Just bought a new TivoHD, but a few questions.

[frostrambler]

I just purchased a new TivoHD and set it up at home. My cable company (Cablevision) is sending a cable guy on Tuesday to install the cable cards.

I have a few questions though.

1. I ran the guided setup, and it asked me for my zipcode and my cable company, but it only added channels 1-99, I have many more channels than that. Why did it not add the channels above 99? I know that I need a cablecard to view them, but why are they not there at all?

2. I understand I can still watch unblocked regular channels without my cablecard, so I turned on channels 2-11 (NYC), and they looked awful, bad colors, blurry, full of static. It looked like an awful up-converted signal.
I set the Tivo to Native mode, since my Samsung TV runs normally at 720p (its a DLP), but supports anything from 480i through 1080i.

On my previous DVR, an awful Explorer 8300HD, the SD channels looked great, and you could tell they were SD, but they looked really good, how come on the Tivo they look awful. Could this be because my cablecards are not inserted, and once inserted the channel will get a better stream? I'm just really concerned because on my regular cable box the SD channels looked really good, I think I made the box send us the signal of 720p for every HD channel and 480i for every SD channel. I thought that for Tivo, running at Native would be the best solution?

Does anyone know anything about these two issues? I would appreciate any help.

P.S. I have two regular Tivo Series 2 units, neither one is connected to the HDTV, both are on older SDTV's.

[jfh3]

I just purchased a new TivoHD and set it up at home. My cable company (Cablevision) is sending a cable guy on Tuesday to install the cable cards.

I have a few questions though.

1. I ran the guided setup, and it asked me for my zipcode and my cable company, but it only added channels 1-99, I have many more channels than that. Why did it not add the channels above 99? I know that I need a cablecard to view them, but why are they not there at all?

2. I understand I can still watch unblocked regular channels without my cablecard, so I turned on channels 2-11 (NYC), and they looked awful, bad colors, blurry, full of static. It looked like an awful up-converted signal.
I set the Tivo to Native mode, since my Samsung TV runs normally at 720p (its a DLP), but supports anything from 480i through 1080i.

On my previous DVR, an awful Explorer 8300HD, the SD channels looked great, and you could tell they were SD, but they looked really good, how come on the Tivo they look awful. Could this be because my cablecards are not inserted, and once inserted the channel will get a better stream? I'm just really concerned because on my regular cable box the SD channels looked really good, I think I made the box send us the signal of 720p for every HD channel and 480i for every SD channel. I thought that for Tivo, running at Native would be the best solution?

Does anyone know anything about these two issues? I would appreciate any help.

P.S. I have two regular Tivo Series 2 units, neither one is connected to the HDTV, both are on older SDTV's.


#1 - You need to run a channel scan (under settings) to find the digital channels and follow the instructions.

#2 - You are seeing the analog versions of 1-99 now. When you get the CableCARD(s) installed, you will see the digital versions, assuming your MSO is using ADS (probably is).

#3 - Yes, running Tivo in Native Video mode will be best, though many don't like the screen flickers between mode changes. Also depends on how good the scaler is on your TV.

[frostrambler]

#1 - You need to run a channel scan (under settings) to find the digital channels and follow the instructions.

#2 - You are seeing the analog versions of 1-99 now. When you get the CableCARD(s) installed, you will see the digital versions, assuming your MSO is using ADS (probably is).

#3 - Yes, running Tivo in Native Video mode will be best, though many don't like the screen flickers between mode changes. Also depends on how good the scaler is on your TV.


Thank you for the help, I ran a channel scan and the tivo found a bunch of channel 0's and many channels like 13.3 and 79.2, I don't have any decimal channels on my regular box, just channels like 120 or 302, how can I get them in that format?

[jblake]

It was probably picking up OTA channels. Either that or clear QAM digital channels. If it's the latter, they won't map to the correct channels until you get your cable cards.

[pkscout]

If only there were a forum where you could ask questions specific to the HD versions of TiVo's hardware, and where your questions have already been answered if only you searched.

Oh wait, there is (http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/forumdisplay.php?s=&daysprune=&f=51).

[aus1ander]

If only there were a forum where you could ask questions specific to the HD versions of TiVo's hardware, and where your questions have already been answered if only you searched.

Oh wait, there is (http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/forumdisplay.php?s=&daysprune=&f=51).

Chill out. Have you tried using the search feature in this software? Its not very good. He's new to the forum, so lets be welcoming.

[ZeoTiVo]

Chill out. Have you tried using the search feature in this software? Its not very good. He's new to the forum, so lets be welcoming.
well he did point frostrambler the correct forum. He was just a bit sarcastic in doing it. No biggie. Welcome to the forum frostrambler.

YEs - you need the cable cards to see anything digital from the cable company. The coax onl;y hookup is strictly analog

[frostrambler]

Yeah sorry about that, I have lurked here for a while, but post rarely.