[911medic]

Good question. Here's my 2 cents:

--OTA will provide the benefit of not losing the picture due to weather.
--OTA HD is not "downrezzed" HD (do a search on 'HD-Lite' if you don't know what I mean), so the picture quality may be superior vs. satellite local HD; however the MPEG4 HD locals seem to be pretty close to OTA-quality (I think Earl or someone else compared OTA HD locals via HR10 to the MPEG4 versions via HR20 shortly after the HR20 was introduced, and found very little difference in PQ). MPEG2 HD locals had/have noticeably lower PQ for some vs. OTA.
--Some people cannot get their locals via satellite yet.
--People want the additional tuner(s), as I think you will be able to record 2 shows while watching a third once they're activated.
--People want the feature activated just because it's supposed to be active and available, and so far is not.

 

[911medic]

Depends. I'm not real close to the towers, so I can get interrupts due to weather.

OK...change my post to read "not as susceptible."

 

[911medic]

There a few other threads on the topic... but..

There are still a lot of HD-OTA's that DirecTV doesn't carry, then there are the subchannels... there is more to OTA then just more "HD" content.

Also... the MPEG-4 HD versions are not "down rezed"... they maybe "compressed" more, but they are not down rezed in the same sense as "HD-Lite"

Ahh, yes, the subchannels. Forgot about them. I miss a few of those.

Regarding the MPEG4's not being downrezzed, I guess that's what I was getting at when I said the PQ seems to be roughly equivalent to OTA, based on what some have said here. Sorry for the confusion.

 

[911medic]

I don't know bout you folks, but I'd rather watch grass grow or paint dry than watch the sub channels.

The weather subchannel is useful to me, and there's one here that broadcasts local news 24/7, so if I miss something and want to see it I can tune to that one.

 

[911medic]

Yes, of course, but that has nothing to do with having an additional OTA tuner. The OP seems to imply that he thinks you would be able to record 3 shows at once if 2 are SAT and 1 is OTA.

I'm not sure how you could infer my statement ("I think you will be able to record 2 shows while watching a third once they're activated") as being able to record 3 shows at once. I only stated you could record 2 shows and be watching another. Is this not the case?

I know the manual erroneously states you will be able to record 3 shows at once. But once OTA is activated, won't we be able to record 2 shows in the background and be watching a separate live TV broadcast at the same time? Or is this box, equipped w/4 tuners, only capable of utilizing 2 of them at a time?

 

[911medic]

There are two tuners. Those two tuners can each process an MPEG2 signal or an MPEG4 signal. Whether the data comes from the sat feed or OTA doesn't matter. It's internally switched from the source to one of the two tuners. (Maybe processors is a better word than tuners here?)

But I believe there are actually 4 tuners total in this box, 2 satellite tuners and 2 OTA (ATSC) tuners (currently disabled). This is what Earl posted in his initial review of the box.
In this pic (from Earl's review) you can see the two ATSC tuner cards and how the antenna input is split to them. The sat tuner inputs come in under that metal cage to the left of the ATSC tuner cards; I don't know if their tuners are chips on the motherboard itself or what.

So, once active, there'll be 4 tuners total, but we'll only be able to record 2 shows max at a time (despite the error in D* literature to the contrary), but due to the live buffer we won't be able to record 2 shows and watch a third live show? I was thinking we would... Seems like a waste of tuners.