# Australian Tivo forum



## Mike Lang (Nov 17, 1999)

Just getting a feel for how many Aussies we have here. This is more of a tally than a poll. Don't vote if you don't live there.


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## Aussie (Jan 11, 2001)

Moderators, The TiVo has only just gone in sale in AU, 2 weeks ahead of schedule and with no advertising, so don't expect too much response this early. Heavy promotion is expected during the Olympics and the lead up to them so please allow a reasonable time for the word to spread before making a decision on whether or not to include an Aussie forum.
Cheers
Ron


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## RonDawg (Jan 12, 2006)

The reason for the poll is because in this thread someone had asked for one.


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## BlackBetty (Nov 6, 2004)

Aussie said:


> Moderators, The TiVo has only just gone in sale in AU, 2 weeks ahead of schedule and with no advertising, so don't expect too much response this early. Heavy promotion is expected during the Olympics and the lead up to them so please allow a reasonable time for the word to spread before making a decision on whether or not to include an Aussie forum.
> Cheers
> Ron


good point. The official 'onsale' date is the 29th, a week from now.


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## BlackBetty (Nov 6, 2004)

bump....officially on sale now in Australia.


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## jsmeeker (Apr 2, 2001)

they get TiVo service for free!! they should have to pay to use the forum. It can be their own club!!


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## knight76 (Jul 30, 2008)

Yeah, we get Tivo service for free, but pay 700 dollars for the tivo unit.

Tivo went on sale yesterday. I bought mine yesterday. I am also hoping to get an Australian Tivo section even if there are only 30 members initially, just to make it easier to ask australian realted questions and get australian related news/updates etc.

Difficult to find the aussie stuff mixed in with all the other forum sections.


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## BlackBetty (Nov 6, 2004)

knight76 said:


> I bought mine yesterday.


Just out of curiosity, how did it look like TiVo was selling? Where there others that you noticed looking at the boxes, buying the boxes, etc?


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## knight76 (Jul 30, 2008)

BlackBetty said:


> Just out of curiosity, how did it look like TiVo was selling? Where there others that you noticed looking at the boxes, buying the boxes, etc?


I wasnt in the store long. Only enough time to grab a tivo box, pay and leave. 10 minutes probably.


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## buttybarn (Aug 1, 2008)

I was the first person to buy in grafton nsw in australia, i purchesed it on the 26/07/08 and they still havn't sold another box its been nearlly a week, they havn't much advertising up this way so maybe it will take off when the olympics starts..... its a great unit, but it has a few issues, when i let it sit for a while like 8 hours or so it goes into standby and the only way i can get it to work again is to either unplug it and power it up again or press the format button on the front of the box, if anyone has and answers for me that would be great


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## buttybarn (Aug 1, 2008)

another this is that when i got the box home, it had the option to access files from my computer so i got online and downloaded the software for the american tivo and set it up and i could access all my files which was great, then the next day after it did its update the feature was gone!! any help on this would be great also!!


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## classicsat (Feb 18, 2004)

My understanding is they intend to charge extra for the home networking features later on.


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## knight76 (Jul 30, 2008)

buttybarn said:


> another this is that when i got the box home, it had the option to access files from my computer so i got online and downloaded the software for the american tivo and set it up and i could access all my files which was great, then the next day after it did its update the feature was gone!! any help on this would be great also!!


This feature was disabled after an update and no doubt will become part of the paid update that we are supposed to get early next year to enable network features on the TiVo.


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## buttybarn (Aug 1, 2008)

when i let it sit for a while like 8 hours or so it goes into standby and the only way i can get it to work again is to either unplug it and power it up again or press the format button on the front of the box, if anyone has and answers for me that would be great


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## knight76 (Jul 30, 2008)

buttybarn said:


> when i let it sit for a while like 8 hours or so it goes into standby and the only way i can get it to work again is to either unplug it and power it up again or press the format button on the front of the box, if anyone has and answers for me that would be great


If it is in standby mode pressing the TiVo button should bring it back out.


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## BlackBetty (Nov 6, 2004)

buttybarn said:


> I was the first person to buy in grafton nsw in australia, i purchesed it on the 26/07/08 and they still havn't sold another box its been nearlly a week


How do you know that there has not been any other sales but yours? Do you work for Harvey Norman? The head of Harvey Norman said in this article that first weeks sales were better than he expected.


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## buttybarn (Aug 1, 2008)

a friend of mine works in the store and told me


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## buttybarn (Aug 1, 2008)

knight76 said:


> If it is in standby mode pressing the TiVo button should bring it back out.


yeah thats what i thought but the only way i can get it to work again is by pressing the format button on the front of the unit!! any ideas??


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## BlackBetty (Nov 6, 2004)

His exact quote was:



> It was way better than I thought it would be


I doubt he would be saying that with stores only selling 1 unit.


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## buttybarn (Aug 1, 2008)

BlackBetty said:


> His exact quote was:
> 
> I doubt he would be saying that with stores only selling 1 unit.


i do live in a small town and most the people would not know what it was, they may have sold another one now but they hadn't up till thursday!!


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## d_anders (Oct 12, 2000)

Good lord. Just add the forum. If after a year it doesn't get much use, then shut it down. Post relevant links to news stories, and try to encourage some Austrialian usage. 

You want this to be the global TiVo community, then add one for China/Tiawan too. I assume that the forum software here is unicode compliant...yeah, most of us won't be able to read it, so find a chinese/english moderator.


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## classicsat (Feb 18, 2004)

It seems TGC has went under. TCF has never really had TGC users here, so a TGC section was never added. 

There are a number of Canadian users, but there is nothing out of the ordinary (so far) to warrant a Canadian section, since much of the Canadian issues are the same as US issues, as our TV delivery industry is structured pretty well the same, and uses much of the same gear as US users.


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## Frosty77 (Jul 23, 2008)

Please give us an Australian forum!


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## BungeeCork (Jul 27, 2008)

I've always resisted getting Foxtel - the Packer family are wealthy enough without getting money from me - and was looking forward to a TiVo for some time. 

But I never realised how little there was on fta TV here that interests me until I began to scroll through the TiVo TV guide looking for shows to Season Pass. I've found 4.


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## knight76 (Jul 30, 2008)

BungeeCork said:


> I've always resisted getting Foxtel - the Packer family are wealthy enough without getting money from me - and was looking forward to a TiVo for some time.
> 
> But I never realised how little there was on fta TV here that interests me until I began to scroll through the TiVo TV guide looking for shows to Season Pass. I've found 4.


I have actually found it to be the opposite. I never knew there were so many shows I was interested in till I got this TiVo. Now, nothing is safe, I will be recording something shown at 1am that I would normally have missed.


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## knight76 (Jul 30, 2008)

Hey with this thread, how many votes are hoping for before you open the Australian Tivo section?

With the TiVo being relatively new in Australia it is natural for the uptake to be slow but I really think the Aussie Tivo section should be created now before other startup forums get going and corner the market. This forum has the advantage of having a big international TiVo community, which means others outside Australia may be able to answer some of the questions in the Aussie section. Other forums would be Aussie only.

At the end of the day, if the forum does not pick up you can remove it and move the threads into the general TiVo section.


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## Tsurwolf (Aug 7, 2008)

For the moment im a fence sitter
I have spent 18 months in the states over the last 6 years and the one thing that allways impressed me was the availability of tivo/direct tv etc over there.
Now with the advent of HD ( panasonic vienta 42" plasma ) my poor old panasonic analog DVR has a limited live expectancy, and the TivoHD is very tempting, but think i will wait for all the teething problems to be sorted.
Some of the threads for expanding the THD to increase the recording time are interesting and i will watch the Auzzie forum to see who and when the enevitable swaps/expansions happen.

Keep up the good work and i hope the forum stays for a long time


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## toaster99 (Aug 14, 2008)

i know the guys over at tivoforums.com.au are working hard on bringing a tivo forum to australian users.

So far the site looks promising


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## BlackBetty (Nov 6, 2004)

an australian forum would probably have 10 times the activity of the comcast tivo forum. Hopefully the comtivo will be going national sometime in the near future and that will change.


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## sfalvey (Feb 26, 2004)

In answer to the question how well its doing... Apparently a lot better than expected



> "We have sold more than three times what I would have expected -- and again, I think the Olympics have been a factor.


http://www.australianit.news.com.au/story/0,24897,24179134-15306,00.html


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## BlackBetty (Nov 6, 2004)

sfalvey said:


> In answer to the question how well its doing... Apparently a lot better than expected
> 
> http://www.australianit.news.com.au/story/0,24897,24179134-15306,00.html


TCF should start to pick up with more Aussie's soon.


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## Neillo (Aug 2, 2008)

Does anybody know if we can add an Non Tivo External HDD to the Ausse Tivo.


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## David Black (Jan 8, 2001)

At this stage you can't even add a tivo approved esata drive as the esata port isn't enabled (i've tried....)

David


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## Dazzar (Aug 23, 2008)

An Aussie forum would be great. Got mine yesterday.


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## knight76 (Jul 30, 2008)

David Black said:


> At this stage you can't even add a tivo approved esata drive as the esata port isn't enabled (i've tried....)
> 
> David


Don't worry about the esata. It is fairly easy to upgrade the internal drive.


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## BlackBetty (Nov 6, 2004)

toaster99 said:


> i know the guys over at tivoforums.com.au are working hard on bringing a tivo forum to australian users.
> 
> So far the site looks promising


Is that why you voted against having a Australian forum on TCF? 

Seems odd. New member (as of 8/14/08). By any chance do you have any affiliation with this tivoforums site post about?


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## Neillo (Aug 2, 2008)

knight76 said:


> Don't worry about the esata. It is fairly easy to upgrade the internal drive.


do you have any info on how to upgrade the hard drive?


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## BlackBetty (Nov 6, 2004)

Neillo said:


> do you have any info on how to upgrade the hard drive?


there is a forum on these boards that is dedicated to just this type of thing. you will find all the info you need in there. good luck....enjoy the soon to be expanded tivo


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## uaovit (Nov 14, 2008)

I am a new Tivo owner (two days) and would welcome a community focussed on the Australian Tivo implementation model, especially as it is not the same as the US implementation.

Regards

AuTivo


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## BlackBetty (Nov 6, 2004)

+1. 12,000 Aussie TiVo sold so far and a recent annoucement that they think that number will break 25,000 by end of December.


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## cessnaman (Nov 14, 2008)

I bought my new Tivo about two weeks ago from Hardly Normals. It's not bad, but a ridiculously small 160GB HDD. I started to research how to upgrade, but it's damm confusing with the crap out there about linux and this dd /dev/sda = etc etc ... All the bloody linux utils you download are each missing some important parts of the equation, grrrr... I tried to back my Tivo drive only the the copied drive didn't work. A couple of days later I tried again and forgor to disconnect my Windows drive and because it's soooo hard to see which drive is which in lunix, I trashed my copy drive and my original Tivo drive making my Tivo useless. **** !! - Anyway, long story short, I had to exchange the unit claims DOA, and THEN later I found a Windows util called WinMFS, and it works a treat with a basic Windows GUI interface, only the application is somewhat hard disk find and you have to register to yet another website to download it. Now, I've upgraded to a 1TBG WD drive, and it upgraded and worked a treat. I see there is this kickstart 62 method of enabling the esata port, but I've not tried it yet. Mine is firmware 8.2 and I noticed that the USA are running 9.3 which seems to have the port enabled already, still not a big issue for me since I have the internal 1TB drive. Now, the BIGGEST annoyance for me is how to access the HDD on my Tivo accross my LAN, I've downladed heaps of different applications to do this, but so far nothing works. If anyone knows howto do this, please let me know, cuz I'm hanging out for it.


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## uaovit (Nov 14, 2008)

"kickstart 62 method of enabling the esata port"

Can you explain this, thanks?

TivoAu


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## troykm (Dec 16, 2008)

another aussie with a TiVo here! only 2 weeks but love it!

does anyone have a clue how much the external tivo storage device will be worth?


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## ciper (Nov 4, 2004)

BlackBetty said:


> an australian forum would probably have 10 times the activity of the comcast tivo forum. Hopefully the comtivo will be going national sometime in the near future and that will change.


I would have agreed with you then I thought "Australian Tivo's are real and probably aren't as problematic as the Comcast units"


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## Pepito (Jan 7, 2009)

Yes please to an Australian forum 

Bought a Tivo a few days ago and so far have been extremely impressed with features and ease of use :up:


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## ZeoTiVo (Jan 2, 2004)

Welcome to the TiVolution


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## ciper (Nov 4, 2004)

Wanted: Virgin Australian TiVo image. Contact me through PM if you can help.

Would have posted this in the Australian TiVo forum if there was one


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## petestrash (Mar 7, 2004)

ciper said:


> Wanted: Virgin Australian TiVo image. Contact me through PM if you can help.
> 
> Would have posted this in the Australian TiVo forum if there was one


We have had for many years a forum run by the OzTiVo community, which also has a TiVo HD section.



uaovit said:


> "kickstart 62 method of enabling the esata port"
> 
> Can you explain this, thanks?
> 
> TivoAu


It was a way of enabling esata support before it was released officially in the US.

It does not work on the Australian TiVo HD.



troykm said:


> does anyone have a clue how much the external tivo storage device will be worth?


I don't think HTS have have settled on a price yet, but I believe it will be available in 500Gb & 1Tb sizes. You can expect it will sell at a premium to generic external drives.

Peter.


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## ciper (Nov 4, 2004)

petestrash said:


> We have had for many years aTiVo HD section.


Excellent. Been a member of the oztivo forum since 06 but had forgot about it!


petestrash said:


> It was a way of enabling esata support before it was released officially in the US.


It didn't work on the TiVo HD here either. It allowed the use of non approved drives on only the original S3.


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## sorzai (Mar 12, 2009)

hello everyone, i'm also a new tivo owner here, love the tivo to bits...however we need more hard drive space


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## petestrash (Mar 7, 2004)

petestrash said:


> I don't think HTS have have settled on a price yet, but I believe it will be available in 500Gb & 1Tb sizes. You can expect it will sell at a premium to generic external drives.


recent chatter seems to point to only a 1TB extender drive being sold (no 500Gb).



sorzai said:


> hello everyone, i'm also a new tivo owner here, love the tivo to bits...however we need more hard drive space


I think every Australian TiVo owner would agree with you.

If you wanted to, you can upgrade the internal drive, or just wait for the extender to be available in the next few weeks.

Peter.


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## sorzai (Mar 12, 2009)

petestrash said:


> I think every Australian TiVo owner would agree with you.
> 
> If you wanted to, you can upgrade the internal drive, or just wait for the extender to be available in the next few weeks.
> 
> Peter.


Have you done the internal hard drive installation yet? and also i have read some of the information here about the internal installation just wondering does it work? and also i have a Western Digital WD10EADS 1TB drive just wondering can this work?

and also if you know of any other information and guides to doing the internal hard drive upgrade please let me know thanks


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## petestrash (Mar 7, 2004)

That drive would be fine, try this link for details.

Peter.


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## sorzai (Mar 12, 2009)

hey petestrash,

thanks for the links, just like to report to everyone that the upgrade was successful and now i have officially added at 1TB hard drive internally into my TiVo!! it was easier than expected but initially it was a little scary that you would stuff up but now it's all done and i'm happy with the huge increase in the recording capacity thanks for the help


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## bgiannes (Oct 26, 2006)

I'm an Australian living in the US, i've had Tivo for ~4years.

My father lives in Australia and just got Tivo.

It seems that the Ozzy Tivo version is a stripped down version of the US version, example: the 30skip hack is removed.  There is no https: Tivo page. Networking is limited, i don't think they can use pytivo or tivo-desktop? :down:

So Ozzy's are dealing with a bit of a different animal...

My father said that networking (PC to Tivo Networking) will be comming soon to Australian Tivo? but it's hard to gauge what's going on.

So alot of the stuff on this US site may not apply down-under?

So i would say that Tivocommuntiy should have a Australia forum asap


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## BurnieM (Oct 10, 2007)

+56


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## Aussiem8 (Mar 14, 2009)

Had my Tivo for a week or so .. just getting into it 

An Aussie forum would be great, but there is another setup down under @ www dot tivoforums dot com dot au (mods: not sure if this is allowed - please remove if I have breached the forum rules).

Cheers
AussieM8


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## Pepito (Jan 7, 2009)

bgiannes said:


> My father said that networking (PC to Tivo Networking) will be comming soon to Australian Tivo? but it's hard to gauge what's going on.


Home Networking Package is now available:
shop.tivo.com.au/online/range

A lot of people (including me) aren't too happy about how much they want for it though.


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## ciper (Nov 4, 2004)

Pepito said:


> A lot of people (including me) aren't too happy about how much they want for it though.


 <- I literally just made that face. For those in the USA they are charging ~140$ to enable networking [email protected]#>!#%yh


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## ZeoTiVo (Jan 2, 2004)

ciper said:


> <- I literally just made that face. For those in the USA they are charging ~140$ to enable networking [email protected]#>!#%yh


how much did you pay up front for the TiVo? bear in mind that many in the states pay a monthly subscription charge and the updates come at us whether we want them or not. 
When the first networking feature came out - HMO they called it then - TiVo charged 99$ US for it. It did not work out to enough sales for TiVo to continue down that approach and they simply included the updates in the monthly sub price or lifetime payment.

Some on this forum still would love if they charged per feature add and you could decide to not get the update. Personally I use the networking features and Netflix streaming so would want it.


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## drakeshe (Mar 28, 2009)

Is there a way to access it without their software? I know American ones do.


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## ZeoTiVo (Jan 2, 2004)

drakeshe said:


> Is there a way to access it without their software? I know American ones do.


that was before the service was available from TiVo at all.

Now that TiVo is selling it in Australia then it would become theft of service fro Australia TiVo DVRs and enter that gray area this forum frowns on discussion of.


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## Pepito (Jan 7, 2009)

drakeshe said:


> Is there a way to access it without their software? I know American ones do.


Yep, look like once you have purchased your MAK and it is enabled in your TiVo then the usual 3rd party PC and Mac programs can be used. :up:

I dont see why TiVo Australia would mind, the way I see it the $199 we pay is effectively for the MAK, the software is just a bonus.


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## Hew (Apr 18, 2004)

BlackBetty said:


> +1. 12,000 Aussie TiVo sold so far and a recent annoucement that they think that number will break 25,000 by end of December.


I guess they're not doing as well as they thought they would.

Tivo Sales Struggle As PVR Penetration Reaches 15% 
http://www.channelnews.com.au/Home_Cinema/Set_Top_Boxes/J3U9Q5H9

By David Richards | Monday | 02/02/2009

Tivo, the digital video recorder launched by Seven Media, is struggling with insiders admitting that the Company will miss their December target of 25,000 units. However, Harvey Norman claim that it is an important product that is helping drive the PVR category.

Sales via mass retailers including Harvey Norman, Domayne, JB Hi Fi and Dick Smith are expected to fall well short of their original target of 50,000 units, with questions now being raised as to whether Seven will continue selling the PVR.

According to the Financial Review only 12% of households have a digital video recorder. This is up from a reported 6.9% a year ago.

Of the 12%, 8.2% are believed to be Foxtel devices however a check by ChannelNews of PVR shipments show that the installed base could be as high as 15% if Foxtel are claiming 8.2% of the market.

GFK were unable to give a precise number on PVR sales that they track.

David Ackery, General Manager of Electrical at Harvey Norman who were the original sellers of the Tivo in an exclusive deal with Seven Media, said, "PVR sales are holding up well and the Tivo unit has helped us to grow the category. We are up on last year and at a guess I would say that penetration of the market is around 15 to 18% if one includes Foxtel."

Recently TV research company OZ TAM said that as of 2010 they will start tracking the "time shifted" viewing habits of consumers .


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## bertram (Sep 30, 2009)

Please forgive me if I have missed others posts on this,but I am about to buy a Tivo unit and was warned (buy the salesman) not to expect it to be like the US model where the TV commercials can be blocked. 
It seems that the Australian Government has ordered the units software or hardware to be modified to disable the Commercial blocker that is a feature of the US units.
If this is correct,is it possible to have someone hack the unit to override this ridiculous form of protection of the networks ?
Also is it a High Definition tuner that the unit has on board ?


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## RonDawg (Jan 12, 2006)

The US units have no "commercial blocker" feature. You have to fast-forward through them as before, or you can enable a hidden 30 sec skip feature through a certain remote control command. But the commercials are still there.

Your units should have a high definition tuner built-in.


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## petestrash (Mar 7, 2004)

Since TiVo is distributed by a TV Station in Australia the 30 second skip back door was removed. It has nothing to do with government regulation. The other reason was so that the TiVo could be sold as Freeview (FTA TV Cartel) compliant. It can be re-enabled but this requires the PROM to be swapped and some patching of tivoapp.

The Australian TiVo has 2 High Definition tuners and can record all digital FTA channels. Unlike The US TiVo HD it cannot record from external sources.

Peter.


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## sshipway (Jul 9, 2009)

:up: Now that we're just about to get TiVo in New Zealand, and it will be an identical model to Australia, I'd vote that a new forum be created as for 'Australia/New Zealand TiVo'. Probably NZ is not quite big enough to warrant its own forum, but an A/NZ forum would be good (particularly since the UK have their own forum).

I'm surprised there's no Canada forum, but I think the Americans may regard Canada as just another state of the US most of the time (like Australians are sometimes guilty of viewing NZ  )


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## magnus (Nov 12, 2004)

Yep, that'd be North Texas. 



sshipway said:


> I'm surprised there's no Canada forum, but I think the Americans may regard Canada as just another state of the US most of the time (like Australians are sometimes guilty of viewing NZ  )


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## petestrash (Mar 7, 2004)

sshipway said:


> I'd vote that a new forum be created as for 'Australia/New Zealand TiVo'.


:up::up::up: Yes please!



sshipway said:


> but I think the Americans may regard Canada as just another state of the US most of the time (like Australians are sometimes guilty of viewing NZ  )


Yep, NZ are the West Island's and we are on the Mainland 

Peter.


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## RonDawg (Jan 12, 2006)

sshipway said:


> I'm surprised there's no Canada forum, but I think the Americans may regard Canada as just another state of the US most of the time (like Australians are sometimes guilty of viewing NZ  )


I think that's more due to the fact that Canadians are only offered the old Series 2 models and that they work identically to US versions. You could even import one originally sold in the US (as some Canadian TiVo owners have done) and have it work fine.

Besides we have other ways of imposing our culture on the rest of the world


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## Pepito (Jan 7, 2009)

sshipway said:


> :up: Now that we're just about to get TiVo in New Zealand, and it will be an identical model to Australia, I'd vote that a new forum be created as for 'Australia/New Zealand TiVo'.


It happened 
http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/forumdisplay.php?s=&daysprune=7&f=66

Greetings from Australia.


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