Mopower

I want a Tivo. I want to record cable plus HD programs. Currently my cable company does not use cable cards. I have a Motorola digital cable box for cable. I can get HD locals thru the cable line but I have to have a splitter with one line going to the cable input on my TV and another line going to the cable box. I have my cable box hooked up to my tv with the composite connectors. The cable boxes don't have component or HDMI. Are there any options to be able to use a Tivo or another DVR to record HD programs and digital cable programs? Or am I out of luck?

stevevt

It sounds like you currently get HD locals on clear QAM. While Tivo has a QAM tuner, so you should theoretically be able to view these QAM programs on a Tivo, it does not have program guide mapping for these channels. So, you'd need to set up un-fun, un-awesome manual recordings for any HD programs on these channels. And that's assuming I'm actually right about Tivo having a QAM tuner. I'm pretty sure it does, but I've never used one and have no idea how you tune channels on it.

Moxi is another option. I just Googled around to see if they have QAM mapping. The answer is that I couldn't figure it out in 20 seconds, so I'll leave it up to you to do the research.

Is the size of your cable company the reason why it's exempted from having to supply cable cards? Or perhaps too evil or lazy?

Good luck.

TheKing

OK, so basically what your saying is that your cable company broadcasts HD programming, but doesn't offer their viewers a way to actually watch it?

Anyway, the TiVo will pick up those same HD channels that your TV does, it only needs a cable card to pick up encrypted digital channels. If you can watch HD channels straight through your TV, the TiVo can record them. Also, the TiVo can also grab HD channels from an Over The Air Antenna, so you don't even really need cable to get Broadcast HD.

EDIT: Unfortunately it does seem that it would take manual recording for Clear QAM:

http://support.tivo.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/298

Mopower

I live in a small town about about 1300 people so maybe they are exempt because of the number of customers? Sucks either way. I'll look into Moxi. I might just get a series 2 Tivo and forget about HD for now. There are a number if series 2 Tivos with lifetime subs for around $200. That might be the best deal.

tdoane78

What's the name of your cable provider?

-Tim

Mopower

Inter County Cable Company

Mopower

They broadcast local HD stations on the coax. So I can get local HD stations and basic cable by hooking the coax to the cable input on the TV. I just can't get digital cable without hooking up the digital cable box to another input on the tv like AV1 and switching between the two depending on what I want to watch. You can't wath HD NBC or CBS thru the digital cable box because it only has composite out puts.

Spiky

Are you sure there isn't an HD cable box? Because what you described is an SD cable box. Though that wouldn't help the recording side, unless it is an HD-DVR.

Chew

Yes, they are likely exempt:

Mopower

Yes there is no HD cable box. I don't know how to explain it any other way.

Splitter out 1-----Cable box-----AV1 on TV
Splitter out 2------------------------Cable input on TV


If you want to watch basic cable or HD locals you watch the cable input if you want to watch digital cable you change it to AV1 on the TV.

Chew

My advice: move.

darksurtur

The Moxi DOES support channel mapping. From the instruction book: "Channel Mapping – tunable channels (discovered during a channel scan) that can not be automatically mapped to the electronic program guide are listed in this menu option in order to allow the user to manually map the channel to the EPG. Refer to the Installation chapter for Channel Mapping instructions."

However, it does NOT work with OTA broadcasts and requires a $129 add-on to tune analog channels. So it's probably a bad choice ...

Spiky

Sorry, I meant "isn't" to mean "isn't there one available from the company".