Do the newer Tivos work with analog cable?

[TiVoEvan74]

I'm way in over my head technically on all this stuff, but was trying to figure out which of the newer Tivos would work with our cable arrangement.

We're on basic cable, which is only analog. I'm assuming that all the programming is SD, too.

We're currently using Series 2 Tivos (great products but energy hogs).

So key question:

Do any of the newer Tivos work with analog cable?

Alternative solution:

Switching to over-the-air

One alternative is to switch everything to over-the-air HD antennas (we have one Tivo set up with that), but that's flakey where we are--intermittent reception, incredible sensitivity to orientation of antenna, etc.

Plus, and this is key, Tivo does not provide programming information for NBC in our area. That's been true for 3 years now and continues in spite of my repeated requests for them to fix it!

[lillevig]

Originally Posted by TiVoEvan74

I'm way in over my head technically on all this stuff, but was trying to figure out which of the newer Tivos would work with our cable arrangement.

We're on basic cable, which is only analog. I'm assuming that all the programming is SD, too.

We're currently using Series 2 Tivos (great products but energy hogs).

So key question:

Do any of the newer Tivos work with analog cable?

Alternative solution:

Switching to over-the-air

One alternative is to switch everything to over-the-air HD antennas (we have one Tivo set up with that), but that's flakey where we are--intermittent reception, incredible sensitivity to orientation of antenna, etc.

Plus, and this is key, Tivo does not provide programming information for NBC in our area. That's been true for 3 years now and continues in spite of my repeated requests for them to fix it!

As far as I know the S3HD and regular Premeire will work on analog cable. My company has the analog equivalents of the digital channels and I am able to tune them and get Guide Data for them when I have no CableCard in the box. Can't speak for the Elite but I thought I read somewhere here that it can only tune digital channels.

[scandia101]

Originally Posted by TiVoEvan74

Do any of the newer Tivos work with analog cable?

Yes. So far there is only one Tivo model made that does not work with analog cable, the Premiere XL4 (elite) which is model #TCD758250

[lpwcomp]

Originally Posted by scandia101

Yes. So far there is only one Tivo model made that does not work with analog cable, the Premiere XL4 (elite) which is model #TCD758250

Nor does it do over-the-air.

[lpwcomp]

Originally Posted by TiVoEvan74

Plus, and this is key, Tivo does not provide programming information for NBC in our area. That's been true for 3 years now and continues in spite of my repeated requests for them to fix it!

You're saying that TiVo doesn't provide guide data for your local NBC affiliate?

[ajwees41]

Originally Posted by TiVoEvan74

I'm way in over my head technically on all this stuff, but was trying to figure out which of the newer Tivos would work with our cable arrangement.

We're on basic cable, which is only analog. I'm assuming that all the programming is SD, too.

We're currently using Series 2 Tivos (great products but energy hogs).

So key question:

Do any of the newer Tivos work with analog cable?

Alternative solution:

Switching to over-the-air

One alternative is to switch everything to over-the-air HD antennas (we have one Tivo set up with that), but that's flakey where we are--intermittent reception, incredible sensitivity to orientation of antenna, etc.

Plus, and this is key, Tivo does not provide programming information for NBC in our area. That's been true for 3 years now and continues in spite of my repeated requests for them to fix it!

cable is or has gone digital. who is your cable company?

[lpwcomp]

Originally Posted by ajwees41

cable is or has gone digital. who is your cable company?

Not all cable cos have gone completely digital.

[TiVoEvan74]

Well, knock me over with a feather! After 3 years of no guide information for NBC--supposedly because it was a local, low watt, sub-station rebroadcasting NBC--it has now appeared! Bizarre!

It came about after I switched us from OTA to cable input for the channels, then back again! Before, when I had redone the guided set up and chosen OTA, it never showed the NBC programming. Now, either it got added suddenly in the past few days, or for some reason, redoing regular guided set up doesn't work for such situations, but we have NBC info again! (Or, it was done sometime in the past several months and, because I hadn't redone the set up, it wasn't there.) This could mean jettisoning cable entirely and just doing OTA HD.

But we'll still have to figure out a way to get consistent OTA reception (we're in a valley)... I also stumbled into something else, though, which is that placing the antenna more inside the house (rather than on a window ledge) has gotten us better OTA reception!

Question: Is it true that the newer Tivos have pretty good tuners for OTA reception? That is, better than a Series 2? That could make a dif.

Appreciate the tip about which Tivo to avoid if we were going to stay with cable. (You can tell we're cheapskates as we're irritated by a rise in price from $5 to $8 for basic, just local channels, cable.)

[ajwees41]

Originally Posted by lpwcomp

Not all cable cos have gone completely digital.

I didn't say all, but most will or have in order to save bandwidth

Comcast is all digital in most areas

[lpwcomp]

Originally Posted by ajwees41

I didn't say all, but most will or have in order to save bandwidth

Comcast is all digital in most areas

Your original statement was both incorrect and irrelevant to the question at hand - do the newer TiVos support analog cable? The answer was yes, except for the Elite/XL4. Since they also support digital cable, it makes absolutely no difference whether or not the OP's cable system will be converting to digital.

I know Comcast is all digital in a lot of areas, maybe even most. Mine is one of them. If the OP's cable system had already gone digital, his TiVo 2 wouldn't be working directly connected to the Cable. Don't you think it would be likely that he would know?

[unitron]

Originally Posted by TiVoEvan74

...

Question: Is it true that the newer Tivos have pretty good tuners for OTA reception? That is, better than a Series 2? That could make a dif.

...

The Series 2s only did analog over the air.

Unless you're near one of the few hold out low power stations still broadcasting an analog signal, a Series 2s tuners aren't going to be picking up any broadcast signals anymore.

If you're getting over the air on an S2, I'm guessing there's a "coupon box" involved, which means you're seeing the results of the quality, or lack thereof, of its tuner, and not the S2s.

The newer ones may or may not still be able to do over the air analog, but the lack of analog broadcast stations pretty much makes that moot.

I'm not sure you can meaningfully compare the older analog OTA tuners to the current day digital OTA tuners.

[lpwcomp]

Originally Posted by unitron

The Series 2s only did analog over the air.

Unless you're near one of the few hold out low power stations still broadcasting an analog signal, a Series 2s tuners aren't going to be picking up any broadcast signals anymore.

If you're getting over the air on an S2, I'm guessing there's a "coupon box" involved, which means you're seeing the results of the quality, or lack thereof, of its tuner, and not the S2s.

The newer ones may or may not still be able to do over the air analog, but the lack of analog broadcast stations pretty much makes that moot.

I'm not sure you can meaningfully compare the older analog OTA tuners to the current day digital OTA tuners.

Since they came out b4 the digital conversion was complete, I'm pretty sure that the S3s & S4s(-XL4) have both analog and digital OTA tuners.

[TiVoEvan74]

As the OP, a point of clarification...

Our cable company still definitely feeds analog cable, at least for its basic (lifeline, just local) channel feed. Our series 2 DVD Tivos work like a charm with it, no extra box.

Ah, interesting on S2s only doing analog over the air. That must be with direct hookup, right?

What's a "coupon box"? Ah, I know! We have one of those digital converter boxes attached to one of our series 2. That must be what we're getting when we hook up the OTA to the box and feed it to the Tivo. It looks quite good, even better than the direct cable hook up for several stations. Our TVs are old CRT, analog only, SD sets.

Given that, maybe my question still applies. That is, whether a Premiere Tivo's tuner would pick up stations more readily, with less sensitivity to the antenna's direction, compared to, say, either a Zenith or a Cable Master converter box.

[unitron]

Originally Posted by TiVoEvan74

As the OP, a point of clarification...

Our cable company still definitely feeds analog cable, at least for its basic (lifeline, just local) channel feed. Our series 2 DVD Tivos work like a charm with it, no extra box.

Ah, interesting on S2s only doing analog over the air. That must be with direct hookup, right?

What's a "coupon box"? Ah, I know! We have one of those digital converter boxes attached to one of our series 2. That must be what we're getting when we hook up the OTA to the box and feed it to the Tivo. It looks quite good, even better than the direct cable hook up for several stations. Our TVs are old CRT, analog only, SD sets.

Given that, maybe my question still applies. That is, whether a Premiere Tivo's tuner would pick up stations more readily, with less sensitivity to the antenna's direction, compared to, say, either a Zenith or a Cable Master converter box.

Digital broadcasting wasn't around when the S2s were being made, and digital cable wasn't as pervasive at the time, either, so the S2s had NTSC-type tuners that could pickup VHF and UHF stations and analog cable (which is the same thing shoehorned into frequencies between VHF Low and VHF High and between VHF High and UHF, with some overlap with UHF, I think), except the last of the S2s, the dual tuner, could only officially do analog cable, because that was when the rules were changing to require anything made to pick up over the air to be able to tune digital stations as well, and they were bringing out the digital broadcast and cable capable first of the S3s about that same time.

When the OTA switchover was made the government offered coupons to help pay for those converter boxes (although converter is really a misnomer), so they became known as coupon boxes.

I suspect the S3s and S4s have digital OTA tuners as good as, if not better than, those in the average coupon box.

[ajwees41]

Originally Posted by lpwcomp

Your original statement was both incorrect and irrelevant to the question at hand - do the newer TiVos support analog cable? The answer was yes, except for the Elite/XL4. Since they also support digital cable, it makes absolutely no difference whether or not the OP's cable system will be converting to digital.

I know Comcast is all digital in a lot of areas, maybe even most. Mine is one of them. If the OP's cable system had already gone digital, his TiVo 2 wouldn't be working directly connected to the Cable. Don't you think it would be likely that he would know?

How was it incorrect and irrelevant? all I did was mention analog cable was being switched off in many areas so while I didn't exactly answer the question. Cable we be all digital and any HD or newer box will work. The OP never said witch cable company he has.

[lpwcomp]

Originally Posted by ajwees41

How was it incorrect and irrelevant? all I did was mention analog cable was being switched off in many areas so while I didn't exactly answer the question. Cable we be all digital and any HD or newer box will work. The OP never said witch cable company he has.

It was incorrect because you implied all cable cos have or soon will be all digital. Patently untrue. It was irrelevant because if he gets a new TiVo, it won't matter if his cable cos does go all digital since all but the Elite/XL4 support both analog and digital. IT DOESN'T MATTER WHAT CABLE CO HE IS ON!