How do you like your HD-Tivo connected to an antenna?
I'm thinking about cancelling my cable to save money and just go with antenna + Tivo to record over-the-air signal. Anyone out there have this setup? What do you think of it? I'm sick of paying $70/month for what I could be watching for free. So I'm pretty excited about this. Just want to make sure there's no big issues I haven't considered...
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I use an old series 2 Tivo connected to a converter box & homemade attic antenna. Works great and I'm very happy. An HD Tivo set up would be about the same except you wouldn't need a converter box.
>Just want to make sure there's no big issues I haven't considered...
1.
What kind of antenna you need depends on your location and the construction of the building you are in. Get this squared away before you cancel your cable. If you ask a question about antennas, be sure to include your zip code, distance to local transmitters, and type of building your in. Look at the first two links below for distance information.
2.
There is a lot of programing on cable that you just can't get with an antenna.
3.
If you have your HD Tivo connected to high speed internet, you can get a lot of content online. In particular, for ~$10 a month you can set up a Netflix account and stream a whole lot of stuff.
I have had that exact setup for the past year - TiVo HD plus antenna. It has been excellent. I'm about 40 miles south of San Francisco and pick up all the broadcast stations with a relatively small antenna mounted in my attic. The video quality is superb, 1080i and 720P HD over the air. It can only get worse with cable and satellite, since they all use the signal sent to the transmitter as their source and recompress it from there. I dropped Comcast about 3 months ago.
Like Jerry said, the critical element is to get a good antenna. If you're more than 15 miles from the TV transmitter towers, don't even think about an indoor antenna.
Check your situation by entering your address (at least zip code) at one of the following sites.
http://www.antennaweb.org/
http://www.tvfool.com/
I chose a Winegard 7696 VHF/UHF compact antenna since two of the stations I receive are in the High VHF band (channels 7-13). If none of your channels are in that band, you may be able to use a UHF-only antenna, which is smaller. Check the right hand column of the channel listing on antennaweb.org. If all your channels are RF channel 14 or higher, you can use a UHF-only antenna, like the ChannelMaster 4228 or the AntennasDirect DB8.
You MUST!!! have a good antenna to receive the stations. In most areas you will need an outdoor type to get all the available stations and you may need several if the stations are not in the same general direction. You can get a rotor to move the antenna to point to the station.
Other than the antenna you will need a digital tuner, if the TiVo has a built-in one that is all you need.
After you cancel the cable you MUST do a channel scan on the TiVo unit to have it put the stations into its memory after you hook up the antenna.