[mjlthuston]

I live in an area that has no locals offered by D*. I cannot get locals OTA either. If I get locals from the cable company (Bresnan) can I run it through my HR20-700 so I can record shows on my DVR?

 

[mhayes70]

I am pretty sure I have read somewhere here that you can't. But, if you have cable and Directv right now. It wouldn't hurt to maybe try to see if it does work.

 

[harsh]

No!

The HR20 will record only digital television (DTV) signals through its OTA tuner and has no line level inputs.

 

[davring]

It only recognizes and records the data stream from the sats...

 

[mhayes70]

It only recognizes and records the data stream from the sats...

It also records OTA.

 

[evan_s]

You can't use your local cable company as a replacement for an antenna unfortunately. OTA signals are broadcast with ATSC encoding. Cable systems use QAM encoding. There also aren't any other inputs on the receiver to handle component or hdmi input. If DirecTV doesn't carry your locals in HD the only option is OTA. Assuming you have an HD tv with a QAM tuner you can watch your channels that way but not record them.

 

[n3ntj]

I live in an area that has no locals offered by D*. I cannot get locals OTA either. If I get locals from the cable company (Bresnan) can I run it through my HR20-700 so I can record shows on my DVR?

Is it April Fools Day or something? No, the D* DVR has tuners only for D* satellite feeds that are authorized for recording. You can't record from cable TV on that unit.

 

[CopyCat]

I live in an area that has no locals offered by D*. I cannot get locals OTA either. If I get locals from the cable company (Bresnan) can I run it through my HR20-700 so I can record shows on my DVR?

Have you asked DirecTV to turn on Nationals ? Those can be recorded and if you are truly unable to get locals OTA it should be no problem for them to turn them on.

 

[Grentz]

Is it April Fools Day or something? No, the D* DVR has tuners only for D* satellite feeds that are authorized for recording. You can't record from cable TV on that unit.

He was talking in regards to using the OTA tuner that the newer Directv Receivers can record from.

 

[mhayes70]

Is it April Fools Day or something? No, the D* DVR has tuners only for D* satellite feeds that are authorized for recording. You can't record from cable TV on that unit.

He was talking in regards to using the OTA tuner that the newer Directv Receivers can record from.

and his HR20-700 has a built in OTA tuner and CAN record local stations from an antenna.

 

[inkahauts]

Only if your cable company is doing something weird and encoding the HD LIL stations in ATSC OTA format and not Quam... but I have yet to hear of that...

Where in Montan are you... If your in Butte-Bozeman, Mont DMA then you will get you LIL hD channels in December...

http://www.directv.com/DTVAPP/global/moreInfoText.jsp?assetId=1620002

 

[mjlthuston]

Sorry, I dropped out of the net for a while.
Thanks for the info. I was afraid I couldn't do it.

I'm in Missoula area, so no locals from D*. I get east and west coast feeds, however it would be nice to be able to watch local news, weather, University of Montana football, etc.

I appreciate the comments.

Thanks again.

 

[MountainMan10]

Could you run the cable into a "cable ready VCR" and use it to convert to a format that the OTA tuner would recognize?

 

[mjlthuston]

Could you run the cable into a "cable ready VCR" and use it to convert to a format that the OTA tuner would recognize?

I could do it but would it work.. I don't want to have the cable installed and then find out that it doesn't work.

 

[Stuart Sweet]

Could you run the cable into a "cable ready VCR" and use it to convert to a format that the OTA tuner would recognize?

The OTA tuner only receives ATSC (digital) broadcasts and a VCR would put out an RF-modulated NTSC (analog) signal. In short, it will not work.

 

[hasan]

What he needs is an ATSC RF modulator. It would be similar to what the standard RF modulator does: accept a composite video input signal, and remodulate it to RF on a TV channel.

The ATSC version of this would be more complicated and expensive, but I'm sure it could be done. He could then take a cable ready VCR and use it's composite outputs to be the source for the ATSC RF modulator.

I have no idea if such a device exists, but conceptually it would work.

 

[inkahauts]

He needs an HD Tivo for just his locals...