I had problems with the screen freezing for short periods on the local channels. A local Direct TV installer said I needed new receivers. So, I purchased two and, they took care of the problem. But, because of the poor color contrase we can hardly read the banners and movie descriptions. The receiver model is Direct TV D-11, and their customer service rep. said that they hoped to get a new program to download and correct the known problem. Our previous receivers were RCA and could be read easily. I wish I had my older receivers back. Does anyone know what receiver is good for the standard (not HD) channels???

Your mom had previously used a similar cable system setup downstairs with no remote problems? Do the up channel and down channel buttons on the cable box work with her TV? Was the cable box remote able to select channels when it was first installed? Can her old TV remote control still control the TV? Which cable remote control (Scientific Atlanta?) button lights up when she selects a channel by pointing the cable remote at the cable box? It should be CBL. If it isn't CBL lighting up, press CBL and then the channel number. Does CBL light up again? Does the channel change? On some combinations of TVs and cable boxes, when you are trying to transfer TV remote control functions to the cable box remote control (if that is what is being attempted here) it may take several minutes or more for the programming to begin. The directions are sometimes very poorly explained but the thing to remember is that the first blinks you get right away during this particular process mean nothing. The blinks that mean success usually take a lot longer to show up.

Well, the cable box only outputs one channel so if you hook up the vcr in between the cable box and the tv you will only be able to record the channel you are watching. If you connect a splitter to your incoming cable, then run one cable from the splitter to the cable box, and the other to the vcr, you could record one basic cable channel while watching a digital cable channel at the same time.

To modify previous advice slightly: 1) Connect the coaxial cable from the wall into the Cable Box 2) Connect the Cable Box (output) to the Tivo (input) via S-Video cable (little better picture) 3) Connect the Tivo to the TV input also using S-Video if available. But ditch the Tivo and upgrade to the Comcast dual tuner DVR. It records HDTV as well. I just upgraded from a similar setup as you to it, its $10. Tivo is more user friendly but its a decent trade off being able to record 2 shows at once and being able to record in high definition and dolby 5.1.