TiVos for HD OTA in Canada

[Blaq]

Originally Posted by faston

Did a new guided setup and put in my Canadian Postal code and everything came up correctly. All Shaw analog cable channels and all Canadian OTA HD with guide data.

Has any HD TiVo owner done a fresh guided setup -- someone who subscribes to digital cable? I would love to know whether the TiVo guide updates include Rogers digital. This would be as close to TiVo nirvana as we could get in CableCard-less Toronto: a bunch of HD OTA channels, plus all the Rogers SD channels.

[classicsat]

It won't have the Roges digital guide without a cablecard, and of course, Rogers does not offer cablecards. Digital cable guide data relies on virtual channel numbers, without a cablecard to do the mapping, you get the QAM channel numbers, which have no guide data.

It will have Rogers analog though.

[intravino]

Hello,

Does anyone know if the ATSC tuner in the Tivo HD or series 3 is good and sensitive ?

Also what generation is the tuner ?

I asking this because I would have to plug my CM4228 with CM7777 to the Tivo instead of my Samsung plamsa 42a450 and would need a good tuner.

I would plug the 4221 for local channel in the Samsung tuner.

Can I also use a splitter between the TV and Tivo instead ? or I will loose some signal because of the splitter lost ?


Thanks,

Intravino

[faston]

I have direct line-of-sight to the transmitters on Mt. Seymour, so I don't really need a great receiver. I do remember when the Tivo Series 3 came out 2 years ago (of which the Tivo HD is a variation) a lot of people were saying that it is an extremely good ATSC receiver. I think you could generally be assured that it is one of the better ones out there.

[intravino]

Thanks for the info.

I did not see much info on the tivo ATSC tuner sensitivity on several forums.



Intravino

[Chudsmith]

Hey all just a quick update, got my tivo, did the setup and its working great.

I used my milton postal code so about half of the HD channels I recieve have

guide info. I'm hopeful that tivo will wake up and realize the potential for

sales in the canadian OTA market and add guide info for all my buffalo stations,

though I fear or perhaps tivo fears possible crtc hassles if they where to

provide them, and I'm sure Bell and Rogers would fight it, only to protect our

Canadian heritage of course.

[Chudsmith]

I'm going to post this question here as if I get an answer It may help other

Tivo users. I have four channels with no picture yet they have a good signal

strength, they are 23-2, 47-1, 52-1 and 69-1. Now here's where it gets interesting,

Tivo provides guide info for 47-1 and 52-1 when I was searching for info on the

forum I found that 52-1 which I have guide info but no picture may have moved

to 66-1 which has a picture but no guide. and the same may be true for 47-1

and 64-1. I have not been able to find any reason for no picture on 23-2 or 69-1.

anyways if anyone can understand what the heck I just wrote and has any

insight I'd be grateful.

[Wayne]

Originally Posted by Chudsmith

I'm hopeful that tivo will wake up and realize the the potential for sales in the canadian OTA market and add guide info for all my buffalo stations,
though I fear or perhaps tivo fears possible crtc hassles if they where to provide them, and I'm sure Bell and Rogers would fight it, only to protect our Canadian heritage of course.

This has nothing to do with the CRTC -TiVo's support of Canada has always been fairly weak - for several years I was part of a community that provided "roll-your-own" guide data using info from XMLTV. TiVo did start loosely supporting Canada a few years ago but that was primarily for their SD models. Supposedly the problem with HD data is that the guide data providers do not provide the input to TiVo - or to other similar products such as MCE.

[faston]

Wayne, I think Chudsmith is talking about getting US OTA channel guide info when he puts in his Canadian Postal Code. As outlined earlier in the thread, I was happily surprised to find that Tivo has quietly started to provide full cable and OTA guide data in Canada.

And, I think I know what community you are referring to. It was a great help to me in those dark days post-DTV and pre-canadian support.

[Chudsmith]

For anyone interested I thought I'd mention that If you have a Tivo HD unit and a blu-ray player there is a way to back up full HD programs from your Tivo on DVD and play it using your blu-ray player. Which comes in handy if your Tivo has a smaller Drive like mine ( only 20 hrs of HD content ).

First you need to connect your Tivo to your home network.

Second download Tivo Desktop form Tivo.com. this will allow you to transfer
recorded content from your Tivo to your home computer.

third you will need to download a program called VideoRedo with this you can
remove the commercials by selecting ad-detective. Click the Save as
button in VideoRedo to save the recording without commercials to your
hard drive in .MPG 2 format.

fourth burn the saved MPG 2 file to a dvd or dvd-dl disc. just burn it as a
data disc and finalize it.

this works with my PS3 and most sony blu-ray disc players. you can't just put it in the player and press play, you need to select the disc in the players menu. if this does not work in your player I would advise you do a firmware update and try again as the ability to play MPG 2 format was not available in earlier models of players.
you can also convert the MPG 2 file to AVCHD format,but the conversion process takes about 5 days for an average movie ( seriously ).

[chungdokwan]

Okay guys,

I want to purchase a Tivo HD for OTA in Canada. Where can I get one?

Thanks

[pshseek]

Congratulations Chung on your decision in purchasing a Tivo HD. I bought mine in North Carolina. I believe it's the only way in buying one for anybody planning on using it here in Canada. You need to go State side, pick one up and drive it back. The Tivo website will not deliver to Canada.

[intravino]

There is the guy in Alberta that sell it and it is much more expensive then going to the States ( even with exchange rate ) and plus you cannot return it.

If I purchase a tivoHD, I will go myself purchase it and have the 30 days return in case.

[Dr.Dave]

Weaknees in the U.S. will ship to Canada. They charge the same price as Tivo and also sell units with upgraded hard drives. Note: they charge for shipping to Canada.

[chungdokwan]

Thanks for the info guys.

weaknees looks pretty good.