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bfollowell3
join:2009-12-11
Evansville, IN

bfollowell3

Member

No DTAs or TAs in my area?

I recently setup Time Warner service at our new home in Evansville, Indiana. From reading many of the posts on this site as well as the Tivo Community forums, I knew I'd need a cablecard and a tuning adapter for my Tivo as well as DTAs for every television not hooked up to my Tivo or a Tivo Mini.

My installer setup the cablecard and I asked him about the TA and he asked what I was talking about and why I thought I needed a TA. I explained and he said they're not used in our area. All we needed was a cablecard. I'm assuming he is correct as I've been watching and recording with our Tivo since installation and haven't had any issues or found anything I couldn't record or any channels I couldn't watch.

The same thing happened when I asked about the DTAs. He said they're not compatible with our local system and that we don't need them and he's not aware of any plans to change in the near future. Right now, I have four non-Tivo televisions hooked up straight to the cable jack getting basic cable.

Are there many areas like this? I should mention that our area has only been TWC for a year or two. We were Insight before that.
KrLouKy
join:2010-09-18
Louisville, KY

KrLouKy

Member

We aren't required to have a DTA or TA here in Louisville unless you have an older analog TV, as we have been all digital for quite a while now. A while back a tech informed me at some point we would be required to have them for all TV's, perhaps as early as this month, but up to now have not heard anything more about it.

Should the merger go through and we become Charter subscribers, I expect this will happen at some point in the future. Since it will probably take months for all of that to happen I would guess it's something we don't have to be concerned with for awhile.
bfollowell3
join:2009-12-11
Evansville, IN

bfollowell3

Member

Sounds like you guys are setup a lot like we are currently.

What's the deal about Charter? I thought Charter lost out and it was Comcast that was looking to buy out TWC,
KrLouKy
join:2010-09-18
Louisville, KY

KrLouKy to bfollowell3

Member

to bfollowell3
There are many people who frequent this board that are more knowledgeable on this subject than I am but I believe the deal is this: If/when the Comcast/TWC deal goes through, then certain TWC areas will be spun off to Charter. I believe this was done to make the merger more viable to regulators in the hopes of getting it to pass scrutiny. It's way more complicated than that but that simplifies it somewhat. One of the areas being shifted to Charter is Louisville and maybe all of TWC in Ky. as well. I don't know about the Evansville area.

KennyWest
@98.28.97.x

KennyWest

Anon

Evansville was Insight wasn't it? Which was a joint between Insight and Comcast. It could go back to Comcast in the end if they have systems near by.

bradenmcg
join:2000-10-26
Cleveland, OH

bradenmcg to bfollowell3

Member

to bfollowell3
If you ever think you might want more than basic on the other TVs, and you're already setup with a Tivo Roamio, buy some more Minis before the end of the year. Right now the Minis have lifetime service included in them (even if purchased from Amazon rather than direct from Tivo), but supposedly this is a promotion ending on Jan 1, at which point you'll have to pay $150-200 for lifetime on each Mini, along with the initial hardware cost.

Buy the Mini and set it up / register with Tivo (to get lifetime attached) and then stick it back in a box until you actually need it.
bfollowell3
join:2009-12-11
Evansville, IN

bfollowell3

Member

Thanks for the heads up. I already took advantage of that deal and got our Mini with lifetime service for $89 a few months ago. I doubt we'd go with another one but we might consider a Roku. No access to our recordings, at least currently, but much greater streaming capability and the apps are much better. I love my Tivo, but their versions of the Hulu Plus and Netflix apps are crap.

Also, there's been nothing definitive said about "free" lifetime going away. Actually, there's been a lot of discussion going on that, once the new Mini comes out at CES, coming with complimentary lifetime may be part of the normal business model for the Mini. I guess we'll just have to wait and see what actually transpires.

OSUGoose
join:2007-12-27
Columbus, OH
Apple AirPort Extreme (2013)

OSUGoose to KennyWest

Member

to KennyWest
Comcast wants nothing to do with the markets they passed on when the partnership was broken up a few years ago. Comcast took those who they wanted, and left the unwanted ones for Insight. Since TWC bought Insight, talks about Comcast buying TWC, Comcast quickly decided to spin off those unwanted Insight markets to Charter, further showing how little they wanted to still do with us. Comcast is basically abandoning all of Ohio and KY if this goes through, despite having systems in neighboring states.
brad152
join:2006-07-27
Chicago, IL

1 edit

brad152

Member

said by OSUGoose:

Comcast wants nothing to do with the markets they passed on when the partnership was broken up a few years ago. Comcast took those who they wanted, and left the unwanted ones for Insight. Since TWC bought Insight, talks about Comcast buying TWC, Comcast quickly decided to spin off those unwanted Insight markets to Charter, further showing how little they wanted to still do with us. Comcast is basically abandoning all of Ohio and KY if this goes through, despite having systems in neighboring states.

Funny thing though, if i recall is that Columbus' Time Warner system was the most advanced back in the day thanks to being the first cable market ever to have 2-way services back in the 70's because of QUBE.

Then of course when they swapped to those interesting little pioneer BA-6310 boxes, it started going downhill as Warner cable decided to do as little infrastructure upgrades as possible while pressing what could have been put on the old ass 70's aluminum sheath cabling.

And the current area that insight served was just a hot mess before Coaxal Communications was bought out, and i believe some of those areas are still analog only, and i remember them still giving out those really old Jerrold boxes well into the 2000's (my aunt got one that was fake wood grain and looked angry it was still being used haha)

but back on topic.. AFAIK all of the former Insight areas do not do SDV thus no need for a TA because Insight used those old DCT2000 cable boxes that did not support it (although i will say i did like iGuide much better than that mess Navigator software that TWC uses)

Also, the reason why Insight never had the better internet speeds was because they did not use SDV, they simply did not have the space for Analog cable, Digital SD, and Digital HD, along with higher speed DOCSIS 3

motorola870
join:2008-12-07
Arlington, TX

motorola870

Member

said by brad152:

said by OSUGoose:

Comcast wants nothing to do with the markets they passed on when the partnership was broken up a few years ago. Comcast took those who they wanted, and left the unwanted ones for Insight. Since TWC bought Insight, talks about Comcast buying TWC, Comcast quickly decided to spin off those unwanted Insight markets to Charter, further showing how little they wanted to still do with us. Comcast is basically abandoning all of Ohio and KY if this goes through, despite having systems in neighboring states.

Funny thing though, if i recall is that Columbus' Time Warner system was the most advanced back in the day thanks to being the first cable market ever to have 2-way services back in the 70's because of QUBE.

Then of course when they swapped to those interesting little pioneer BA-6310 boxes, it started going downhill as Warner cable decided to do as little infrastructure upgrades as possible while pressing what could have been put on the old ass 70's aluminum sheath cabling.

And the current area that insight served was just a hot mess before Coaxal Communications was bought out, and i believe some of those areas are still analog only, and i remember them still giving out those really old Jerrold boxes well into the 2000's (my aunt got one that was fake wood grain and looked angry it was still being used haha)

but back on topic.. AFAIK all of the former Insight areas do not do SDV thus no need for a TA because Insight used those old DCT2000 cable boxes that did not support it (although i will say i did like iGuide much better than that mess Navigator software that TWC uses)

Also, the reason why Insight never had the better internet speeds was because they did not use SDV, they simply did not have the space for Analog cable, Digital SD, and Digital HD, along with higher speed DOCSIS 3

hmm don't know where you got that the DCT2000 doesn't support SDV they do and the only boxes from Motorola/GI that doesn't support SDV is the DCT1000 which have been removed for about a decade now due to no QAM256 support.
brad152
join:2006-07-27
Chicago, IL

brad152

Member

I could have sworn they did not, at least from what the local tech told me in Columbus, as i was asking him how Insight was able to avoid SDV in the first place (and the reason i liked Insight over TWC in Columbus due to not needing those crappy TA's)

Those DCT2000's are so old i assumed there is no way they could support it, as i remember getting one from Adelphia back in 2000 with the initial launch of Digital Cable
jpatton1979
join:2011-08-10
Louisville, KY
Pace 5268AC
Ubiquiti Unifi Security Gateway Pro
Ubiquiti UniFi UAP-AC-PRO

jpatton1979

Member

Columbus was pretty much the red-headed step-child of the Insight markets, so I'd take anything a tech from there told you with a grain of salt. All other areas (Louisville, Lexington, Northern KY, Bowling Green, and Evansville) had access to up to 50Mbps a while before being purchased by TWC.