The highlight of
The Cable Show for us was actually to be able to see the
Motorola Tuning Adapter in action. Sure it isn't that exciting of a product, but just the idea that our beloved TiVo won't be useless because of the fact that all latest HD channels are being deployed with SDV (Switched Digital Video) is enough to get us going. The MTR700 was named before CableLabs renamed the class of product from
Tuning Resolver to Tuning Adapter, and should be available to cable companies in July. Unfortunately there's really no way to tell how long it'll take before your provider makes it available to you, or for how much. For the most part, there's no change from a user's perspective, so much so that for the demo the channels were relabeled so we could tell which were SDV, and which weren't. In fact the only way you can even tell this thing is connected, is because the
TiVo's Devices menu has a
new option with
a whole slew of troubleshooting options for the cable guy. Changing channels was just as fast -- or slow depending on your perspective -- as a
TiVo HD tuning standard HD broadcast channels. Click on through to the gallery to see all the pictures of it in action.
posted May 18th 2008 6:38PM
Too little to late for my tivo. I'm calling to cancel my service tomorrow.
I thought it was just me, Stevey...Not sure your reasons, but I'm on my fourth Tivo HD replacement (hard drives locking up, HDMI port going bad, etc.)....I've owned the thing for just over five months, and I've had FOUR replacements. I currently have three Tivos (2x Series 2 and this piece of junk), and I'm cancelling them all. Tivo is being SO nice about it (sarcasm on), letting me out of my 3-year agreement, and offering me HALF of the price of the HD unit as a buy-back, despite promising when the last one failed to buy it back 100% if this new one failed..which it just did. If they'd just processed the buy-back and clean break, I would have put it down to a bad experience...but now I feel like I need to let people know that A) the Tivo HD is flaky as all-get-out, and B) Tivo's world-renowned customer service seems to be falling off as they struggle to turn profit.
If you're really on your forth HD Tivo, I would start to believe there is some sort of power irregularity going on. I don't know anyone who has had any real issues with these, and they've been out for quite some time. Tivo Community forums doesn't have much in the way of problems you're describing, either.
I suppose you could be the unluckiest person on the planet, but I'd kind of doubt that.
I have two Tivo HDs, one of which I bought the first week of release, and haven't had any problems with either units. Sorry to hear you're having so much trouble.
For me, I was coming from a cable company HD DVR which I'm sorry, after you have used Tivo, it's hard to use such mediocre software. Prior to then, I had an original series 1 Tivo. My cable company DVR was from Scientific Atlantic.
My only concern over the Tivo HD is possibly having to use a Tuning Adapter (or resolver). Which means, yet another visit by the cable company. Joy. They spent about 5 hours at my home last time trying to get 2 cable mcards to work. What an ordeal.
I really wish Tivo was available through the cable company in their own cable box. It would be the best of both worlds.
In the pictures it looks like the coax from the MTR700 to is connected to Antenna in on the TiVo HD. And the TiVo's cable in has its own coax. Hope this is is just an artifact of the way they did the demo and not something we will need to worry about.
Also, I will be very disappointed if the tuning adapter ends up degrading signal strength.
BTW, I have 4 TiVo HDs, I used to rent Scientific Atlanta (SA) DVRs from Comcast. The reliability, capabilities and ease of use of the TiVos so far exceeds that of the Comcast SA boxes, it is like night and day. Same goes for the TiVo customer support.
Hey Ben did Scientific Atlanta/ Cisco show the STA-1520 at the show?
Yes, I'll get the pictures up today, but they didn't have a working demo.
Ben, have you seen the Cisco STA-1520 Tuning Adapter at the show? They said in an article at LightReading (http://www.lightreading.com/document.asp?doc_id=152093) that they expected to have it there.
Yes, it was there, we have pics, the'll be up shortly.
The 10dB pad on the back of the Moto box is insteresting.