TiVo HD - Dumb Question #1

[bobat]

Sorry if this is so basic as to cause your eyes to roll ... I'm a noob!

Just bought a THD and hooked it up - still on old SD TV. My old Series 1 had an RF input and output, so that the cable signal was 'passed through' to the TV's RF input. I could watch plain ole' TV without involving TiVo, but switch TV inputs to do my TiVo thang.

I'll be installing a cablecard to use with Comcast in a week or so when I get the new HDTV. Is there any way to take TiVo 'out of the loop' and watch HD TV straight? Or am I now married to TiVo for plain old TV watching? I don't want to hassle with a cable box or splitter, but I'd like the option to NOT deal with the TiVo stuff (channel banner, etc) now and then.

Thanks in advance!

[scottykempf]

Get a splitter, split the cable right before it goes to TV and Tivo. Works pretty good. If the signal goes to the Tivo, I don't think that there's any way to not "see" the program without the Tivo interface.

[jrm01]

Sorry if this is so basic as to cause your eyes to roll ... I'm a noob!

Just bought a THD and hooked it up - still on old SD TV. My old Series 1 had an RF input and output, so that the cable signal was 'passed through' to the TV's RF input. I could watch plain ole' TV without involving TiVo, but switch TV inputs to do my TiVo thang.

I'll be installing a cablecard to use with Comcast in a week or so when I get the new HDTV. Is there any way to take TiVo 'out of the loop' and watch HD TV straight? Or am I now married to TiVo for plain old TV watching? I don't want to hassle with a cable box or splitter, but I'd like the option to NOT deal with the TiVo stuff (channel banner, etc) now and then.

Thanks in advance!

Can't be done without a cable box and splitter. But for the life of me I can't imagine why anyone would want to do this. If you don't like the channel banner you can reduce it to a small box with the right arrow key. Don't know what the "etc." refers to.

[bizzy]

maybe he wants to record two shows, and watch a third live?

[jrm01]

maybe he wants to record two shows, and watch a third live?

Hard to do when you only have two tuners, unless you split the cable.

[SugarBowl]

The amount of HDTV that you can watch without going through your cablecard'ed Tivo will be very minimal, if any.

[jrm01]

The amount of HDTV that you can watch without going through your cablecard'ed Tivo will be very minimal, if any.

Not true for me. I have my cable split with one end going direct to the TV. I get all the local channels in clear-QAM HD without a problem (once I locate them after Comcast hides them).

[bobat]

Thanks very much for the replies..

One of the reasons I was interested was because when I set "clear banner quickly" in the display settings, I noticed some odd behavior scrolling through channels - there were significant delays which I thought were related to the channel banner, and I didn't want to hassle with that.

It turns out that there's a different problem: I'm getting a "Searching for signal on: Cable In" error message for several seconds before a channel comes in (this is while scrolling through channels - direct input seems to be OK) What's the problem? (again, I'm on Comcast cable with no cable box or cablecards since I'm still using my SD TV.)

Maybe I should start a new thread?

TIA!

[CrispyCritter]

It turns out that there's a different problem: I'm getting a "Searching for signal on: Cable In" error message for several seconds before a channel comes in (this is while scrolling through channels - direct input seems to be OK) What's the problem? (again, I'm on Comcast cable with no cable box or cablecards since I'm still using my SD TV.)I have the same setup on my TiVoHD, and the same observation. The first time I tune a channel, it takes a long time. When I return to that channel later, it changes at a normal speed. I assume it's trying to figure out what kind of signal it's getting, and then keeps that info around for later use. In particular in my case, the cable company sends both analog and digital simulcast signals. My guess is that it tries to tune the digital simulcast first (believing the PSIP data), fails, and then marks the channel as analog.

[bobat]

I have the same setup on my TiVoHD, and the same observation. The first time I tune a channel, it takes a long time. When I return to that channel later, it changes at a normal speed. I assume it's trying to figure out what kind of signal it's getting, and then keeps that info around for later use. In particular in my case, the cable company sends both analog and digital simulcast signals. My guess is that it tries to tune the digital simulcast first (believing the PSIP data), fails, and then marks the channel as analog.
I called Comcast, and sure enough, that's the problem as you described! I stepped through each of the channels and now they come in pretty quickly.

Whew! Thought I was going to have to avoid TiVo!

Thanks, CrispyCritter!