[Summer]

I hope I'm not asking a really silly question, but I didn't see an answer to this in the FAQ...please forgive me if I missed it.

My parents just upgraded their standard cable package to digital and as such now have to hook up the digital cable box. My mom has a Tivo that she simply cannot do without, but is not real tech savvy, so it falls to me. My question is this: Mom only records shows that come on standard cable...she got the digital box just for the movie channels, but has no desire to record them only to watch them when she has the time. Rather than using the IR blaster to hook the Tivo up to the digital cable box, I was thinking of just getting a cable splitter and running one end to the Tivo and the other to the cable box, but I'm not sure this will work. Is this possible is my question I suppose? Or would it be better to just skip this whole idea? Would she then just get the standard cable channels on the Tivo that she could record to her heart's content? I've never dealt with the whole IR blaster problem as I have Directivo, so I guess I may just be looking for a simplier solution when I go over to hook her stuff up tomorrow.

Thanks and again I apologize if this is a silly question.

 

[usnret]

Does she have 2 different inputs on her TV?? Perhaps a Dual Tuner Tivo is in order for her.

 

[Summer]

She does have more than one input and while I'm sure she'd love a dual tuner, she doesn't really record enough shows to justify the purchase at the moment. Maybe a good Christmas present though.

 

[mick66]

A bit unusual, but it'll work just fine.
As Tivo says "TiVo, TV your way."

 

[gastrof]

So long as you can feed both the cable box and the TiVo into the TV by way of different inputs, you should have no problem.

Naturally, the TiVo will continue to work off "straight cable" as it always has, and the cable box will take the cable feed and use it to give the TV all the additional channels your parents are paying for.

The only two problems you might have are

1) a weakening of the cable signal due to the split (which you can avoid by using an amplifying splitter)

2) the cable company going all-digital and no longer providing analog channels (which would mean the TiVo's own analog tuner wouldn't be able to get anything).

 

[JPA2825]

I have a similar inquiry as the OP. Same thing just happened to my Parent-in-Laws. They DO want the TiVo to be able to record the digital channels, so I'm splitting the cable with the following routing:

A - into Digital Cable Box, out of box into TiVo, out of TiVo into TV
B - directly into TV

This will allow them to watch analog stations (whilst they exist) while recording something on TiVo.

My question is whether the serial channel changers are better than the IR blasters. We don't have an "IR fort," so occasionally the blaster strays and has to be repositioned. I haven't tried the serial channel changers yet. Should I bother or just stick w/ IR? If I should bother, do I have to run guided setup all over again or can I just swap Serial for IR somewhere else?

TIA.

 

[Okeemike]

My question is whether the serial channel changers are better than the IR blasters. We don't have an "IR fort," so occasionally the blaster strays and has to be repositioned. I haven't tried the serial channel changers yet. Should I bother or just stick w/ IR? If I should bother, do I have to run guided setup all over again or can I just swap Serial for IR somewhere else?

TIA.

In my opinion, the Serial connection is WAY worth the time to set it up. I ran an S2 and a satellite box for years, the move to the serial connection sped things up for me, and allowed me to shove the sat receiver to the back of the cabinet.