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TiVos for HD OTA in Canada

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359K views 1K replies 137 participants last post by  Jase88 
#1 ·
all of these DVD recorders seem to record in either EDTV or SDTV but not HDTV
To record HDTV you're not going to get much on a single layer DVD (cheapest media). If you're going to use DL you might as well get a BDU subscription, because at current prices if you record a few one hour shows per week, you could almost get a HD PVR from a BDU.

I'm hoping (fingers crossed behind back) that someone will come out with a HDTV PVR with an ATSC tuner - other than the Tivo 3 (which stampeder I think you forgot to mention in the list above). At least one DHCer (Dajad) is using a Tivo 3 as his ATSC tuner/PVR. Unfortunately, and I'm really not trying to troll here, the Tivo 3 IMHO is overpriced for Canadians as we cannot (legally) take advantage of all the functionality the Tivo3 offers. Still a great STB /PVR for those who can afford it.

cheers,
99gecko
 
#2 ·
99gecko,

I am looking for a HD PVR too. I am not "trolling" either, but I have to say that the reason I am setting up OTA is that I don't want to be at the mercy of some provider for the rest of my life.

That said, I don't know of anyone other than Tivo that has a product on the market. I was hoping that as a stopgap I could use a DVD recorder with rewritable media to record an hour or two at a time. I know that I timeshifted almost everything I watched when I had satelite. I don't think that will change with HD broadcasts.

Any other options I should consider?
 
#3 ·
99gecko said:
we cannot (legally) take advantage of all the functionality the Tivo3 offers
Although TiVo doesn't sell their PVRs in Canada, they now will sell subscriptions to Canadians. See
Is the TiVo service available in Canada?
. I read somewhere that they don't have the Canadian DT schedules yet (only the analog schedules) and they don't use the broadcast program guide, but that information may be out of date.

Regardless, it is still very expensive so I am with you and wish more affordable options were available.
 
#9 ·
TiVo OTA atsc decoder ?

Hey all Just a quick question about Tivo boxes. I'm new here and just got my CH4228 up this weekend. My High Def TV does not have a built in decodor and from what I've read on this site I've decided to go with a Tivo box. I want to order the TiVo TCD652160 HD Digital Video Recorder from amazon and have my Dad bring it up from the US at CHristmas, but I noticed most posters refering to the Tivo series 3 as what there using. The series three is much more expensive $550.00 compared to the Tivo HD Dvr that I want to order. The Tivo website says it does antenna digital and High Def. But as I didn't find anyone here using it I got nervous. If someone here knows that this unit is capable of decoding atsc and storing HD OTA I'd be greatfull.
 
#11 ·
That thread is almost exclusively about the SD TiVos that use guide data supplied by TiVo for cable or satellite - the situation for using TiVos for HD OTA is much different.

Chudsmith-I believe that the model that you are looking at should work as it says that it supports antennas - the issue remains that the providers of guide data, which I believe is Zap2it, refuse to believe that Canada has OTA digital. This is a problem in PC based PVRs as well.

The solution seems to be to tell the TiVo that you live in Youngstown, NY - Dale Dietrich has more info on his blog here http://daledietrich.com/imedia/using-tivo-series-3-in-canada/

It is hard to believe that TiVo is charging a $300 premium between the HD DVR and the HD XL DVR. The difference is THX certification, a bigger hard drive and a better remote. You could buy the cheaper one and expand the hard drive capacity pretty cheaply but I am getting OT now!
 
#13 ·
Wayne, I am not disagreeing with you about Zap2It at CDN OTA, but the workaround is simple.

All you have to do is put in 14072 as your US Zip code and voila! All OTA guide data for Buffalo AND Toronto/Hamilton including all of our CN Tower OTA digital signals. (even Omni 1,2 and City)

Works for me - but I am 100% OTA an don't need cogeco cable stuff mixed in with the guide.

Stu
 
#14 ·
Thanks Guys that is a great relief I was worried that there was some other reason that I hadn't seen more OTA users refering to this unit. I did see mention to moding the hard drive and there is also a separate external 500 gig drive you can add if needed. but mostly I just wanted to be sure it could handle the high def signal without compresion.
 
#16 ·
Yep - I was afraid of the cable issue.... I am sorry to say that I am not sure how you could combine the two guide data sets... Shoot!!
 
#17 ·
tentsu - You're right about entering the US zip code but you shouldn't have to do this. In fact, I think I did something similar when I set up the OTA tuner for SageTV a few months ago. Zap2it and other sites have Canadian lineup data for cable, satellite and OTA analog. It is about time that they recognized that we have OTA digital here in Canada! And it is not an issue of not having the channel data since all of these channels are available on cable and sat so they have that data. It is only an issue of having a database of what digital OTA channels are available in each city.

Chudsmith - The ideal situation would be if you could manually input the channels on the TiVo or do a channel scan. That way you might be able to use both cable and OTA. Manually inputting the channels is sometimes confusing with OTA digital but it is not too bad to figure out if you have a list of channels available in the GTA (which is readily available). But I am not sure if TiVo lets you do this. You might want to ask on some TiVo forums.

The other option is to build an HTPC with an OTA digital tuner and a analog tuner hooked up to analog cable (or even your digital cable box). You can do this with Vista Media Center and XP MCE (with a minor hack) or with other PVR software such as SageTV, Myth, BeyondTV, etc. I have a setup like this using SageTV with three tuners - an OTA tuner, an HD-PVR for HD cable hooked up to an HD cable box and an analog tuner (PVR-150) hooked up to my SD cable box. It is initially more expensive, more complex and it requires a PC by your TV but it is, by far, the most flexible solution. Unlike TiVo it also does not incur a monthly fee so it might actually be cheaper in the long run.
 
#18 ·
Wayne - be careful advising people to use Vista with the Canadian OTA hack. The new TV Pack will kill it and disable ATSC for Canada. Pete Near has a good post on this on the MCE forum. I advise ALL people now who *must* use windows based computer a PVR to abandon Microsoft and go to SageTV or others.
 
#19 ·
You're right that the TV Pack will disable ATSC in Canada but I believe that the only way to buy a PC with the TV pack is to buy it from a specialized HTPC OEM company - this "upgrade" will NOT be available to the general public - which has caused a bit of an outcry in the Windows Media Center world.

If you already have a PC with Vista HP then trying your PC out as a digital OTA PVR is pretty cheap as all you need is a digital OTA tuner and you can generally buy them for $50-$75. And it isn't too hard to set this up within Vista Media Center.

This is one of the reasons that I am transitioning from Windows Media Center, albeit XP MCE, to SageTV along with lack of non-OTA HD and DRM issues.
 
#21 ·
You actually don't need a very fast PC as the encoding for the SD capture cards is done by the card and for OTA HD there is no encoding required as the tuner card is just storing bits to your hard drive. As long as you can play back Divx files then your PC is likely fast enough. And buying a new PC may be cheaper than getting a TiVo as not only is there the up front fee of $300 plus a monthly fee of $12.95. That makes the 2 year cost about US$600 and you can buy a decent PC for that, assuming that you are hooking it up to an existing HDTV.

And to make the TiVo half decent you would have to expand the hard drive which would cost about another $100.
 
#22 · (Edited by Moderator)
Buffalo OTA stations in Toronto - TiVo settings are strange

Greetings all, So i haven't had much time to experiment but i have a Tivo HD DVR with an analog Rogers cable and a OTA antenna for HD set-up. Within Tivo's guided set-up u must choose between a postal code or a zipcode to continue with set-up. In my case i needed to choose a postal code to download the rogers cable guide.

Now on the OTA side of things, Tivo has made some assumptions on what they believe u can receive via antenna. All the canadian broadcast stations show up in the guide automatically for my postal code. I'm located in Toronto. Here's where it gets strange. The guide gives me a only Buffalo in analog broadcasts. In order for me to include digital Buffalo channels in the guide i need to do a manual channel scan after Tivo's guided setup is complete. Then add the new channels to the guide. Which is fine but the digital Buffalo channels won't show any guide info. All it says for them is "No Info Available".

I haven't gone much further than this except to include the channel info for the Buffalo digitals in the guide via the Rogers analog list. You can add and delete channels that Tivo gives manually. Hope this helps.
 
#23 ·
pshseek, since you chose a postal code to get the Canadian listings, are you getting guide info for the OTA channels? I was not getting any Canadian OTA guide info, so I ended up putting in an American Zip code (Point Roberts) which, ironically contains all the guide info for the Canadian OTA channels that you don't get if you put in a Postal Code. I have deleted all the channels from the Point Roberts cable system and am using the Tivo as basically a 3 channel OTA PVR and use my Shaw box for the rest of the channels.

I have not heard that they have added guide data for Canadian OTA stations if you enter a postal code, but if they have, I'll quickly change it back to Postal Code (and be extremely happy!).
 
#24 ·
Perhaps this is a recent addition to the Tivo channel listings they add to your local lineup according to your postal code. But that's all i did was enter a postal code to obtain my local analog cable channel listings for Rogers, I'm probably a small handful of analog only Rogers customers left, and since i told the Tivo i was hooking up an antenna also, up popped all my OTA locals as well. I reckon they'll be more changes to Tivo's way of doing the channel lineups once the American analog shutdown happens. Has anyone out there heard for a fact that Digital broadcasting stations in the U.S. will boost their signal strengths after Feb in order to reach more homes? Will we see a rise in signal strength based purely on no more analog signals flying about? Has anyone heard of any particular Network stations' plans particularly in the Buffalo/Toronto area?
 
#27 · (Edited by Moderator)
TiVo OTA Stations In GTA

Here is a complete list of OTA digital channels that i get guide info for from Tivo:

CBC
CTV
CHCH
PBS
CW23
CITS
GLOBAL
CITYTV

Here are the digital channels that i manually scan for then add to the guide list:

NBC
CBS
ABC
FOX
OMNI1
OMNI2
WB49
SUNTV

These digital channels have no guide info listed but the american channels get guide info from Tivo on the analog equivalent. What i do is list both analog and digital in the guide to see what's on then choose the digital channel to watch or record. It's strange i know but i'm hoping this changes next Feb. For Omni's and Suntv i need to list the analog cable equivalent which isn't listed right above in the guide list making it a bit more difficult to first see what's on then watch the digital channel. I hope this makes sense and helps.
 
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