Can ReplayTV pick up signals from 2 markets? (1 Viewer)

[Scott.Lacy]

OK, my mom was up here last weekend and fell in love with my DirecTivo. So impressed was she that when she flew back home she went out and bought a replay TV (she wanted to record on one and watch on another) even though they don't have Cable OR Satellite. I'm familiar with Tivo, but have never looked much into ReplayTV. The folks live outside of Nashville, and have run into a problem. Channels 2,4,7 etc. are normally picked up through Nashville, TN but channels 32,65,etc come in through Huntsville AL. When they hooked up the ReplayTV they can only get the channels they entered a zip code for. If they got channels from two separate locations before, they should still be able to do it through ReplayTV, correct? If so, how would they do this? I believe they got the 5040 model.

Scott

 

[Scott.Lacy]

OK, I think I answered my question: When one external antenna picks up a signal from two separate markets it adds 1000 to the channel number. Therefore channel 2 would become 1002, 4 would be 1004 etc. Can anyone confirm if this is correct? Also, if this is the case, is there any way to get the program data into the guide?

Scott

 

[Ken Chan]

No, a plain old analog VHF/UHF antenna doesn't go anywhere near channel 1000. If they used to watch channel 32 on channel 32, they can still do that on the Replay. When watching TV, they would key in 32 and hit Enter. The problem is getting that info in the guide.

If they were really lucky, the local cable service would provide the channels from both markets without changing any of the channel numbers. Then the folks would just lie and say they have that cable service; that would give them those local channels, plus a bunch of cable ones that they don't really have, which they could ignore.

But most cable services will move the channels, so while you could see them in the guide, you couldn't do a point, click, and record, because they're on the "wrong" channel. And unlike VCRs with VCRPlus, I don't believe PVRs have a "reassign channel" feature, because it's just supposed to work.

The folks might be able to record stuff from the other market manually.

Another alternative might be to get guide data from another source, which has both markets. Your best bet is to go to www.avsforum.com -- they have a forum specifically for ReplayTV.

//Ken