# Warning to Comcast/Xfinity customers



## RayChuang88 (Sep 5, 2002)

If you are using a TiVo HDXL DVR with Comcast/Xfinity digital cable, you need to know that Comcast _has_ announced the beginning of the nationwide rollout of MPEG-4 compression for all their HD channels (Sacramento, CA will switch over on September 8, 2015).

Because the TiVo HDXL does not decode MPEG-4, you will need to upgrade to a Roamio, Roamio Plus or Roamio Pro box, which does decode MPEG-4. I'm trying to decide to whether get an "official" Roamio Pro (3 TB) or an upgraded Roamio Plus from weaKnees (3 TB), which is US$130 less expensive.


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## mattack (Apr 9, 2001)

Is there a schedule for the rollout?

Hey, this will actually reduce the sizes of recordings by like 50%, right? (on average)


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## krkaufman (Nov 25, 2003)

RayChuang88 said:


> I'm trying to decide to whether get an "official" Roamio Pro (3 TB) or an upgraded Roamio Plus from weaKnees (3 TB), which is US$130 less expensive.


Amazon or Best Buy w/ price-matching is your current cheapest option for the Roamio Plus/Pro. See "Hot Summer Sale" for the base Roamio.


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## tarheelblue32 (Jan 13, 2014)

mattack said:


> Is there a schedule for the rollout?
> 
> Hey, this will actually reduce the sizes of recordings by like 50%, right? (on average)


I the real world it's probably going to be more like 30%, but yeah it should reduce the recording sizes.


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## ajwees41 (May 7, 2006)

RayChuang88 said:


> If you are using a TiVo HDXL DVR with Comcast/Xfinity digital cable, you need to know that Comcast _has_ announced the beginning of the nationwide rollout of MPEG-4 compression for all their HD channels (Sacramento, CA will switch over on September 8, 2015).
> 
> Because the TiVo HDXL does not decode MPEG-4, you will need to upgrade to a Roamio, Roamio Plus or Roamio Pro box, which does decode MPEG-4. I'm trying to decide to whether get an "official" Roamio Pro (3 TB) or an upgraded Roamio Plus from weaKnees (3 TB), which is US$130 less expensive.


could also do premiere if you want a cheap upgrade


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## CharlesH (Aug 29, 2002)

ajwees41 said:


> could also do premiere if you want a cheap upgrade


Which model is the "HDXL"? is it the Series 3 HD, or the Series 4 Premier XL?  I thought that the Series 4 (Premier) could handle MPEG-4.


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## krkaufman (Nov 25, 2003)

CharlesH said:


> Which model is the "HDXL"? is it the Series 3 HD, or the Series 4 Premier XL?  I thought that the Series 4 (Premier) could handle MPEG-4.


Series 3. (link)


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## NorthAlabama (Apr 19, 2012)

CharlesH said:


> I thought that the Series 4 (Premier) could handle MPEG-4.


they can.


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## krkaufman (Nov 25, 2003)

CharlesH said:


> Which model is the "HDXL"? is it the Series 3 HD, or the Series 4 Premier XL?  *I thought that the Series 4 (Premier) could handle MPEG-4.*


Earlier article indicates Series 4 units should be fine. (link)


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## scandia101 (Oct 20, 2007)

CharlesH said:


> Which model is the "HDXL"? is it the Series 3 HD, or the Series 4 Premier XL?  I thought that the Series 4 (Premier) could handle MPEG-4.


The Tivo HDXL is the Tivo HDXL and the Premiere XL is the Premiere XL. How is there any confusion?


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## scandia101 (Oct 20, 2007)

CharlesH said:


> Which model is the "HDXL"? is it the Series 3 HD, or the Series 4 Premier XL?


The Tivo HDXL is the Tivo HDXL and the Premiere XL is the Premiere XL. How is there any confusion?



> I thought that the Series 4 (Premier) could handle MPEG-4.


Nobody here said it couldn't.


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## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

Hopefully this means more HD channels. Although they're going to need a LOT of room for gigabit internet.


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## tarheelblue32 (Jan 13, 2014)

Bigg said:


> Hopefully this means more HD channels. Although they're going to need a LOT of room for gigabit internet.


They can always use SDV to free up more bandwidth.


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## NorthAlabama (Apr 19, 2012)

Bigg said:


> Hopefully this means more HD channels. Although they're going to need a LOT of room for gigabit internet.


i'm hoping they'll add more hd movie channels (hbo is _ok_), sundance hd, & tennis channel hd in our market, there's really no excuse.



tarheelblue32 said:


> They can always use SDV to free up more bandwidth.


noooooooooooooooooooooooo!


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## RayChuang88 (Sep 5, 2002)

I've read that there was consideration for actually adopting HEVC (H.265), but given that H.265 requires a *LOT* of computing resources at the set top box level, that was a non-starter.

I think what Comcast wants to do is use the new H.264 compression so they can fit in more 720p/1080i HDTV channels--possibly 35-40% more. Imagine all the HBO channels (regular, HBO2, HBO Family, HBO Signature, etc.) now coming to the home in HD.


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## FitzAusTex (May 7, 2014)

When Dish converted to mpeg4 about 5 years ago, recordings began taking up less than half as much space. Obviously didn't look as good, but truly wasn't terrible. And not arguing that they were great before the conversion to mpeg4.


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## CharlesH (Aug 29, 2002)

scandia101 said:


> The Tivo HDXL is the Tivo HDXL and the Premiere XL is the Premiere XL. How is there any confusion?


Sorry, I didn't know that the Series 3 HD had an "XL" variant. I thought that there was just the original Series 3 (with the OLED display) and Series 3 HD.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

RayChuang88 said:


> I've read that there was consideration for actually adopting HEVC (H.265), but given that H.265 requires a *LOT* of computing resources at the set top box level, that was a non-starter.
> 
> I think what Comcast wants to do is use the new H.264 compression so they can fit in more 720p/1080i HDTV channels--possibly 35-40% more. Imagine all the HBO channels (regular, HBO2, HBO Family, HBO Signature, etc.) now coming to the home in HD.


They probably want to free up space for DOCSIS 3.1. To implement it, along with much faster internet speeds, they will need to use much more of their bandwidth. Which wouldn't be possible if everything stayed at MPEG2 since it is already, pretty much, at capacity.


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## mattack (Apr 9, 2001)

FitzAusTex said:


> When Dish converted to mpeg4 about 5 years ago, recordings began taking up less than half as much space. Obviously didn't look as good, but truly wasn't terrible. And not arguing that they were great before the conversion to mpeg4.


"obviously didn't"? I thought the whole point of MPEG-4 was to take up "about" half as much space for the same human-discernible quality... Unless you mean that the _extra_ compression for "less than half.." was what caused the decline.


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## bicker (Nov 9, 2003)

Aren't Blu Ray discs MPEG-4 encoded?


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## RayChuang88 (Sep 5, 2002)

bicker said:


> Aren't Blu Ray discs MPEG-4 encoded?


Yes, Blu-ray discs use H.264 (AVC) or VC-1 encoding, mostly the former format. What Comcast plans to do with their _Enhanced HD_ service is switch all 720p/1080i HD channels from MPEG-2 compression to H.264 compression. Alas, that means my TiVo HDXL DVR has been rendered obsolete.  But I did order a TiVo Roamio Pro from Amazon.com (and should get it early next week) to replace my TiVo HDXL.


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## bicker (Nov 9, 2003)

I'm partially in the same boat (amazing how easy it is to break a metaphor)... I'm trying to decide what to do with my old Series 3, with its 1TB drive, now that I replaced it with a Mini.


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## lew (Mar 12, 2002)

mattack said:


> "obviously didn't"? I thought the whole point of MPEG-4 was to take up "about" half as much space for the same human-discernible quality... Unless you mean that the _extra_ compression for "less than half.." was what caused the decline.


You're mistaken. Equivalent quality will reduce the space by about 1/3. 50% reduction results in a quality reduction visible to many


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## lew (Mar 12, 2002)

bicker said:


> I'm partially in the same boat (amazing how easy it is to break a metaphor)... I'm trying to decide what to do with my old Series 3, with its 1TB drive, now that I replaced it with a Mini.


Your unit, particularly if you have LS, has some value. Great, low cost option for OTA. What you originally paid is, of course, irrelevant. You might net enough to offset the cost of your mini.


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## FitzAusTex (May 7, 2014)

mattack said:


> "obviously didn't"? I thought the whole point of MPEG-4 was to take up "about" half as much space for the same human-discernible quality... Unless you mean that the _extra_ compression for "less than half.." was what caused the decline.


Being 5 years ago, I can't exactly recall if Dish simultaneously compressed more while also moving to mpeg-4, but I think they did both, at least on some channels. The net result was that I was very happy with how much less each recording was filling upon my hard drive, while also bemoaning what I felt was a softer picture. At any rate, I adjusted to whatever picture quality I was getting, and still loved my hard drive filling up slower. Funny thing, to this day (or at least last year, when I switched to TWC and tivo), Dish continued to show available HD space based off mpeg-2, so I always had to remember that I had at least twice the available % that dvr said I had.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

I wish FiOS would switch everything to H.264. They started to chnage some things at one point but then stopped. So they are still at capcity right now. And to keep adding more channels they keep over compressing some of the channels that use MPEG2 instead of swicthign them to H.264.

Although I think one of the best things about the switch from MPEG2 to H.264 is that the recrodings take up less space. So no matter what your hard drive size is, you can get more recordings. Although I'm not sure how that works with the cloud storage on Comcast. My parents have an X1 box which has a 500GB drive. But they also have cloud storage for their recordings too.


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## andydumi (Jun 26, 2006)

Heh. I got the letter from Comcast but also an email from Tivo today that is headed: 
"A_____, you will lose many of your HD channels. Action needed!" 

But in the body it says: 

"Please note that this will not impact your TiVo Roamio&#8482; or TiVo® Premiere DVR. You will continue to get all your HD channels - no action is necessary."

I guess I am OK with our Premiere with a 2TB drive for now.


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## emfinlay (Sep 21, 2008)

Yet another problem for my Series3 with Lifetime. I suppose I can watch/record regular channels. At this point, lots of what I watch is Netflix, Hulu, or Amazon through the TV, not the Tivo.


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## RayChuang88 (Sep 5, 2002)

andydumi said:


> But in the body it says:
> 
> "Please note that this will not impact your TiVo Roamio or TiVo® Premiere DVR. You will continue to get all your HD channels - no action is necessary."
> 
> I guess I am OK with our Premiere with a 2TB drive for now.


That's because the Premiere or Roamio model Tivo DVR's can decode MPEG-4 (H.264) compressed video signals. My current TiVo HDXL can't, hence the reason why I have to replace my TiVo HDXL with a Roamio Pro.


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## tarheelblue32 (Jan 13, 2014)

emfinlay said:


> Yet another problem for my Series3 with Lifetime. I suppose I can watch/record regular channels. At this point, lots of what I watch is Netflix, Hulu, or Amazon through the TV, not the Tivo.


I suggest you sell it while it still has decent value and upgrade to a Roamio.


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## andydumi (Jun 26, 2006)

RayChuang88 said:


> That's because the Premiere or Roamio model Tivo DVR's can decode MPEG-4 (H.264) compressed video signals. My current TiVo HDXL can't, hence the reason why I have to replace my TiVo HDXL with a Roamio Pro.


Yep. I'd like to jump to a Roamio Pro for the 4 tuners as well, but I just can't justify the 2-300 dollars when the Premiere works fine. It saves about $20 a month over going with the Comcast DVR too.


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## krkaufman (Nov 25, 2003)

andydumi said:


> Yep. I'd like to jump to a *Roamio Pro for the 4 tuners as well*, but I just can't justify the 2-300 dollars when the Premiere works fine. It saves about $20 a month over going with the Comcast DVR too.


Roamio Pro has 6 tuners.

If you meant "additional 4 tuners (relative to a 2-tuner Premiere)," then you'd also want to consider the other benefits of the Roamio Pro technology leap: TiVo Mini whole home compatibility, built-in Stream for mobile/PC streaming, built-in MoCA bridge, Gigabit Ethernet, 3TB storage, RF remote.

Also, you *should* save nearly $22.50 per month, going with a TiVo rather than Comcast's X1 DVR -- totaling the X1 DVR, HD Technology Fee and $2.50 customer-owned equipment credit. That said, either TiVo solution, Premiere or Roamio, should save you money over Comcast's DVR, unless your bundle includes the X1 DVR for some period of time. That'll hurt (extend) the TiVo break-even point. What really accelerates the break-even is adding additional viewing locations, as Comcast's $9.95 additional outlet fee adds-up quite fast.


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## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

tarheelblue32 said:


> They can always use SDV to free up more bandwidth.


They seem to be absolutely opposed to SDV, but I think it is inevitable at some point if they are going to keep up with DirecTV on HD and 4k, AND offer gigabit internet.



NorthAlabama said:


> i'm hoping they'll add more hd movie channels (hbo is _ok_), sundance hd, & tennis channel hd in our market, there's really no excuse.


They're missing a LOT of HD channels. With SDV, they could offer them all. SDV isn't a terrible thing if they would just make it work properly. If they let TiVo do it via IP, it should work fine.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

Bigg said:


> They seem to be absolutely opposed to SDV, but I think it is inevitable at some point if they are going to keep up with DirecTV on HD and 4k, AND offer gigabit internet.
> 
> .......


That's what switching the current channels from MPEG2 to H.264 will do. It will free up a ton of bandwidth to accommodate the GigE speeds that are expected to be offered with DOCSIS 3.1. And it will also free up some space for more channels. But most of the freed up bandwidth will probably go toward internet usage.


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## tarheelblue32 (Jan 13, 2014)

aaronwt said:


> That's what switching the current channels from MPEG2 to H.264 will do. It will free up a ton of bandwidth to accommodate the GigE speeds that are expected to be offered with DOCSIS 3.1. And it will also free up some space for more channels. But most of the freed up bandwidth will probably go toward internet usage.


The H264 conversion helps, but it won't be enough long term. There are a lot of channels almost nobody ever watches that should be moved over to SDV to free up bandwidth for faster internet, more HD channels, and eventually 4k.


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## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

aaronwt said:


> That's what switching the current channels from MPEG2 to H.264 will do. It will free up a ton of bandwidth to accommodate the GigE speeds that are expected to be offered with DOCSIS 3.1. And it will also free up some space for more channels. But most of the freed up bandwidth will probably go toward internet usage.


If you do the math out, there is no way in hell that you can put over 200 HD's, 400 SD's, gigabit internet, and even a few 4K channels on an 860mhz system. Not going to happen without SDV. They could easily implement SDV for the 150 or so of those 200 HD's that barely ever get watched, and free up a lot of capacity.



tarheelblue32 said:


> The H264 conversion helps, but it won't be enough long term. There are a lot of channels almost nobody ever watches that should be moved over to SDV to free up bandwidth for faster internet, more HD channels, and eventually 4k.


Exactly. The math doesn't work out.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

Bigg said:


> If you do the math out, there is no way in hell that you can put over 200 HD's, 400 SD's, gigabit internet, and even a few 4K channels on an 860mhz system. Not going to happen without SDV. They could easily implement SDV for the 150 or so of those 200 HD's that barely ever get watched, and free up a lot of capacity.
> 
> Exactly. The math doesn't work out.


But who said they plan on offering all those HD channels? Their next step will probably be to get rid of most SD duplicates to free up space. But I haven't heard anything about Comcast offering anywhere near the HD channels that somebody like FiOS has. Using SDV will probably be a last resort for Comcast.


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## filovirus (Aug 22, 2013)

andydumi said:


> Yep. I'd like to jump to a Roamio Pro for the 4 tuners as well, but I just can't justify the 2-300 dollars when the Premiere works fine. It saves about $20 a month over going with the Comcast DVR too.


I think the experience with the Roamio hardware speed and responsiveness would justify the extra $ and less frustration with Premiere sluggishness.


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## filovirus (Aug 22, 2013)

Picture quality at Comcast has been a huge problem. Since I switched to Comcast a few years back from Dish, I was surprised at all the wasted bandwidth dedicated to analog and SD channels. NatGeo HD is over compressed badly. HBO/SHO and other premiums look decent, as I suspect they have contractual minimum bitrates.

In the age of Netflix, Amazon, and iTunes, I don't need hundreds of HD channels, but having great quality on a smaller number would be great. 

I hope they take picture quality over HD quantity to heart with their mpeg4 upgrade!


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## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

aaronwt said:


> But who said they plan on offering all those HD channels? Their next step will probably be to get rid of most SD duplicates to free up space. But I haven't heard anything about Comcast offering anywhere near the HD channels that somebody like FiOS has. Using SDV will probably be a last resort for Comcast.


Maybe they just won't bother competing with DirecTV. They've done this in the past, and lost a ton of customers as a result. Maybe they figure the channels are obscure enough that no one cares. My comment was that SDV is absolutely inevitable if they want to compete with DirecTV on both HD and 4k channel selection and offer gigabit internet.

SDV would solve a lot of problems, and give them nearly limitless capacity using less of the system's bandwidth, so that more would be available for internet. And tying it into TiVo at a software/IP level would avoid the TA issues that other providers have.

They could definitely cull some of the SD duplicates, but they have to leave expanded basic in SD MPEG-2 for the DTAs, as well as any channels that aren't available in HD.



filovirus said:


> I hope they take picture quality over HD quantity to heart with their mpeg4 upgrade!


Agreed. It's gotten better, while FIOS has gotten worse, but it's definitely not where it should be. Unfortunately, they will most likely try to cram 5 or 6 HD's per QAM with H.264, not the proper 4 channels per QAM to give the full quality equivalent to 19mbps MPEG-2.


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## steveliv (Mar 9, 2006)

My area (Augusta, GA) upgraded to MPEG-4 last November. I'm actually glad they did because my new setup (Tivo Roamio Plus and 3 Tivo Mini's) works a lot better than my old Tivo HD and rented Comcast boxes.


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## gtaylor (Jan 8, 2002)

I'm a bit confused here, but from reading this thread I think that I will be ok here (Sacramento) with my Premiere, but what about my Series 2 attached to a Comcast Motorola STB? Don't laugh, I can copy HBO and such to my PC from that one. 

Thanks for any advice.

gary

p.s. I haven't received any notice from either Comcast or TiVo, even though the top of this thread says that the change hits here in a few weeks.


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## lpwcomp (May 6, 2002)

gtaylor said:


> I'm a bit confused here, but from reading this thread I think that I will be ok here (Sacramento) with my Premiere, but what about my Series 2 attached to a Comcast Motorola STB? Don't laugh, I can copy HBO and such to my PC from that one.


One assumes that the STB is SD, so won't be affected.


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## HarperVision (May 14, 2007)

gtaylor said:


> I'm a bit confused here, but from reading this thread I think that I will be ok here (Sacramento) with my Premiere, but what about my Series 2 attached to a Comcast Motorola STB? Don't laugh, I can copy HBO and such to my PC from that one.  Thanks for any advice. gary p.s. I haven't received any notice from either Comcast or TiVo, even though the top of this thread says that the change hits here in a few weeks.


The only tuner that matters in your setup is the Motorola STB, not the TiVo because that is most likely hooked up via analog composite or S-Video. The mpeg4 that's being discussed will be decoded in the Motorola STB to one of those analog video formats before it ever hits the TiVo.


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## gtaylor (Jan 8, 2002)

Thanks, all.

I guess part of my unasked question was would the STB be ok.

gary


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## lpwcomp (May 6, 2002)

HarperVision said:


> The only tuner that matters in your setup is the Motorola STB, not the TiVo because that is most likely hooked up via analog composite or S-Video. The mpeg4 that's being discussed will be decoded in the Motorola STB to one of those analog video formats before it ever hits the TiVo.





gtaylor said:


> Thanks, all.
> 
> I guess part of my unasked question was would the STB be ok.
> 
> gary


As I posted, The STB is probably SD and thus will not be affected as they are only converting non-local HD channels. Local HD and all SD channels will remain mpeg2.


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## gtaylor (Jan 8, 2002)

lpwcomp said:


> As I posted, The STB is probably SD and thus will not be affected as they are only converting non-local HD channels. Local HD and all SD channels will remain mpeg2.


Thanks, but now I'm confused again. 

We are only SD, but we get HBO and such, so I am one of your "Local HD and all SD channels will remain mpeg2" channels, correct?

Thank, again.

gary


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## lpwcomp (May 6, 2002)

gtaylor said:


> Thanks, but now I'm confused again.
> 
> We are only SD, but we get HBO and such, so I am one of your "Local HD and all SD channels will remain mpeg2" channels, correct?
> 
> ...


I be completely shocked if you were really HD only. Your Premiere should be able to receive HD channels.

OTOH, the STB connected to the TiVo 2 is probably SD only. I know the one connected to mine is. That's OK since the S2 can't handle HD anyway.

Bottom line: Yes, you should be fine.


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