TiVo PremiereXL OTA without subscription?

The Premiere only supports broadband internet (via Ethernet or Tivo USB adapter) unless you have their proprietary dial-up adapter.

A new Premiere will give you about a week trial period to set it up and try it without service. If you are using it for OTA use, after that it will only function like a dumb tuner. You can change channels, but there will be no new guide information, you cannot rewind, pause, etc. and you cannot record anything.

If all you want is to view HD OTA TV on a projector, you'd be better off looking for a stand-alone tuner with HD output. Something like this.

 

I'm glad you seem to have found what you've been looking for. Stand alone tuners are hard to come by now that every TV sold has a tuner built-in. I had good luck many years ago with an earlier generation box that I bought from epvision back before I got my first Tivo, so hopefully your experience with them will be a positive one as well.

 

Wouldn't a digital TV antenna converter box be cheaper?

 

It would be cheaper, but it would only output SD composite video and stereo sound.

 

I wish i had waited-purchased 2 premiers in the last 2 weeks. The receiver that you ordered for $186.00 is the guide permanent (free) without a subscription? I didn't see any info about having a fee-I guess that's your point (reason for the tuner vs. TIVO) I still have time to return the TIVO,s-just wondering what benefits I would be losing. Why wouldn't everyone be buying those digital receivers instead of a TIVO!?

Ahh- I see that only the PHD-VRX for $229.95 performs similar to the TIVO-and I don't see any requirement for a monthly fee making it seem like a good alternative to a TIVO- I could use it on one of our HDTV's, that has no internal tuner(Only use it for blu-ray and streaming) (HD Monitor). Glad I stumbled onto this thread!

 

Mostly for its DVR capabilities, amongst a few other features like Netflix, etc.

 

The ATSC standard used for broadcasting digital TV in the US supports the inclusion of program information in the broadcast data. Stand-alone tuners, tuners built into TVs and digital converter boxes should all support displaying this data. Not all stations broadcast their guide data, and those who do may only broadcast information for the next few hours of programming. Since the data (if available) is in the broadcast signal, there is no charge for it.

The DTV Pal converter box had the ability to present the available broadcast guide data in a way that roughly mimics the way a Tivo presents it, but most tuners/receivers will just display what is on at the time if you press the appropriate button on the remote.

Tivo lacks the ability to display the broadcast guide data, and requires the downloaded data from Tribune that you only get with a paid Tivo subscription.

 

There are other devices that will simulate a network connection over a dial-up connection, such as:
3COM 3C886A OfficeConnect 56K LAN Modem (eBay)
Motorola Netopia 3366C-ENT 4-Port 10/100 Wired Router (eBay)
I've never actually tried to use a 3366C with a TiVo, but I suspect it would be more difficult to set up than the 3C886A. Using either of these would surely be an act of desperation by someone too far away from civilization to get either DSL or cable Internet. I think both units are no longer produced.