# Tivo Mini IR receiver



## teklock

Didn't they say one would be released at the time of the mini?


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## Dan203

Seems all the accessories are missing. They don't seem to have the breakout cables for the component or A/V ports yet either.


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## teklock

Dan203 said:


> Seems all the accessories are missing. They don't seem to have the breakout cables for the component or A/V ports yet either.


Oh yeah.. Just noticed that wasn't in the box. Glad I don't need it!


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## HDRyder9

I don't see an IR port, am I missing something?


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## Dan203

I think it's suppose to be a USB dongle of some sort.


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## rsnaider

I need those breakout cables, my mini arrives on Thursday and my old HD set does not have HDMI.

Any suggestions on another source for component breakout cables, amazon and google have been little help here.


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## teklock

rsnaider said:


> I need those breakout cables, my mini arrives on Thursday and my old HD set does not have HDMI.
> 
> Any suggestions on another source for component breakout cables, amazon and google have been little help here.


Looking at the ports on the back of the mini, I can't see this coming from anyone other than Tivo.


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## rsnaider

They are 3.5mm breakout cables but I can only find composite and don't want to guess which color goes where.

I guess I have a paperweight until they release these.


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## Dan203

rsnaider said:


> I need those breakout cables, my mini arrives on Thursday and my old HD set does not have HDMI.
> 
> Any suggestions on another source for component breakout cables, amazon and google have been little help here.


There are some available on Amazon, but if the ground port isn't in the right location for the TiVo configuration it wont work. If the ground is in the right spot then you could rearrange the other cables until it works (i.e. might have to go green to blue, red to green, etc...), but if the ground is in the wrong place then it's not going to work at all unless you cut the cable and rewire it.


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## Dan203

rsnaider said:


> They are 3.5mm breakout cables but I can only find composite and don't want to guess which color goes where.
> 
> I guess I have a paperweight until they release these.


You could get one of these...

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/Atlona+...4055&st=hdmi to component converter&cp=1&lp=1

But it's almost as much as the Mini itself.

One other downfall to using the breakout cables is that there is no optical port, so audio is going to be stereo only unless you use HDMI. (or that box I posted above)


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## jadziedzic

I don't have the picture of the TiVo cable handy, but I recall it looked very similiar to the breakout cable for my Panasonic P65VT50 television.


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## rsnaider

Not too worried about sound as this tv is not using an HDMI receiver as my other.sets have.

I will wait for TiVo to have these soon or the 30 return policy will be tested.


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## UCLABB

Dan203 said:


> There are some available on Amazon, but if the ground port isn't in the right location for the TiVo configuration it wont work. If the ground is in the right spot then you could rearrange the other cables until it works (i.e. might have to go green to blue, red to green, etc...), but if the ground is in the wrong place then it's not going to work at all unless you cut the cable and rewire it.


I bought some from Amazon (third party seller). Very cheap. Planning on moving them around until it works. If I can't get it to work, no big $ loss.


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## gbruyn

I'm looking for an IR USB receiver for the Tivo mini? Where can I get a USB IR extender? Anyone figure anything out yet?


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## aaronwt

If you can still find a TiVo Slide somewhere that works well. I'm using one with my Mini.


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## gbruyn

Slide is really expensive. I just want a USB cable that extends the IR receiver.


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## HDRyder9

My Hewlett Packard USB IR receiver works on my Tivo Mini. I have a hunch that all USB IR receivers are created equal and will work as well. I have a Phillips around here somewhere. I'll give it a try as soon as I find it.


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## Dan203

I have an old MS one that went with a MCE remote I bought for my old HTPC. I wonder if it will work? Although it's really big, so it's probably not really a desirable option.


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## Bigg

rsnaider said:


> I need those breakout cables, my mini arrives on Thursday and my old HD set does not have HDMI.
> 
> Any suggestions on another source for component breakout cables, amazon and google have been little help here.


Time for a new TV.


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## Loach

I just hooked up my Mini and the IR seems very responsive. This Mini I hooked up to my master bedroom TV, which sits inside an armoire. I put the Mini next to the TV base, but slightly behind the TV. The remote works fine for me no matter where I point it in that room. Just for kicks, I pointed it 180 degrees the opposite direction from the Mini (basically at my chin) and it still recognized the commands. I won't be needing any kind of IR extender in that room.


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## aaronwt

Loach said:


> I just hooked up my Mini and the IR seems very responsive. This Mini I hooked up to my master bedroom TV, which sits inside an armoire. I put the Mini next to the TV base, but slightly behind the TV. The remote works fine for me no matter where I point it in that room. Just for kicks, I pointed it 180 degrees the opposite direction from the Mini (basically at my chin) and it still recognized the commands. I won't be needing any kind of IR extender in that room.


I noticed that with one of mine when I was testing it out. I had it located behind a speaker and it still had no problem responding to the IR commands.
Although I'm using the Slide remote with it now.


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## teklock

TiVo Customer: hey i have the new mini, but i heard there would be a IR sensor that plugs into the usb port
TiVo Customer: is that true?
Lucas: I do apologize for the inconvenience, the TiVo Mini IR extender has not been released yet. 
TiVo Customer: oh
TiVo Customer: do you know when?
Lucas: Currently there is no ETA when the IR extender will be released. 
TiVo Customer: kk ty


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## bradleys

Frankly, I wouldn't wait for TiVo on the usb IR extender... I would just get one of these with a short USB cable and put it where I wanted it. Small piece of stick-on Velcro and it disappears!

http://www.amazon.com/Syba-SD-U1IRD...id=1363634869&sr=8-1&keywords=usb+ir+receiver










Add an angle adapter, attach the Mini to the back of your TV and you are ready to go:


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## davezatz

bradleys said:


> Frankly, I wouldn't wait for TiVo on the usb IR extender... I would just get one of these with a short USB cable and put it where I wanted it. Small piece of stick-on Velcro and it disappears!
> 
> http://www.amazon.com/Syba-SD-U1IRD...id=1363634869&sr=8-1&keywords=usb+ir+receiver


What's the over/under that it works with the Mini? Is the tech/driver universal? Is TiVo's delay not having the software ready or not having the hardware ready?


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## lgerbarg

davezatz said:


> What's the over/under that it works with the Mini? Is the tech/driver universal? Is TiVo's delay not having the software ready or not having the hardware ready?


The odds are zero.

1) That dongle is an IrDA serial device which uses completely different modulation and carrier techniques than IR remotes. It can't "see" what is being sent by a TiVo remote.
2) It is a serial USB device, which generally requirers a driver on the host device that downloads its firmware on every launch.
3) All of TiVo's previous USB interface stuff (like the slide remote) had the dongle emulate a keyboard to the TiVo so it did not require any special drivers beyond HID, this thing certainly does not do that.


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## bradleys

Maybe it will not... However, According to HDRyder, his Hewlett Packard USB IR receiver works fine. From my understanding, IrDA is just a modern standard for IR communication that allowed new products to use standard protocols.



HDRyder9 said:


> My Hewlett Packard USB IR receiver works on my Tivo Mini. I have a hunch that all USB IR receivers are created equal and will work as well. I have a Phillips around here somewhere. I'll give it a try as soon as I find it.


I suppose we will have to wait to see.



lgerbarg said:


> 3) All of TiVo's previous USB interface stuff (like the slide remote) had the dongle emulate a keyboard to the TiVo so it did not require any special drivers beyond HID, this thing certainly does not do that.


I do not believe any of TiVo's earlier products ever supported an remote ir dongle. If tivo wanted to use a hardware ir reciever, it would have been easier to use a simple repeater cable with a 3.55mm connection - that they chose to use the USB solution tells me that they wanted a software driven solution.

I am so curious now, if I had a Mini, I would pay the $11 just to see if it worked!


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## lgerbarg

bradleys said:


> I suppose we will have to wait to see.


Not really. If you have an IR receiver that looks like a USB HID device (IOW, like a keyboard) it may work if the key maps are reasonable. Otherwise it won't. The linux kernel also has in kernel IR support that makes some dongles look like HID devices provided you build in the drivers, those will work if TiVo builtin support. That is almost certainly how the HP MCE remote kit functions if it does.

None of that applies to an IrDA adapter.



> I do not believe any of TiVo's earlier products ever supported an remote ir dongle. If tivo wanted to use a hardware ir reciever, it would have been easier to use a simple repeater cable with a 3.55mm connection - that they chose to use the USB solution tells me that they wanted a software driven solution.


You are correct, I was discussing the slide remote, not an IR remote. While the slide remote was marketed as a bluetooth device, the TiVo did not see it as such. Rather the bluetooth dongle kept its pairing information with the device emulated a USB keyboard, and it had enough of an internal bluetooth stack to talk to the remote and then emulated being a normal USB keyboard, so the tivo could talk to the remote without needing its own bluetooth driver. This is actually a normal function included with BT host silicon to support preboot keyboard usage on PCs (your BIOS doesn't know about bluetooth, so in order to keep the BT keyboard working the BT adapter pretends it is just a USB keyboard and hides all the BT functionality from the computer until a proper driver is loaded at which point it turns off the USB keyboard emulation and the computer starts talking to the USB keryboard through a full BT stack).

Obviously TiVo can load whatever drivers they want onto the device, so their product may or may not pretend to be a keyboard, but the reason any existing ones work is because of the existing keyboard UI control that was shipped to support the slide.

That has a couple of interesting consequences. It means that if you plug a USB keyboard into a TiVo you can drive the UI with it. It also means anything that pretends to be a keyboard can drive the UI, like a lot of PC oriented remotes that come with their own dongles (but not random IrDA dongles). Hell, you can control a TiVo with a barcode scanner.


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## L David Matheny

lgerbarg said:


> Obviously TiVo can load whatever drivers they want onto the device, so their product may or may not pretend to be a keyboard, but the reason any existing ones work is because of the existing keyboard UI control that was shipped to support the slide.
> 
> That has a couple of interesting consequences. It means that if you plug a USB keyboard into a TiVo you can drive the UI with it. It also means anything that pretends to be a keyboard can drive the UI, like a lot of PC oriented remotes that come with their own dongles (but not random IrDA dongles). Hell, you can control a TiVo with a barcode scanner.


I bought a VisionTek CandyBoard for use with my TiVo HD, and it works fine. If it works, it has to be plug-and-play since there's no way to install drivers on a TiVo. I haven't tried it with my Premiere, but it should work. I did read comments online that the similar VisionTek Bluetooth keyboard would not work with a TiVo for some reason.

I was disappointed to find that TiVo has not bothered to define any USB keyboard key combinations to simulate the playback control keys: Play, FF, Rewind, Skip, Replay and Pause. If they would do that, the USB keyboard option would be much more useful. I need it for the times that my TiVo HD decides to stop receiving IR remote commands for a while.


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## VinceS

I bought one of these:

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=285764&CatId=6945

It works perfectly!!


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## gbruyn

Looks like Tivo finally has these in stock for sale:

https://www3.tivo.com/store/accessories-cables.do


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