# Anyway to get Roamio cable box to use an hd antenna



## Mihat (Nov 4, 2017)

Cutting cord bought an OTA for back room using a Premiere for living room for OTA 
Is there anyway to get the livingroom Roamio cable box to use an hd antenna instead?


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## ThAbtO (Apr 6, 2000)

First of all, the Roamio is NOT a cable box. It is a full DVR which uses a cable card.

Second, You can use an antenna only if the model of Roamio is the 4 tuner model, not the 6 tuner. You would have the antenna installed, and then have to re-Run Guided Setup to reflect the change. NOTE: Guided Setup will not delete shows, passes that are already there. Passes will be adjusted to the proper channels if the shows appear there.

The same would be for the Premiere models, but the only difference is: the 2 tuner models are OTA capable AND Cable capable at the same time. The 4 tuner Premiere is not.


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## Mihat (Nov 4, 2017)

I don't doubt it but it makes no sense why they would cut out a digital antenna.
Of course Tivo has made more wrong moves then smart moves during their life.
I'm not new just forgot my old password and old email is no longer any good.
It has been more than a few years.


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## randywalters (Oct 21, 2003)

Mihat said:


> .... it makes no sense why they would cut out a digital antenna.


They make antenna models and cable-only models so there is something for everybody.

If you tell us the model numbers of your Tivos we can better answer your questions.



> I'm not new just forgot my old password and old email is no longer any good.
> It has been more than a few years.


You can contact a forum Admin and he should be able to restore access to your original account.


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## krkaufman (Nov 25, 2003)

randywalters said:


> They make antenna models and cable-only models so there is something for everybody.
> 
> If you tell us the model numbers of your Tivos we can better answer your questions.


Ditto both comments.


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## mattack (Apr 9, 2001)

Mihat said:


> I don't doubt it but it makes no sense why they would cut out a digital antenna.


Cable cards support up to 6 tuners per cable card typically. (IIRC, one of the cable companies does even more..) So cable Tivos have up to 6 tuners.

AFAIK, the off the shelf OTA Tuner technology that Tivo uses only has up to 4 tuners.. So if you had a combined box(*), you would have 6 cable tuners OR(**) 4 OTA Tuners. Which unfortunately is hard to explain to end users why their Tivo "got worse" when they cut the cord.

(*) Yes I know earlier Tivos were OTA/cable combinations. But they only had 2 tuners of each. (Unless I'm misremembering, but my brief skim through the wikipedia info didn't show me otherwise.)
(**) Yes, it would be awesome to have and/or.


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## mattyro7878 (Nov 27, 2014)

If you can live with 2 tuners, find yourself a nice used Premiere. I have 3 laying around


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## kpeters59 (Jun 19, 2007)

I have one with a 2tb drive in it looking for something to do.

-KP


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## Steevow (Nov 18, 2015)

randywalters said:


> They make antenna models and cable-only models so there is something for everybody.


As I reply to this zombie thread. 
So I have premier and it has two tuners. I used to have both cable and OTA connected and that worked fine.

I have a 4 tuner Roamio that has been running on OTA antenna. I just ordered a cable card and cable tv. 
But it seems that I lose my OTA when I sub the cable on my Roamio, which did not happen when I used a Premier with OTA and a cable card. Because the Roamio has one signal input and the Premier had two? 
This doesn't seem like progress to me.

Is there another Tivo that like my old Premier has two inputs and one can be OTA and one Cable with cable card?


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## pl1 (Jan 18, 2007)

Steevow said:


> As I reply to this zombie thread.
> So I have premier and it has two tuners. I used to have both cable and OTA connected and that worked fine.
> 
> I have a 4 tuner Roamio that has been running on OTA antenna. I just ordered a cable card and cable tv.
> ...


Newer than the Premier? Unfortunately, no.


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## krkaufman (Nov 25, 2003)

Steevow said:


> Is there another Tivo that like my old Premier has two inputs and one can be OTA and one Cable with cable card?


The 2-tuner Premieres were the last supporting that capability, simultaneous OTA and CableCARD recording.


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## Steevow (Nov 18, 2015)

It sounds like two tuner Premiers actually have four tuners, two for cable and two for OTA. Is that about right?


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## Steevow (Nov 18, 2015)

Maybe it's time to buy one of those Amazon Fire OTA DVRs.

I have four spare Premiers, none with current service. I guess I could swap out the Roamio for one of those. Seems so silly.


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## ThAbtO (Apr 6, 2000)

Steevow said:


> It sounds like two tuner Premiers actually have four tuners, two for cable and two for OTA. Is that about right?


No, that is wrong. The 2 tuners are shared. Either it records 2 OTA, or 2 from cable, or 1 from each.


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## JoeKustra (Dec 7, 2012)

Steevow said:


> It sounds like two tuner Premiers actually have four tuners, two for cable and two for OTA. Is that about right?


Does your TV have three? I have one coax, which lets my TV display OTA, analog and QAM (unencrypted). But I never think of it as having three tuners.


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