# Dual tuner OTA DVRs look like real competition to Tivo



## mr.unnatural (Feb 2, 2006)

I just saw this article posted at The Missing Remote:

http://www.missingremote.com/review/simpletv-and-tablo-showdown-free-over-air-tv-dvrs

The best thing I like about each of these dual tuner DVRs is that if you buy a lifetime subscription to the guide service you can add as many devices as you want without having to buy it for each unit. OTA seems to be something that's now only available on select Tivo models and it's missing from others. Either of these DVRs would be a nice supplement for any of the non-OTA Tivos. They'd also be a nice alternative to anyone looking to cut the cord without having to resort to a HTPC for OTA


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

A Dual tuner OTA DVR is so 2004. This is 2014, not 2004. I had a dual tuner TiVo in 2004 that recorded the ATSC OTA channels. Dual tuners don't cut it in 2014.


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## HerronScott (Jan 1, 2002)

I can see where the single lifetime option would be attractive to some. I'm surprised that in order to use them with your TV you have to own and go through another device (Roku, Chromecast, etc).

Scott


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## Banker257 (Aug 4, 2014)

aaronwt said:


> A Dual tuner OTA DVR is so 2004. This is 2014, not 2004. I had a dual tuner TiVo in 2004 that recorded the ATSC OTA channels. Dual tuners don't cut it in 2014.


The OP pointed out that you can add as many 2 tuner DVR'S without having to buy guide data for ALL of them.

Im not looking to cut the cord yet, but if i was I think it's a great idea!


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## eric102 (Oct 31, 2012)

So I would need 2 of these, plus 2 USB hard drives, plus an additional network device like a Roku just to equal what a single Roamio can do?


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## trip1eX (Apr 2, 2005)

Junk and hassle come to mind when I saw these things. And the price doesn't seem to so hot. $350 with lifetime. Then add a hard drive. I'm sure you can get a base Roamio for not much more and get a nice remote with it, 2 extra tuners and less hassle. And have some resale value.

Maybe I'm missing something. I guess you use Rokus etc as set top boxes? I guess that would save money.

But what is the experience like? They mention 10-12 seconds to tune in a channel. Ouch. What is using the software like? There's a big gulf between well you can do it and it does it well.


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## scandia101 (Oct 20, 2007)

eric102 said:


> So I would need 2 of these, plus 2 USB hard drives, plus an additional network device like a Roku just to equal what a single Roamio can do?


No you would just need one of these (the Tablo), one usb HD, and a Roku. Yes, it's more to buy and set up, but you get more for less.


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## scandia101 (Oct 20, 2007)

trip1eX said:


> I'm sure you can get a base Roamio for not much more and get a nice remote with it, 2 extra tuners


Tablo has a 4 tuner model.


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## mr.unnatural (Feb 2, 2006)

trip1eX said:


> But what is the experience like? They mention 10-12 seconds to tune in a channel. Ouch. What is using the software like? There's a big gulf between well you can do it and it does it well.


Channel changing speed should be irrelevant with regard to DVR use. I suspect that most HDTVs come with internal ATSC tuners so just anyone should be able to get live OTA TV without an external box. Besides, who channel surfs anymore? With a DVR you should always have something recorded to watch.

I didn't get a chance to read through the entire article. I posted the link when I read the part about the lifetime service deals. My daughter brought the grandkids over so I had more important things on my mind. I'll finish reading it later when they've gone.

Having to purchase multiple lifetime subs for every Tivo always stuck in my craw. It's the one thing that attracted me to HTPCs more than any other feature. I'll take free any day if it means sacrificing features I never use anyway. The DVRs in the article seemed like a viable and cost effective alternative to using Tivos for OTA recording. Bells and whistles are only important if you make them a priority. The one feature that's important to me is whether it will record my shows when I want it to and not miss anything I've scheduled. You need to get the basic functions right before worrying about any of the other stuff. Anything else is just icing on the cake.


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## atmuscarella (Oct 11, 2005)

In my opinion the more competition the better. For OTA DVRs there actually are several potentially viable options unfortunately no one has done a good enough comparison review to really help potential buyers out much. 

I would love to see a real review that actually tests the 4-5 OTA DVR options out there. The first thing they need to do is test reception in an area that has some OTA reception issues. Then a good discussion of usability and features. 

Of least impotence (in my opinion) is a price comparison which seems to be the main thing they all want to talk about. It is important for a potential buyer to understand what they will have to buy for a complete DVR setup (hard drives, viewing devices, service, etc.), but frankly prices change all the time and I would think most people have enough brains to figure out what alternative OTA DVR setups cost when they are actually buying one. If the reviewer did his/her job and really explained what you get and how each DVR setup works the buyer can easily decide what has value for themselves.


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## rainwater (Sep 21, 2004)

I would be wary of buying lifetime service from any company that doesn't have a long history of making DVRs. You may be stuck with a DVR with no ability to get guide updates any day after purchase. Simple.tv is a pretty cool solution for sure if you are into OTA. But honestly, OTA is a dying technology. I'm not sure how much I would invest in it at this point.


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## HerronScott (Jan 1, 2002)

rainwater said:


> I would be wary of buying lifetime service from any company that doesn't have a long history of making DVRs. You may be stuck with a DVR with no ability to get guide updates any day after purchase. .


I'm sure that some probably said the same thing about lifetime with TiVo when we first purchased lifetime service in 2000. 

I'm glad we took the gamble as it definitely paid off for us!

Scott


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## scandia101 (Oct 20, 2007)

rainwater said:


> I would be wary of buying lifetime service from any company that doesn't have a long history of making DVRs.


Lifetime for these DVR's is only $150 which is less than one year of monthly payments on a Premiere or Roamio Tivo.


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## mr.unnatural (Feb 2, 2006)

rainwater said:


> I would be wary of buying lifetime service from any company that doesn't have a long history of making DVRs. You may be stuck with a DVR with no ability to get guide updates any day after purchase. Simple.tv is a pretty cool solution for sure if you are into OTA. But honestly, OTA is a dying technology. I'm not sure how much I would invest in it at this point.


SiliconDust has been around for quite some time. They have a history of making HD tuners for use with Windows Media Center and numerous other DVR apps.

I'm not sure where you got the idea that OTA was dying because you couldn't be more wrong. There are a lot of people that are still old school and only rely on OTA for TV programming. The number of people cutting the cord is increasing all the time and more people are switching back to OTA for economic reasons.



atmuscarella said:


> In my opinion the more competition the better. For OTA DVRs there actually are several potentially viable options unfortunately no one has done a good enough comparison review to really help potential buyers out much.


Which is exactly why I posted the link.



> I would love to see a real review that actually tests the 4-5 OTA DVR options out there. The first thing they need to do is test reception in an area that has some OTA reception issues. Then a good discussion of usability and features.


Ditto.



> Of least impotence (in my opinion) is a price comparison which seems to be the main thing they all want to talk about. It is important for a potential buyer to understand what they will have to buy for a complete DVR setup (hard drives, viewing devices, service, etc.), but frankly prices change all the time and I would think most people have enough brains to figure out what alternative OTA DVR setups cost when they are actually buying one. If the reviewer did his/her job and really explained what you get and how each DVR setup works the buyer can easily decide what has value for themselves.


The price comparison was presented to show that these DVRs could be competitive with more expensive options like Tivo or a Media Center PC. Devices like Roku go on sale all the time for less than $50 and a Chromecast can be had for $30 or less. The lower cost is going to be the most attractive feature of these DVRs, IMHO.


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## Chris Gerhard (Apr 27, 2002)

I would buy a used TiVo with lifetime long before I would buy Simple.tv or Tablo. Better hardware, better software makes TiVo the only choice for OTA DVRs in my opinion. Boxee attempted the same thing but with cloud storage not long before these and it is already dead and gone. One or both of these will soon be dead and gone according to my crystal ball.

Rudimentary DVRs are silly when the premium necessary to own TiVo isn't great and over the long run, cost may actually favor TiVo if these products turn out to be the junk I expect time will show they are.

I do recall the warnings not to buy lifetime when I purchased my first TiVo in 2000, I ignored the warning and after 14 years of not paying a cent in monthly service for TiVo, I am glad I did ignore that. I would say don't buy one of these things but if you do, buy lifetime and take your chances.


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## trip1eX (Apr 2, 2005)

atmuscarella said:


> I
> 
> Of least impotence (in my opinion) is a price comparison which seems to be the main thing they all want to talk about. It is important for a potential buyer to understand what they will have to buy for a complete DVR setup (hard drives, viewing devices, service, etc.), but frankly prices change all the time and I would think most people have enough brains to figure out what alternative OTA DVR setups cost when they are actually buying one. If the reviewer did his/her job and really explained what you get and how each DVR setup works the buyer can easily decide what has value for themselves.


Yeah I'm all for paying less. But if I have to put up with hassles to save money then saving money is a hassle.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

TiVos big selling point is it's UI. They have even won Emmys for it. Most of these cheap OTA DVRs have terrible UIs. And sone are like DIY solutions where you have to add your own hard drive to be able to do anything more the just buffer live TV or use another device like a Roku to watch. These may be potential alternatives for hard core geeks, but I'd never consider giving anything like this to my Mom.


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## telemark (Nov 12, 2013)

I'm not disagreeing with Dan203, but I don't lump them all together. Cord Cutters tend to skew younger who are tech aware enough for the products to appear friendly to them. So the target market matches up.

Friendly:
Tivo
ChannelMaster
[Samsung]

Tech friendly:
Tablo
Simple.TV

DIY / Hard Core:
SiliconDust
Ceton
Hauppauge


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## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

These fill a great niche, but they don't have much affect on TiVo, as TiVo, by and large is a CableCard based DVR. Sure, they have one model that happens to support OTA, but that's not their business or their market. They move a few more units for people who want OTA, but they have never designed a unit specifically for OTA...


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## DancyMunchkin (Jul 7, 2014)

Bigg said:


> ... but they have never designed a unit specifically for OTA...


What features would a Roamio 'designed...specifically for OTA' have that the Roamio Basic doesn't already have?


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## slowbiscuit (Sep 19, 2006)

mr.unnatural said:


> Having to purchase multiple lifetime subs for every Tivo always stuck in my craw.


Might have been a sticking point in the past, but in the days of $174 lifetime Minis and 4/6 tuner Tivos it's really not an issue IMO.

Agree with others here, you get what you pay for. These DVRs are junk compared to Tivo or a decent WMC setup.


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## mr.unnatural (Feb 2, 2006)

slowbiscuit said:


> Agree with others here, you get what you pay for. These DVRs are junk compared to Tivo or a decent WMC setup.


I haven't actually seen one of these in person, but I'm inclined to agree with you. Chances are, however, anyone that's less tech savvy or knowledgeable about DVRs and also on a tight budget may tend to lean towards the less expensive alternative. It's not so much about getting what you pay for but paying what you can afford.


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## telemark (Nov 12, 2013)

Zatz gave a favorable review to Tablo.

http://www.zatznotfunny.com/2014-04/tablo-tv-review/



DancyMunchkin said:


> What features would a Roamio 'designed...specifically for OTA' have that the Roamio Basic doesn't already have?


Some combination of these:
- No CableCard
- 2 tuner
- lower hardware cost
- lower monthly fee
- the ability to get guide data OTA
- less restricted copy control


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## NYHeel (Oct 7, 2003)

mr.unnatural said:


> Channel changing speed should be irrelevant with regard to DVR use. I suspect that most HDTVs come with internal ATSC tuners so just anyone should be able to get live OTA TV without an external box. Besides, who channel surfs anymore? With a DVR you should always have something recorded to watch.


I don't watch much live tv but I'll flip over to Sportscenter or check out the occasional game that's on and sometimes I'll watch it for awhile. Typically if I realize that I'm watching it for more than a few minutes I'll hit record, but the point is that I do occasionally check out a little live tv.

Given that, having to switch inputs or devices to go from watching live tv to watching/streaming recorded shows seems pretty annoying and not very seamless. That's something that works well for a tablet or phone app but not the main TV. What about football Sundays when there are 2-3 games on and you're flipping back and forth between them. How is that going to work with these OTA DVRs that don't have direct hookups to the TV and don't work well with Live Tv.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

telemark said:


> Zatz gave a favorable review to Tablo.
> 
> http://www.zatznotfunny.com/2014-04/tablo-tv-review/
> 
> ...


That would be a step back from the Roamio. If they designed a unit specifically for OTA it would have 6 tuners and a built in Stream just like the Roamio Plus/Pro units. Unfortunately there isn't enough of a market for OTA only TiVos so they went with a hybrid design instead.


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## telemark (Nov 12, 2013)

Ok, now it's weird justifying choices for a non-existant product.

ATSC is universal and so can be sliced up into multiple market segments. 6 tuner ATSC + Stream is a way to target one segment. As is most of Tivo's current line which is "whole home" targeted, where Mini's can be used for additional rooms.

I was picking out another segment (as Tivo covers the other one well) and I was answering based on that Tivo neglects that low end OTA crowd.

Apartment dwellers.
Income strapped households
Low head count households.

Translates into price sensitivity, a low number of screens and eyeballs, and low aggregate content consumption.

Other companies, like ChannelMaster, chose to cut the tuners to 2 and be cheaper [only cheaper by lifetime total] to address this segment. A lot of my list was justified by the choices the other products adopted.

Cord cutters are more complicated because those were households that could afford cable, but switched away. There's some degree of being voluntary and include some affluent households.

Edit: Not saying Tivo's going to do this. They're clearly betting on Cable and International growth instead.


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## trip1eX (Apr 2, 2005)

telemark said:


> Zatz gave a favorable review to Tablo.
> 
> http://www.zatznotfunny.com/2014-04/tablo-tv-review/
> 
> ...


The reviewer liked it but sounded like he was comparing it to simple.tv and other non-Tivo networked tuner boxes and not to Tivo.

He only mentioned Tivo once in passing in reference to lifetime subscriptions.

And the 4 tuner Tablo is $430 list with lifetime without hard drive nor remote nor with any direct connection to your tv. A roamio base is only $600 list with hard drive, pretty nice remote and it hooks up directly to your tv - no other box needed. Not seeing a savings advantage there.

Dropping down to 2 tuners with Tablo saves you another $70, but Tivo has a cheaper 2 tuner Premiere although not sure if they still sell those new or not.

The real savings from a device like a TAblo would be if you had Rokus at your 2nd or 3rd or 4th tvs instead of Minis especially if you planned to have a few Rokus around anyway even if you had a Tivo setup.


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## mr.unnatural (Feb 2, 2006)

NYHeel said:


> I don't watch much live tv but I'll flip over to Sportscenter or check out the occasional game that's on and sometimes I'll watch it for awhile. Typically if I realize that I'm watching it for more than a few minutes I'll hit record, but the point is that I do occasionally check out a little live tv.


I do the same thing on occasion via my HTPC. Channel changing is quicker than the aforementioned DVRs, but it a bit slower than most STBs or even a Tivo. I don't find it to be annoying at all as I accept it for what it is. I guess it all depends on how much patience you have.



> Given that, having to switch inputs or devices to go from watching live tv to watching/streaming recorded shows seems pretty annoying and not very seamless. That's something that works well for a tablet or phone app but not the main TV. What about football Sundays when there are 2-3 games on and you're flipping back and forth between them. How is that going to work with these OTA DVRs that don't have direct hookups to the TV and don't work well with Live Tv.


I don't see how it's any different that switching inputs to watch a DVD or a Tivo. Any decent universal remote with macros can do it with one touch of a single button. Then again, I agree that having to switch inputs can be annoying, but only because I've gotten spoiled. That's why I switched to using a HTPC instead of Tivos and other devices like DVD and CD players. I can do everything from a single platform without having to switch inputs. I used to have a very complex setup where I had to switch multiple devices in a chain to perform one playback task so switching inputs isn't that big of a deal for me.

As for football, when two games are on at the same time I want to see I just record both games. I'll watch one for a complete possession and then pause it. I then switch over to the other game and repeat the process. This keeps the games at about the same length and mostly avoids any untimely score announcements for the other game. If you skip back and forth via live TV you end up missing a lot of each game. I record each game and wait until about 30-40 minutes after the start time so I can skip past all of the commercials. I'm usually caught up to live TV right around the 2-minute mark at the end of the game so I can catch that live.

Keep in mind that first and foremost we're talking about DVRs, not live TV tuners. There are lots of other choices for watching live TV if that's all you need.


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## trip1eX (Apr 2, 2005)

mr.unnatural said:


> I do the same thing on occasion via my HTPC. Channel changing is quicker than the aforementioned DVRs, but it a bit slower than most STBs or even a Tivo. I don't find it to be annoying at all as I accept it for what it is. I guess it all depends on how much patience you have.
> 
> I don't see how it's any different that switching inputs to watch a DVD or a Tivo. Any decent universal remote with macros can do it with one touch of a single button. Then again, I agree that having to switch inputs can be annoying, but only because I've gotten spoiled. That's why I switched to using a HTPC instead of Tivos and other devices like DVD and CD players. I can do everything from a single platform without having to switch inputs. I used to have a very complex setup where I had to switch multiple devices in a chain to perform one playback task so switching inputs isn't that big of a deal for me.
> 
> ...


You don't have to switch inputs to watch live tv on a Tivo or cable dvr so you are substituting one con for another by saying you can switch inputs to watch live tv instead of waiting 10-12 seconds for the channel to change.


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## telemark (Nov 12, 2013)

Every household has a different combination but real world examples there can be savings.

> And the 4 tuner Tablo is $430 list with lifetime without hard drive nor remote nor with any direct connection to your tv.
+$60 USB 500GB = $490
+$115 WD MyBook 3TB = $545

Alot of [Tivo] owners already also get Roku's so that would be $0 additional cost..
1st TV: +Roku IF you don't already have one ($40-$90)
2nd TV: +Roku IF you don't already have one ($40-$90)

> A roamio base is only $600 list with hard drive, pretty nice remote and it hooks up directly to your tv - no other box needed. 
+$130 Tivo Stream = $730
+$115 WD AV-GP 3TB = $845

2nd TV:
Tivo Mini + Subscription

There's $240 price difference at equivalence that grows as the Tivo's HD gets upgraded to something reasonable (now $300 difference) and more TV Mini's get added (difference between Roku and Lifetime Mini)


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

trip1eX said:


> The reviewer liked it but sounded like he was comparing it to simple.tv and other non-Tivo networked tuner boxes and not to Tivo.
> 
> He only mentioned Tivo once in passing in reference to lifetime subscriptions.
> 
> ...


Very few companies will actually target the low cost segment. The only way to make a profit down there is to make it up in volume and DVRs simply aren't a high volume item regardless of price/options. And given that only about 20% of the populace of the US even watches TV via an OTA antenna that makes the segment even smaller.

I think TiVo got the price down on the 4 tuner Ramio as low as they are willing to go. They also offer, or at least use to offer, a $9.95 OTA only service price. So for those truly cash strapped they could buy a Roamio basic for $170 and pay $10/mo to maintain service on it. That should be well within the budget of anyone with enough disposable income to buy a DVR in the first place.


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## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

Dan203 said:


> That would be a step back from the Roamio. If they designed a unit specifically for OTA it would have 6 tuners and a built in Stream just like the Roamio Plus/Pro units. Unfortunately there isn't enough of a market for OTA only TiVos so they went with a hybrid design instead.


Right, there isn't much of a market for an OTA-only tuner. The point is who they market it to, not what it is capable of.

However, it would be rather silly to make a 6-tuner OTA DVR. Not only is there a LOT less content available OTA, but there are really only 5 channels in most markets anyways, so the chances of even needing 4 tuners is pretty slim. 6 tuners makes a lot of sense when you have 70+ HDs coming in over cable.


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## trip1eX (Apr 2, 2005)

Bigg said:


> Right, there isn't much of a market for an OTA-only tuner. The point is who they market it to, not what it is capable of.


And then how about this other perspective.

A Hulu Plus sub is $8/month. And Tablo is $5/month for OTA guide data. Tivo is even more per month.


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## mr.unnatural (Feb 2, 2006)

I don't believe you can buy lifetime with Hulu so it shouldn't even be included in this discussion.

The amount of content via OTA varies with your location. I get over 40 OTA channels in my area, most of which are SD sub-channels, but there's a lot of HD content available. Consider what you get with each service and OTA has a lot to offer, depending on your viewing preferences, of course.

Cable has lots of the following:

OTA channels
Movie channels
Shopping channels
Religious channels
DIY channels
Cooking channels
Sports channels
Reality channels
History channels
Rerun channels
Etc.
Etc.

OTA has:

Local channels with network and local programming

Hulu has (for argument's sake):

Basically VOD reruns of OTA programs

Netflix has (again, for the sake of argument):

Lots of old movies and TV shows, but very little that is actually current.

Saying that OTA has a small market share is misleading when you consider how many people get it via cable or satellite. Cord cutters are rebelling against paying for channels they don't need or want, which is why so many are switching to OTA and the internet for content. 

I'd be curious to know just how many cable subscribers get basic service only. A lot of people do it in order to get lower internet rates with the bundled package. Many do it because they can't put up an outdoor antenna or they're in a fringe area with poor reception. Just because people don't get OTA only doesn't mean they don't watch the exact same programming on the same channels. They just get it via a different provider. Most providers transmit local channels in clear QAM so these DVRs would still work for them. In a sense, OTA isn't limited to households with an antenna on the roof.

One of the primary reasons I dumped DirecTV was due to the fact that they did not carry all of my locals. I get locals from two markets, but DirecTV only allowed me access to one of them, and even then they did not carry all of the channels.


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## trip1eX (Apr 2, 2005)

mr.unnatural said:


> I don't believe you can buy lifetime with Hulu so it shouldn't even be included in this discussion.


 Hulu+ provides lots of the content found on 3 of the big 4 networks which is the bulk of content available via OTA that most are interested in. It's missing content of course that is found on OTA but OTA is also missing content found on Hulu+.

NO lifetime but no $430 cost up front plus the cost of adding a hard drive to watch shows on demand either. Plus Hulu+ has no reception concerns.

It just seems to make the OTA market smaller yet.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

Bigg said:


> Right, there isn't much of a market for an OTA-only tuner. The point is who they market it to, not what it is capable of.
> 
> However, it would be rather silly to make a 6-tuner OTA DVR. Not only is there a LOT less content available OTA, but there are really only 5 channels in most markets anyways, so the chances of even needing 4 tuners is pretty slim. 6 tuners makes a lot of sense when you have 70+ HDs coming in over cable.


With sub-channels there are dozens of things on at any one time. Around here, one channel has ten sub-channels. They broadcast from two different towers with one supplying -1 through -5 and the other providing -6 through -10. With sub-channels it adds up to over three dozen channels from OTA in my area.

Now if I go to my GFs house there are even more channels for her to watch since she can get all of the Baltimore stations as well as the D.C. stations that I get.


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## mr.unnatural (Feb 2, 2006)

trip1eX said:


> Plus Hulu+ has no reception concerns.
> 
> It just seems to make the OTA market smaller yet.


What reception concerns? It's only a problem if your local cable provider doesn't offer a basic package for just locals, which most do. I know a lot of people that subscribe to this type of package just so they can get a price break on their internet service. When I had Comcast it was actually cheaper to get the basic package plus internet than get internet by itself. Locals are generally clear QAM channels so either of these DVRs should work fine for this type of setup.

Even in fringe areas it's much easier to get decent reception since broadcasters switched to all digital. You may get some pixelation or macro blocking if the signal is weak, but mostly you'll either get the channel or you won't.

Hulu makes you sit through commercials that you could otherwise skip. If you're into VOD type services then Hulu and Netflix are just what you want. There are very few old TV shows I haven't seen at some point and many of them are still syndicated on local channels so Hulu has zero appeal to me.

These DVRs are a niche product aimed at a small market. They do, however, offer freedom from pay services for anyone interested in cutting the cord and still wanting a way to record local and network TV programming. Prime time network TV shows still hold one of the largest viewing audiences on most nights of the week. The number of shows or series produced by the cable networks is growing, but the number still pales in comparison.


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## atmuscarella (Oct 11, 2005)

aaronwt said:


> With sub-channels there are dozens of things on at any one time. Around here, one channel has ten sub-channels. They broadcast from two different towers with one supplying -1 through -5 and the other providing -6 through -10. With sub-channels it adds up to over three dozen channels from OTA in my area.
> 
> Now if I go to my GFs house there are even more channels for her to watch since she can get all of the Baltimore stations as well as the D.C. stations that I get.


I agree, even in my small nowhere market (Rochester NY) I get 6 HD channels and a total of 14 that play "normal" TV shows (versus weather, religion, and marketing), and if I lived a little closer I would get 3 more "normal" TV channels, in all there are 27 channels.


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## mr.unnatural (Feb 2, 2006)

Bigg said:


> However, it would be rather silly to make a 6-tuner OTA DVR. Not only is there a LOT less content available OTA, but there are really only 5 channels in most markets anyways, so the chances of even needing 4 tuners is pretty slim. 6 tuners makes a lot of sense when you have 70+ HDs coming in over cable.


Well then slap me and call me silly because I _do_ have a 6-tuner OTA DVR  (I actually have 8 OTA tuners if you count the HDHomeRun Dual on my network plus nine cablecard tuners). During the regular season it's not uncommon to have anywhere from 4 to 6 OTA programs recording simultaneously, mostly due to overlap.

Depending on your location and market availability there are far more than 5 channels available via OTA. I'm probably more of the exception than the rule because I live close to two major markets (Baltimore and D.C.), but I get 48 OTA channels where I live. I get all five of the major networks from two different markets (ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox, and The CW) as well as multiple PBS stations, all of which are in HD. The remainder of the stations are mostly sub-channels in SD and about a dozen foreign language channels.

The level of "silliness" all depends on your situation. If you don't watch or have access to a lot of OTA programming then 6 tuners is probably overkill. I like that I never have to worry about scheduling conflicts by having more tuners than I need 95% of the time. It's that 5% that makes having them worthwhile.


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## trip1eX (Apr 2, 2005)

mr.unnatural said:


> What reception concerns? It's only a problem if your local cable provider doesn't offer a basic package for just locals, which most do. I know a lot of people that subscribe to this type of package just so they can get a price break on their internet service. When I had Comcast it was actually cheaper to get the basic package plus internet than get internet by itself. Locals are generally clear QAM channels so either of these DVRs should work fine for this type of setup.
> 
> Even in fringe areas it's much easier to get decent reception since broadcasters switched to all digital. You may get some pixelation or macro blocking if the signal is weak, but mostly you'll either get the channel or you won't.


We're talking OTA. HOw many channels you can get and whether you have ghosting or pixelation issues are reception concerns.



mr.unnatural said:


> Hulu makes you sit through commercials that you could otherwise skip. If you're into VOD type services then Hulu and Netflix are just what you want. There are very few old TV shows I haven't seen at some point and many of them are still syndicated on local channels so Hulu has zero appeal to me.
> 
> These DVRs are a niche product aimed at a small market. They do, however, offer freedom from pay services for anyone interested in cutting the cord and still wanting a way to record local and network TV programming. Prime time network TV shows still hold one of the largest viewing audiences on most nights of the week. The number of shows or series produced by the cable networks is growing, but the number still pales in comparison.


I'm just pointing out how Hulu+ is an alternative to an OTA dvr.


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## mr.unnatural (Feb 2, 2006)

trip1eX said:


> We're talking OTA. HOw many channels you can get and whether you have ghosting or pixelation issues are reception concerns.


Ghosting is no longer an issue with digital broadcasts. You can get as much pixelation on cable TV as you can get with OTA if the provider isn't sending out a clean signal. Don't even get me started on satellite TV issues.

The point being that OTA is available using an antenna or as basic service via your local cable provider. Reception issues can be fixed with the right setup. However, if your provider is sending you a crappy signal then there's not much you can do about it except call them and ***** about it.


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## trip1eX (Apr 2, 2005)

aaronwt said:


> With sub-channels there are dozens of things on at any one time. Around here, one channel has ten sub-channels. They broadcast from two different towers with one supplying -1 through -5 and the other providing -6 through -10. With sub-channels it adds up to over three dozen channels from OTA in my area.
> 
> Now if I go to my GFs house there are even more channels for her to watch since she can get all of the Baltimore stations as well as the D.C. stations that I get.


 But what content is on those channels? Is there anything there to write home about? IT's not like those other channels are the TBS's, or TNT's or AMC's or AE's of the OTA world.


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## trip1eX (Apr 2, 2005)

mr.unnatural said:


> Ghosting is no longer an issue with digital broadcasts. You can get as much pixelation on cable TV as you can get with OTA if the provider isn't sending out a clean signal. Don't even get me started on satellite TV issues.
> 
> The point being that OTA is available using an antenna or as basic service via your local cable provider. Reception issues can be fixed with the right setup. However, if your provider is sending you a crappy signal then there's not much you can do about it except call them and ***** about it.


You're missing the point. Hulu+ avoids reception issues, concerns, hassles, expenses, etc. That is one of its positives as an OTA alternative.


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## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

trip1eX said:


> And then how about this other perspective.
> 
> A Hulu Plus sub is $8/month. And Tablo is $5/month for OTA guide data. Tivo is even more per month.


That's a total Apples to Oranges comparison. Tablo is very compelling for OTA, both on price and functionality. It fits a market that doesn't watch much TV better than TiVo, just as TiVo fits the cable market better, where people are going to use their DVRs a lot more.



mr.unnatural said:


> The amount of content via OTA varies with your location. I get over 40 OTA channels in my area, most of which are SD sub-channels, but there's a lot of HD content available. Consider what you get with each service and OTA has a lot to offer, depending on your viewing preferences, of course.


Translation: there are 5 channels that anyone ever watches, and a ton of junk that is just sucking the bandwidth away from the main channels. Even accounting for 2 PBS channels that are on different schedules, that's 6 total. What's the chance that there's something on more than 4 of them at once? Pretty low considering how much of the good content has moved off of OTA anyways.



> I'd be curious to know just how many cable subscribers get basic service only. A lot of people do it in order to get lower internet rates with the bundled package. Many do it because they can't put up an outdoor antenna or they're in a fringe area with poor reception. Just because people don't get OTA only doesn't mean they don't watch the exact same programming on the same channels. They just get it via a different provider. Most providers transmit local channels in clear QAM so these DVRs would still work for them. In a sense, OTA isn't limited to households with an antenna on the roof.


None of them support Clear QAM (Tablo, Simple.TV or TiVo), and Clear QAM is no longer in many parts of the country. TiVo will at least display Clear QAM without guide data, unlike the other two, but at that point, if you're paying for the basic cable, just get a CableCard! TiVo's lack of Clear QAM support would only affect people who are stealing cable (like if they subscribe to internet, and the basic channels aren't trapped out).



aaronwt said:


> With sub-channels there are dozens of things on at any one time.


I.e. the 4 networks, PBS, and tons of garbage.



> Now if I go to my GFs house there are even more channels for her to watch since she can get all of the Baltimore stations as well as the D.C. stations that I get.


So 4 networks that are mostly the same and 2 PBSes.



mr.unnatural said:


> Well then slap me and call me silly because I _do_ have a 6-tuner OTA DVR  (I actually have 8 OTA tuners if you count the HDHomeRun Dual on my network plus nine cablecard tuners). During the regular season it's not uncommon to have anywhere from 4 to 6 OTA programs recording simultaneously, mostly due to overlap.


Of what?



> Depending on your location and market availability there are far more than 5 channels available via OTA.


The Big 4, PBS, and lots of junk. 6 tuners make sense on cable where there are lots of channels, but on OTA, 4 is more than plenty. 4 might be useful to catch stuff on the local news or something, but even then, that's a LOT for OTA.


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## mr.unnatural (Feb 2, 2006)

trip1eX said:


> You're missing the point. Hulu+ avoids reception issues, concerns, hassles, expenses, etc. That is one of its positives as an OTA alternative.


No, I got your point. Problem is, it has nothing to do with this discussion. We're talking about OTA DVRs that can record from ATSC or clear QAM signals. Streaming services are a completely different source of material.

Hulu gets you access to network programming, but you miss out on local news and any other local programming. You also have to sit through commercials, which is probably one of the primary reasons people like to time shift using a DVR.

Either DVR with lifetime will pay for itself over the long haul compared to using Hulu over the same period. Hulu will continue to cost you well after the DVR with lifetime has been paid off, assuming you're using an external antenna. Getting programs via basic cable will probably run you about the same as Hulu, but you'll still have the ability to bypass commercials. Reception issues are not as much of an issue that they once were. I get rock solid reception using an antenna. In fact, it's even better than what I used to get with Comcast or DirecTV. Obviously, YMMV.

Not having the ability to skip commercials is a deal breaker for a lot of us. I gain about 17-18 minutes for every one hour program by not having to sit through commercials. I can either enjoy more programming in the same amount of time or I can find more productive things to do with my life. If you choose to waste that time watching ads for products that are of no interest to you then that's entirely up to you. These forums are all about DVRs so pushing Hulu as a better source for TV viewing is a bit of a mystery and counterproductive to the reason for owning a DVR.


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## shwru980r (Jun 22, 2008)

I think the best deal for OTA would be to buy an older Tivo HD or a Premiere. I think you can find these for under $300 each online with lifetime service and the tivos are plug and play. No need to buy all the separate hard drives and rokus. You might be able to buy an unsubscribed tivo and get $99 lifetime service on it too. You could probably get 2 or 3 of these older Tivos for around the same cost.

The other thing that I think should be considered is the reliability of the guide information on these new OTA DVRs. If it doesn't record shows reliably it's junk. Are they going to let you return the DVR if you are simply dissatisfied with the guide data? I think it's a big risk to be an early adopter of a new DVR technology given the high cost.


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## mr.unnatural (Feb 2, 2006)

Bigg said:


> Translation: there are 5 channels that anyone ever watches, and a ton of junk that is just sucking the bandwidth away from the main channels. Even accounting for 2 PBS channels that are on different schedules, that's 6 total. What's the chance that there's something on more than 4 of them at once? Pretty low considering how much of the good content has moved off of OTA anyways.


You clearly don't like network programming, but there are a lot of others that feel differently. Once again, your opinion is in the vast minority. Look in the TV show discussion forum if you don't believe me.



> I.e. the 4 networks, PBS, and tons of garbage.
> 
> So 4 networks that are mostly the same and 2 PBSes.
> 
> ...


Real translation: You have no idea what we get in the Baltimore/Washington D.C. area with respect to local or network programming, but we're supposed to take your word as gospel? We get the 5 major networks from both markets (yes, Virginia, The CW is considered one of the big boys now) as well as at least 4 independent PBS stations. In addition, we also get about a dozen foreign language channels and a couple dozen or more sub-channels, most of which carry old syndicated programming or NOAA weather channels in SD.

Many of the syndicated shows are available only on the local sub-channels or via streaming services and are not currently aired on any cable channels I'm aware of. We also have major sports teams from MLB (two), the NFL (two), the NHL, the NBA, and even local sports as well as college sporting events, many of which are broadcast on the local channels. FYI, having duplicate channels for each of the major networks comes in handy when one of my regular shows gets pre-empted by a local sporting event, which tends to happen with U of Md college basketball games in prime time. I can usually pick it up on the weekend when they air it, but I prefer to keep it in my regular time slot whenever possible.

The ATSC standard allows for more than enough bandwidth to accommodate all of them so no bandwidth is being "sucked" by any channels. In fact, there's ample room in the frequency spectrum to add quite a few more channels to the lineup.

Your argument about the required number of tuners for anyone but yourself is ridiculous and completely irrelevant. Everyone has different tastes and viewing habits, regardless of what you think they should be. I'm personally not a fan of reality TV shows or Real Housewives, but lots of viewers feel otherwise. Why don't you tell them that they've been going about it all wrong all these years?


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## rainwater (Sep 21, 2004)

mr.unnatural said:


> The point being that OTA is available using an antenna or as basic service via your local cable provider. Reception issues can be fixed with the right setup.


Tell that to those of us in areas whose towers are blocked by mountains. The type of investment to get any type of reliable OTA reception is fairly large. And even then there are times of the year where it is almost impossible.


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## trip1eX (Apr 2, 2005)

mr.unnatural said:


> No, I got your point. Problem is, it has nothing to do with this discussion.
> 
> We're talking about OTA DVRs that can record from ATSC or clear QAM signals. Streaming services are a completely different source of material.
> 
> ...


You're missing the point still. You're acting like I am defending Hulu+ as the choice for all instead of OTA and a dvr. I'm not. Never went in that direction.

I only brought up the similarities between the major OTA content and the major Hulu+ content. And was just doing the math there that says a bunch of people are going to find Hulu+ to be a better option than OTA for their needs.

IT's relevant because the discussion wandered into the size of the OTA market and relevant because on-demand is basically what a DVR provides and relevant because of the discussion about the chances of these devices in the market place.

Hulu+ is a competitor in a roundabout way to this new crop of OTA devices and to an OTA Tivo.


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## mattack (Apr 9, 2001)

trip1eX said:


> NO lifetime but no $430 cost up front plus the cost of adding a hard drive to watch shows on demand either. Plus Hulu+ has no reception concerns.
> 
> It just seems to make the OTA market smaller yet.


But Hulu+ has unskippable commercials.

(I try to always "disclaim" that I use Comcast On Demand, even though I have a Tivo.. and some of those have unskippable commercials.. But some don't, and many that have tons of commercials initially end up turning into a version with few/no commercials later and/or go from unskippable to skippable commercials.... But Hulu+ does none of those "less bad" versions.)


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## trip1eX (Apr 2, 2005)

mattack said:


> But Hulu+ has unskippable commercials.


Yep commercials would be one of the cons. There are less commercials though than traditional network/cable tv. Not saying it is for everyone. But certainly there is some major overlap there in content and on-demand takes care of time shifting that dvrs are all about. Smells like a competitor to me. Not an obvious one though. Not a 100% direct competitor either. There are pros and cons to it compared to OTA.


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## mr.unnatural (Feb 2, 2006)

trip1eX said:


> Yep commercials would be one of the cons. There are less commercials though than traditional network/cable tv. Not saying it is for everyone. But certainly there is some major overlap there in content and on-demand takes care of time shifting that dvrs are all about. Smells like a competitor to me. Not an obvious one though. Not a 100% direct competitor either. There are pros and cons to it compared to OTA.


Commercials are _the_ major con. Aside from being able to time shift programs to watch them at your convenience, the primary playback feature of a DVR is the ability to skip commercials. This is the point I have been trying to get through to you from the start. Hulu may be an alternative source for programming, but only if you're willing to waste time watching commercials. If I've got to pay for the programming I damn sure don't want to have to sit through commercials on top of it. That's an absolute deal breaker in my case. Obviously, if that's not a major concern to you then go with Hulu.


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## slowbiscuit (Sep 19, 2006)

Commercials make pretty much any streaming service that has them a non-starter for me, although I've heard you can use PlayOn's Play Later service to download what you want and skip later.


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## NSPhillips (May 31, 2007)

aaronwt said:


> A Dual tuner OTA DVR is so 2004. This is 2014, not 2004. I had a dual tuner TiVo in 2004 that recorded the ATSC OTA channels. Dual tuners don't cut it in 2014.


I can't imagine wanting to watch enough OTA shows that more than two would happen to be on at the same time.

Of course, I can't guarantee that since with Tivo I really have no idea what time shows are on.


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## trip1eX (Apr 2, 2005)

mr.unnatural said:


> Commercials are _the_ major con. Aside from being able to time shift programs to watch them at your convenience, the primary playback feature of a DVR is the ability to skip commercials. This is the point I have been trying to get through to you from the start. Hulu may be an alternative source for programming, but only if you're willing to waste time watching commercials. If I've got to pay for the programming I damn sure don't want to have to sit through commercials on top of it. That's an absolute deal breaker in my case. Obviously, if that's not a major concern to you then go with Hulu.


 It's a competitor. No one said you have to like it. No one said I had to like it.


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## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

mr.unnatural said:


> You clearly don't like network programming, but there are a lot of others that feel differently. Once again, your opinion is in the vast minority. Look in the TV show discussion forum if you don't believe me.


I included the 4 networks plus PBS in my count of 5 OTA channels. The sub-channels are all junk that is rarely watched. That's why the subchannels are located way out of the way on cable systems, to the point where they're hard to find unless you are really looking for them.



> Real translation: You have no idea what we get in the Baltimore/Washington D.C. area with respect to local or network programming, but we're supposed to take your word as gospel? We get the 5 major networks from both markets (yes, Virginia, The CW is considered one of the big boys now) as well as at least 4 independent PBS stations. In addition, we also get about a dozen foreign language channels and a couple dozen or more sub-channels, most of which carry old syndicated programming or NOAA weather channels in SD.


Even if you somehow cook the books to count the CW as a real network, that gives you 6 total channels. Even with a few PBS stations that aren't quite fully duplicates of each other (I'll admit, I have SPs set up for WEDH and WGBH, since they get out of sync with other sometimes), that's maybe 8 or channels. The sub-channels are all bandwidth-sucking junk that should be taken off the air.



> Many of the syndicated shows are available only on the local sub-channels or via streaming services and are not currently aired on any cable channels I'm aware of. We also have major sports teams from MLB (two), the NFL (two), the NHL, the NBA, and even local sports as well as college sporting events, many of which are broadcast on the local channels. FYI, having duplicate channels for each of the major networks comes in handy when one of my regular shows gets pre-empted by a local sporting event, which tends to happen with U of Md college basketball games in prime time. I can usually pick it up on the weekend when they air it, but I prefer to keep it in my regular time slot whenever possible.


If they're not available on anything that anyone actually watches, apparently they're not very popular or important. If you have two channels, and use one to avoid sports programming, then you'd only need one tuner, just don't record the one that's going to be affected by sports!



> The ATSC standard allows for more than enough bandwidth to accommodate all of them so no bandwidth is being "sucked" by any channels. In fact, there's ample room in the frequency spectrum to add quite a few more channels to the lineup.


No it doesn't. Channels look best at 19mbps MPEG-2, although few stations actually send out a 19mbps channel anymore, as most have several bandwidth-vampire sub-channels that almost no one watches anyways. The sub-channels are coming from somewhere, and that somewhere is subtracting bandwidth from the main channel, which usually ends up at a crummy 12mbps or so. The OTA channels look better on some cable and satellite providers at this point, since they are getting fiber feeds that are less compressed, and apply their own compression that often not as bad as what the OTA stations are doing. OTA used to be the golden standard, now it's largely degraded.



> Your argument about the required number of tuners for anyone but yourself is ridiculous and completely irrelevant. Everyone has different tastes and viewing habits, regardless of what you think they should be. I'm personally not a fan of reality TV shows or Real Housewives, but lots of viewers feel otherwise. Why don't you tell them that they've been going about it all wrong all these years?


Very, very few users are ever going to need more than 4 tuners OTA, even with padding and live tv, since there just aren't that much channels to watch or record. With cable, when you have 60 or 70 or 100 or more HD channels, it's easy to occasionally need 6 or more tuners. Yes, viewing preferences vary widely, but the fact of the matter is that someone with 5 channels needs far fewer tuners than someone with 70. Even if you cook the books and start counting SD channels and sub-channels, the numbers are the same. You can get to 30 or 40 channels OTA, but by those criteria, comparing apples to apples, some cable systems are north of 400 channels, with most near or at the 300 mark...


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## atmuscarella (Oct 11, 2005)

Got to love it - a thread started about a simple & narrow topic (comparing OTA DVR Systems) turns into a debate about video content and video delivery systems, both of which are large and complex topics. Just to make my opinion very clear:

Ones opinion on the quality/quantity of the video content available via OTA has nothing to do with a comparison of OTA DVR systems and
Ones opinion of video delivery systems competing with OTA video delivery also has nothing to to with a comparison of OTA DVR systems.
That said I think I will make a few more comments - this all boils down to 2 things: video content and the systems used to deliver it. Both of which have to be paid for either directly by the person consuming the video or via some form of advertising/marketing or some combination of each.

We have lots of video delivery systems. 

OTA
Cable
Satellite
IPTV (Video on demand, AT&T U-Verse)
OTT (Netflix, Amazon, Vudu, Hulu, You Tube, etc., etc.)
Solid media (DVD/Blu-ray)
Public presentation (movie theaters, drive ins, etc.)
I personally use 1, 5, 6, & 7 and I am sure most people on these forums use more than one of them. How you pay for content and the delivery system is different for each. All of them except #7 require you to buy something upfront (at least a viewing screen) and all of them except #1 require some type of on going direct payment. Content can be on multiple delivery systems at the same or different times with wildly varying direct costs.

The reality is it would take pages of writing to explain and compare all these systems and their costs. Content is easier you either like it or you don't what anyone else thinks is irrelevant.


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## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

atmuscarella said:


> Just to make my opinion very clear:
> 
> Ones opinion on the quality/quantity of the video content available via OTA has nothing to do with a comparison of OTA DVR systems and
> Ones opinion of video delivery systems competing with OTA video delivery also has nothing to to with a comparison of OTA DVR systems.


The quantity of content and channels available affects the architecture and the number of tuners. With OTA, no one is going to make more than a 4 tuner DVR, because there isn't that much to record with it. Cable scales to 6, mostly because that's what CableCard can handle, but some users are going to want systems with 12 or 18 tuners, because with 100+ HD channels, there is more to record.



> [*]IPTV (Video on demand, AT&T U-Verse)


I have to nitpick here. VOD on HFC-based cable isn't delivered via IP. With few, if any exceptions, it is delivered by MPEG-2 QAM channels. FIOS is the only cable system that I know of that delivers VOD via IPTV, and of course U-Verse isn't cable in the first place.

And then you could blur VOD and OTT since some providers now have methods of getting their content through the internet. It's not really VOD, since it's not delivered directly to their box, and it's not really OTT either, since it's the same provider providing the content. Although I suppose you could access a cable provider's streaming options over U-Verse or Sonic.net internet or something.


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## trip1eX (Apr 2, 2005)

atmuscarella said:


> Got to love it - a thread started about a simple & narrow topic (comparing OTA DVR Systems) turns into a debate about video content and video delivery systems, both of which are large and complex topics. Just to make my opinion very clear:
> 
> Ones opinion on the quality/quantity of the video content available via OTA has nothing to do with a comparison of OTA DVR systems and
> Ones opinion of video delivery systems competing with OTA video delivery also has nothing to to with a comparison of OTA DVR systems.
> ...


Not sure why a discussion can't evolve. There is only so much to say about devices no one has used. What's left is to speculate about their chances in the marketplace and what the market really needs.


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## lessd (Jan 23, 2005)

atmuscarella said:


> Got to love it - a thread started about a simple & narrow topic (comparing OTA DVR Systems) turns into a debate about video content and video delivery systems, both of which are large and complex topics. Just to make my opinion very clear:
> 
> Ones opinion on the quality/quantity of the video content available via OTA has nothing to do with a comparison of OTA DVR systems and
> Ones opinion of video delivery systems competing with OTA video delivery also has nothing to to with a comparison of OTA DVR systems.
> ...


You nailed it as the DVR comparison is just for people using only OTA, the question of* if anybody should limit themselves to OTA for their DVR *has nothing to do with the two DVR comparisons, unless the OTA user may someday want go cable and wants the option of adding a cable card, then TiVo wins hand down.


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## mr.unnatural (Feb 2, 2006)

trip1eX said:


> Not sure why a discussion can't evolve. There is only so much to say about devices no one has used. What's left is to speculate about their chances in the marketplace and what the market really needs.


Making statements about how many tuners one should have and what channels they should be watching is not evolution. It's someone's opinion that keeps getting interjected under the assumption that we should somehow take it as the de facto standard we should all be adhering to.



atmuscarella said:


> Got to love it - a thread started about a simple & narrow topic (comparing OTA DVR Systems) turns into a debate about video content and video delivery systems, both of which are large and complex topics. Just to make my opinion very clear:
> 
> Ones opinion on the quality/quantity of the video content available via OTA has nothing to do with a comparison of OTA DVR systems and
> Ones opinion of video delivery systems competing with OTA video delivery also has nothing to to with a comparison of OTA DVR systems.
> ...


This. :up::up:


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## telemark (Nov 12, 2013)

> With OTA, no one is going to make more than a 4 tuner DVR, because there isn't that much to record with it.


There's already multiple 4-tuners and hardware costs only drop. ATSC's going to be around for a while.



atmuscarella said:


> Both of which have to be paid for either directly by the person consuming the video or via some form of advertising/marketing or some combination of each.


I relate to the desire to have a perfect spectrum, but I'm not convinced these perfectly fit into that:
BBC 
PBS
Voice of America
BitTorrent Piracy
YouTube

A future one not common yet is an Open Kickstarter model. People pay upfront for creation with the resulting work being freely distributed.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

NSPhillips said:


> I can't imagine wanting to watch enough OTA shows that more than two would happen to be on at the same time.
> 
> Of course, I can't guarantee that since with Tivo I really have no idea what time shows are on.


Just from the major networks alone I could be using four or five tuners concurrently. Then add the sub-channels and I could easily see six or more programs on concurrently during the Autumn, Winter, and Spring.


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## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

mr.unnatural said:


> Making statements about how many tuners one should have and what channels they should be watching is not evolution. It's someone's opinion that keeps getting interjected under the assumption that we should somehow take it as the de facto standard we should all be adhering to.


Realizing that by depending on what criteria you use, cable has somewhere between 8 and 20 times MORE content than OTA is very relevant to a discussion of OTA DVRs. Even if you take CableVision, Verizon, and Comcast's 15, 12 and 15, respectively, tuner DVRs as examples, and use the lowest content ratio, OTA DVRs with 4 tuners have more than double the number of tuners per channel available than the most extreme example on cable.

There is no reason for an OTA DVR to be built with more than 4 tuners. The market for that product is extremely small. And the vast majority of people who would record that much via OTA have cable anyways. Most people who have OTA have OTA because they don't watch much TV in the first place, so a reasonably priced 2- or 4-tuner DVR might appeal to them, but not anything more. And if someone really wants more, they can always get multiple TiVo Roamios or build an MCE box with a bajillion tuners.


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## trip1eX (Apr 2, 2005)

mr.unnatural said:


> Making statements about how many tuners one should have and what channels they should be watching is not evolution. It's someone's opinion that keeps getting interjected under the assumption that we should somehow take it as the de facto standard we should all be adhering to.


That's your problem though. You are reading the posts that way. They aren't being said that way.

It all comes from not really getting that some people are talking about the market as a whole and speculating on what type of features are really needed for it and using some basic math and reason to support their view. The same way any company would do when developing a product for a large market or at least the armchair version of it.

You are reading every post as if it is telling you what you must do and what you have to like.


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## mr.unnatural (Feb 2, 2006)

trip1eX said:


> That's your problem though. You are reading the posts that way. They aren't being said that way.
> 
> You are reading every post as if it is telling you what you must do and what you have to like.


Really? Go back and read post #44 by Bigg. All he does is declare that just about everything on OTA channels and their sub-channels is junk and that nobody could possibly need a lot of tuners to record it since there's nothing he considers worth watching.

It really isn't all that hard to interpret what he's saying. BTW, this isn't the first time he's preached this same doctrine so it shouldn't suddenly be that big of a surprise to you or anyone familiar with his track record (or should I say broken record?). 



Bigg said:


> Realizing that by depending on what criteria you use, cable has somewhere between 8 and 20 times MORE content than OTA is very relevant to a discussion of OTA DVRs. Even if you take CableVision, Verizon, and Comcast's 15, 12 and 15, respectively, tuner DVRs as examples, and use the lowest content ratio, OTA DVRs with 4 tuners have more than double the number of tuners per channel available than the most extreme example on cable.


The topic of discussion is OTA DVRs. Stating that cable has more content is overstating the obvious and is irrelevant to the discussion. Try and pay attention instead of going off on another rant.



> There is no reason for an OTA DVR to be built with more than 4 tuners. The market for that product is extremely small. And the vast majority of people who would record that much via OTA have cable anyways. Most people who have OTA have OTA because they don't watch much TV in the first place, so a reasonably priced 2- or 4-tuner DVR might appeal to them, but not anything more. And if someone really wants more, they can always get multiple TiVo Roamios or build an MCE box with a bajillion tuners.


Or they can build a HTPC with as many tuners as they like.  While it may not be economically viable to market a DVR with more than 4 OTA tuners, there may be instances where some people may want more than four. I happen to be one of them. Just because someone decides to go with OTA vs. cable has nothing to do with how much TV they watch. Lost of people are dropping cable and switching to OTA for economic reasons. Aside from a handful of channels I watch on cable, the vast majority of shows I watch are on network TV, and I watch a lot of TV. Lots of people are cutting the cord and are supplementing their TV viewing with OTA and streaming services like Netflix or even renting movies and TV shows on physical disc, although those numbers are probably dwindling rapidly.

There's a lot more content on cable. That also means that there's just a lot more crap that only interests select groups. I participate in the TV show forum all the time and wonder why so many people are interested in the vast amount of crap being broadcast on cable. But then, I stop and realize that not everyone has the same tastes as me so I overlook it and move on. You might want to give that a try sometime.


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## trip1eX (Apr 2, 2005)

mr.unnatural said:


> Really? Go back and read post #44 by Bigg. All he does is declare that just about everything on OTA channels and their sub-channels is junk and that nobody could possibly need a lot of tuners to record it since there's nothing he considers worth watching.
> 
> It really isn't all that hard to interpret what he's saying.


He never said nobody could possibly need alot of tuners.

That's you reading that into it.

And when he says junk he is just pointing out that not every channel is created equal.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

One person's junk is another person's gold. There are plenty of things on OTA that appeal to a wide range of tastes. While I might like one channel and dislike another. A different person might feel just the opposite about both of those channels.


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## tenthplanet (Mar 5, 2004)

You could have a six-tuner OTA recorder, but at that point you are splitting the signal six ways internally. At that point do you put in a preamp in the unit. With cable 6 tuners works but with OTA it may not work for everyone. 2 to 4 tuners may be more viable for more people.
That all being said, most of Tivo's competition I don't see surviving in the OTA market.


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## mattack (Apr 9, 2001)

trip1eX said:


> It's a competitor. No one said you have to like it. No one said I had to like it.


But I pointed out the commercials issue because, *because* of the commercials, for ME it is not a competitor for everyday use.

Note, I have used regular Hulu a couple of times. I appreciate its existence. I have also used at least one or two of the dedicated network apps for a very rare missed episode (or I think a few times when they put unaired eps of a cancelled show online)..

But for my everyday normal viewing, I want it without "regular" commercials. (I'm disclaiming that because, for me, product placement does not bother me anywhere near as much as it bothers other people.. Heck, in podcasts, when they do _live_ commercials.. they can be entertaining.. When they switch off to a canned commercial, I skip it like I do on TV.)


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## mr.unnatural (Feb 2, 2006)

tenthplanet said:


> You could have a six-tuner OTA recorder, but at that point you are splitting the signal six ways internally. At that point do you put in a preamp in the unit. With cable 6 tuners works but with OTA it may not work for everyone. 2 to 4 tuners may be more viable for more people.
> That all being said, most of Tivo's competition I don't see surviving in the OTA market.


I use a distribution amp in my system. It only boosts the signal enough to compensate for the loss due to splitting the signal. I've never been a fan of antenna boosters because they can sometimes make a bad signal worse. My setup has three Hauppauge 2250 dual ATSC tuners plus a SiliconDust HDHR Dual for a total of eight ATSC tuners. The 2250's are only used by my primary HTPC and not shared with other PCs on the network.

The HDHR rarely gets much use, but I installed it to complement the HDHR Prime cablecard tuner shared by three HTPCs. This allows viewing of local channels in the event that the three cablecard tuners are in use by the other HTPCs or one of the desktop PCs. The nice thing about having the tuners networked is that I can watch a ball game or any other TV show in a window on my PC while doing other things. I can use the HDHR tuners on any PC that has the software installed on it.



trip1eX said:


> He never said nobody could possibly need alot of tuners.
> 
> That's you reading that into it.
> 
> And when he says junk he is just pointing out that not every channel is created equal.


He's implying that nobody could ever need that many tuners because there's nothing but junk to record. That's me reading what's being posted.


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## lessd (Jan 23, 2005)

Again this Thread is not about how good or bad OTA is, it is about real competition to the TiVo OTA DVR, if one is an OTA (non cable) customer this Thread should help such a person make the decision about which DVR they should purchase, any discussion about the virtues or lack of for OTA should be for another Thread.


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## trip1eX (Apr 2, 2005)

mr.unnatural said:


> I use a distribution amp in my system. It only boosts the signal enough to compensate for the loss due to splitting the signal. I've never been a fan of antenna boosters because they can sometimes make a bad signal worse. My setup has three Hauppauge 2250 dual ATSC tuners plus a SiliconDust HDHR Dual for a total of eight ATSC tuners. The 2250's are only used by my primary HTPC and not shared with other PCs on the network.
> 
> The HDHR rarely gets much use, but I installed it to complement the HDHR Prime cablecard tuner shared by three HTPCs. This allows viewing of local channels in the event that the three cablecard tuners are in use by the other HTPCs or one of the desktop PCs. The nice thing about having the tuners networked is that I can watch a ball game or any other TV show in a window on my PC while doing other things. I can use the HDHR tuners on any PC that has the software installed on it.
> 
> He's implying that nobody could ever need that many tuners because there's nothing but junk to record. That's me reading what's being posted.


He never said nobody could ever need...you're reading that (absolute) into the post.

And even if he did say something like that, you really should be reading posts to understand the point the person is making and not harping on a few words (although granted it is easy to do sometimes.) His point is obvious if you know what is actually on OTA vs cable tv. Cable has alot more major channels and popular content than OTA and cable dvrs have 6 tuners max so by those standards there isn't a great need for 6 tuners on OTA.

Plus he also said an OTA customer can always buy another box if they need more tuners. This actually goes right in with the "pro" you mentioned in your original post. You don't have to pay for lifetime again if you get a second box.

And really he's only calling out those that say there are all these channels on OTA. Is that how we buy our cable tv packages? .....Just by number of channels and not what the actual channels are and what content they carry? No.

I think if anyone had a good counterpoint to his point they would point all the great channels available via OTA. But they aren't and probably because they can't because they (the really great channels) really don't exist.


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## trip1eX (Apr 2, 2005)

lessd said:


> Again this Thread is not about how good or bad OTA is, it is about real competition to the TiVo OTA DVR, if one is an OTA (non cable) customer this Thread should help such a person make the decision about which DVR they should purchase, any discussion about the virtues or lack of for OTA should be for another Thread.


I thought this thread was a news announcement? I didn't know it was a published guide to OTA DVRs.


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## trip1eX (Apr 2, 2005)

mattack said:


> But I pointed out the commercials issue because, *because* of the commercials, for ME it is not a competitor for everyday use.


Well no one was talking about you. Nor me.

And I think you can call things competitors even if you or I might not choose them right?

I mean some people would never choose a Mac over a pc. But they are competitors aren't they?

In this case Hulu+ doesn't let you skip commercials but it does have less commercials. And in exchange for having to watch commercials it does have the advantage of not having to setup any recordings nor store nor delete shows nor pay up fronts costs.

It has a backlog of content as well and a few extra channels like Comedy Central content. It doesn't have sports found on major networks nor local news and is missing one of the major OTA channels. However many can't get every major OTA channel with one antenna anyway. And many don't care about sports. Anyway it's a tradeoff there.

You don't think a good chunk of people might choose Hulu+ over an OTA DVR? Because that's the argument I'm making. It's enough of a competitor that a good chunk of the market would choose Hulu+ over an OTA dvr.


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## trip1eX (Apr 2, 2005)

aaronwt said:


> One person's junk is another person's gold. There are plenty of things on OTA that appeal to a wide range of tastes. While I might like one channel and dislike another. A different person might feel just the opposite about both of those channels.


VEry true.

but we aren't talking about any one random person.

And everyone knows that certain content and certain channels are more popular than others.

If your 27 OTA channels all have an audience of 1 except for the 4 major networks then why would anyone make a 6 tuner OTA dvr?

That's the point being made.


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## atmuscarella (Oct 11, 2005)

trip1eX said:


> ...
> You don't think a good chunk of people might choose Hulu+ over an OTA DVR? Because that's the argument I'm making. It's enough of a competitor that a good chunk of the market would choose Hulu+ over an OTA dvr.


In my opinion you are mixing apples and oranges. If someone is looking to compare OTA DVRs they have decided their video delivery source is going to be OTA. You are one step back from that at the much more global discussion of what video delivery system(s)/source(s) to use.

In that discuss there is no reason to limit the discussion to Hulu+ (OTT) & OTA, you would also add in cable, satellite, other OTT providers (Netflix, Amazon, Vudu, etc.), DVD/Blu-ray disks, and any other video delivery system/source you can think of. The reality is that the vast majority of people do not choose OTA so saying there are other alternatives is pretty much a given.


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## atmuscarella (Oct 11, 2005)

trip1eX said:


> VEry true.
> 
> but we aren't talking about any one random person.
> 
> ...


The reality is that if you are talking about commercial channels, then advertisers think allot more than 1 person is watching.

In my area I have 7 HD channels (ABC, CBS, CW, FOX, NBS, PBS, & Ion) 6 of which play new/original programing. I record from all 7 of the HD channels plus 2 SD commercial channels/networks (MeTV & GetTV), and sometimes the PBS sub-channels. How many OTA tuners someone wants/needs is a pretty personal thing and will have allot to do with how much overlapping they think they need to do. During the fall/winter/spring I regularly use 3 or 4 tuners without doing any overlapping protection, so for me 2 is not enough and 6 would be unnecessary. Oh and just for the record I have 12 tuners available.


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## mr.unnatural (Feb 2, 2006)

trip1eX said:


> VEry true.
> 
> but we aren't talking about any one random person.
> 
> ...


It's a meaningless point because nobody is promoting a commercial 6 tuner OTA DVR in this discussion. I'm pretty sure everyone would agree that there would be an extremely limited market for such a device. Two tuners are probably adequate for the casual viewer and four would lean towards the sweet spot for others. The topic of how many OTA programs are being recorded by some people carried over into a discussion of how many tuners some people use. It has nothing to do with the original topic. Same goes for OTA vs. cable vs. Hulu vs. whatever.


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## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

mr.unnatural said:


> Really? Go back and read post #44 by Bigg. All he does is declare that just about everything on OTA channels and their sub-channels is junk and that nobody could possibly need a lot of tuners to record it since there's nothing he considers worth watching.


My point is this. With OTA there are only about 5 channels in any given DMA that have much of any viewership. The subchannels have low viewership and are buried on cable systems because few people want to watch them. On cable, there are many more. Depending on how you slice and dice the numbers, it could be two or three dozen, it could be upwards of 100.



> It really isn't all that hard to interpret what he's saying. BTW, this isn't the first time he's preached this same doctrine so it shouldn't suddenly be that big of a surprise to you or anyone familiar with his track record (or should I say broken record?).
> 
> The topic of discussion is OTA DVRs. Stating that cable has more content is overstating the obvious and is irrelevant to the discussion. Try and pay attention instead of going off on another rant.


It's relevant in looking at the demand for DVRs with x number of tuners. The demand for tuners seems to be 4-6 tuners in the cable/satellite world.

Verizon and CableVision got into a pissing match because it was really easy for CableVision to increase the number of tuners on the Cloud DVR to absurd levels, and they compete against each other fiercely (on stupid features that few customers want anyways but sound good on radio ads) in the New York market. That spilled over to Comcast doing some software magic on their X1 system to support 3 DVRs because they compete with Verizon in greater Boston, Northern VA, and maybe a couple of other places. The result were the 15, 12, and 15 tuner DVRs on CableVision, Verizon, and Comcast, respectively.

So if you have real demand for 4-6 tuners on cable/satellite/telcoTV, and you reduce the amount of content available by 8-20x, and now are trying to sell to an audience that watches far less TV in the first place (hence why they don't pay for cable), anything over 4 tuners is going to be complete and utter overkill. Hence why the 6- or 8-tuner OTA DVR doesn't exist, and won't exist other than by building a custom HTPC.



> Just because someone decides to go with OTA vs. cable has nothing to do with how much TV they watch. Lost of people are dropping cable and switching to OTA for economic reasons. Aside from a handful of channels I watch on cable, the vast majority of shows I watch are on network TV, and I watch a lot of TV. Lots of people are cutting the cord and are supplementing their TV viewing with OTA and streaming services like Netflix or even renting movies and TV shows on physical disc, although those numbers are probably dwindling rapidly.


This concept is totally false. By and large, the people who are dropping cable don't watch a lot of TV in the first place, otherwise they would want to keep cable. Maybe some are doing it out of economic necessity, and miss the cable content, but that crowd also isn't going to want to drop $1000+ on a 6- or 8-tuner OTA DVR, so that they can record all 5 or 6 OTA channels at the same time. 2 or 4 tuners will be more than enough to appeal to this market.



trip1eX said:


> He never said nobody could possibly need alot of tuners.
> 
> That's you reading that into it.
> 
> And when he says junk he is just pointing out that not every channel is created equal.


Right. There's always "that guy". But no one builds hardware for "that guy", because there might only be a handful of them in the entire country. Even if there are a few thousand, a few thousand a market does not make. There *might* be a market for a 4-tuner OTA DVR like Tablo. Maybe. I hope so, since it's an interesting product. But there is no market for a larger/more expensive OTA DVR to appeal to a market that doesn't watch a lot of TV in the first place...



mr.unnatural said:


> He's implying that nobody could ever need that many tuners because there's nothing but junk to record. That's me reading what's being posted.


I'm saying there is no market for a DVR that has more tuners than there are mainstream channels available. The viewership of crappy looking SD subchannels playing old recycled content that few people want to watch, or worse yet, radar loops, which is what some of them are, is very, very small.



trip1eX said:


> He never said nobody could ever need...you're reading that (absolute) into the post.
> 
> And even if he did say something like that, you really should be reading posts to understand the point the person is making and not harping on a few words (although granted it is easy to do sometimes.) His point is obvious if you know what is actually on OTA vs cable tv. Cable has alot more major channels and popular content than OTA and cable dvrs have 6 tuners max so by those standards there isn't a great need for 6 tuners on OTA.
> 
> ...


Yup. That's pretty much spot on. The companies selling OTA gear that advertise "50 FREE channels" are just as bad or worse than the cable companies advertising "400 channels". Again, it depends on how you slice and dice the numbers, but there is a much wider variety of content, and more content that people actually want to watch in any random selection of 50 of those 400 cable channels than there is on OTA.

There is a market for OTA for people who are happy with just the big 4 and PBS and *maybe* the CW, casually watch a few shows, don't feel that TV is worth giving up entirely, but also don't feel that cable is worth the price, and aren't upset to miss out on some shows that are only on cable. That's also a market for people who are more than happy with a 4-tuner DVR, and probably a 2-tuner DVR for that matter...


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## mr.unnatural (Feb 2, 2006)

Posting a long diatribe about this and that probably makes you feel better, but what has any of it got to do with the original article? You guys have gone completely off the reservation. It's a comparison of two dual tuner OTA DVRs, period. Whether they've got more than two tuners that nobody needs or if they're being used to record content you don't like to watch has no bearing on the discussion.

Get with the program, willya? 

FYI, I've found content on several local sub-channels that I've been unable to find anywhere else. It happened to be programming that I had been looking for for quite some time. To this day I have yet to find it broadcast on any other channels, including cable.

The point being, rather than blowing off sub-channels as having no relevant content, you might actually find it contains some real gems if you take the time to look, even if they're broadcast in SD.


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## telemark (Nov 12, 2013)

Bigg said:


> Verizon and CableVision got into a pissing match because it was really easy for CableVision to increase the number of tuners on the Cloud DVR to absurd levels


Why isn't CableVision a 50 or 100 tuner DVR?



mr.unnatural said:


> The point being, rather than blowing off sub-channels as having no relevant content, you might actually find it contains some real gems if you take the time to look, even if they're broadcast in SD.


Alot (if not most) here actually can't because the 2-tuner Premiere was the last one to let you have your MTV and OTA.


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## mr.unnatural (Feb 2, 2006)

telemark said:


> Alot (if not most) here actually can't because the 2-tuner Premiere was the last one to let you have your MTV and OTA.


That's a Tivo issue. Not everyone uses Tivos to watch or record TV. I have no problem accessing sub-channels with any of my ATSC tuners in WMC.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

mr.unnatural said:


> That's a Tivo issue. Not everyone uses Tivos to watch or record TV. I have no problem accessing sub-channels with any of my ATSC tuners in WMC.


I also have no problems here accessing ATSC subchannels with my Roamio Basic. Or with my old two tuner Premiere.


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## mr.unnatural (Feb 2, 2006)

trip1eX said:


> I think if anyone had a good counterpoint to his point they would point all the great channels available via OTA. But they aren't and probably because they can't because they (the really great channels) really don't exist.


And what exactly defines these "really great channels" other than someone's personal opinion? What you might think of as great I might consider crap and vice versa. Everyone has their own tastes in TV programming. I can think of a lot of great shows scattered about on various channels but I can't think of any one single channel that I consider to be great. Network show lineups vary so much that it's hard to pin one down as being the best, although it's probably much easier to determine which ones have gotten worse. Cable channels are such a mixed bad as many of them only have one or two series that they produce themselves that stand out.

Just for the sake of argument, I've attached a printout of all of the channels potentially available from my residence in Maryland as determined by TV Fool. I say potential because some of them are in fringe areas that would require a much larger antenna to receive them than I currently employ. Total number of primary digital channels (not including sub-channels) is 51. Subtract the five extreme fringe channels from the list and that brings the total to 46 channels I could actually receive with a reasonably sized antenna (again, not including any sub-channels).

In reality, I only keep 18 of these channels in my guide listings and block out the rest, even though many of them are available. If I include the sub-channels for the channels I keep then the list expands to over 40 channels that I can view. Some of the omitted channels would still require a larger antenna as they are outside of my current reception range, but it wouldn't take a much larger antenna to receive them. I just don't have any interest in local programming outside of my immediate area and the ones I can receive provide all of the program content I want from local channels and the networks.


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## HarperVision (May 14, 2007)

Bigg said:


> That's a total Apples to Oranges comparison. Tablo is very compelling for OTA, both on price and functionality. It fits a market that doesn't watch much TV better than TiVo, just as TiVo fits the cable market better, where people are going to use their DVRs a lot more. Translation: there are 5 channels that anyone ever watches, and a ton of junk that is just sucking the bandwidth away from the main channels. Even accounting for 2 PBS channels that are on different schedules, that's 6 total. What's the chance that there's something on more than 4 of them at once? Pretty low considering how much of the good content has moved off of OTA anyways. *None of them support Clear QAM (Tablo, Simple.TV or TiVo), and Clear QAM is no longer in many parts of the country.* TiVo will at least display Clear QAM without guide data, unlike the other two, but at that point, if you're paying for the basic cable, just get a CableCard! TiVo's lack of Clear QAM support would only affect people who are stealing cable (like if they subscribe to internet, and the basic channels aren't trapped out). I.e. the 4 networks, PBS, and tons of garbage. So 4 networks that are mostly the same and 2 PBSes. Of what? The Big 4, PBS, and lots of junk. 6 tuners make sense on cable where there are lots of channels, but on OTA, 4 is more than plenty. 4 might be useful to catch stuff on the local news or something, but even then, that's a LOT for OTA.


To be clear and correct, Simple.tv supports clear QAM.


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## telemark (Nov 12, 2013)

HarperVision said:


> To be clear and correct, Simple.tv supports clear QAM.


Yes, SiliconDust and Ceton as well.

ClearQAM is great because some hardware can record the MUX-ed stream which will get 2+ channels at once.


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## moedaman (Aug 21, 2012)

While I rarely agree with Bigg, I do agree with him on the issue with sub-channels. 

Here in the Detroit area we have two CBS O&O stations. They are CBS and The CW affiliates. They both broadcast in 1080i and neither has any sub-channels. They are far and away the two best looking channels in our area. The channels with subs do look softer than the two CBS stations, there is a noticeable difference in PQ. When I look at my WMC ota recordings, the two CBS O&O's are around 7 1/2 gb per hour in size for HD broadcasts. The local ABC affiliate, which has two 480i subs, is around 5 1/2 gb per hour in size for HD broadcasts. It's really sad when some show like The Carrie Diaries has better pq than Nova (heck Nova programs look better on the PBS Roku channel than on tv).

In a perfect world (IMO anyway ), the network affiliates wouldn't have any subs to lower the pq. While networks/stations like ION or local independents would broadcast everything in 480i, thus allowing them to have plenty of bandwith for subs.


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## Gene S (Feb 11, 2003)

While both the Simple.tv and Tablo are OTA DVR's, neither hook directly to a TV.
They both are networked, which introduces a level of complexity that I think turns some people away.

While nice to have access on all sorts of devices and platforms, most people just want to watch TV, on their actual TV, and not have to buy yet another device besides the OTA DVR to do so.

In short, is there nothing out there, besides a Tivo that can record OTA that hooks directly to a TV?

For a lot of people, what Tivo can do is overkill. They don't need networking, or streaming, or Netflix, or any other app. They just want to record and time shift OTA broadcast.


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## telemark (Nov 12, 2013)

Gene S said:


> In short, is there nothing out there, besides a Tivo that can record OTA that hooks directly to a TV?


ChannelMaster DVR+, which has many threads here. They also made an old model that was discontinued.

Boxee did this but was acquired and shelved.

There's a few single tuner DVR's on Amazon.


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## mr.unnatural (Feb 2, 2006)

Gene S said:


> In short, is there nothing out there, besides a Tivo that can record OTA that hooks directly to a TV?


Any PC with either a DVI or HDMI output and an ATSC tuner card can record OTA programming and connect directly to your HDTV. There are lots of DVR software programs as well as Windows Media Center than can turn your PC into a DVR.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

mr.unnatural said:


> Any PC with either a DVI or HDMI output and an ATSC tuner card can record OTA programming and connect directly to your HDTV. There are lots of DVR software programs as well as Windows Media Center than can turn your PC into a DVR.


That's what I was doing back in 2001 with a couple of Hipix DTV200 cards and a couple of HTPCs. Recording ATSC OTA programming with a PC has been around a very long time.


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## lessd (Jan 23, 2005)

mr.unnatural said:


> Any PC with either a DVI or HDMI output and an ATSC tuner card can record OTA programming and connect directly to your HDTV. There are lots of DVR software programs as well as Windows Media Center than can turn your PC into a DVR.


I don't consider that PC setup competition to TiVo in any way that would hurt TiVo.


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## dianebrat (Jul 6, 2002)

lessd said:


> I don't consider that PC setup competition to TiVo in any way that would hurt TiVo.


Agreed, Mr and Ms Public are not going to go down the HTPC path, but they will go down the Tivo path, and that's the market Tivo is pursuing.

To be profitable you need to go after the most cost effective way to make money, and currently the cable DVR market has far more promise than a tiny OTA market, I consider the OTA capable Roamio a gesture of good faith from Tivo that they haven't forgotten their customers, if it really was profit only, it wouldn't exist.


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## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

mr.unnatural said:


> Posting a long diatribe about this and that probably makes you feel better, but what has any of it got to do with the original article? You guys have gone completely off the reservation. It's a comparison of two dual tuner OTA DVRs, period. Whether they've got more than two tuners that nobody needs or if they're being used to record content you don't like to watch has no bearing on the discussion.


So the answer the original question is a resounding NO, because TiVo is, for all practical purposes, a cable DVR and these are OTA DVRs. If OTA disappeared tomorrow, TiVo would be just fine, and these other DVRs would be gone.

You started getting into 6-tuner OTA DVRs, which make no sense, because of the lack of content to record.



> FYI, I've found content on several local sub-channels that I've been unable to find anywhere else. It happened to be programming that I had been looking for for quite some time. To this day I have yet to find it broadcast on any other channels, including cable.
> 
> The point being, rather than blowing off sub-channels as having no relevant content, you might actually find it contains some real gems if you take the time to look, even if they're broadcast in SD.


First of all, it's in SD, and I'll watch AJAM in SD (Comcast's widescreen SD AJAM feed is really good) or basketball games on ESPNU, other than that, if it's in SD, I won't watch it. My system is a 650mhz system, and doesn't have ESPNU HD or AJAM, but my parents have both, so I occasionally flip on AJAM at their house.



telemark said:


> Why isn't CableVision a 50 or 100 tuner DVR?


What's your point?



> Alot (if not most) here actually can't because the 2-tuner Premiere was the last one to let you have your MTV and OTA.


And?



mr.unnatural said:


> And what exactly defines these "really great channels" other than someone's personal opinion? What you might think of as great I might consider crap and vice versa. Everyone has their own tastes in TV programming. I can think of a lot of great shows scattered about on various channels but I can't think of any one single channel that I consider to be great. Network show lineups vary so much that it's hard to pin one down as being the best, although it's probably much easier to determine which ones have gotten worse. Cable channels are such a mixed bad as many of them only have one or two series that they produce themselves that stand out.


The discussion was about the market for a 6-tuner OTA DVR. There is little market for OTA channels beyond the big 4, PBS, and maybe the CW. With 5 or 6 channels, you're unlikely to ever have more than 2 or 3 things recording at once. Hence discounting the subchannels. A scattered few viewers a mass market does not make.



> Just for the sake of argument, I've attached a printout of all of the channels potentially available from my residence in Maryland as determined by TV Fool. I say potential because some of them are in fringe areas that would require a much larger antenna to receive them than I currently employ. Total number of primary digital channels (not including sub-channels) is 51. Subtract the five extreme fringe channels from the list and that brings the total to 46 channels I could actually receive with a reasonably sized antenna (again, not including any sub-channels).
> 
> In reality, I only keep 18 of these channels in my guide listings and block out the rest, even though many of them are available. If I include the sub-channels for the channels I keep then the list expands to over 40 channels that I can view. Some of the omitted channels would still require a larger antenna as they are outside of my current reception range, but it wouldn't take a much larger antenna to receive them. I just don't have any interest in local programming outside of my immediate area and the ones I can receive provide all of the program content I want from local channels and the networks.


What's your point? That's an engineering count. The engineering count on Verizon FIOS, AT&T U-Verse, and TWC is probably north of the 400 mark. There are a LOT of channels in there that have really low viewership. It's a lot harder to slice and dice than OTA, where you have the big main channels and obscure subchannels, but still...



HarperVision said:


> To be clear and correct, Simple.tv supports clear QAM.


I stand corrected. They must have had the hardware in there all along, as it didn't originally support ClearQAM.

However, that's a small and rapidly shrinking market as cable encrypts everything. And at that point, why not get a TiVo and throw a CableCard in it? The only reason I can think of is if you're getting a lot of channels that you're not paying for, and even then, most cable companies already have, or are in the process of cleaning up their act in terms of unencrypted channels kicking around.



moedaman said:


> While I rarely agree with Bigg, I do agree with him on the issue with sub-channels.






> Here in the Detroit area we have two CBS O&O stations. They are CBS and The CW affiliates. They both broadcast in 1080i and neither has any sub-channels. They are far and away the two best looking channels in our area. The channels with subs do look softer than the two CBS stations, there is a noticeable difference in PQ. When I look at my WMC ota recordings, the two CBS O&O's are around 7 1/2 gb per hour in size for HD broadcasts. The local ABC affiliate, which has two 480i subs, is around 5 1/2 gb per hour in size for HD broadcasts. It's really sad when some show like The Carrie Diaries has better pq than Nova (heck Nova programs look better on the PBS Roku channel than on tv).
> 
> In a perfect world (IMO anyway ), the network affiliates wouldn't have any subs to lower the pq. While networks/stations like ION or local independents would broadcast everything in 480i, thus allowing them to have plenty of bandwith for subs.


Those two channels are pushing out around 17mbps. I'm jealous! And you guys get curling on the CBC, eh?

That's really bad with PBS, even Comcast's over-compressed PBS feeds look a lot better than the app!

Yeah, in a perfect world, every OTA channels would be running a ~19mbps MPEG-2 1080i feed, and there wouldn't be subchannels at all!



dianebrat said:


> Agreed, Mr and Ms Public are not going to go down the HTPC path, but they will go down the Tivo path, and that's the market Tivo is pursuing.
> 
> To be profitable you need to go after the most cost effective way to make money, and currently the cable DVR market has far more promise than a tiny OTA market, I consider the OTA capable Roamio a gesture of good faith from Tivo that they haven't forgotten their customers, if it really was profit only, it wouldn't exist.


Good faith and it was cheap to do, so why not? If they had to, for some technical reason, make a separate OTA version that didn't support CableCard, I am quite sure that they would be CableCard only.


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## mr.unnatural (Feb 2, 2006)

Bigg said:


> So the answer the original question is a resounding NO, because TiVo is, for all practical purposes, a cable DVR and these are OTA DVRs. If OTA disappeared tomorrow, TiVo would be just fine, and these other DVRs would be gone.


What question? This forum was about the comparison of two dual tuner OTA DVRs reviewed over at The Missing Remote. Your entire discussion has gone completely off the rails with respect to the original topic. 



Bigg said:


> The discussion was about the market for a 6-tuner OTA DVR.


No, it isn't. Pay attention and stop trying to inject your own discussion.


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## DancyMunchkin (Jul 7, 2014)

mr.unnatural said:


> Total number of primary digital channels (not including sub-channels) is *51*. Subtract the five extreme fringe channels from the list and that brings the total to *46* channels I could actually receive with a reasonably sized antenna (again, not including any sub-channels).
> 
> In reality, I only keep *18* of these channels in my guide listings and block out the rest, even though many of them are available.


You only have 9 *different* channels, so saying you have 18, 46 or 51 channels, while technically accurate, is a bit hyperbolic. Help me understand why I would need to receive two channels for each OTA channel?

Claiming 'OTA DVRs look like real competition to Tivo' is incorrect. To be in competition, they'd have to be in the same market segment, and they're not.


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## mr.unnatural (Feb 2, 2006)

DancyMunchkin said:


> You only have 9 *different* channels, so saying you have 18, 46 or 51 channels, while technically accurate, is a bit hyperbolic. Help me understand why I would need to receive two channels for each OTA channel?
> 
> Claiming 'OTA DVRs look like real competition to Tivo' is incorrect. To be in competition, they'd have to be in the same market segment, and they're not.


They're only identical during prime time for the most part when they air network programming. The rest of the time they'll air syndicated programs and local content. Nobody is saying you need two of each channel, but it does come in handy when one of the pre-empts a show you like to record.

These DVRs are only competitive with respect to the OTA market and would be more likely to appeal to the cord cutters. The Roamio basic is the only current model that allows you to record from OTA channels, so these are niche products with limited competition.

BTW, I've been trying to find the specifics on the Roamio and I can't tell from the Tivo website whether the Roamio can record from cable and antenna simultaneously or if it's just one or the other. I'm guessing it just one of the two since there's only a single coax input on the back. If this is the case, then these two DVRs would be in direct competition with Tivo when used as an OTA-only DVR.


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## lessd (Jan 23, 2005)

mr.unnatural said:


> . I'm guessing it just one of the two since there's only a single coax input on the back. If this is the case, then these two DVRs would be in direct competition with Tivo when used as an OTA-only DVR.


Except with the TiVo if you wanted to go back to cable you would have a cable card slot already, the other DVR would then be useless.


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## mr.unnatural (Feb 2, 2006)

lessd said:


> Except with the TiVo if you wanted to go back to cable you would have a cable card slot already, the other DVR would then be useless.


We're talking OTA only. Cable-capable DVRs shouldn't even be part of this discussion. If someone is even remotely thinking about switching to cable at some point they probably wouldn't even be considering one of the OTA-only DVRs so it's a moot point.


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## DancyMunchkin (Jul 7, 2014)

mr.unnatural said:


> BTW, I've been trying to find the specifics on the Roamio and I can't tell from the Tivo website whether the Roamio can record from cable and antenna simultaneously or if it's just one or the other.


During Guided Setup you select Cable *or* OTA.


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## lessd (Jan 23, 2005)

mr.unnatural said:


> We're talking OTA only. Cable-capable DVRs shouldn't even be part of this discussion. If someone is even remotely thinking about switching to cable at some point they probably wouldn't even be considering one of the OTA-only DVRs so it's a moot point.


Depends how much it costs to keep your cable options open.


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## atmuscarella (Oct 11, 2005)

DancyMunchkin said:


> You only have 9 *different*
> Claiming 'OTA DVRs look like real competition to Tivo' is incorrect. To be in competition, they'd have to be in the same market segment, and they're not.


TiVo makes a DVR (the base Roamio) that is usable as an OTA DVR. A person looking for an OTA DVR system can buy a Roamio or one of the 3-4 alternatives. The last time I looked that is called competition. Because (we all assume) the OTA DVR market is such a small portion of TiVos overall business, the competition in the OTA DVR market may not be significant to TiVo's over all business, but it is real.


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## atmuscarella (Oct 11, 2005)

lessd said:


> Except with the TiVo if you wanted to go back to cable you would have a cable card slot already, the other DVR would then be useless.


Which if important to the buyer gives TiVo a competitive advantage over the other manufactures competing in the OTA DVR space. However for those of us that live in cable free zones it doesn't matter much.


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## HarperVision (May 14, 2007)

Bigg said:


> ....... I stand corrected. They must have had the hardware in there all along, as it didn't originally support ClearQAM. ......


Nope, always had and did from day 1, V1, which I've had and still do to this day, only ever connected to Oceanic Time Warner Cable receiving clear QAM.


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## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

mr.unnatural said:


> What question? This forum was about the comparison of two dual tuner OTA DVRs reviewed over at The Missing Remote. Your entire discussion has gone completely off the rails with respect to the original topic.


The original topic was about those two DVRs competing with the Roamio, which they don't in any meaningful way.



> No, it isn't. Pay attention and stop trying to inject your own discussion.


I can't help you there. Dan203 started the 6-tuner discussion in post #25. The notion that an OTA-only TiVo would have 6 tuners doesn't really make sense, but as he notes, there isn't much of a market for the device in the first place, which is why the Roamio can do either CableCard or OTA.

I responded as such in post #32, and you started spouting nonsense about having "40 OTA channels" in post #34.



mr.unnatural said:


> They're only identical during prime time for the most part when they air network programming. The rest of the time they'll air syndicated programs and local content. Nobody is saying you need two of each channel, but it does come in handy when one of the pre-empts a show you like to record.


In which case, having duplicate channels wouldn't require more tuners, since you wouldn't record anything from the one with the sports conflict.



> These DVRs are only competitive with respect to the OTA market and would be more likely to appeal to the cord cutters. The Roamio basic is the only current model that allows you to record from OTA channels, so these are niche products with limited competition.
> 
> BTW, I've been trying to find the specifics on the Roamio and I can't tell from the Tivo website whether the Roamio can record from cable and antenna simultaneously or if it's just one or the other. I'm guessing it just one of the two since there's only a single coax input on the back. If this is the case, then these two DVRs would be in direct competition with Tivo when used as an OTA-only DVR.


One or the other. However, TiVo also has the advantage that with an ISP like Comcast, if you're willing to have the limited content of OTA, it would end up being cheaper using basic cable with a CableCard than putting an antenna up, since Comcast charges $15/mo more for internet without cable, and basic cable is about $15/mo and doesn't have any up front costs, and has the advantages of cable... Neither Simple.TV nor Tablo can do that, since you have to have a CableCard to access cable content on a modern cable system. And the systems that haven't been updated to be all-digital, all-encrypted, you can be sure that they will eventually be set up that way.



atmuscarella said:


> TiVo makes a DVR (the base Roamio) that is usable as an OTA DVR. A person looking for an OTA DVR system can buy a Roamio or one of the 3-4 alternatives. The last time I looked that is called competition. Because (we all assume) the OTA DVR market is such a small portion of TiVos overall business, the competition in the OTA DVR market may not be significant to TiVo's over all business, but it is real.


Yup, pretty much the answer to the whole thread in two sentences right there.



HarperVision said:


> Nope, always had and did from day 1, V1, which I've had and still do to this day, only ever connected to Oceanic Time Warner Cable receiving clear QAM.


Hmmm, I'm pretty sure neither did when I researched them. Maybe it did, it just wasn't obvious from a cursory glance at their site...


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## mr.unnatural (Feb 2, 2006)

Bigg said:


> The original topic was about those two DVRs competing with the Roamio, which they don't in any meaningful way.


They do with respect to the fact that they both are capable of receiving and recording OTA channels. Obviously, Tivo will have more appeal to members here, but the lower cost of the other DVRs may be more appealing to others. Its all a matter of personal preference and priorities.



> I can't help you there. Dan203 started the 6-tuner discussion in post #25. The notion that an OTA-only TiVo would have 6 tuners doesn't really make sense, but as he notes, there isn't much of a market for the device in the first place, which is why the Roamio can do either CableCard or OTA.
> 
> I responded as such in post #32, and you started spouting nonsense about having "40 OTA channels" in post #34.


I agree that the market for a 6-tuner OTA DVR would have limited appeal and would not be a viable product for most people. The discussion got off track by your claim that there's not that much programming or available channels on OTA that are worth recording. This is where we have a major disagreement and what prompted my response about the quantity of available channels. Lots of people have OTA as their only source of TV and many people with cable record a lot of network shows. Others have cable or satellite, whether for the expanded lineup or because it's the only way to get TV reception where they live. The major networks provide more prime time programs than any of the cable channels so there's actually a lot more programming with a wider appeal than you make them out to be. With but few exceptions, most cable channels provide niche programming with a much smaller viewing audience. The major networks have a larger viewership than any of the cable channels for the vast majority of prime time television.



> In which case, having duplicate channels wouldn't require more tuners, since you wouldn't record anything from the one with the sports conflict.


True, unless I wanted to record both the sporting event and the show it was preempting, in which case I'd be recording from both network affiliates. I tend to record sporting events and join them late so I can skip past the commercials.



> One or the other. However, TiVo also has the advantage that with an ISP like Comcast, if you're willing to have the limited content of OTA, it would end up being cheaper using basic cable with a CableCard than putting an antenna up, since Comcast charges $15/mo more for internet without cable, and basic cable is about $15/mo and doesn't have any up front costs, and has the advantages of cable... Neither Simple.TV nor Tablo can do that, since you have to have a CableCard to access cable content on a modern cable system. And the systems that haven't been updated to be all-digital, all-encrypted, you can be sure that they will eventually be set up that way.


This is true only if Comcast is encrypting the basic channels on their system. I've heard it both ways with them so it might depend on where you're located. It's generally cheaper to go with basic cable and the internet package together rather than just the internet with Comcast, or at least it was when I had their service way back when. I don't believe we need a cablecard to access locals on FIOS, including the HD channnels.


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## telemark (Nov 12, 2013)

There's at least one attempt of subscription encrypted mpeg4 replacing the subchannels of a main channel.

If market accepted it would created a middle class of service inbetween Cable and OTA, and change the channel mix that comes over antenna in the future.


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## shwru980r (Jun 22, 2008)

Bigg said:


> However, it would be rather silly to make a 6-tuner OTA DVR. Not only is there a LOT less content available OTA, but there are really only 5 channels


I count 6 OTA networks

CBS
ABC
NBC
PBS
FOX
CW

Most of the good shows are all on at the same time. Then you have the issue with back to back live recordings that get picked up by a season pass that need to be extended. Tivo will start the second live recording on another tuner because the first one has been extended.

One could argue that the need for extra tuners for OTA is more critical than cable, because you usually only get one opportunity to record enough good shows to watch during the week.


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## trip1eX (Apr 2, 2005)

shwru980r said:


> I count 6 OTA networks
> 
> CBS
> ABC
> ...


So the need for extra tuners on OTA is more critical because cable has all those channels and many more?



What kind of logic is that?


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## trip1eX (Apr 2, 2005)

atmuscarella said:


> In my opinion you are mixing apples and oranges. If someone is looking to compare OTA DVRs they have decided their video delivery source is going to be OTA. You are one step back from that at the much more global discussion of what video delivery system(s)/source(s) to use.
> 
> In that discuss there is no reason to limit the discussion to Hulu+ (OTT) & OTA, you would also add in cable, satellite, other OTT providers (Netflix, Amazon, Vudu, etc.), DVD/Blu-ray disks, and any other video delivery system/source you can think of. The reality is that the vast majority of people do not choose OTA so saying there are other alternatives is pretty much a given.


Hulu+ has alot of the content from 3 of the 4 major networks which makes up the bulk of the OTA experience.


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## trip1eX (Apr 2, 2005)

mr.unnatural said:


> And what exactly defines these "really great channels" other than someone's personal opinion? What you might think of as great I might consider crap and vice versa. Everyone has their own tastes in TV programming. I can think of a lot of great shows scattered about on various channels but I can't think of any one single channel that I consider to be great. Network show lineups vary so much that it's hard to pin one down as being the best, although it's probably much easier to determine which ones have gotten worse. Cable channels are such a mixed bad as many of them only have one or two series that they produce themselves that stand out.
> 
> Just for the sake of argument, I've attached a printout of all of the channels potentially available from my residence in Maryland as determined by TV Fool. I say potential because some of them are in fringe areas that would require a much larger antenna to receive them than I currently employ. Total number of primary digital channels (not including sub-channels) is 51. Subtract the five extreme fringe channels from the list and that brings the total to 46 channels I could actually receive with a reasonably sized antenna (again, not including any sub-channels).
> 
> In reality, I only keep 18 of these channels in my guide listings and block out the rest, even though many of them are available. If I include the sub-channels for the channels I keep then the list expands to over 40 channels that I can view. Some of the omitted channels would still require a larger antenna as they are outside of my current reception range, but it wouldn't take a much larger antenna to receive them. I just don't have any interest in local programming outside of my immediate area and the ones I can receive provide all of the program content I want from local channels and the networks.


Notice how you didn't mention one OTA channel by name?


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## trip1eX (Apr 2, 2005)

atmuscarella said:


> The reality is that if you are talking about commercial channels, then advertisers think allot more than 1 person is watching.
> 
> In my area I have 7 HD channels (ABC, CBS, CW, FOX, NBS, PBS, & Ion) 6 of which play new/original programing. I record from all 7 of the HD channels plus 2 SD commercial channels/networks (MeTV & GetTV), and sometimes the PBS sub-channels. How many OTA tuners someone wants/needs is a pretty personal thing and will have allot to do with how much overlapping they think they need to do. During the fall/winter/spring I regularly use 3 or 4 tuners without doing any overlapping protection, so for me 2 is not enough and 6 would be unnecessary. Oh and just for the record I have 12 tuners available.


Do you not realize that everything you buy isn't designed for every possible use case or need or extreme you can think of?


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## mr.unnatural (Feb 2, 2006)

trip1eX said:


> Notice how you didn't mention one OTA channel by name?


My bad. There was an attachment to the post and I assumed you could read. I'll try to be clearer next time.


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## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

mr.unnatural said:


> They do with respect to the fact that they both are capable of receiving and recording OTA channels. Obviously, Tivo will have more appeal to members here, but the lower cost of the other DVRs may be more appealing to others. Its all a matter of personal preference and priorities.


Point totally missed. The Roamio is a CableCard DVR that happens to be able to record OTA. Since a small minority of users use it for OTA, OTA DVRs aren't meaningful competition. The XFinity X1, Verizon Media Server, CableVision RS-DVR, and other similar systems are the Roamio's competition.



> I agree that the market for a 6-tuner OTA DVR would have limited appeal and would not be a viable product for most people. The discussion got off track by your claim that there's not that much programming or available channels on OTA that are worth recording. This is where we have a major disagreement and what prompted my response about the quantity of available channels. Lots of people have OTA as their only source of TV and many people with cable record a lot of network shows. Others have cable or satellite, whether for the expanded lineup or because it's the only way to get TV reception where they live. The major networks provide more prime time programs than any of the cable channels so there's actually a lot more programming with a wider appeal than you make them out to be. With but few exceptions, most cable channels provide niche programming with a much smaller viewing audience. The major networks have a larger viewership than any of the cable channels for the vast majority of prime time television.


The networks provide more content per single channel, but cable overall has far more content, and more and more shows are moving to cable. The networks themselves have quite a bit of content, but the subchannels are junk, and the subchannels are the only way you're going to get above 5 maybe 6 channels OTA.



> True, unless I wanted to record both the sporting event and the show it was preempting, in which case I'd be recording from both network affiliates. I tend to record sporting events and join them late so I can skip past the commercials.


And what's the chance that you'd want to do that and record something from more than 2 other channels at the same time? Not much.



> This is true only if Comcast is encrypting the basic channels on their system. I've heard it both ways with them so it might depend on where you're located. It's generally cheaper to go with basic cable and the internet package together rather than just the internet with Comcast, or at least it was when I had their service way back when. I don't believe we need a cablecard to access locals on FIOS, including the HD channnels.


Comcast is either done or in process of encrypting nationwide, and other providers will follow suit over time. As much as Comcast is a disaster, they have led the industry in shutting down analog and encrypting. I just wish that they'd leave one real channel unencrypted for CableCard troubleshooting. I don't care if it's QVC or something else stupid, as long as they document what it is. FIOS likely has more control over people stealing cable, since I think they can shut stuff on and off remotely through the ONT. I wouldn't be surprised if they can run MoCA with the QAM system completely shut off for internet-only subs.



shwru980r said:


> One could argue that the need for extra tuners for OTA is more critical than cable, because you usually only get one opportunity to record enough good shows to watch during the week.


No. That is completely back-asswards. First, OTA users are by and large light TV users in the first place. They have OTA because they don't watch enough TV to justify cable, and aren't worried about missing out on cable shows. Secondly, cable users have those same 5 or 6 channels available, *plus anywhere between about 65 and 200 more channels to record*. So cable definitely needs more tuners.



trip1eX said:


> So the need for extra tuners on OTA is more critical because cable has all those channels and many more?
> 
> 
> 
> What kind of logic is that?





trip1eX said:


> Do you not realize that everything you buy isn't designed for every possible use case or need or extreme you can think of?


That's exactly the thing. It's illogical to think that light TV users, even if you count CW to make 6, would somehow record all of them at once. I guess Comcast should come out with a 120 tuner DVR! 

TiVo made a logical choice with the Roamio. If someone really needs more tuners, they can always have two Roamios. And they don't get charged an extra $7/mo like with cable either.


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## atmuscarella (Oct 11, 2005)

trip1eX said:


> Do you not realize that everything you buy isn't designed for every possible use case or need or extreme you can think of?


What in my post is asking anyone to design/build an "extreme" use case OTA DVR? I said that for me 2 tuners isn't enough and 6 isn't needed and what I need is 4, which is what the Roamio is already. I can understand the use case for someone wanting more than 4 tuners (needing to pad most shows) if that is "extreme" or not I have no idea. I happen to have access to 12 OTA tuners via 4 DVRs and an HTPC mostly because I keep buying new DVRs and never get around to selling the older ones.


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## atmuscarella (Oct 11, 2005)

trip1eX said:


> Hulu+ has alot of the content from 3 of the 4 major networks which makes up the bulk of the OTA experience.


Don't disagree that if you have good enough Internet access for reliable streaming that Hulu+ is a viable alternative to OTA but then so is cable, satellite, or buying shows a la cart from Vudu or Amazon, etc.

My point is that the discussion about to how to get content is large and complicated and has very little to do with picking an OTA DVR.


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## mr.unnatural (Feb 2, 2006)

Bigg said:


> Point totally missed. The Roamio is a CableCard DVR that happens to be able to record OTA. Since a small minority of users use it for OTA, OTA DVRs aren't meaningful competition. The XFinity X1, Verizon Media Server, CableVision RS-DVR, and other similar systems are the Roamio's competition.


Point totally irrelevant. We're not talking cablecard DVRs, but OTA DVRs. Cablecard isn't even part of the equation. You're mixing apples and oranges to create a completely different argument. The Roamio can be used without a cablecard to receive OTA channels, which makes these DVRs a direct competitor when the Roamio is used this way.



> The networks provide more content per single channel, but cable overall has far more content, and more and more shows are moving to cable. The networks themselves have quite a bit of content, but the subchannels are junk, and the subchannels are the only way you're going to get above 5 maybe 6 channels OTA.


And those 4 or 5 channels will have a larger viewing audience than any 15 or 20 cable channels combined, with but few exceptions. You've already stated your feelings on sub-channels so why do you insist on repeating it over and over again like you do with everything else? I can only assume that you believe if you repeat something enough then eventually it will come true. 



> And what's the chance that you'd want to do that and record something from more than 2 other channels at the same time? Not much.


Actually, quite a bit. My viewing habits are clearly different from yours so why would you assume that just because you wouldn't do it that nobody else would either? During the regular season, it's not at all unusual for me to be recording from 3 or 4 OTA channels simultaneously.


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## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

mr.unnatural said:


> Point totally irrelevant. We're not talking cablecard DVRs, but OTA DVRs. Cablecard isn't even part of the equation. You're mixing apples and oranges to create a completely different argument. The Roamio can be used without a cablecard to receive OTA channels, which makes these DVRs a direct competitor when the Roamio is used this way.


No. You are still missing/ignoring my point. Someone could make an OTA DVR that blows TiVo out of the water, hands down (Tablo does in some ways), and it's basically irrelevant to TiVo, as their market is cable, not OTA. OTA is a tiny little side market for them. TiVo's largest market is MSOs, and retail cable is a big market for them as well. Sure, you can discuss the features of the Roamio vs. the Tablo, and that's interesting for that niche of a niche market, but it matters little to TiVo and TiVo's profit and marketshare.



> And those 4 or 5 channels will have a larger viewing audience than any 15 or 20 cable channels combined, with but few exceptions. You've already stated your feelings on sub-channels so why do you insist on repeating it over and over again like you do with everything else? I can only assume that you believe if you repeat something enough then eventually it will come true.


Because you don't seem to get it, even though I've clearly laid out why there is no logical reason for an OTA DVR larger than 4-tuners, and why OTA isn't TiVos market, and isn't something that they're really worried about.



> Actually, quite a bit. My viewing habits are clearly different from yours so why would you assume that just because you wouldn't do it that nobody else would either? During the regular season, it's not at all unusual for me to be recording from 3 or 4 OTA channels simultaneously.


4 OTA channels on a TiVo Roamio could be those two "duplicate" channels, plus two others. My point was that an OTA user is highly unlikely to go above that, if even hit that. Going above 4 tuners is the point that you'd need more than 4 tuners obviously.


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## mr.unnatural (Feb 2, 2006)

Bigg said:


> No. You are still missing/ignoring my point. Someone could make an OTA DVR that blows TiVo out of the water, hands down (Tablo does in some ways), and it's basically irrelevant to TiVo, as their market is cable, not OTA. OTA is a tiny little side market for them. TiVo's largest market is MSOs, and retail cable is a big market for them as well. Sure, you can discuss the features of the Roamio vs. the Tablo, and that's interesting for that niche of a niche market, but it matters little to TiVo and TiVo's profit and marketshare.


No, I got your point. Problem is, you keep leaning towards cablecard DVRs and ignoring the fact that we're talking about OTA DVRs exclusively. You need to leave any mention of cablecards and cable TV out of the discussion. If someone could build a better DVR than Tivo they would have done it by now (actually, it's been done but the companies are no longer in business). Tivo owns most of the major patents that would prevent anyone else from building a better DVR. Anyone that's tried has ended up in court or filing for bankruptcy.



> Because you don't seem to get it, even though I've clearly laid out why there is no logical reason for an OTA DVR larger than 4-tuners, and why OTA isn't TiVos market, and isn't something that they're really worried about.


What's not to get? I'm not promoting DVRs with any more than 4 tuners so there's no reason to keep rehashing it. I only mentioned that I have more than 4 to cover all possible scenarios, but I rarely use more than 4 at a time. I have all 6 of the major networks in my area via OTA from two separate markets and I have the tuner priorities configured so that each tuner is assigned to record from specific channels. It's one of those nice features in WMC that Tivo doesn't have.

I think we can both agree that the market for more than 4 OTA tuners is minimal at best. BTW, if Tivo wasn't concerned about OTA, explain to me why they include OTA tuners in some models? The Roamio basic can be used as an OTA-only tuner if you opt not to use it with a cablecard and the only current model relevant to this discussion.

Here's the thing about my setup, which is definitely above and beyond what most people have. I like the ability to be able to record from both FIOS and OTA. Getting the OTA signal directly from the source and not retransmitted through a cable provider allows me to receive the best signal possible. It also keeps my monthly costs a bit lower because I don't need an extra cablecard to record the channels via a cablecard tuner. I would probably need twice as many cablecard tuners as I currently employ to cover all of the OTA channels. Granted, I could probably use a cablecard tuner sans cablecard to record my locals on FIOS since they're not encrypted or flagged, but it sort of defeats the purpose of having a cablecard tuner to use it in that manner.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

mr.unnatural said:


> Point totally irrelevant. We're not talking cablecard DVRs, but OTA DVRs. Cablecard isn't even part of the equation. You're mixing apples and oranges to create a completely different argument. The Roamio can be used without a cablecard to receive OTA channels, which makes these DVRs a direct competitor when the Roamio is used this way.
> 
> And those 4 or 5 channels will have a larger viewing audience than any 15 or 20 cable channels combined, with but few exceptions. You've already stated your feelings on sub-channels so why do you insist on repeating it over and over again like you do with everything else? I can only assume that you believe if you repeat something enough then eventually it will come true.
> 
> Actually, quite a bit. My viewing habits are clearly different from yours so why would you assume that just because you wouldn't do it that nobody else would either? During the regular season, it's not at all unusual for me to be recording from 3 or 4 OTA channels simultaneously.


I know if I were OTA only there would be many more shows I would be watching from the broadcast networks. I would need five and six tuners several times a week. But since I have cable I watch less from the broadcast networks.

My GF is OTA only and she has dozens of SPs. But she only has four tuners with two S3 TiVos. So if she needs something else recorded from Broadcast, then she asks me to do it. Or I need to find it online for her.


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## lessd (Jan 23, 2005)

aaronwt said:


> I know if I were OTA only there would be many more shows I would be watching from the broadcast networks. I would need five and six tuners several times a week. But since I have cable I watch less from the broadcast networks.
> 
> My GF is OTA only and she has dozens of SPs. But she only has four tuners with two S3 TiVos. So if she needs something else recorded from Broadcast, then she asks me to do it. Or I need to find it online for her.


This Thread is about how much competition any 3rd pty OTA only DVR would be the TiVo itself, it is not about the virtues or lack of such virtues of people that want to watch OTA recordings. TiVos OTA only business is so small that if somebody took 50% of the OTA only DVR market from TiVo it would not show up as anything significant in TiVos P&L. This would be a useful Thread if it stayed on topic for people that only wanted to watch OTA using a DVR.


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## telemark (Nov 12, 2013)

As an aside, I once saw a presentation by someone in the UK who built a custom box with enough tuners to capture every channel and storage to do it continuously.
He described the viewing experience as feeling like a time-machine.

It's just a matter of time before the 2-tuner DVR's can be coalesced, then the actual tuner count wouldn't matter very much. It's just software.


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## mr.unnatural (Feb 2, 2006)

lessd said:


> This would be a useful Thread if it stayed on topic for people that only wanted to watch OTA using a DVR.


LOL. When was the last time you saw any thread stay on topic from beginning to end? The minute something is mentioned that is even slightly off-topic, as is usually the case, the discussion always takes a left turn and the original topic is quickly forgotten.


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## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

mr.unnatural said:


> No, I got your point. Problem is, you keep leaning towards cablecard DVRs and ignoring the fact that we're talking about OTA DVRs exclusively. You need to leave any mention of cablecards and cable TV out of the discussion. If someone could build a better DVR than Tivo they would have done it by now (actually, it's been done but the companies are no longer in business). Tivo owns most of the major patents that would prevent anyone else from building a better DVR. Anyone that's tried has ended up in court or filing for bankruptcy.


OK, if you want to compare the end user experience for the OTA niche market, that's fine. That's a good comparison to do, and Tablo has many advantages over TiVo, particularly in the cost to set up for several rooms, and cost is going to be key for the OTA-only audience who, by and large, doesn't have cable because of the cost. But to answer the question of "are dual tuner OTA DVRs real competition to TiVo", the answer is a resounding NO.



> What's not to get? I'm not promoting DVRs with any more than 4 tuners so there's no reason to keep rehashing it. I only mentioned that I have more than 4 to cover all possible scenarios, but I rarely use more than 4 at a time. I have all 6 of the major networks in my area via OTA from two separate markets and I have the tuner priorities configured so that each tuner is assigned to record from specific channels. It's one of those nice features in WMC that Tivo doesn't have.


Not sure what that gains you, but OK.



> I think we can both agree that the market for more than 4 OTA tuners is minimal at best. BTW, if Tivo wasn't concerned about OTA, explain to me why they include OTA tuners in some models? The Roamio basic can be used as an OTA-only tuner if you opt not to use it with a cablecard and the only current model relevant to this discussion.


They have the OTA option on the Roamio because it was relatively cheap and easy to do, and it opens up a niche market that, up until Tablo and Simple.TV, had basically no competition. That niche market doesn't justify TiVo making an entire box, but since they were able to make a CableCard DVR that also works with OTA, why not? They can also attract people who think they may want to "cut the cord" (I hate that phrase) down the road, but actually won't, and will just stick with CableCard. Tablo and Simple.TV seem to think that they can make a go of it without CableCard, we'll see if they succeed or not. I hope they do, just for the sake of some competition, although they're getting at a really small market. Considering the pricing of basic cable and internet, they are also sort of competing against cable company DVRs as well as TiVo, both OTA and CableCard. That's a tough market to be in.



> Here's the thing about my setup, which is definitely above and beyond what most people have. I like the ability to be able to record from both FIOS and OTA. Getting the OTA signal directly from the source and not retransmitted through a cable provider allows me to receive the best signal possible. It also keeps my monthly costs a bit lower because I don't need an extra cablecard to record the channels via a cablecard tuner. I would probably need twice as many cablecard tuners as I currently employ to cover all of the OTA channels. Granted, I could probably use a cablecard tuner sans cablecard to record my locals on FIOS since they're not encrypted or flagged, but it sort of defeats the purpose of having a cablecard tuner to use it in that manner.


Does FIOS re-compress your local channels? I thought they were supposed to deliver them at full (17-19mbps) bitrate? In many cases, pay-TV providers are providing better looking locals, since they are getting high-bitrate fiber feeds, and compressing them on their own, while the OTA channels are heavily compressed to squish more bandwidth-leaching subchannels.


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## dianebrat (Jul 6, 2002)

Bigg said:


> Does FIOS re-compress your local channels? I thought they were supposed to deliver them at full (17-19mbps) bitrate? In many cases, pay-TV providers are providing better looking locals, since they are getting high-bitrate fiber feeds, and compressing them on their own, while the OTA channels are heavily compressed to squish more bandwidth-leaching subchannels.


Verizon FiOS does NOT recompress locals, and I'm pretty sure they don't recompress the big cable stations like Comcast does either, but I'm not 100% for that one.


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## BigJimOutlaw (Mar 21, 2004)

Verizon's compression of locals is a market-to-market thing. KMTTG is showing my major Fios local recordings as low as 7-8 mbps (ABC, PBS). Most in the 12-13 mbps range. NBC is the only "true" QAM with 16-18 mbps.

But I say it's a market-to-market thing because I'm in the Philly market. Verizon only has "so much" space allotted for locals, and large markets like NYC and Philly naturally have a lot of must-carry channels. VHO8 (Philly) is particularly screwed because of something to do with how the VHO's are laid out, they have to share QAM space with a lot of NJ locals too.

As for national cable channels, there's more 3:1 transmuxing than not these days. But it's to Verizon's credit that most people can't really tell. Their process is pretty good.

Sorry to add to the off-topic.


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## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

BigJimOutlaw said:


> Verizon's compression of locals is a market-to-market thing. KMTTG is showing my major Fios local recordings as low as 7-8 mbps (ABC, PBS). Most in the 12-13 mbps range. NBC is the only "true" QAM with 16-18 mbps.
> 
> But I say it's a market-to-market thing because I'm in the Philly market. Verizon only has "so much" space allotted for locals, and large markets like NYC and Philly naturally have a lot of must-carry channels. VHO8 (Philly) is particularly screwed because of something to do with how the VHO's are laid out, they have to share QAM space with a lot of NJ locals too.
> 
> ...


Yeah, I've heard on DSLReports that same thing... that they are trimuxing some channels. They have to transcode no matter what, as most channels come in high bitrate MPEG-4 now, but it's a matter of whether they go to the "full" 17-19mbps MPEG-2 or the tri-muxed 12mbps. Comcast is getting better at tri-muxing, so maybe Verizon is too. I hope they still have some of the major stuff not tri-muxed, as otherwise they would have little advantage over the better Comcast systems... They also have some MPEG-4, but it's not on anything that has any significant viewership yet. Maybe they will follow through with more MPEG-4 to solve their capacity crunch.


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## mr.unnatural (Feb 2, 2006)

Bigg said:


> Not sure what that gains you, but OK.


When I run a channel scan using the diagnostic software for the tuners, some tuners are better at receiving certain channels better than other tuners. I'm not sure why this is the case, but it's not always a factor with all tuners. I've found than one or two out of the six tuners may receive a few channels weaker than others. By assigning tuners to work with specific channels I can make sure that the weak tuners don't get assigned to those channels. You actually set up a priority list for each channel so whenever you record from a channel WMC will always look to use the first tuner in the list. If the tuner is in use on another channel, it looks for the next one in the list and so on. When you tune to live TV, the priority is the reverse of the record tuner list. If I place the weak tuner in the middle of the list it will likely never get used for the affected channel. IIRC, Tivo just grabs the next available tuner and doesn't give you any control over them.



> They have the OTA option on the Roamio because it was relatively cheap and easy to do, and it opens up a niche market that, up until Tablo and Simple.TV, had basically no competition. That niche market doesn't justify TiVo making an entire box, but since they were able to make a CableCard DVR that also works with OTA, why not? They can also attract people who think they may want to "cut the cord" (I hate that phrase) down the road, but actually won't, and will just stick with CableCard. Tablo and Simple.TV seem to think that they can make a go of it without CableCard, we'll see if they succeed or not. I hope they do, just for the sake of some competition, although they're getting at a really small market. Considering the pricing of basic cable and internet, they are also sort of competing against cable company DVRs as well as TiVo, both OTA and CableCard. That's a tough market to be in.


And this begs the question, why not add OTA functionality to other Tivo models? Ideally, a Tivo with multiple tuners should have the ability to mix and match tuner types in order to receive OTA, cable, or both and not limit it to one or the other.

OTOH, I assume that most people with cable will most likely record their locals from the cable feed rather than use an additional antenna so it may not be all that important. I just like the idea of having the extra flexibility. I suppose it's my mindset carried over from the days when I had DirecTV. I had to resort to using an antenna in order to receive all of my locals since DirecTV would only provide me with channels from one market and even then did not give all of the major networks. You can blame DirecTV for pushing me in the direction of using HTPCs. You can blame Ceton and Microsoft for having me sever ties with Tivo.



> Does FIOS re-compress your local channels? I thought they were supposed to deliver them at full (17-19mbps) bitrate? In many cases, pay-TV providers are providing better looking locals, since they are getting high-bitrate fiber feeds, and compressing them on their own, while the OTA channels are heavily compressed to squish more bandwidth-leaching subchannels.


AFAIK they deliver the locals with no compression. To be honest, I don't really see much difference, if any, between the OTA channels recorded via antenna and those recorded from FIOS. I prefer to use internal tuners in my HTPC whenever possible. The InfiniTV PCI-e cablecard tuners get quite hot, which is why I like to keep the number of cablecard tuner cards to a minimum and share the load with ATSC tuners to keep internal temps down.

Even though the ATSC standard allows for bitrates up to 19.39 mbps, most programming is usually broadcast at less than half that, probably because they're sharing bandwidth with sub-channels. I've found that locals with no sub-channels still broadcast at about the same bitrates. I don't have the actual broadcast numbers for digital cable handy, but I believe they are allowed about twice the bitrate as OTA ATSC channels. Unfortunately, they also broadcast at about the same bitrate as OTA channels in the majority of cases (approx 10 mbps or less).


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## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

mr.unnatural said:


> When I run a channel scan using the diagnostic software for the tuners, some tuners are better at receiving certain channels better than other tuners. I'm not sure why this is the case, but it's not always a factor with all tuners. I've found than one or two out of the six tuners may receive a few channels weaker than others. By assigning tuners to work with specific channels I can make sure that the weak tuners don't get assigned to those channels. You actually set up a priority list for each channel so whenever you record from a channel WMC will always look to use the first tuner in the list. If the tuner is in use on another channel, it looks for the next one in the list and so on. When you tune to live TV, the priority is the reverse of the record tuner list. If I place the weak tuner in the middle of the list it will likely never get used for the affected channel. IIRC, Tivo just grabs the next available tuner and doesn't give you any control over them.


That's really weird. Sounds like something specific to your tuners, assuming that everything is split symmetrically, and you have identical tuners...



> And this begs the question, why not add OTA functionality to other Tivo models? Ideally, a Tivo with multiple tuners should have the ability to mix and match tuner types in order to receive OTA, cable, or both and not limit it to one or the other.


The 6-tuners chips apparently only support CableCard, and no one has made a 6-tuner or larger OTA chip. An OTA USB adapter, like DirecTV did, would be interesting, but it would be an extra expense for the OTA-only market, which is the most price sensitive, so probably not a great idea all in all...



> OTOH, I assume that most people with cable will most likely record their locals from the cable feed rather than use an additional antenna so it may not be all that important. I just like the idea of having the extra flexibility. I suppose it's my mindset carried over from the days when I had DirecTV. I had to resort to using an antenna in order to receive all of my locals since DirecTV would only provide me with channels from one market and even then did not give all of the major networks. You can blame DirecTV for pushing me in the direction of using HTPCs. You can blame Ceton and Microsoft for having me sever ties with Tivo.


Very few people would see a need for both. I've played around with OTA, but I've never found much of a need to have OTA when I have cable. Now, I live too far away from the transmitters to get a reliable signal without a significant antenna setup.



> AFAIK they deliver the locals with no compression. To be honest, I don't really see much difference, if any, between the OTA channels recorded via antenna and those recorded from FIOS. I prefer to use internal tuners in my HTPC whenever possible. The InfiniTV PCI-e cablecard tuners get quite hot, which is why I like to keep the number of cablecard tuner cards to a minimum and share the load with ATSC tuners to keep internal temps down.
> 
> Even though the ATSC standard allows for bitrates up to 19.39 mbps, most programming is usually broadcast at less than half that, probably because they're sharing bandwidth with sub-channels. I've found that locals with no sub-channels still broadcast at about the same bitrates. I don't have the actual broadcast numbers for digital cable handy, but I believe they are allowed about twice the bitrate as OTA ATSC channels. Unfortunately, they also broadcast at about the same bitrate as OTA channels in the majority of cases (approx 10 mbps or less).


If you want internal, the heat is just something you have to deal with... They have external tuners that deal with that...

Cable can do twin 19mbps if they do only two per QAM, but that's becoming more and more rare on non-SDV systems (not sure about SDV systems, since the channels then have to be a uniform size for switching). Comcast and Verizon both tri-mux, which gives about 12mbps per channel, depending on how the cookie crumbles with the statistical multiplexer at that point in time. I think Comcast screws around by adding biases to the statistical multiplexers too, as certain highly-watched events magically seem to have higher bitrates, although it could just be that they have a lot of action and cuts, and whatever is "opposing" them on the same QAM happens to be really dull and static at that point in time, so they end up with more from the statistical multiplexer at that given point in time.

Verizon supposedly doesn't tri-mux a lot of their more popular channels, but it has been confirmed that they are tri-muxing some less popular channels, and some of their top-tier channels are MPEG-4 now, probably 4 or 5 to a QAM. For channels that aren't tri-muxed, like the main ESPN channels, Comcast mashes in some SDs as well, as they are around 14-15mbps... too high for tri-muxing, but too low for "full-bitrate".


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## mattack (Apr 9, 2001)

BigJimOutlaw said:


> Verizon's compression of locals is a market-to-market thing. KMTTG is showing my major Fios local recordings as low as 7-8 mbps (ABC, PBS). Most in the 12-13 mbps range. NBC is the only "true" QAM with 16-18 mbps.


From my recordings on Comcast last night here, I noticed that one of the hour long shows was around 7.5 GB, one was about half that, off of HD channels. I think it was "Motive" (ABC) and "Taxi Brooklyn" (NBC), but I don't remember for sure which was which. (Darn, can't get size in the iPhone app.)


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## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

mattack said:


> From my recordings on Comcast last night here, I noticed that one of the hour long shows was around 7.5 GB, one was about half that, off of HD channels. I think it was "Motive" (ABC) and "Taxi Brooklyn" (NBC), but I don't remember for sure which was which. (Darn, can't get size in the iPhone app.)


7.5GB = ~16.6mbps. That's pretty darn good. There is no way that MPEG-2 HD is 7-8mbps unless it's a nearly totally static image. No way, no how. 11mbps is the rock bottom, and it looks like absolute crap at that.


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## mattack (Apr 9, 2001)

OK, this does fit with the previous discussion. It's an episode of Taxi Brooklyn that the Tivo and kmttg say is 7.65 GB. (IIRC, the files end up a bit smaller after downloading off the Tivo, and I am NOT talking about the correct power of 2 vs incorrect power of 10 GB distinction.)

Episodes of the cable show "The Last Ship" are closer to 8 GB each.


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## BigJimOutlaw (Mar 21, 2004)

Bigg said:


> There is no way that MPEG-2 HD is 7-8mbps unless it's a nearly totally static image. No way, no how. 11mbps is the rock bottom, and it looks like absolute crap at that.


I've got four 1-hour-long episodes of One Upon a Time. All are 3.x GB. A two hour episode is 6.76 GB. Confirmed by transferring some to the PC to make sure the Tivo wasn't reporting it incorrectly.

But surprisingly it doesn't look as bad as you'd think. I'd expect it to look like ass too. It doesn't look "great" but there's no crazy Comcast-like macroblocking during motion. But it's a bit soft on detail. As I said, Fios has a good compression tool. People don't even realize most channels are 3:1 muxed now, including major ones. I don't even wanna guess how many sub-channels are being crammed in with ABC here.


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## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

BigJimOutlaw said:


> I've got four 1-hour-long episodes of One Upon a Time. All are 3.x GB. A two hour episode is 6.76 GB. Confirmed by transferring some to the PC to make sure the Tivo wasn't reporting it incorrectly.
> 
> But surprisingly it doesn't look as bad as you'd think. I'd expect it to look like ass too. It doesn't look "great" but there's no crazy Comcast-like macroblocking during motion. But it's a bit soft on detail. As I said, Fios has a good compression tool. People don't even realize most channels are 3:1 muxed now, including major ones. I don't even wanna guess how many sub-channels are being crammed in with ABC here.


Are you sure it's full 720p? Maybe the 720p is compressing better than 1080i, where it all goes south at 11mbps... But still, that's totally insane going from 19mbps to 7-8mbps.

Most people don't realize what they're missing because they don't know any better, and because they can't tell the difference on their small, un-calibrated screens and their crappy little soundbars.


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## mr.unnatural (Feb 2, 2006)

Here's a screen shot of my RecordedTV folder in WMC. Each one-hour show recorded via OTA is about 8GB whereas cable shows are at least 1GB smaller in size. There are a lot more shows in the list, but they're consistent across the board. FYI - the extraneous files you see in the list are generated by the ShowAnalyzerSuite commercial skipping software.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

BigJimOutlaw said:


> I've got four 1-hour-long episodes of One Upon a Time. All are 3.x GB. A two hour episode is 6.76 GB. Confirmed by transferring some to the PC to make sure the Tivo wasn't reporting it incorrectly.
> 
> But surprisingly it doesn't look as bad as you'd think. I'd expect it to look like ass too. It doesn't look "great" but there's no crazy Comcast-like macroblocking during motion. But it's a bit soft on detail. As I said, Fios has a good compression tool. People don't even realize most channels are 3:1 muxed now, including major ones. I don't even wanna guess how many sub-channels are being crammed in with ABC here.
> ..............


I know around here, non of the major broadcast stations look as good as they did a decade or so ago. When I look at some of my old HD recordings from 2001/2002, the local stations in my area used more bandwidth than they do now now. So everything just looks so much better than the recordings from today with lower bandwidth. My old OTA HD files have noticeably more detail in them than any today. Of course back then there were also fewer sub-stations so that seems to be the main reason for the difference. Although Fox was only broadcasting in 480P back then so that is the reason for the difference in size and quality with FOX. But with CBS, ABC, and NBC in my area they all have several sub-channels now. And the picture quality doesn't come close to what it was in the early 2000's.


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## lessd (Jan 23, 2005)

aaronwt said:


> I know around here, non of the major broadcast stations look as good as they did a decade or so ago. When I look at some of my old HD recordings from 2001/2002, the local stations in my area used more bandwidth than they do now now. So everything just looks so much better than the recordings from today with lower bandwidth. My old OTA HD files have noticeably more detail in them than any today. Of course back then there were also fewer sub-stations so that seems to be the main reason for the difference. Although Fox was only broadcasting in 480P back then so that is the reason for the difference in size and quality with FOX. But with CBS, ABC, and NBC in my area they all have several sub-channels now. And the picture quality doesn't come close to what it was in the early 2000's.


When the HD standards came out I was concerned about the flexibility that OTA/cable had in the way they could degrade the xmission, at first you are correct as you got a great HD picture, then compression starting coming into the game so OTA could have more channels or cable could have more channels, and resolution took a loss that most people don't care about. People look at the great spec on their new HDTV and may pay more to get a better picture, only to have a picture quality less that the HDTV could deliver. A bummer 
As a note the picture in most cases is much better than the old SD xmission.


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## BigJimOutlaw (Mar 21, 2004)

Bigg said:


> Are you sure it's full 720p? Maybe the 720p is compressing better than 1080i, where it all goes south at 11mbps... But still, that's totally insane going from 19mbps to 7-8mbps.
> 
> Most people don't realize what they're missing because they don't know any better, and because they can't tell the difference on their small, un-calibrated screens and their crappy little soundbars.


It's a 1280x720 video. If there's otherwise resolution fakery going on I don't know how to test for it. If I'm bored maybe I'll dig to see what all is sharing ABC's QAM space. It's not normal though. All other channels I record on are the standard 13-18 mbps.


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## shwru980r (Jun 22, 2008)

Bigg said:


> The 6-tuners chips apparently only support CableCard, and no one has made a 6-tuner or larger OTA chip. An OTA USB adapter, like DirecTV did, would be interesting, but it would be an extra expense for the OTA-only market, which is the most price sensitive, so probably not a great idea all in all...


You're comparing apples to oranges. It's a one time expense for OTA which will be recouped easily after a few months of no cable bill. OTA gives you the freedom to purchase the best equipment and not think twice about it.


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## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

lessd said:


> When the HD standards came out I was concerned about the flexibility that OTA/cable had in the way they could degrade the xmission, at first you are correct as you got a great HD picture, then compression starting coming into the game so OTA could have more channels or cable could have more channels, and resolution took a loss that most people don't care about. People look at the great spec on their new HDTV and may pay more to get a better picture, only to have a picture quality less that the HDTV could deliver. A bummer
> As a note the picture in most cases is much better than the old SD xmission.


We have a local provider that doesn't re-compress, and their HD looks amazing, but their channel lineup and other features all suck, so I have Comcast. It's unfortunate that providers don't move to MPEG-4 so that they could have the best of both worlds.



BigJimOutlaw said:


> It's a 1280x720 video. If there's otherwise resolution fakery going on I don't know how to test for it. If I'm bored maybe I'll dig to see what all is sharing ABC's QAM space. It's not normal though. All other channels I record on are the standard 13-18 mbps.


They must have crammed a lot of crap in there.



shwru980r said:


> You're comparing apples to oranges. It's a one time expense for OTA which will be recouped easily after a few months of no cable bill. OTA gives you the freedom to purchase the best equipment and not think twice about it.


HUH? You need a DVR either way, and the two don't compete. Considering that most of the content is on cable, you lose that content going to OTA. The DVR is the same either way...


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## shwru980r (Jun 22, 2008)

Bigg said:


> HUH? You need a DVR either way, and the two don't compete. Considering that most of the content is on cable, you lose that content going to OTA. The DVR is the same either way...


HUH? Most of the content watched is still from the broadcast networks and is aired during prime time. Overlap occurs much more often with OTA in prime time so additional tuners are needed. Since there is no monthly fee for the OTA content, the added expense of additional tuners it insignificant over the long term. Even Dish Network offers a service to record all the broadcast network shows in prime time, so there is obviously a market for additional tuners for OTA.


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## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

shwru980r said:


> HUH? Most of the content watched is still from the broadcast networks and is aired during prime time. Overlap occurs much more often with OTA in prime time so additional tuners are needed. Since there is no monthly fee for the OTA content, the added expense of additional tuners it insignificant over the long term. Even Dish Network offers a service to record all the broadcast network shows in prime time, so there is obviously a market for additional tuners for OTA.


You were comparing the cost of the equipment to the cost of the programming, which are two totally different things. You need the equipment either way. With OTA, you have to buy it, with cable, you can buy TiVo or rent your cable provider's DVR.

To address your unrelated point about tuner overlap, that same overlap would still occur on cable, except now you layer cable channels on top. Even if you can work all the cable shows around the OTA ones, you still have the same OTA ones to record. So cable DVRs will always need way more tuners than OTA.

Dish's crappy Hopper has 3 tuners, one of which will do ONLY locals, since they are grouped on the TP. Thus, you sort of get 6 total, but if you want more than two "cable" channels at once, you're screwed. The Genie's or X1's 5 real tuners will be better 99% of the time, and the Verizon DVR's or TiVo Premiere's 6 real tuners are always better, since any of them can record any channel. PTAT is a desperate attempt to hide the failings of the Hopper system.


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## mr.unnatural (Feb 2, 2006)

Bigg said:


> To address your unrelated point about tuner overlap, that same overlap would still occur on cable, except now you layer cable channels on top. Even if you can work all the cable shows around the OTA ones, you still have the same OTA ones to record. So cable DVRs will always need way more tuners than OTA.


While that may be true in your case, it doesn't even come close to what others may do. It all depends entirely on your viewing habits, which vary considerably from viewer to viewer. During the fall season, I generally have more OTA tuners recording than cablecard tuners at any given time. Best case is that they're split 50-50. Even if you are recording only from cable, the OTA channels are still going to see the most activity in the majority of cases.

Unless you watch a lot of niche programming, most viewers tend to watch network TV and shows unique to certain cable channels, like Fx, USA, TNT, A&E, etc. The rest of the channels attract such small viewing audiences as to be almost insignificant. The largest market shares go to the channels I already mentioned.


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## mr.unnatural (Feb 2, 2006)

It would appear that Tivo sees the OTA-only market as a viable one with this announcement:

http://www.engadget.com/2014/08/25/tivo-roamio-ota-dvr/

Now this thread takes on some real meaning with a proper head to head comparison.


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## BigJimOutlaw (Mar 21, 2004)

Oh snap. Didn't think they'd ever do a dedicated OTA, but cool. And for $50!


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## atmuscarella (Oct 11, 2005)

Tivo's web site:

http://www.tivo.com/discover/antenna​
Info there is a little different than Engadget which states it doesn't work with Minis (TiVos site says it does work with minis).

Also of note is that it is only being sold at select Best Buy Stores.

Looks like anyone who qualifies for MSD or knows about the PLSR lifetime discount code can now have a Roamio OTA DVR for $450 instead of the $600+/-. I would say that makes TiVo pretty price competitive with the other OTA options out there.


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## BigJimOutlaw (Mar 21, 2004)

atmuscarella said:


> Looks like anyone who qualifies for MSD or knows about the PLSR lifetime discount code can now have a Roamio OTA DVR for $450 instead of the $600+/-.


Apparently there's no lifetime on the OTA box.


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## mr.unnatural (Feb 2, 2006)

BigJimOutlaw said:


> Apparently there's no lifetime on the OTA box.


And this could either make or break it as a successful product. It's being sold as a limited edition, most likely to test the waters and see if there's a viable market for it. Without lifetime being available, the other OTA DVRs may be a more desirable product from a cost perspective. I think Tivo needs to offer lifetime if they have any hope of this product's success.


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## atmuscarella (Oct 11, 2005)

BigJimOutlaw said:


> Apparently there's no lifetime on the OTA box.


Where did you get that from? Use the link I posted to TiVo's web site about the OTA only Roamio and then click on the "plus monthly service" link the pop up talks about lifetime just like on a normal Roamio.


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## trip1eX (Apr 2, 2005)

atmuscarella said:


> Where did you get that from? Use the link I posted to TiVo's web site about the OTA only Roamio and then click on the "plus monthly service" link the pop up talks about lifetime just like on a normal Roamio.


edit: ok I see the same thing.

But it also says in the fine print that under certain promotions lifetime may not be offered.


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## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

mr.unnatural said:


> While that may be true in your case, it doesn't even come close to what others may do. It all depends entirely on your viewing habits, which vary considerably from viewer to viewer. During the fall season, I generally have more OTA tuners recording than cablecard tuners at any given time. Best case is that they're split 50-50. Even if you are recording only from cable, the OTA channels are still going to see the most activity in the majority of cases.
> 
> Unless you watch a lot of niche programming, most viewers tend to watch network TV and shows unique to certain cable channels, like Fx, USA, TNT, A&E, etc. The rest of the channels attract such small viewing audiences as to be almost insignificant. The largest market shares go to the channels I already mentioned.


My point is that if you have cable, you will have MORE to record than with OTA, no matter what the split is. I'm sure there are some people who watch primarily network TV, but among the people that I know, much of their viewing is cable or premium.

Sports is a huge driver on cable, and there are a number of other networks that are very popular. And then premiums. HBO has been on a roll lately with content.



mr.unnatural said:


> It would appear that Tivo sees the OTA-only market as a viable one with this announcement:
> 
> http://www.engadget.com/2014/08/25/tivo-roamio-ota-dvr/
> 
> Now this thread takes on some real meaning with a proper head to head comparison.


Yeah, this is an interesting move for TiVo. I'm surprised that they built a product for OTA-only, and without Lifetime at that.

However, I'm glad to see that they are paying attention to the retail market. The Plus/Pro/T6 was at least in part made for Suddenlink and RCN, even though it takes the cake as the most powerful standalone DVR on the market.



mr.unnatural said:


> And this could either make or break it as a successful product. It's being sold as a limited edition, most likely to test the waters and see if there's a viable market for it. Without lifetime being available, the other OTA DVRs may be a more desirable product from a cost perspective. I think Tivo needs to offer lifetime if they have any hope of this product's success.


Uh oh, I have to agree with you on something!  They definitely need Lifetime. The other OTA DVRs have it, as do all the other TiVos. And these so-called "cord cutters" are especially sensitive to monthly fees.


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## mr.unnatural (Feb 2, 2006)

Bigg said:


> My point is that if you have cable, you will have MORE to record than with OTA, no matter what the split is. I'm sure there are some people who watch primarily network TV, but among the people that I know, much of their viewing is cable or premium.


I have FIOS and I definitely have more choices than OTA. However, the actual number of programs that I find desirable on cable are generally less than what I record via OTA. Obviously, this varies considerably based on each viewer's tastes. The point being, more does not necessarily mean better. FWIW, I am not subscribed to any premium channels. Aside from a few exclusive programs that they offer, there is very little on these channels to justify the high monthly cost, IMHO. Movies are no longer a huge draw for these channels anymore as they are available through any number of other sources.

Case in point, I subscribe to the FIOS Extreme HD package which gives me access to 332 channels, 90 of which are in HD (I don't watch any channels in SD, but my wife does and she'll have kid's channels on when the grandkids are over). Of those 332 channels, I only watch HD shows on USA, TNT, AMC, A&E, FX, BBCA, WGN, Comedy Central, SyFy, and IFC. I watch maybe one or two shows at most on the majority of these channels.

I may watch more than a few shows on others in this group, but they all tend to be aired during different seasons. That's only ten out of 332 channels that I actually watch on a regular basis, and the number of shows per channel I watch on cable is far less than what I watch on network TV via OTA. I may expand my channel count on extremely rare occasions, such as when the Ravens are playing on Thursday night and the game is only carried on the NFL Network.


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## mattack (Apr 9, 2001)

Bigg said:


> My point is that if you have cable, you will have MORE to record than with OTA, no matter what the split is. I'm sure there are some people who watch primarily network TV, but among the people that I know, much of their viewing is cable or premium.


I have absolutely no proof, but I actually suspect the opposite.. and I'm not JUST using myself as anecdotal data.

I have cable, and do watch various cable shows (especially this summer, there have been a bunch of new summer cable shows I've liked).. But the huge majority of what I watch at least during the main TV season is network shows. (Yes, I realize using the term "main TV season" is sort of self selecting too, since many of the cable networks purposely schedule _off_ that.)

Darn, was kind of hoping maybe this would support Amazon Prime video too -- that'd be another reason to get for cord cutters. (...I personally was hoping since it would then eventually go to the existing boxes...)


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## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

mr.unnatural said:


> I have FIOS and I definitely have more choices than OTA. However, the actual number of programs that I find desirable on cable are generally less than what I record via OTA. Obviously, this varies considerably based on each viewer's tastes. The point being, more does not necessarily mean better. FWIW, I am not subscribed to any premium channels. Aside from a few exclusive programs that they offer, there is very little on these channels to justify the high monthly cost, IMHO. Movies are no longer a huge draw for these channels anymore as they are available through any number of other sources.
> 
> Case in point, I subscribe to the FIOS Extreme HD package which gives me access to 332 channels, 90 of which are in HD (I don't watch any channels in SD, but my wife does and she'll have kid's channels on when the grandkids are over). Of those 332 channels, I only watch HD shows on USA, TNT, AMC, A&E, FX, BBCA, WGN, Comedy Central, SyFy, and IFC. I watch maybe one or two shows at most on the majority of these channels.
> 
> I may watch more than a few shows on others in this group, but they all tend to be aired during different seasons. That's only ten out of 332 channels that I actually watch on a regular basis, and the number of shows per channel I watch on cable is far less than what I watch on network TV via OTA. I may expand my channel count on extremely rare occasions, such as when the Ravens are playing on Thursday night and the game is only carried on the NFL Network.


You're totally avoiding my point. My point is that if you have cable, you will record more than if you only have OTA, because cable gives you the OTA content PLUS more. Even if you're watching 90% local channels over cable, that's still 10% more that you will record with cable versus OTA.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

Bigg said:


> You're totally avoiding my point. My point is that if you have cable, you will record more than if you only have OTA, because cable gives you the OTA content PLUS more. Even if you're watching 90% local channels over cable, that's still 10% more that you will record with cable versus OTA.


In my situation since I have cable I do record alot of content on cable as well as content from the national broadcast networks. But if I were only OTA, I would be watching much more OTA content since I wouldn't have those cable porgrams to watch. There are dozens of shows from OTA I would like to watch, but there is only a limited amount of time to watch so I need to pick and choose what shows I will watch. And with cable that time is further reduced. But without cable, i would still watch the same amount of Tv, just more of it would be shows from OTA broadcast networks.

My GF is OTA only and uses a couple of S3 TiVos. She has dozens of Season passes and still has things she would like to record but doesn't because she does not have the time.


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## mr.unnatural (Feb 2, 2006)

Bigg said:


> You're totally avoiding my point. My point is that if you have cable, you will record more than if you only have OTA, because cable gives you the OTA content PLUS more. Even if you're watching 90% local channels over cable, that's still 10% more that you will record with cable versus OTA.


I wasn't avoiding the point. I just didn't see the need to keep restating the obvious. My point was that if you compare OTA to cable (just cable channels without including OTA in the count), you definitely get tons more channels, but not necessarily a significant amount of additional content that you'd care to watch.


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## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

aaronwt said:


> In my situation since I have cable I do record alot of content on cable as well as content from the national broadcast networks. But if I were only OTA, I would be watching much more OTA content since I wouldn't have those cable porgrams to watch. There are dozens of shows from OTA I would like to watch, but there is only a limited amount of time to watch so I need to pick and choose what shows I will watch. And with cable that time is further reduced. But without cable, i would still watch the same amount of Tv, just more of it would be shows from OTA broadcast networks.
> 
> My GF is OTA only and uses a couple of S3 TiVos. She has dozens of Season passes and still has things she would like to record but doesn't because she does not have the time.


Interesting. I guess if you move viewing time over to OTA, you would need more tuners... Still not as many as with cable though. If you have more content available, you're likely going to watch more...


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## mr.unnatural (Feb 2, 2006)

Bigg said:


> If you have more content available, you're likely going to watch more...


In theory, perhaps. It all depends on the content. If your provider added 100 more channels but those channels only included shopping networks, religious channels, cooking shows, or other content that was of absolutely no interest to you, would you still watch them just because there was more to watch? I see new channels added to my lineup all the time, but I don't watch more TV as a result.

It's all about quantity vs. quality, with quality reflecting the kind of shows you prefer to watch as opposed to channels that hold no interest. I watch more content from the six network OTA channels I receive than all 322 channels that I get on FIOS. To be fair, only 90 of the 322 are in HD, which is all I watch, and there are duplicates of my local channels as well, which probably brings the number of available channels on FIOS down to about 65 or 70. Of those, I only watch content from about 10 channels, and many of them are limited to just one or two shows per channel.


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## trip1eX (Apr 2, 2005)

mr.unnatural said:


> I wasn't avoiding the point. I just didn't see the need to keep restating the obvious. My point was that if you compare OTA to cable (just cable channels without including OTA in the count), you definitely get tons more channels, but not necessarily a significant amount of additional content that you'd care to watch.


YOu're arguing from the perspective of a random individual. Bigg is arguing from the perspective of a big scoop of households and the resulting usage pattern you would see.

That's why you are avoiding his point. You are arguing the exception.

It's like if someone says Seattle is rainy. And then you say no it isn't. It was sunny yesterday. Ok. Point missed.

And realize the argument your posts leads to. That people pay for cable because they don't get significant amounts of additional content that they care about.


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## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

trip1eX said:


> YOu're arguing from the perspective of a random individual. Bigg is arguing from the perspective of a big scoop of households and the resulting usage pattern you would see.
> 
> That's why you are avoiding his point. You are arguing the exception.
> 
> ...


Yup. Well said.


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## shwru980r (Jun 22, 2008)

Bigg said:


> You were comparing the cost of the equipment to the cost of the programming, which are two totally different things. You need the equipment either way. With OTA, you have to buy it, with cable, you can buy TiVo or rent your cable provider's DVR.


The cost of the equipment and the programming are most certainly related, because the sum of the two represents the total cost of watching TV. Over time the cost of cable programming is by far the biggest expense for watching cable tv. Since there is no charge for receiving OTA programming, more cash is available for the equipment and the monthly cost becomes insignificant when spread out over the life of the equipment



Bigg said:


> To address your unrelated point about tuner overlap, that same overlap would still occur on cable, except now you layer cable channels on top. Even if you can work all the cable shows around the OTA ones, you still have the same OTA ones to record. So cable DVRs will always need way more tuners than OTA.


Your reasoning is defective. Obviously you would need more tuners to capture all of the cable programming, but that's not the point. The point is with cable programming you have more choices and they all aren't on during prime time, so you can find more programming to watch with less tuners.



Bigg said:


> Dish's crappy Hopper has 3 tuners, one of which will do ONLY locals, since they are grouped on the TP. Thus, you sort of get 6 total, but if you want more than two "cable" channels at once, you're screwed. The Genie's or X1's 5 real tuners will be better 99% of the time, and the Verizon DVR's or TiVo Premiere's 6 real tuners are always better, since any of them can record any channel. PTAT is a desperate attempt to hide the failings of the Hopper system.


Again, your reasoning is defective. You seem to think the inadequacies of the hopper some how invalidate the demand to capture all of the prime time OTA programming. The 6 tuner OTA DVR would be better than the hopper and have a cheaper total cost for watching TV for someone who watches mostly broadcast network programming.


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## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

shwru980r said:


> The cost of the equipment and the programming are most certainly related, because the sum of the two represents the total cost of watching TV. Over time the cost of cable programming is by far the biggest expense for watching cable tv. Since there is no charge for receiving OTA programming, more cash is available for the equipment and the monthly cost becomes insignificant when spread out over the life of the equipment


NO. You can't say that by buying a TiVo and using OTA, you are somehow saving money on cable. First, you aren't getting the same content, and secondly, with cable, you still have to pay the same for a DVR, so the two are really totally separate things. They are only fair to compare once you venture outside of OTA/cable/FIOS and you have to look at equipment provided by the service provider that may be priced totally differently from TiVo.



> Your reasoning is defective. Obviously you would need more tuners to capture all of the cable programming, but that's not the point. The point is with cable programming you have more choices and they all aren't on during prime time, so you can find more programming to watch with less tuners.


I was looking at watching xyz OTA content with OTA vs watching the same on cable PLUS cable channels.



> Again, your reasoning is defective. You seem to think the inadequacies of the hopper some how invalidate the demand to capture all of the prime time OTA programming. The 6 tuner OTA DVR would be better than the hopper and have a cheaper total cost for watching TV for someone who watches mostly broadcast network programming.


Wow. You completely missed my point. My point is that the Hopper is crippled. The ideal is a 6 tuner DVR that can record ANY 6 shows, likely 3+ of them will be cable channels if you're using all 6 tuners. The Hopper can basically record 2 shows, and if you happen to record something from a local channel, that's a freebie.

The Hopper is a crippled POS.


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## mr.unnatural (Feb 2, 2006)

trip1eX said:


> YOu're arguing from the perspective of a random individual. Bigg is arguing from the perspective of a big scoop of households and the resulting usage pattern you would see.
> 
> That's why you are avoiding his point. You are arguing the exception.


No, I'm pointing out reality. Just because you have more channels on cable, you don't necessarily have more content that you'd prefer to watch. Network TV captures the largest viewing audience on just about any given night, with very few exceptions. That's not to say there aren't a lot of people that watch more shows on cable vs. network TV. It's just that those that do are scattered all over the place. My point is that the each of the shows on cable grab a miniscule audience vs. network TV.



trip1eX said:


> It's like if someone says Seattle is rainy. And then you say no it isn't. It was sunny yesterday. Ok. Point missed.


I've been to Seattle on both sunny and rainy days. Absolute world of difference. 



> And realize the argument your posts leads to. That people pay for cable because they don't get significant amounts of additional content that they care about.


I realize a lot of people get cable for the variety and selection it offers. Problem is, everyone I've ever known ended up getting disgruntled with the choices on cable after the novelty wore off. Let's face it, 300 channels of crap isn't going to grab the lions share of viewers. Most people tend to migrate to just a handful of channels that carry the shows that interest them and simply ignore the rest. This is why so many people keep wanting a la carte cable subscriptions. Unfortunately, that sort of subscription service would end up costing the customer more in the long run so it's cheaper to go with the bundled packages.

Now be honest. Do you actually watch all of the channels you receive in the package you subscribe to or do you primarily only watch a select group of channels?


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## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

mr.unnatural said:


> No, I'm pointing out reality. Just because you have more channels on cable, you don't necessarily have more content that you'd prefer to watch. Network TV captures the largest viewing audience on just about any given night, with very few exceptions. That's not to say there aren't a lot of people that watch more shows on cable vs. network TV. It's just that those that do are scattered all over the place. My point is that the each of the shows on cable grab a miniscule audience vs. network TV.


You're still arguing a fringe use case. The vast majority of people with cable watch a lot more TV than people with OTA only because there's more to watch. Sure, the four networks each capture more than the dozens of cable channels, but the dozens of cable channels combined likely capture more viewing than the networks, especially when you count HBO or looks at sports.



> I've been to Seattle on both sunny and rainy days. Absolute world of difference.


Right. Sunny days are the exception to the rule.



> I realize a lot of people get cable for the variety and selection it offers. Problem is, everyone I've ever known ended up getting disgruntled with the choices on cable after the novelty wore off. Let's face it, 300 channels of crap isn't going to grab the lions share of viewers. Most people tend to migrate to just a handful of channels that carry the shows that interest them and simply ignore the rest. This is why so many people keep wanting a la carte cable subscriptions. Unfortunately, that sort of subscription service would end up costing the customer more in the long run so it's cheaper to go with the bundled packages.
> 
> Now be honest. Do you actually watch all of the channels you receive in the package you subscribe to or do you primarily only watch a select group of channels?


HBO. Sports. An occasional good show on cable. No, I only watch a select group of channels. But the flip side of that is that I only record one show during the regular TV season off the big 4, although a good chunk of my viewing is PBS. My mainstay for scripted TV that's just entertainment is HBO, for news and information it's Comedy Central, MSNBC, and HBO, for sports it's whatever my team is on, which is like 10 different channels throughout the season.


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## Chris Gerhard (Apr 27, 2002)

Here is a recent review of Simple.TV. I don't think it has been linked here previously.

http://www.tomsguide.com/us/simple-tv-streaming,review-2324.html


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