. They know more than anyone if OTA users are willing to pay for a premium DVR. They have the data and are able to see where the trends are.


I agree and have already posted: 


atmuscarella said:


> ...
> TiVo has enough data to know what is likely to make sense to develop. My guess is that without the cable companies they couldn't have developed the 4 tuner cable DVRs so I tend to believe we will not see a 4 tuner OTA one. However I do believe they will continue to support OTA with what ever ends up being their enter level DVR for a long time.
> ...


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## L David Matheny (Jan 29, 2011)

moedaman said:


> When you're in bed with the cabelco's, why would you encourage people to be cord-cutters? To me, this is the reason why Tivo will eventually leave the ota market.


If they're smart, TiVo will continue to serve both OTA and cable markets. Why not?


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## atmuscarella (Oct 11, 2005)

moedaman said:


> ...
> When you're in bed with the cabelco's, why would you encourage people to be cord-cutters? To me, this is the reason why Tivo will eventually leave the ota market.


It is kind of hard for me to decide what would upset cable companies more OTA DVRs or "Smart TV" features.

My completely no facts to support it guess is that the cable companies loose more money from having people using video rental service like Amazon/Apple/Netflix/Vudu etc than they do by people actually "cutting the cord".



L David Matheny said:


> If they're smart, TiVo will continue to serve both OTA and cable markets. Why not?


I would assume that TiVo will continue to support OTA only if it is profitable to do so. My guess is that if a Series 5 is showing up next year that it will have OTA support. After that who knows where the market will end up going.


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## moedaman (Aug 21, 2012)

L David Matheny said:


> If they're smart, TiVo will continue to serve both OTA and cable markets. Why not?


If Tivo becomes a major player in the leased stb game, selling ota dvr's is going against their own self-interest. Cable companies will buy a lot more devices than cord-cutters would.


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## jrtroo (Feb 4, 2008)

hmm- I think of OTA support as more of a hedge against a cable co deal eventually going south. They will direct resources that bring in the most revenue, but need to minimize future risk since there is competition in selling to the cable cos.


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## moedaman (Aug 21, 2012)

jrtroo said:


> hmm- I think of OTA support as more of a hedge against a cable co deal eventually going south. They will direct resources that bring in the most revenue, but need to minimize future risk since there is competition in selling to the cable cos.


An interesting thought. I don't want Tivo to abandon ota. And hopefully they won't.


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## jasew (Jun 12, 2012)

moedaman said:


> $10 for a dvr is on the low end of the cabelco spectrum. Is that a sd or hd model? I know that Comcast has HD DVR's for $16 - $18 per month, so going with a Tivo w/lifetime makes more sense.


You're right. I took another look at Cox's pricing. They seem to split their DVR services into two separate items. It's confusing. "DVR Service" is 9.99. "HD/DVR receiver and remote" is 7.99. The latter requires the former. I have no idea what you get if you get "DVR service" but no receiver. But assuming you need them both, the DVR service is actually $18. So with that pricing, a Tivo is basically the same price after including the cable card rental. Your only extra cost would be the box itself.


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## jrtroo (Feb 4, 2008)

I have seen comcast do this split as well. Not sure if they still do, but a "free" dvr box for a year was not HD, and HD was a $8 add on. Made it hard to compare apples to apples initially, but once I figured this out I ran away.


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## steve614 (May 1, 2006)

TiVo has the means to see exactly how many subscribers are using OTA. I'd be curious to know what the percentage is.
I don't think Tivo is going to abandon OTA anytime soon. I think they are just taking advantage of the opportunity they have with certain cable companies right now (with the hopes of gaining more).

Today's Premiere has the ability to tune 2 OTA channels, 2 cable channels, or one of each.
Since the current technology allows TiVo to cater to the cable companies, that's what they are doing. I'd bet TiVo could easily make a 4 tuner 'OTA only' Premiere if they wanted to.
I've long believed that TiVo has always wanted to work with the cable companies, so this doesn't surprise me. 
I suspect by the time the Series 5 comes out, it will have the technology to handle combined OTA and cable with 4 tuners.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

But will it be worth TiVo spending the extra money to create a box that has four OTA tuners and four cable tuners to cater to a small percentage of users? 

Between their agreements with the cable companies and the retail users, OTA is a small percentage of their market.

And their projections already estimate that the bulk of their growth over the next few years will be from cable companies. And the boxes for the cable companies won't have OTA. So will it be worth it for TiVo to create a completely different box than what they create for the cable companies for their shrinking percentage of retail users.

For me, I just want the next box to have six tuners. Then I can sell my two Elites and have two TiVo Minis as well as keep my two tuner Premiere for OTA only.. I should hopefully be able to get by with those. And I'll be able to get down to using just one cable card, saving even more in CC rental fees from FiOS.


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## buscuitboy (Aug 8, 2005)

I think also part of the reason the newer TiVos are digital cable only and don't offer OTA inputs is because cable companies & TiVo sort of secretly agreed to have it this way so it would NOT be an option for someone thinking of "cutting the cord". 

Cable companies saw this potential problem slowly growing so basically told TiVo to lose it or they won't play nice with them in the long term and could threaten their relationship. TiVo really needs them & didn't want to get in a tussle like they did with DirectTV years ago so they played nice and lost the OTA option for future Premieres.

I understand all the hardware related reasons too and I'm sure that played a factor as well, but this is just my little additional theory, but who truly knows the whole reason


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## tedrik (Jul 30, 2012)

steve614 said:


> TiVo has the means to see exactly how many subscribers are using OTA. I'd be curious to know what the percentage is.
> I don't think Tivo is going to abandon OTA anytime soon. I think they are just taking advantage of the opportunity they have with certain cable companies right now (with the hopes of gaining more).
> Today's Premiere has the ability to tune 2 OTA channels, 2 cable channels, or one of each.
> Since the current technology allows TiVo to cater to the cable companies, that's what they are doing. I'd bet TiVo could easily make a 4 tuner 'OTA only' Premiere if they wanted to.
> ...


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## L David Matheny (Jan 29, 2011)

buscuitboy said:


> I think also part of the reason the newer TiVos are digital cable only and don't offer OTA inputs is because cable companies & TiVo sort of secretly agreed to have it this way so it would NOT be an option for someone thinking of "cutting the cord".
> 
> Cable companies saw this potential problem slowly growing so basically told TiVo to lose it or they won't play nice with them in the long term and could threaten their relationship. TiVo really needs them & didn't want to get in a tussle like they did with DirectTV years ago so they played nice and lost the OTA option for future Premieres.
> 
> I understand all the hardware related reasons too and I'm sure that played a factor as well, but this is just my little additional theory, but who truly knows the whole reason


I hope you're wrong; I hope TiVo has more integrity than that. I guess we'll find out when the Series 5 comes out. If no Series 5 model has OTA capabilities, then it will be apparent that TiVo has indeed sold out to the forces of darkness. TiVo is small, and I guess it could be understandable that they might succumb to such extortion. But I hope they understand (as has been pointed out) that they need to stay in all their various markets and not set themselves up to be flagrantly screwed by dictatorial cable companies. They should also remember that the OTA market is growing.


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## zob (Mar 25, 2007)

moedaman said:


> I totally agree with you on this. Currently I have Dish Network, but I do have an ota usb tuner connected to a pc w/ Media Center. I was using it as a ota dvr before we signed with Dish 2 /12 years ago. I've had it for about 5 years now and still use it to record hd programs on local channels that Dish doesn't broadcast in hd. We also have a Panasonic DMR-EH75V dvd recorder that was used as a dvr before the digital transition was completed. It's currently used to archive shows from my 722K dvr. And of course there was the trusty vcr before that. Nearly a decade ago we also paid around $400 to get a roof top antenna installed. So I spent a decent amount of cash to record tv before we ever had pay-tv.
> 
> Now that are kids are doing their own thing, my wife and I have been thinking about dropping Dish to go back to the ota and streaming model (we have had Netflix for quite some time now). So I've been investigating to see which will work out better for us, Tivo or adding a couple of pc tuners. Once again we're willing to spend upfront to save in the long run.


I purchased the original Series 3 and a premium cost with a lifetime warranty at that time I was spending around hundred dollars per month for satellite, when I dropped it; it took me 10 months to recoup my investment. Within a year I was about $200 ahead. The units with a lifetime warranty do not cost that much anymore. For OTA you would definitely come out ahead dropping cable or satellite, using something like Netflix or Hulu Plus. 99% of the cable companies, Dish Network and DirecTV are very expensive options. If you watch a lot of TV and have about $12-$1400 a year to spend, it may be worth it to you; it's a personal choice every person needs to decide, since they pay the bill.


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## unitron (Apr 28, 2006)

zob said:


> I purchased the original Series 3 and a premium cost with a lifetime warranty at that time I was spending around hundred dollars per month for satellite, when I dropped it; it took me 10 months to recoup my investment. Within a year I was about $200 ahead. The units with a lifetime warranty do not cost that much anymore. For OTA you would definitely come out ahead dropping cable or satellite, using something like Netflix or Hulu Plus. 99% of the cable companies, Dish Network and DirecTV are very expensive options. If you watch a lot of TV and have about $12-$1400 a year to spend, it may be worth it to you; it's a personal choice every person needs to decide, since they pay the bill.


Lifetime warranty or Product Lifetime Service?


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## agredon (Jul 26, 2011)

Dan203 said:


> That's basically it. The Elite, XL4, and now Premiere 4 are simply ways for TiVo to monetize via retail something they developed for the cable industry.
> 
> There is also a technical limitation. The current generation hardware can not support more then 4 tuners. The standard Premiere has two OTA and two cable tuners, the XL4 has 4 cable tuners. That's all the mobo, and the case, can handle. I guess they could technically create a unit that has 4 OTA tuners, but I doubt there are enough cord cutters to justify it.
> 
> Dan


Since it has 4 Tuners (2 Cable + 2 OTA), it would be nice if we could use all 4 at once...instead of only 2 at a time. This would probably work almost as well as having 4 Cable Tuners, since pretty much any time I need more than 2 tuners, at least 1 or 2 of the shows I'm recording are OTA.


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## agredon (Jul 26, 2011)

lessd said:


> I would assume the OTA stations are far fewer than cable making the 4 tuner OTA not a must have product for most people, cable with what, 300+ useful channels and OTA maybe 16 in a big city five or six in other places.


You failed to consider that OTA stations typically all broadcast their best content at the same time (8-11 PM) and don't typically have encore presentations like many cable networks do. Cable stations give you alot more flexibility in when you watch [or record] a show. ABC Family for example will show certain popular shows at 8 PM, then an encore presentation at 10 PM, with another showing the following week at 7 PM. Plus, they'll run marathons a few times a year where they rerun all the episodes from the current half-season. OTA OTOH will run a show at 8 PM on a certain day and then if you're lucky maybe a rerun 3-6 months from now and that's if the show doesn't get cancelled before the end of the season, in which case there will probably NEVER be a rerun EVER.


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## agredon (Jul 26, 2011)

jasew said:


> I don't understand why cable people use Tivo unless they're rich or if *their provider's DVR is utterly inadequate*.


I highlighted and underlined the reason. Cableco DVRs are utter pieces of junk. Problems I've noted with Comcast's "HD DVR" [by no means an exhaustive list since I rarely use it]:

1) Can only record about 20 Hours of HD. That would mean it has a 120 GB hard drive, a drive so small I haven't seen one in the stores since about 2008. I couldn't believe it when I got Comcast in 2011, set up some season passes on their DVR, and the next day went to the list of shows and it said that it was 95% full. I now use it only for SD.

2) If you have multiple season pass recordings scheduled at the same time, it will not let you cancel more than one. For example, let's say I have 1 show at 9 PM, and 2 shows at 10 PM. Since it has 2 tuners, one of the shows will be marked as not recording due to conflict. For our example, let's say it's the 9 PM show. So, I look at the shows and realize I've seen both of the episodes at 10 PM. So, I cancel the first 10 PM show. The 9 PM show now goes back to "will record" as it should. But, if I try to cancel the other 10 PM show, it uncancels the first 10 PM show. Apparently, it can't tell the difference between a show that won't record due to a conflict and one I manually cancelled.

3) It lost its guide once [that I know of] and it took almost a full day to get it back, during which time I couldn't schedule anything to record.

4) I have never been able to get their online scheduler to work. When I first logged in, it said that I didn't have a DVR. it said this for a while, and then later on it "found" my DVR, but said that it had no recordings (it had plenty of recordings). Despite the shortcomings of TiVo's online scheduler, at least it works.

5) You cannot transfer recordings and watch them on your laptop. This is true of EVERY Cable or Satellite DVR I have ever seen. Only TiVo allows you the freedom to watch your recordings on your laptop and/or archive shows on your PC, unless you're unlucky enough to be stuck with Time Warner [who from what I've heard copy protect EVERYTHING so that you can't even use MRV, much less TTG.]

6) The box belongs to Comcast. You have to return it [losing any recordings you have] to Comcast if you ever leave them. I already went through this with Dish Network and Uverse. If you want to save your recordings to DVD [using a DVD Recorder,] you basically have to start 3 months ahead of time and be constantly recording shows onto DVD...just to get ahead of all the new stuff being recorded. Thankfully, about a month before I switched from Uverse to Comcast, I bought my TiVo and moved all my broadcast channel (CBS, NBC, FOX, ABC, CW) season passes over to it (using an OTA Antenna)...which sped up the process a little [as it reduced the number of new recordings each day on the Uverse DVR.]


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## Puppy76 (Oct 7, 2004)

lessd said:


> I would assume the OTA stations are far fewer than cable making the 4 tuner OTA not a must have product for most people, cable with what, 300+ useful channels and OTA maybe 16 in a big city five or six in other places.


I'm near a medium sized city, and have probably 12-14ish stations, and was CONSTANTLY recording more than 2 at the same time. Right now I wouldn't buy a new Tivo for that since I already have 3 tuners with my Tivo HD XL + Series 2, that more or less gets the job done, but this past season it was SUPER common for me to have 3 or 4 shows I needed simultaneously.

In fact I had to give up watching Supernatural (I'll rent it on Blu Ray instead) because it conflicted with...actually technically FOUR other shows, but one of those is rebroadcast. But still, I could use 4 tuners easily.


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## alex_h (Feb 10, 2004)

I have used OTA for HD for 10 years, with DirecTV for everything else, mostly because the first OTA HD tuner I bought on clearance supported DirecTV and decided to give it a try, and back in Boston, cable was horrible. I just cut DirecTV a week ago.

For us, DTV's fights with Viacom/Fox were a pain... she lost her shows, and while we have OTA HD, apparently the "season passes" I setup via the mobile scheduler were grabbing the DTV signal, so while the show came in, I just got "this channel is off the air." Off season, we used to watch lots of the crap on the "cable channels," but with a few kids, we just don't watch that much TV.

Does Premier's OTA tuner suck? I have no idea, my antenna is a dual bowtie I bought at radio shack 7 years ago, I get all the major AND minor networks, plus some strange ones like Ion that seems to just show a few shows in 8 hour blocks, kind of neat, we missed two seasons of Leverage (forgot to set back up the season pass after a hardware swap), and catching up there. I get all the networks I want, plus some stuff I didn't know exist. We're in South Florida, so most of the other OTA channels are Spanish language, no interest to us, but lots of programming.

My two AM-21s are for sale on Amazon.com.

I had lots of movie channels, then I got Netflix, and always had 3 DVD/BRs at home, and didn't need movie channels to try to DVR, I can only watch one at a time... I cut back to basic. Now with Hulu + OTA, what do I need DTV "content" for?

The DVR hardware was crap, when it broke, I lost all my programming, I had to schedule a technician to come out... totally aggravating.

I bought two premiers on Tivo.com Clearance for $100/each, I pay $28/mo to Tivo, $8/mo to Hulu when my 6 months is up, and $8/mo to Netflix (which I had anyway, we streams kids programming occasionally).

Why not Lifetime? I remember when Tivo was hot (and my ReplayTVs before that), new hardware came out, and you felt married to it for Lifetime. You can sell/upgrade, do an upgrade program, whatever. I had a 12 month commitment, plenty of content, and I can decide what to do then.

My biggest issue is the Tivo interface. I want Hulu/Netflix (at least Hulu) integration into My Shows. The Hulu/Netflix app take forever to load. My issue with the Apple TV was that I loved the interface, they didn't do Hulu (they opened it up the day after my Tivo's arrived), and I had to pick by content provider, not by content. Tivo's SEARCH is perfect, Tivo's My Shows (formerly Now Playing) is not. I LOVE that Tivo Suggestions caught a show, two clicks later I'm streaming older stuff on Hulu.

Just fix the My Shows so I don't have to launch Hulu/Netflix to see my Queues and it's PERFECT.

I wish Tivo was more "open." I can get ESPN3/WatchESPN for sports on my Comcast Internet feed. I just can't get it on my Tivo. I might buy a few Rokus or whatever to watch sports (note, @ $89 for the Ethernet top of the line one it's less than 1 month with Comcast/Dish/DTV) and other stuff. I'm not sure, but I'm pretty happy with my media choices and hardware choices.

I didn't want to go back to DirecTivo and the crippled Tivo. I don't need junk.

If I could get a USB BluRay player for my Tivo, I'd pay a pretty penny for it, just to ditch my awful BR's slow ass interface. But I can deal.

My wife told me my complaints were asinine. She is happy, she can stream from Netflix without switching inputs, remotes, etc. A few weeks ago, she had to turn on the DVD player, switch TV over, wait for it's slow interface to load, find the Netflix app, blah blah blah. Now she hits Netflix, waits 60 seconds for the queue to load, and she's all set.

I am disappointed that Tivo isn't "kicking ass and taking names" compared to the rest a few years ago, and Hulu seems to have some issues with stability, but the content is there, the price is great, and the lack of aggravation is better.


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## alex_h (Feb 10, 2004)

I'd like the multi-room viewing to be more fluid, not sure why I have to click on an icon and switch back to an SD interface to grab a show from the other room, seems kind of silly with my Gigabit network, but these are minor issues.


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## freerule (Jun 23, 2012)

Forgetting its s/w limitations, isn't TiVo's S3 significantly better in build quality than any other digital TiVo ever offered for sale?


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

freerule said:


> Forgetting its s/w limitations, isn't TiVo's S3 significantly better in build quality than any other digital TiVo ever offered for sale?


It was also supposed to be unsubsidized when it came out. It retailed for $800. It weighed a lot compared to my Elite boxes. But I'll take a Premiere any day over an S3. Although two of my s3 boxes from 2006 are still going strong.(I sold the other one) My girlfriend has two of the three S3 boxes I got in 2006.

Sent from my HTC ReZound using Forum Runner


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## Puppy76 (Oct 7, 2004)

I've got an HD XL and certainly wouldn't complain about build quality in the slightest. I mean it seems well built, mine's...3+ years old now I think, and going strong except for possibly a hard drive thingee a few months back.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

The original S3s where meant to be high end HT equipment. They had an OLED screen, which was rare at the time, a piano black case, a much nicer remote, THX certification, etc... They also cost over a grand with lifetime. Their only issue was that they required two CableCARDs. The M-Card specification was still being developed when they were released so only S-cards were available in the wild. TiVo tried to develop the unit so it could be upgraded via software to support a single M-card when they became available, but a last minute change to the M-card specification prevented that from ever happening. I think if that had worked the resell value of a S3 would be higher today. But because they require two cards, which carry a monthly fee, they're less attractive to buyers. 

Dan


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## atmuscarella (Oct 11, 2005)

Dan203 said:


> ...
> I think if that had worked the resell value of a S3 would be higher today. But because they require two cards, which carry a monthly fee, they're less attractive to buyers.
> 
> Dan


There also is the issue of not being able to self upgrade to a 2TB hard drive like you can with the Tivo HD & Premiere. Of course being able to buy a preconfigured 2TB hard drive now off ebay medicates that issue to some extent.

In any event in my opinion the original Series 3 is the best Tivo for OTA which might be their highest and best use at this point.


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## mattack (Apr 9, 2001)

Dan203 said:


> but a last minute change to the M-card specification prevented that from ever happening.


This seems to be more detail than has been said in other threads.

Do you know exactly the reason? Is it literally hardware as in the cablecard plug or wiring? That obviously isn't fixable. Is it firmware *in the cable cards*?

If it's any software on the Tivo, it would seem to be do-able, but from the other threads I got the impression it was pretty much impossible. (Sure, with enough software, even some hardware limitations can be worked around..)

Obviously it's never gonna happen, I'm just curious about more lower level technical reasons why it was either impossible or "really really difficult".


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## tenthplanet (Mar 5, 2004)

steve614 said:


> That's subjective.
> OTA is more like cable now that it is digital.
> Lots of channels, but only a few are worth watching.
> I'd say it's at about the same ratio as cable.


 Very true, out in here in L.A. once you factor out the weird low power stations, foreign language channels and shopping channels you are down quite a few channels. I'd would say the ratio is worse than cable.


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## freerule (Jun 23, 2012)

Dan203 said:


> The original S3s where meant to be high end HT equipment. They had an OLED screen, which was rare at the time, a piano black case, a much nicer remote, THX certification, etc... They also cost over a grand with lifetime. Their only issue was that they required two CableCARDs. The M-Card specification was still being developed when they were released so only S-cards were available in the wild. TiVo tried to develop the unit so it could be upgraded via software to support a single M-card when they became available, but a last minute change to the M-card specification prevented that from ever happening. I think if that had worked the resell value of a S3 would be higher today. But because they require two cards, which carry a monthly fee, they're less attractive to buyers.
> 
> Dan


Thanks for the concise overview. S3's requirement for an additional M-Card cost me $2.20 for two S3s. Their excellent digital tuners pull in all seven major Vancouver, BC OTA channels (50 miles away) with an indoor antenna.

As this is only my 3rd Forum post readers will have to Google the comparison chart link below to compare S3 with current Premiere DVRs:

www3.tivo.com/products/tivo-premiere/premiere-compare.html#tab

(then scroll down and click:)

Compare TiVo Premiere to older TiVo DVRs


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## jcthorne (Jan 28, 2002)

alex_h said:


> If I could get a USB BluRay player for my Tivo, I'd pay a pretty penny for it, just to ditch my awful BR's slow ass interface. But I can deal.
> 
> My wife told me my complaints were asinine. She is happy, she can stream from Netflix without switching inputs, remotes, etc. A few weeks ago, she had to turn on the DVD player, switch TV over, wait for it's slow interface to load, find the Netflix app, blah blah blah. Now she hits Netflix, waits 60 seconds for the queue to load, and she's all set.


This is exactly why there is not BR drive in the living room. I do rent BR from time to time but its ripped and pushed to the tivo for playback there.

All content under one consistant interface everywhere in the home. Much higher WAF.


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## ncbill (Sep 1, 2007)

Even before I dropped cable, Tivo saved me money.

Buying a used, single-tuner S2 w/ lifetime let me drop my cable package down to "broadcast basic" for $8/month (versus $50/month for 'extended' analog)

I bought whatever cable shows I wanted via Amazon.

Then I was lucky enough to win a TivoHD w/ lifetime, so when I bought my first HDTV nearly 5 years ago it was a simply matter to buy an antenna and drop cable.

Now I get the broadcast networks in HD for free plus I can still buy the cable shows I want from Amazon (HD, commercial-free)

Netflix for the kids, of course (though we all love Shaun the Sheep!)


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## desiboy (Oct 3, 2007)

Been on OTA since 8 yrs with just broadcast cable for internet. When I travel, I catch up with cable channels in hotels. I't is a pain to watch - high pitch screetching, ticker overload, and for the most part, trivial content. Broadcast channels have wide viewing and are more mature. Your quality of life may improve if you cut these off.


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