How many happy with OTA vs CableCard?

Well there was no choice for CableCard + OTA - I record from both and have been relatively trouble free.

If you do both OTA + CableCard, just answer for your CableCard experience, as these things seem to be crashing boxes and pixelating menus, and all kinds of nasty things.

jsidlosky said:

If you do both OTA + CableCard, just answer for your CableCard experience, as these things seem to be crashing boxes and pixelating menus, and all kinds of nasty things.

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No such problems... you have to remember that many people posting here are the ones having trouble and represent a fraction of the user base. That being said certainly the THD SA CableCard fiasco can certainly not be ignored...

moyekj said:

Well there was no choice for CableCard + OTA - I record from both and have been relatively trouble free.

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Curious, why record OTA when you can just record off the CableCard? Are you getting channels OTA that you don't get from your cable company?

Is the answer because the CableCard solution isn't as good as OTA source?

Just curious.

moyekj said:

No such problems... you have to remember that many people posting here are the ones having trouble and represent a fraction of the user base. That being said certainly the THD SA CableCard fiasco can certainly not be ignored...

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Well, I have no trouble, with OTA, I love it.

I am here though to see if I am asking for trouble if I call Comcast and sign up, and all signs point to yes, but I am hoping to find people who say "No, it works great". Just not finding many.

I do agree though, the reason many of us are here is because we have problems, which is why a poll like this is really inaccurate and should be skewed towards NO's (failures), but alas it was just opened, and so far only success's and YES's.

jsidlosky said:

Curious, why record OTA when you can just record off the CableCard? Are you getting channels OTA that you don't get from your cable company?

Is the answer because the CableCard solution isn't as good as OTA source?

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There was a time (not long ago) when there were a couple of channels cable did not carry, but now all the ones I care about are carried via cable. But still I prefer OTA as the best possible unmodified recording source for HD locals. However, just recently I've been exploring OTA vs. Cable bitrates and found not much difference between them (I have a recent thread posting details) so I certainly could take OTA out of the equation. OTA provides further peace of mind for me if my cable co. ever embraces SDV in full force - then I still have option to switch to OTA only and still get good use out of my S3s.

I did cable cards and analog when I lived in Las Vegas (Cox) with no problems (well, except when they set all the channels to copy once and claimed the problem was with my TiVo). Came back home to NC (TWC) and have OTA and analog cable now. No problems at all.

I was OTA+Cable for the first 8 months of having my S3, and everything was fine (aside from some reception issues -- REALLY bad multipath in my apartment). After Cox NoVa dropped the second "digital outlet fee" for HD Tivos, I jumped to Cable card. Thus far I've had no problems -- which includes the "9.1 associated" problems that lots of others are having.

jsidlosky said:

Curious, why record OTA when you can just record off the CableCard? Are you getting channels OTA that you don't get from your cable company?

Is the answer because the CableCard solution isn't as good as OTA source?

Just curious.

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My THD is stable on both OTA and CableCard. I have 3 digital channels OTA that are not available on Cable.

I have an S3 & THD, both for OTA HD. Both work fine. I hope 9.1 does not screw the pooch for my setup.

I use this setup because there is nothing of value from Comcast for HD IMO. 99.9% of what I watch is Local Networks - OTA HD. Comcast does not seem to know how to install and correctly bill for CC's as well. There fees are insane IMO.

I look at these Tivos as a much better solution than a HTPC with a better UI, better WAF, dual tuners and I don't mind the TIvo sub fee just to record OTA.

I seriously doubt I will ever use CCards.

OTA HD + Analog cable...doing just fine for me...with a Series 3 and eSATA drive added.

I'm holding out from Comcrap for cable cards for when Verizon FiOS TV arrives in my area (late this month, early next month). Then I will make the jump to cablecards...

yes this poll points out that many people with problems will take the time to post and reply ssince they have a problem. But with a quick poll we see a lot of stable results with a simple click of the mouse.


that said you can find threads of people with no problems here and people re-plying in the problem threads that they are not experiencing the problem, etc..

I had the 9.1 CC bug yesterday, haven't seen it come back since. Other than that I'm happy with the CableCARD.

Picture quality on the other hand... OTA beats the crappy "HD" cable any day.

moyekj said:

Well there was no choice for CableCard + OTA - I record from both and have been relatively trouble free.

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no offense, but I get a little tired of this kind of reply in every poll at TCF...

Why does every poll here at TCF result in this type of response......
"I can't vote...... There is no <blah, blah, blah> option"

Every time I see this, it just come across as ...."you are not smart enough to pick every possible option , see how smart I am for finding this mistake"

Grow up people and use some common sense. Answer the best you can or don't participate in the poll.

OTA works great. Since getting cablecards, i have to reboot about every 3-4 days because the cablecards just show a black screen.

rmassey said:

no offense, but I get a little tired of this kind of reply in every poll at TCF...

Why does every poll here at TCF result in this type of response......
"I can't vote...... There is no <blah, blah, blah> option"

Every time I see this, it just come across as ...."you are not smart enough to pick every possible option , see how smart I am for finding this mistake"

Grow up people and use some common sense. Answer the best you can or don't participate in the poll.

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Where did I mention I could not vote or that the poll options were just wrong? In fact I did vote to the closest possible answer and my post was anecdotal supplement to the vote. Quite frankly I get more sick of self-appointed moderators than anything else... no offense. If you really are so offended then the ignore list takes care nicely of that problem, though perhaps in your case you would then miss many/most posts in this forum.
Sorry to others for the thread digression - now back on topic please.

OTA HD and analog cable has been fine with my 13-month old TiVo S3 (w/WeaKnees 750GB upgrade).

moyekj said:

Where did I mention I could not vote or that the poll options were just wrong? In fact I did vote to the closest possible answer and my post was anecdotal supplement to the vote. Quite frankly I get more sick of self-appointed moderators than anything else... no offense. If you really are so offended then the ignore list takes care nicely of that problem, though perhaps in your case you would then miss many/most posts in this forum.
Sorry to others for the thread digression - now back on topic please.

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Welcome to my ignore list