What carrier are you using with your Replay?

[chain777]

I'm curious to see what providers are the most popular with use Replay users. I couldn't think of any others, except users out of the country. List any others you can think of, and check all that apply.

[Jeff D]

Crap add an OTA to mine... I forget the OTA feed on my two HDTV boxes that are sources.

[WannabeSQ]

all DirecTV for me, now with the new rates, I pay less for more units... Always a good thing.

[x8086x]

With multiple replays and a limited budget, cheap old analog cable gives me the best bang-for-the-buck factor.

Do I ever miss my DirecTV...

Sadly, with the cable modem and TV bundled, it was 3x as much to keep my DirecTV setup versus going back to cable...so I switched back...

[Jeff D]

Originally posted by WannabeSQ
all DirecTV for me, now with the new rates, I pay less for more units... Always a good thing.

You're talking new replay multi unit rates and not directv rates, right? My bill is too expensive (and for nothing more than a couple extra receivers)

[WannabeSQ]

Yes, I was referring to replay's rates, DirecTV ones are still $5 a month. I really pay too much for TV, but I do get a lot of use now, and with 4 replays, I rarely have to choose which show to watch, I usually end up choosing which replay it records to, the upgraded HDD ones or the stock ones...

[ocraven]

We used analog cable for most of our ReplayTV years, but recently I upgraded to digital cable, largely for the timeshifting feature (channels from other time zones to resolve conflicts).

I've been pretty disappointed with the results, though, and will probably switch back. After a few weeks, a few channels started pixelating badly, and then disappeared altogether. And, since there's just one box for the digital cable conversion, I can no longer use the two tuners (replay's + TVs) to have two shows coming in at once (one recording to replay and one watching live). I hardly ever watch live TV, but sometimes would like to catch a bit of the news when something else is recording.

And, I've discovered Poopli which seems a superior solution for Timeshifting!

Raven

[MaxH]

Originally posted by ocraven
We used analog cable for most of our ReplayTV years, but recently I upgraded to digital cable, largely for the timeshifting feature (channels from other time zones to resolve conflicts).

I've been pretty disappointed with the results, though, and will probably switch back. After a few weeks, a few channels started pixelating badly, and then disappeared altogether. And, since there's just one box for the digital cable conversion, I can no longer use the two tuners (replay's + TVs) to have two shows coming in at once (one recording to replay and one watching live). I hardly ever watch live TV, but sometimes would like to catch a bit of the news when something else is recording.

And, I've discovered Poopli which seems a superior solution for Timeshifting!

Raven

I must have had Comco$t out to my house about 8 times in 6 months because two of the HD channels kept pixelating, freezing, or disappearing completely. Finally, one of the techs actually knew what they were doing, and said it had something to do with the drop--that little green mushroom where they install filters and such. I think he said a pin was bent or something dumb like that.

Anyway, keep on them until they fix it, if you really want it. Because you can watch one channel and record another even when you're dependent upon the cable box. My setup might be a bit more than you need, but maybe it will give you an idea of what you can do to increase the flexibility of your setup.

I have it set up so that my TV gets one split of the coax from the wall, so I can use the TV's internal tuner to watch channels 1-99 no matter what my Replay is doing. I've also got 2 inputs going into my Replay, one coax feed to the Replay's tuner, and one S-video from the cable box. I've deleted channels 1-99 on the cable box's input, so the Replay only uses its internal tuner for those channels. So if my Replay is recording channels 1-99, I can watch an HD channel with my cable box. If my Replay is recording a digital cable channel (over 99), it will use the cable box, so I can only watch basic cable (1-99). This setup also has the advantage of recording closed captioning info over the Replay's internal tuner. (When I use the cable box, it doesn't pass through the CC info.)

This might make it a little easier to understand:

One line represents coax, #'s represent component cables, and a tilde (wavy line) or S represents S-video.


Cable from wall-----Splitter------ReplayTV~~~~~~HDTV####DVD player
| | S # |
| ----------S----------#---
Cable box~~~~~~~S #
# #
#######################

[Reden]

Analog cable ( Comcast, at the moment, it keeps changing).

I tried their Digital cable w/box. What a pain.

Decided the missed first 2minutes of recordings (due to cable box bug) and extra $30/month wasn't worth it for HBO and Discovery Wings. Back to analog.. works well.

(I assume Kyle got her Pilot's license :))

Robert

[ClearToLand]

Originally posted by Reden: ... (I assume Kyle got her Pilot's license :))

Piper or Cessna jockey? ;) [How many hours?]

[Reden]

Neither... never had the combination of Money, Time, and Wife's Permission!

I did like the show though.

[Synapse]

I am surprised to find that analog cable (no box) wins the poll. That is how I feed mine, for the moment. I would like another dish source, or I may pickup an hdtv tuner and snag that free signal to feed my 4160. It was nice with that downconverted Voom signal.

[BaysideBas]

The poll doesn't reflect the true usage numbers. Even though it is provided with check boxes, thus allowing for multiple sources, there's no accounting for multiple units/source. So my current setup, 3 OTA, 2 Dish, is recorded as 1 OTA, 1 Dish votes.

[chain777]

I was thinking about what Bayside said when I posted the poll. I couldn't add any more choices.

I don't know what the general figures are for the different providers, and I wonder how close this group is to the national average. I knew cable was the leader, but by how much I'm not sure. I'd guess a large percentage of the analog (no box) users are also digital cable users like myself who use analog on secondary Replay's. I don't think not having the choice to add more than one of the same source will skew this poll too badly; i.e. 3 Replay's with 2 recording analog cable and one recording Dish. As long as you can vote once for each different method you use, the outcome should reflect the popularity of the different delivery methods.

I'm somewhat surprised to see that almost 10% are using OTA. I doubt there's many using only OTA, most of the OTA votes I would guess are HD users. Is it possible that 10% of this bleeding edge group uses only SD OTA?

The cable results are going to be over-inflated because of the problems already discussed, but it looks like cable leads satellite by a margin of about 2 to 1.

Only one Voom user so far, and close to 10% recording down-converted HD. I'd guess the 8 'other' users are either out of the country, or maybe C band satellite users? I couldn't think of any other providers. Maybe small private cable providers?

[Bobcrane]

Until High speed internet came to my area last year I was OTA.

Had DirecTV free for six months and can't believe the difference in picture quality between DTV and analog cable.

I've considered getting an older HD box off of EBay/store closeout to see if downconverted quality is worth it.

[oldyellow]

I'm somewhat surprised to see that over 40% of Replay users are using over-the-air or raw cable (no box). This means that those users are using Replay's tuner, which I understand to be very poor. I wonder how this has figured in the numerous debates about Replay's picture quality vs. Tivo's.

[Bobcrane]

Originally posted by oldyellow
I'm somewhat surprised to see that over 40% of Replay users are using over-the-air or raw cable (no box). This means that those users are using Replay's tuner, which I understand to be very poor. I wonder how this has figured in the numerous debates about Replay's picture quality vs. Tivo's.
If you have a strong signal, a limited number of splits, and a good splitter the 5xxx series does fine.

I had a terrible picture when I first bought the unit. Simply reducing the number of splits by one made all the difference in the world.

[BlindLemonLarry]

Originally posted by chain777
I'm somewhat surprised to see that almost 10% are using OTA. I doubt there's many using only OTA, most of the OTA votes I would guess are HD users. Is it possible that 10% of this bleeding edge group uses only SD OTA?

I feed my Showstopper a restricted diet of analog OTA, from my rooftop antenna. Two years ago I swapped my DirecTV receiver out for a dual-tuner DirecTivo and never looked back. However, I figured why pay DirecTV extra for local channels, when my trusty old Showstopper can record em off the antenna for free? It works out nicely, and this way I have no scheduling conflicts between OTA and D* content. The equivalent Replay/Tivo commands are mapped to the same buttons on my universal remote, so switching from one PVR to the other is pretty transparent.

I'd try feeding it downconverted HD content, but I haven't figured a way to get the Showstopper to control my LG LST-3510A HD tuner.