Going back to cable

[Watrat]

Good evening,
I was looking for some guidance and expertise on a couple of questions. I have been a long time Tivo user..I bought my first one in the 90's before most people had ever heard of tivo..I had a cable guy come out one time and asked if my tivo was a black box for stealing cable. Times have changed it seems. I eventually dumped cable and have been using the directtv-tivo units since 2001 and have been mostly satisfied. But, I am going to comcast because of some issues with Directv. I would now love to get back to a full tivo system (not one regulated by Directv where most features are crippled). Comcast is offering me their dvr units..motorola 3412. I know the new series 3 tivo for HD will accept dual tuners but what about the series 2? Does it have dual inputs or does it require cable cards to allow me to record two things at once? Do the Humax dvd recorder models offer this feature as well?

Thanks for your time.

Tom

[gastrof]

The Series 3 TiVo doesn't "accept" dual tuners.

It has them. (Two SETS of tuners, actually*.)

It works without a cable box, by way of getting your cable company to install "cable cards" in the Series 3. These interact with your cable company and allow the TiVo to tune cable channels on its own.

There is a Series 2 that has dual tuners, but it's meant to work only with direct analog cable feeds, or, on one of its tuners, a cable box (which means digital channels on that side, if the cable box is digital).

No other TiVo works with cable cards, except for the Series 3.

Only the Series 3 and Dual Tuner Series 2 (as opposed to the single tuner Series 2) have dual tuners.

If the machine has dual tuners, that means it can use them to record two channels/shows at once.



*The Series 3 can tune all OverTheAir channels, analog and digital, as well as analog cable channels and, with the cable cards, digital cable channels. It may also be able to tune unscrambled digital cable channels without using cable cards. I'm not quite clear on that.

[Watrat]

There is a Series 2 that has dual tuners, but it's meant to work only with direct analog cable feeds, or, on one of its tuners, a cable box (which means digital channels on that side, if the cable box is digital).

No other TiVo works with cable cards, except for the Series 3.

Only the Series 3 and Dual Tuner Series 2 (as opposed to the single tuner Series 2) have dual tuners.

If the machine has dual tuners, that means it can use them to record two channels/shows at once.


Gastrof,
Thanks for the reply. Am a little confused with your explanation of the series 2 units with dual tuners. If I were to go with Comcast would I need to get a digital box from them and could I utilize the dual tuner aspects of the series 2 tivo? Or, would I only be able to use one of the two tuners in that situation? If my goal is to have dual tuner recording capability am I better off just staying with the comcast 3412 dvr and wait for the tivo comcast software to be available down the road? Would the humax models be in the same boat?

[mick66]

Would you need to get a digital set top box from the cable company? No, not unless you want digital cable service.

As for the DT S2 - It can be used with either analog cable only (usually channels 1 - 99) or analog cable on one tuner and digital (channels 100 and over - via a digital set top box) on the other. It can not record from to digital sources at one time.
Tivo has a website

The Humax models are all single tuner.