# Stupid Question: Where Do You Leave Tivo Where It Won't Start Playing Stuff?



## GoodSpike (Dec 17, 2001)

I give up. I've only had the Bolt about 24 hours, but I don't remember having this issue with my old DTivo years ago.

I can't figure out where to leave the Tivo so that it doesn't just start playing stuff 10-20 minutes after I walk away. Do I have to manually put it on Standby and can I do that while something is recording?


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## PSU_Sudzi (Jun 4, 2015)

Tune it to a channel and turn the TV off.


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## krkaufman (Nov 25, 2003)

GoodSpike said:


> I give up. I've only had the Bolt about 24 hours, but I don't remember having this issue with my old DTivo years ago.
> 
> I can't figure out where to leave the Tivo so that it doesn't just start playing stuff 10-20 minutes after I walk away. Do I have to manually put it on Standby and can I do that while something is recording?


Yes, you can put it in Standby and it will keep recording. It will even keep recording TiVo Suggestions, if you have them enabled and haven't set the power saving settings too strictly.

As for why your BOLT keeps jumping to Live TV, that is apparently TiVo's idea of a useful screensaver. Boggles my mind that they'd think a device designed to time-shift TV should be automatically throwing Live TV onto the screen when it's inactive.


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## kdmorse (Jan 29, 2001)

GoodSpike said:


> I give up. I've only had the Bolt about 24 hours, but I don't remember having this issue with my old DTivo years ago.
> 
> I can't figure out where to leave the Tivo so that it doesn't just start playing stuff 10-20 minutes after I walk away. Do I have to manually put it on Standby and can I do that while something is recording?


I'm sure there will be a rousing conversation of "why would you want to do such a thing", and "why don't you just turn the TV off".

But the easiest answer if you want to leave the TV on and unmuted, but in a state where the tivo won't bounce to live TV or unpause on it's own, is to either suspend it, or start playing a fully recorded program and hit pause.

Sitting at any menu, it will time out to live tv. Paused on live TV, it will resume playing when the buffer is full and the pause point is no longer in it.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

Pick a recording from My Shows, play it and then pause it. It will never time out of a recording. The only exception is if you get an emergency alert, then they are required by law to drop you to live TV to display it.


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## ej42137 (Feb 16, 2014)

GoodSpike said:


> I give up. I've only had the Bolt about 24 hours, but I don't remember having this issue with my old DTivo years ago.
> 
> I can't figure out where to leave the Tivo so that it doesn't just start playing stuff 10-20 minutes after I walk away. Do I have to manually put it on Standby and can I do that while something is recording?


Standby doesn't stop anything from recording except possibly suggestions. The only way I know of to stop your TiVo from recording is to disconnect either the coax or the power cord.


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## GoodSpike (Dec 17, 2001)

krkaufman said:


> Yes, you can put it in Standby and it will keep recording. It will even keep recording TiVo Suggestions, if you have them enabled and haven't set the power saving settings too strictly.
> 
> As for why your BOLT keeps jumping to Live TV, that is apparently TiVo's idea of a useful screensaver. Boggles my mind that they'd think a device designed to time-shift TV should be automatically throwing Live TV onto the screen when it's inactive.


The thing is my TV is off, but the soundbar is on, and will stay on until there hasn't been sound for X minutes. Unfortunately Tivo starts playing again in Y minutes and Y < X.

I'm going to try running the optical through my TV, but I think my TV optical out may strip the 5.1 out--there's some reason I wasn't using TV optical out from my HTPC, and I think that was the issue.


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## GoodSpike (Dec 17, 2001)

Dan203 said:


> Pick a recording from My Shows, play it and then pause it. It will never time out of a recording. The only exception is if you get an emergency alert, then they are required by law to drop you to live TV to display it.


Really? Another benefit of Tivo. You won't be watching something from 2 hours ago and then learn of the end of the world two hours late!


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## GoodSpike (Dec 17, 2001)

krkaufman said:


> As for why your BOLT keeps jumping to Live TV, that is apparently TiVo's idea of a useful screensaver. Boggles my mind that they'd think a device designed to time-shift TV should be automatically throwing Live TV onto the screen when it's inactive.


It's maybe a holdover from the old days? One thing that used to drive me nuts about the DTivo is that it would be recording streams from both of its tuners 24/7.


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## krkaufman (Nov 25, 2003)

GoodSpike said:


> It's maybe a holdover from the old days? One thing that used to drive me nuts about the DTivo is that it would be recording streams from both of its tuners 24/7.


If your modern TiVo isn't in Standby mode, it'll be buffering content on each of its tuners, as well, all 4 or 6 of them. But that doesn't mean the content from one of those channels is the best choice for an inactivity screensaver.


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## GoodSpike (Dec 17, 2001)

krkaufman said:


> If your modern TiVo isn't in Standby mode, it'll be buffering content on each of its tuners, as well, all 4 or 6 of them. But that doesn't mean the content from one of those channels is the best choice for an inactivity screensaver.


Agreed. One of the things I miss from my HTPC is having my own pictures (that are not pictures of me) as the screensaver images. That would be a nice option.


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## JoeKustra (Dec 7, 2012)

Dan203 said:


> Pick a recording from My Shows, play it and then pause it. It will never time out of a recording. The only exception is if you get an emergency alert, then they are required by law to drop you to live TV to display it.


Here's something for your trivia file. If you put a Mini into Standby, it doesn't wake up for EAS tests. No grabbing a tuner.


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## GoodSpike (Dec 17, 2001)

The answer to that is uses live programming as a screen saver raises another question. If you're watching live TV for 2 hours and you have your Tivo set to go into Standby after 2 yours, will it put the Tivo to sleep, or prompt you for some input to make sure you're watching?


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## JoeKustra (Dec 7, 2012)

GoodSpike said:


> The answer to that is uses live programming as a screen saver raises another question. If you're watching live TV for 2 hours and you have your Tivo set to go into Standby after 2 yours, will it put the Tivo to sleep, or prompt you for some input to make sure you're watching?


You get a two minute countdown. That countdown stays at two minutes until the box goes into Standby. There is no countdown clock. Any key you hit on the remote cancels the countdown.


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## krkaufman (Nov 25, 2003)

GoodSpike said:


> Agreed. One of the things I miss from my HTPC is having my own pictures (that are not pictures of me) as the screensaver images. That would be a nice option.


Agreed.


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## krkaufman (Nov 25, 2003)

GoodSpike said:


> The answer to that is uses live programming as a screen saver raises another question. If you're watching live TV for 2 hours and you have your Tivo set to go into Standby after 2 yours, will it put the Tivo to sleep, or prompt you for some input to make sure you're watching?





JoeKustra said:


> You get a two minute countdown. That countdown stays at two minutes until the box goes into Standby. There is no countdown clock. Any key you hit on the remote cancels the countdown.


Which brings you to the complaint at the other end of the spectrum, TiVo Mini owners who want their Minis to be able to keep playing Live TV endlessly without any user interaction. At present, the Minis will time-out after 4 hours of playback.


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## GoodSpike (Dec 17, 2001)

Dan203 said:


> Pick a recording from My Shows, play it and then pause it. It will never time out of a recording. The only exception is if you get an emergency alert, then they are required by law to drop you to live TV to display it.


I've only owned the Bolt two days an already got my first emergency alert. I had to watch it twice. Once during the streaming session I had going when it occurred, and next when watching something recorded during that time. I can only assume that if I'd had four things recording I'd have had to watch it 5 times.

Is this because it's a cable device or because it's a streaming device, or both? For example, would a Comcast DVR do the same thing? What about one of the streaming only devices?


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

It only uses one tuner to display the EAS. So even if you had four tuners going it would only be recorded into one show. It use to be that when you had stuff recording it would try to use an unused tuner so it wouldn't be in your recording at all, but when they added the tuner allocation stuff for the Mini that seemed to go away. Now I see them in recordungs all the time even when I only have 1-2 things recprding on my 6 tuner Roamio.


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## GoodSpike (Dec 17, 2001)

Dan203 said:


> It only uses one tuner to display the EAS. So even if you had four tuners going it would only be recorded into one show. It use to be that when you had stuff recording it would try to use an unused tuner so it wouldn't be in your recording at all, but when they added the tuner allocation stuff for the Mini that seemed to go away. Now I see them in recordungs all the time even when I only have 1-2 things recprding on my 6 tuner Roamio.


I haven't seen any mention on this forum of replacing the drive with an SSD drive. I'm not sure what if anything that would speed up on a Tivo (and know speed isn't that important for recording video), but if you did that unnecessary recording would seemingly really shorten the life of the drive.


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## GoodSpike (Dec 17, 2001)

I asked this in another forum here, but I'll as specifically for Bolt too.

10 years ago I had a DTivo and there was a way to be recording two games (the tuner limit) and pause one game and go to the other, then pause it.

I obviously don't remember the button I used to switch back and forth, but now there are many more tuners in the devices. Is there still the same functionality?


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## krkaufman (Nov 25, 2003)

GoodSpike said:


> I asked this in another forum here, but I'll as specifically for Bolt too.
> 
> 10 years ago I had a DTivo and there was a way to be recording two games (the tuner limit) and pause one game and go to the other, then pause it.
> 
> I obviously don't remember the button I used to switch back and forth, but now there are many more tuners in the devices. Is there still the same functionality?


Answered.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

GoodSpike said:


> I haven't seen any mention on this forum of replacing the drive with an SSD drive. I'm not sure what if anything that would speed up on a Tivo (and know speed isn't that important for recording video), but if you did that unnecessary recording would seemingly really shorten the life of the drive.


SSDs have a limited number of write cycles. With 4 tuners recording a constant 30 minute buffer you would like hit the write limit of an SSD in about a year. It would provide little to no speed advantage either as most of the software on a bolt is already stored on a bit of flash memory on the motherboard, not the hard drive.


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## kdmorse (Jan 29, 2001)

Dan203 said:


> SSDs have a limited number of write cycles. With 4 tuners recording a constant 30 minute buffer you would like hit the write limit of an SSD in about a year. It would provide little to no speed advantage either as most of the software on a bolt is already stored on a bit of flash memory on the motherboard, not the hard drive.


My napkin math says current drives could last 4 years with 6 tuners constantly recording, and still be within their rated lifetime. And most SSD's run long beyond their rated lifetime, you're just on your own a that point. (Based on my average recording bitrate, your mileage may vary)

SSD in a Tivo are not quite the ticking timebomb they used to be. But there's still virtually no benefit to it in day to day use.


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## pshivers (Nov 4, 2013)

GoodSpike said:


> The thing is my TV is off, but the soundbar is on, and will stay on until there hasn't been sound for X minutes. Unfortunately Tivo starts playing again in Y minutes and Y < X.
> 
> I'm going to try running the optical through my TV, but I think my TV optical out may strip the 5.1 out--there's some reason I wasn't using TV optical out from my HTPC, and I think that was the issue.


I have a similar setup only with one of my Tivo Mini's. Mini would go to Live TV in the middle of the night for reasons unknown and activate the soundbar at high volume, waking up the whole household.

Only solution that worked for me was putting the Mini into Standby when we were done for the day...


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## ej42137 (Feb 16, 2014)

GoodSpike said:


> Agreed. One of the things I miss from my HTPC is having my own pictures (that are not pictures of me) as the screensaver images. That would be a nice option.





pshivers said:


> I have a similar setup only with one of my Tivo Mini's. Mini would go to Live TV in the middle of the night for reasons unknown and activate the soundbar at high volume, waking up the whole household.
> 
> Only solution that worked for me was putting the Mini into Standby when we were done for the day...


Stop wasting electricity and turn them off! Do you not care about the planet?


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## GoodSpike (Dec 17, 2001)

ej42137 said:


> Stop wasting electricity and turn them off! Do you not care about the planet?


Huh? I mention having a screensaver on my computer and you assume I'm wasting electricity without knowing anything more? Do you understand how computers work, the many different things that they can do and the many different ways they can be set up?

And as to Tivo, I have it setup to go into Standby automatically as soon as possible. But that period is longer than the period when the paused TV automatically restarts.


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## ej42137 (Feb 16, 2014)

GoodSpike said:


> Huh? I mention having a screensaver on my computer and you assume I'm wasting electricity without knowing anything more? Do you understand how computers work, the many different things that they can do and the many different ways they can be set up?


Yes, I've been in the computer biz probably longer than you've been alive. I also took a degree in Physics, admittedly a long time ago, but subsequent to Clerk Maxwell.

All of which is irrelevant to the fact that leaving a monitor on while it's not being used wastes power and expends the useful lifetime of the monitor. Please turn off your electronic devices when not in use and save the planet. Or if you're a denier, reduce your electric bill and extend the life of your appliances.


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## GoodSpike (Dec 17, 2001)

ej42137 said:


> Yes, I've been in the computer biz probably longer than you've been alive. I also took a degree in Physics, admittedly a long time ago, but subsequent to Clerk Maxwell.
> 
> All of which is irrelevant to the fact that* leaving a monitor on while it's not being used wastes power and expends the useful lifetime of the monitor. *Please turn off your electronic devices when not in use and save the planet. Or if you're a denier, reduce your electric bill and extend the life of your appliances.


You need to go back and read post 7 here, which demonstrates that you don't understand all the different possibilities for how a computer is used.

No one here said anything about leaving a monitor on all the time, and in fact this thread was started due to a situation where my monitor (TV) was off. The other material you quoted didn't even involve a computer, and also only involved audio concerns.

But in any case, someone could easily have their computer set up in a way where their screensaver comes on fairly quickly for security concerns--requiring a password to get back to what's on the screen. They could even have it set up that way and have the computer set up to turn off the monitor fairly quickly after the screensaver comes on. For example screensaver after a minute and monitor off after 10.

You may have used a computer a long time, but I think you need to advance to something not running MS-Dos, or at least not make the assumption that you know what someone is doing with their computer based on failing to read what was written or making totally baseless assumptions.

Now please quit hijacking my thread.


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## ej42137 (Feb 16, 2014)

GoodSpike said:


> Now please quit hijacking my thread.


How about if I change my advice to this: "Leaving a soundbar on while it's not being used wastes power and expends the useful lifetime of the soundbar. Please turn off your electronic devices when not in use and save the planet. Or if you're a denier, reduce your electric bill and extend the life of your appliances." I am sure that if you simply power-off your soundbar, it will no longer make noise and scare you.

I did find your willful misunderstanding of what I wrote amusing. I am sorry if you found my remarks so threatening that you felt compelled to react defensively; that is certainly not what I intended.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

ej42137 said:


> How about if I change my advice to this: "Leaving a soundbar on while it's not being used wastes power and expends the useful lifetime of the soundbar. Please turn off your electronic devices when not in use and save the planet. Or if you're a denier, reduce your electric bill and extend the life of your appliances." I am sure that if you simply power-off your soundbar, it will no longer make noise and scare you.
> 
> I did find your willful misunderstanding of what I wrote amusing. I am sorry if you found my remarks so threatening that you felt compelled to react defensively; that is certainly not what I intended.


I certainly hope you have switched all your lights to LEDs. Because it would be hypocritical of someone to complain about someone else wasting electricity and still be using fluorescent or incandescent bulbs which also waste electricity.

Or even worse using a monitor with fluorescent backlighting


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## GoodSpike (Dec 17, 2001)

ej42137 said:


> How about if I change my advice to this: "Leaving a soundbar on while it's not being used wastes power and expends the useful lifetime of the soundbar. Please turn off your electronic devices when not in use and save the planet. Or if you're a denier, reduce your electric bill and extend the life of your appliances." I am sure that if you simply power-off your soundbar, it will no longer make noise and scare you..


How about your understanding that my soundbar turns itself off automatically after X minutes without sound, and it doesn't even have an off button?

How about your understanding that an amplifier that isn't putting out sound doesn't use a heck of a lot of power?

I do real things to conserve significant amount's of power. My gas/electric company stats indicate I am once of the lowest power users in my neighborhood. I do that without harassing people I don't know, where I don't know what the ___ they are doing and don't know what equipment they have, or how they have the equipment set up, trying to get them to save a minuscule amount of power.


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## GoodSpike (Dec 17, 2001)

aaronwt said:


> I certainly hope you have switched all your lights to LEDs. Because it would be hypocritical of someone to complain about someone else wasting electricity and still be using fluorescent or incandescent bulbs which also waste electricity.


I know this was directed at the other person, but I have switched almost everything to LED. I would point out though that fluorescent is not that much less efficient--they are mainly an environmental issue because of mercury. So I have swapped out working incandescent bulbs, but not all my fluorescent. I have one outside flood that has had an incredible lifespan.


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## aspexil (Oct 16, 2015)

GoodSpike said:


> I know this was directed at the other person, but I have switched almost everything to LED. I would point out though that fluorescent is not that much less efficient--they are mainly an environmental issue because of mercury. So I have swapped out working incandescent bulbs, but not all my fluorescent. I have one outside flood that has had an incredible lifespan.


First thing I did when we bought our house end of Sept. Hit all the major light bulbs (and it is amazing just how many we have) that we used 80% of the time through the month of October. Our electric bill fell $30 for November! At that rate we'll have recouped the cost of the LED bulbs in 10 months. Now to just find the time for the 20% left as some are in enclosures I have yet to figure out how to open. I too abhor CFLs because of the mercury.


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## GoodSpike (Dec 17, 2001)

aspexil said:


> Now to just find the time for the 20% left as some are in enclosures I have yet to figure out how to open.


Not sure what you mean by enclosures, but I used this brand (not sure of exact model) to replace canned lighting.

http://www.amazon.com/Lighting-Scie...F8&qid=1450211520&sr=8-4&keywords=glimpse+led

Nice light distribution.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

GoodSpike said:


> Not sure what you mean by enclosures, but I used this brand (not sure of exact model) to replace canned lighting.
> 
> http://www.amazon.com/Lighting-Scie...F8&qid=1450211520&sr=8-4&keywords=glimpse+led
> 
> Nice light distribution.


That looks nice. I was thinking about getting a couple but it doesn't look like there is a Daylight Temp version.


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## ej42137 (Feb 16, 2014)

aaronwt said:


> I certainly hope you have switched all your lights to LEDs. Because it would be hypocritical of someone to complain about someone else wasting electricity and still be using fluorescent or incandescent bulbs which also waste electricity.
> 
> Or even worse using a monitor with fluorescent backlighting


Before we had LEDs I always turned the lights off when I left the room; which drove my wife and kids insane, sitting there in the dark and yelling at me.

Of course I avoided CFLs, not wanting to experience mercury poisoning again after my unfortunate experience in college chemistry. But LED lights only have lead and arsenic which aren't dangerous unless you ingest them or they contaminate our groundwater by leaching out of the the landfills. The Dark Side of LEDs

Do they still sell incandescents in your state?


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## GoodSpike (Dec 17, 2001)

ej42137 said:


> Before we had LEDs I always turned the lights off when I left the room; which drove my wife and kids insane, sitting there in the dark and yelling at me.
> 
> Do they still sell incandescents in your state?


I still turn off the lights, but I did notice a tendency to want to leave hallway lights on when I switched to LED. Saving energy made me more likely to waste energy!

I think they still sell incandescent lights here, but I wouldn't bet any money on it. I don't usually buy lighting at B&M stores.


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## aspexil (Oct 16, 2015)

GoodSpike said:


> Not sure what you mean by enclosures, but I used this brand (not sure of exact model) to replace canned lighting.
> 
> http://www.amazon.com/Lighting-Scie...F8&qid=1450211520&sr=8-4&keywords=glimpse+led
> 
> Nice light distribution.


By enclosure I mean the light fixture. The one in the laundry closet looks like something that would be on a ship with a wide metal cage surrounding it. I just haven't had time to look at it but I need to get in there and replace the bulb because the wife keeps that light on a lot and I'm always turning it off.


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## TMACK (Dec 17, 2015)

I believe this will also tie up a tuner so there is only 3 tuners left for recording and the minis.


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## krkaufman (Nov 25, 2003)

TMACK said:


> All of a sudden when I go to TiVo central the sound and the video window is no longer there.


Regarding this particular symptom, you may want to check your "*Video Window*" setting, under
TiVo Central
> Settings & Messages
> User Preferences​


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## TMACK (Dec 17, 2015)

This was an answer to the problem on the Bolt always loading live tv.

The window setting is correct. When you go to TiVo central it should disappear and hopefully release the tuner for a mini (when the latest mini update happens). it is working correctly now. when you are in the guide you will see the window.


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## krkaufman (Nov 25, 2003)

TMACK said:


> This was an answer to the problem on the Bolt always loading live tv.
> 
> The window setting is correct. When you go to TiVo central it should disappear and hopefully release the tuner for a mini


This would be a major change of behavior. With the Video Window option set to 'On', the Video Window should almost always be visible, whether playing a recording or Live TV. On older boxes, the Video Window will appear until you drop into a settings screen that is still SD (i.e. not updated to the HD menus), and then pop back up when you re-enter the HD menus.
NOTE: The TiVo "screensaver" function will also pose a problem for Minis looking to grab a free tuner.​
What you're describing is how the Minis work: go to TiVo Central and the Mini will release its tuner. The Video Window is only visible within the Guide. (I don't have a Mini handy to verify whether the Mini might show the Video Window if you use the Back button to drop back to an episode's details page.)


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## TMACK (Dec 17, 2015)

the mini has a window until you go to TiVo central then the window disappears and it releases the tuner.


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## GoodSpike (Dec 17, 2001)

TMACK said:


> This was an answer to the problem on the Bolt always loading live tv.
> 
> The window setting is correct. When you go to TiVo central it should disappear and hopefully release the tuner for a mini (when the latest mini update happens). it is working correctly now. when you are in the guide you will see the window.


I really don't get why it does this. Taking the mini out of the picture, on the Bolt you can turn off the video window for every page except the Guide page. Why does Tivo think you want to have some random channel of material playing in the background when you're looking at the Guide? (And yes I know you can pause it, but you shouldn't have to.) It's like the Tivo is designed the same as some damn annoying kid's toy that just makes noise for the sake of making noise!


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## jrtroo (Feb 4, 2008)

ej42137 said:


> Do they still sell incandescents in your state?


The elimination of incandescents is a federal restriction.


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## jesrush (Nov 7, 2015)

GoodSpike said:


> I haven't seen any mention on this forum of replacing the drive with an SSD drive. I'm not sure what if anything that would speed up on a Tivo (and know speed isn't that important for recording video), but if you did that unnecessary recording would seemingly really shorten the life of the drive.


I replaced my stock drive with an SSD. Subjectively, I think jumping around within recordings is a hair faster. The biggest difference I saw was on downloading recordings to mobile devices. Sped that up by about 30% - presumably from faster transcoding.


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