Help me out with some more newbie questions :-p

[Winterwaves]

Hello again,
Boy, I'm really mulling over all of this. I just ordered a Comcast Triple Play package (Internet, phone, cable TV) for the new home I'll be moving into next week. I don't have an HDTV yet but eventually will get one. Washer, dryer, blinds, lawn mower, etc. all come first, though.

I have a few questions I couldn't find the answers to:

1. I'm looking into the possibility of eventually cancelling the cable TV part of my Comcast package in favor of simply picking up OTA channels and buying selected DVDs of the other stuff I normally watch on some cable stations (Discover Channel, Comedy Central, etc.) I keep seeing people talking about how far they are from certain towers. My question is, how do I find out how far I am from towers around me? Is there some website that has that information?

2. The ability to stream my MP3s from my PC is a huge plus. But how robust is it? Can I search for songs with a certain word in the title? Can I search for a particular artist by typing in part of their name? How about telling the TiVo to play all songs of a certain genre? Does it pause between tracks of songs (for example, if I'm playing Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon straight thru and want no breaks between tracks, can I accomplish that)?

3. Too bad that TiVo doesn't support Flickr (AppleTV does). I saw a free program that is supposed to support Flickr, but it was written a while ago. Does it still work with the newest TiVo units?

4. I read about Comcast's upcoming TiVo software option for Comcast DVRs. That is supposed to be able to search On Demand stuff with the TiVo interface. I gather that access to Comcast On Demand programming is not currently available to the TiVo system, then?

Thanks in advance for any info.

[bkdtv]

1. I'm looking into the possibility of eventually cancelling the cable TV part of my Comcast package in favor of simply picking up OTA channels and buying selected DVDs of the other stuff I normally watch on some cable stations (Discover Channel, Comedy Central, etc.) I keep seeing people talking about how far they are from certain towers. My question is, how do I find out how far I am from towers around me? Is there some website that has that information?TVfool.com (http://www.tvfool.com/) is a good site. Click "Check Your Address for Free TV."

2. The ability to stream my MP3s from my PC is a huge plus. But how robust is it? Can I search for songs with a certain word in the title? Can I search for a particular artist by typing in part of their name? How about telling the TiVo to play all songs of a certain genre? Does it pause between tracks of songs (for example, if I'm playing Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon straight thru and want no breaks between tracks, can I accomplish that)?Others can address the music questions.

4. I read about Comcast's upcoming TiVo software option for Comcast DVRs. That is supposed to be able to search On Demand stuff with the TiVo interface on a Motorola DVR platform with less available memory. I gather that access to Comcast On Demand programming is not currently available to the TiVo system, then?The Comcast DVRs have 1/2 the memory and run a slower, less responsive Java version of the TiVo software. The Comcast TiVo software has improved significantly since its debut, but imo, it has a ways to go before it is a viable alternative to a real TiVo. It may take the next generation of Comcast DVR hardware to deliver TiVo-like performance.

The Comcast TiVo software is also limited to basic DVR functionalty. It doesn't support other features, such as the Netflix, YouTube, Music, MRV, playback of PC videos, or the ability to download recordings to your computer.

[CraigHB]

I think a person could do well with OTA only considering the online features TiVo provides. I'm extremely pleased with my TiVo's Netflix interface and am finding it fills a majority of my viewing needs. Though, I do have good internet feed, Charter 10/1M, but I think it will work okay with a 5M/500K feed. The streaming video quality looks pretty good to me. I don't think's it's as good as OTA HD, but it's definitely acceptable. I have a fairly short viewing distance so I'm using a 39" 720p monitor. The difference would probably be more noticable with a bigger 1080p monitor.

I used to have a DirecTiVo and that worked exceptionally well. When DirecTV dropped TiVo, I dropped them. I went to cable with a series 3. It works very well, but it would be better if I still had access to VoD/PPV like I did with the DirecTiVo. You might want to wait and see what happens with Comcast and TiVo before pulling the trigger especially if you want access to VoD/PPV. Personally, my priority is TiVo so I would never go with something like a Moxi or Dish DVR. For me, giving up VoD/PPV was a fair trade to keep my superior TiVo interface. And, with the online features, I miss VoD/PPV even less.

[ZeoTiVo]

The Comcast DVRs have 1/2 the memory and run a slower, less responsive Java version of the TiVo software.

the sentence does not parse like you may have intended. We know the Comcast hardware with TiVo software is slower, less responsive in total. We fo not know if the Java version itself is slower and less responsive though. On decent hardware it may be just as responsive or more responsive.

[samo]

the sentence does not parse like you may have intended. We know the Comcast hardware with TiVo software is slower, less responsive in total. We fo not know if the Java version itself is slower and less responsive though. On decent hardware it may be just as responsive or more responsive.
Java is slower, no question about it. TiVo software used to run fine on 25 Mhz Power PC processor. I can't imagine that Comcast hardware is so obsolete that it can not run relatively primitive UI.

[Winterwaves]

I'm coming back to this thread a little late, but want to say thank you for the responses thus far. While I am still very curious as to what the music streaming capabilities are -- especially the ability to search for songs and to play songs by a specific genre, or by other MP3 tags -- I think I've made up my mind what I am going to do: I'm going to get a TiVo HD DVR (not the XL version) with the lifetime subscription, and a wireless adapter and an HD antenna. I'll see what I can get on the antenna, and if I find that I can live without most of the cable stations, I'll dump my Comcast cable and just go antenna only, plus streaming content from the Net.

[wmcbrine]

2. The ability to stream my MP3s from my PC is a huge plus. But how robust is it?Not very. The MP3 player has a tendency to crash, requiring a reboot to restore its function.

Can I search for songs with a certain word in the title? Can I search for a particular artist by typing in part of their name? How about telling the TiVo to play all songs of a certain genre?These capabilities are not in the built-in player that works with HMO servers (TiVo Desktop/pyTivo/etc.), but may be available in one of the HME-based players (Audio Faucet/Harmonium/Galleon/etc.). I can't vouch for it.

Does it pause between tracks of songs (for example, if I'm playing Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon straight thru and want no breaks between tracks, can I accomplish that)?I've gotten the gaps pretty tight with pyTivo, but technically, no, it's not gapless. Again, this might be available in an HME player.

3. Too bad that TiVo doesn't support Flickr (AppleTV does). I saw a free program that is supposed to support Flickr, but it was written a while ago. Does it still work with the newest TiVo units?All the old apps will still work on newer TiVos, though they won't take advantage of high definition. Whether it still works with Flickr might be a bigger question.

I gather that access to Comcast On Demand programming is not currently available to the TiVo system, then?On the standalone TiVos, no.

[jlb]

For picking the right antenna, I have heard that http://www.antennaweb.org/aw/welcome.aspx is the place you need to go.

Also, before worrying about going that route, consider getting just the lifeline/basic service from Comcast. We have that for $11/month and it basically gives us just the locals and their HD counterparts.

[ZeoTiVo]

Java is slower, no question about it. TiVo software used to run fine on 25 Mhz Power PC processor. I can't imagine that Comcast hardware is so obsolete that it can not run relatively primitive UI.

the UI is very different on Comcast TiVo and the motorolla hardware in question has never been known for running anything well. Any performance metrics on that hardware would never give a good picture of the software.

[tiassa]

3. Too bad that TiVo doesn't support Flickr (AppleTV does). I saw a free program that is supposed to support Flickr, but it was written a while ago. Does it still work with the newest TiVo units?

While this isn't exactly what you want, the Tivo HD in conjunction with the Tivo Desktop software, can do a slideshow of images from a PC. It also has the advantage that you can edit the pictures in such a way that they match the display of our TV.

[donnoh]

While I haven't tried to stream MP3s from a PC running Windows I do have a PC running Windows Home Server and I installed a service called Tivo Publisher and I have to say it works great. The music is displayed in folders for each artist and you can play each one from the start sequentially or randomly and I've never heard any gaps and I have the audio set to the highest setting.

I think the ability to stream music through Tivo to my home theater is one of the best features of Tivo. I was able to ditch my CD player and put 200 CDs in the closet out of site and still have access to any one of them with a few clicks of the remote.

[CraigHB]

I'll see what I can get on the antenna, and if I find that I can live without most of the cable stations, I'll dump my Comcast cable and just go antenna only, plus streaming content from the Net.
One thing nice about roof-top antenna for digital TV, they're much smaller and more compact than the old analog antenna. Also, I believe I'm getting better PQ with digital OTA in comparison to cable feeds for the same stations. If you haven't experienced it yet, digital OTA is pretty amazing. People still using analog OTA probably don't realize the huge improvement that's readily available now.

[Winterwaves]

Thanks. Well, it sounds like I might be disappointed with the TiVo MP3-streaming function. If all it does is show the files in their folders and let you play them sequentially or randomly, that's not enough. I was looking to upgrade from my old TurtleBeach Audiotron which has served me well, but has only a small LED screen that is hard to read from a distance, and no search function. But it does let me set up playlists, play all music that has a certain genre tag, all music from a certain artist (no matter where it might be located in folders), etc.

I was looking into a Squeezebox as an upgrade, but when I saw that TiVo could possibly fulfill this function as well as DVR and streaming video functions, that sounded great. Oh well. Sounds a little anemic. And if it crashes a lot while playing music files, that's bad!

[wmcbrine]

You can do playlists.