# Oldest Tivo



## RichardJH (Oct 7, 2002)

Who has the oldest Tivo is it Pete


----------



## mrmike (May 2, 2001)

[Oops. Never mind. I'm on the wrong side of the pond]

-MM


----------



## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

Its having the lowest Tivo Service Number that counts for the purpose of this discussion. That is we are trying to find who has the earliest UK Tivo units built rather than the earliest units purchased or subbed (with account number being the decider for the latter point and many early production units not being subbed for a long time for various reasons like being in a warehouse or a store demonstrator).

My Tivo Service Number is:-

023-0000-601E-3???

Hmmm but thinking about hexadecimal numbering there ought to be some 601Es with the next character of the last four character block as a 1. Unless of course they didn't start off at 601E-1???. Either way 601E-3??? is sure to have been fairly early on in the production sequence.

Can anyone quote a 601E unit with the first digit of the last four characters being lower than 3 in hexadecimal terms.

Was the potential Service Number forgery angle why it was in fact impossible to run this contest successfully in the past?


----------



## mikerr (Jun 2, 2005)

Now we can all clone pete's lifetime sub.... better edit one digit out there pete !


----------



## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

mikerr said:


> Now we can all clone pete's lifetime sub.... better edit one digit out there pete !


Good point although perhaps better if you had PM'ed me. Last three digits changed to???. That means there are 4096 possible different combinations to complete the Service Number.

Obviously if a determined hacker had enough time they could still come across valid Service Numbers with Lifetime Subs though by going through the sequence one by one. Especially as around 50% of units have a Lifetime Sub................


----------



## aerialplug (Oct 20, 2000)

Oldest TiVo for the UK? 

Quite possibly me actually though its no longer in use as it now can't download any valid data (even though it still thinks it can when I try to connect it to a phone line and still thinks it's a life timer).

It is a specially modified Philips TiVo with a special UK subscription/software designed for a BBC open day back in 1998 (and surrounding research project) and continued to work for quite a while afterwards.

It still tells me it has a lifetime subscription (though no real data downloads since around early 2000 have worked). It only has 12.5GB drive but can still record time based recordings the last time I tried a couple of years ago (NTSC only until I hacked it).

the oldest Uk TiVo?  Quite possibly me, but probably not a GENUINE UK TiVo so I eliminate this entry from the competition 

Oh, and if anyone's askking about serial numbers, it bears no relation to the ones used by the proper UK TiVos too.


----------



## aerialplug (Oct 20, 2000)

... as to being the earliest UK user of a proper UK TiVo... also probably close to the starting line as I was part of the group asked to test 'em before they were released into the wild 

Still - I was appalled when I went out on launch day and realized, despite TiVo's pamphlets and publicity to the shops, how ill informed the sales people in the limited number of shops were as to the silver box with no knobs on it, let alone where you were supposed to put the DVD/video tape...

Oh the memories...


----------



## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

aerialplug said:


> the oldest Uk TiVo?  Quite possibly me, but probably not a GENUINE UK TiVo so I eliminate this entry from the competition


I do remember your converted American demo model Tivo now you come to mention it.

But to clarify the competition is only for genuine Thomson PVR10UK Tivo units with service numbers in the format 023-0000-60??-????


----------



## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

aerialplug said:


> Still - I was appalled when I went out on launch day and realized, despite TiVo's pamphlets and publicity to the shops, how ill informed the sales people in the limited number of shops were as to the silver box with no knobs on it, let alone where you were supposed to put the DVD/video tape...
> 
> Oh the memories...


Training at DSG Retail Ltd stores does seem to have improved quite considerably over the last 7 years and quite a few of the staff even seem to known an XD card from a USB socket these days. 

I'm less sure there has been any significant improvement at Comet despite the greater thoroughness one might expect to have come about due to its new ownership and the bold claims made for the said extra training in a tv ad campaign following the change of parent company to Germany.


----------



## kitschcamp (May 18, 2001)

Pete77 said:


> Training at DSG Retail Ltd stores does seem to have improved quite considerably over the last 7 years and quite a few of the staff even seem to known an XD card from a USB socket these days.


Really? So it's good training that makes them reckons a laptop is outside it's warranty for a broken hinge when someone installs linux? Or that a laptop *bag* breaking after a week is due to someone having a laptop that uses Mac OSX not Windows...?


----------



## SRB (Mar 26, 2003)

aerialplug said:


> ... as to being the earliest UK user of a proper UK TiVo... also probably close to the starting line as I was part of the group asked to test 'em before they were released into the wild
> 
> Still - I was appalled when I went out on launch day and realized, despite TiVo's pamphlets and publicity to the shops, how ill informed the sales people in the limited number of shops were as to the silver box with no knobs on it, let alone where you were supposed to put the DVD/video tape...
> 
> Oh the memories...


Me too - I remember being quite sad when the "test unit" had to go back and was replaced by the bog standard "on sale now" unit.


----------



## Ian_m (Jan 9, 2001)

I have a lifetime subscription TiVo, stashed in my loft, TiVo UK sent to my friend "for testing/gift" who was involved in TiVo UK hardware development. The boxes courier label states posting date of 20th September 2000. This TiVo has two drives. The reason I have it, is his house suffered a lightning strike a year or two ago, taking out the modem. Works fine using a cache card.

My TiVo was purchased 30th November 2000 with lifetime a subscription letter dated 6th January 2001. (Did you get 30days grace in those days ?).

My TiVo is on its 2nd PSU and 3rd set of drives !!!


----------



## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

Ian_m said:


> My TiVo was purchased 30th November 2000 with lifetime a subscription letter dated 6th January 2001. (Did you get 30days grace in those days ?).


No you only had 7 days on the grace subscription period but I think it took them a number of weeks to send the subscription letter and it was dated for the day it was sent.

Or may be it took you a month to be convinced that a Lifetime Sub was worthwhile and you initially took a Monthly Sub?


----------



## jrg (May 26, 2002)

aerialplug said:


> ... as to being the earliest UK user of a proper UK TiVo... also probably close to the starting line as I was part of the group asked to test 'em before they were released into the wild


A friend, Tom, does have an early UK engineering unit I believe (without the finished consumer packaging). But he worked at TiVo UK. I daresay others who worked there with him have some early units too.


----------



## Ian_m (Jan 9, 2001)

Pete77 said:


> Or may be it took you a month to be convinced that a Lifetime Sub was worthwhile and you initially took a Monthly Sub?


Nope I was convinced instantly and got lifetime subscription a couple days after getting my TiVo home.


----------



## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

kitschcamp said:


> Really? So it's good training that makes them reckons a laptop is outside it's warranty for a broken hinge when someone installs linux? Or that a laptop *bag* breaking after a week is due to someone having a laptop that uses Mac OSX not Windows...?


Or that leaves them refusing to take back a laptop the next day after it was purchased and that claimed to have WIFI but only did so by way of a PCMCIA card that occupied its single USB socket when the box was actually opened.

To be fair a lot of those issues are down to commercial ruthlessness by the old senior management of PC World (who bizarrely had a different returns policy from Currys stores which more or less took anything back up to 28 days even if opened). I totally agree they were that bad 3 years ago plus and I have had personal experience of it but I have found lately (last 6 to 12 months) that they no longer seem to employ really stupid staff and have encountered several more helpful and informed employees.

Perhaps I am basing it on a very positive experience at their Fulham store the another night where after shutting at 8pm they made no effort to force anyone to leave and let me go on browsing before buying goods at 8.10pm.

I am historically the world's biggest critic of DSG Retail Ltd but I think they have made recent efforts to improve because apart from anything else the public is a lot more informed about computer goods these days so employing total thickheads suited only suited to MacDonalds will no longer do. Of course the average bloke in the street knows a lot more about computers now so perhaps that is why their staff seem more informed these days, even though DSG Retail itself has made no extra efforts with training.


----------



## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

jrg said:


> A friend, Tom, does have an early UK engineering unit I believe (without the finished consumer packaging). But he worked at TiVo UK. I daresay others who worked there with him have some early units too.


Nobody else seems to be mentioning the Service Number of their units though minus the last 3 characters.


----------



## Automan (Oct 29, 2000)

Comet staff are no better today.
I was looking at a 3 x handset dect phone system.

Staff offered help and I said I have one question...
Does it have a central phonebook so if you enter the name in one handset all three will see it?

Answer - "Certanly Sir"

Guess what...

It did not 

Re Tivo age at http://www.btinternet.com/~morlocks/html/tivo.htm is my first thoughts of my first Tivo uploaded on 22/10/2000

Automan.


----------



## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

Automan said:


> Re Tivo age at http://www.btinternet.com/~morlocks/html/tivo.htm is my first thoughts of my first Tivo uploaded on 22/10/2000


I'm surprised you didn't take it back for a refund judging by how underwhelmed you were with the initial 1.5.1 Tivo software release.

It makes one realise how much of an improvement 2.5.5 + Endpad actually is.


----------



## iankb (Oct 9, 2000)

aerialplug said:


> ... let alone where you were supposed to put the DVD/video tape


I can understand that a lot of salespeople didn't understand the difference, but I still wonder at the person in Comet who printed up the shelf cards to say that you get several free tapes with each TiVo. 

I can't beat late-adopter Pete with my 601E model number, but then I did buy the first one into the Reading branch of Dixons, sometime in October 2000.


----------



## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

iankb said:


> I can't beat late-adopter Pete with my 601E model number, but then I did buy the first one into the Reading branch of Dixons, sometime in October 2000.


I am fairly confident that this machine is one of a batch of 200 or so supplied to larger DSG Retail stores on day one of the UK sales effort by Tivo.

It is likely that these machines may have been supplied to stores a week or two before the main Tivo stocks arrived, perhaps in the hope both of drumming up advance customer interest and perhaps in the even more forlorn and misguided hope that some form of staff training on the product might then take place.


----------



## Automan (Oct 29, 2000)

I have a 601E, a 6021 and a 6022.

Automan.


----------



## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

Automan said:


> I have a 601E, a 6021 and a 6022.
> 
> Automan.


And I have four Tivos in my possession:-

601E - 2 x 250Gb, Cachecard + 512MB of RAM and Lifetime Sub
6020 - 1 x 40Gb failed drive, broken MPEG encoder or decoder and Never Set Up
6020 - 1 x 40Gb - fully working but No Longer Monthly Subbed
6023 - 1 x 250Gb, Cachecard + 512MB of RAM and Lifetime Sub + Professional Network socket on back.

Any offers for the broken Tivo or the fully working but unsubbed standard 40Gb Tivo sent by PM will be seriously considered. The two Lifetime Subbed and Cachecarded units are not for sale.


----------



## OzSat (Feb 15, 2001)

It would be interesting to know:

1: How many TiVo were sold in the UK
2: How many households actually purchased a TiVo.

A lot of households seem to have 2 or more TiVo.


----------



## martink0646 (Feb 8, 2005)

I saw TiVo reviewed in T3 & possibly on TV although that may have come afterwards. I noted the release date & took an early lunch on the appointed day, sometime in September I think, went to Dixons in Braintree & asked for a TiVo. Blank looks all round with none of the staff including the manager knowing anything about it. I told them that it was definitely released 'today' so they checked the computer & it was showing 1 in stock. Cue someone to trawl through the storeroom & 10 minutes later the guy returned with a box & said "Is this it?" I paid my money, left work early & went home to set it up.

I activated that night at around 9.30pm after getting it set up. I called in intending to buy a lifetime sub but I only had my debit card on me & not my credit card & they couldn't set up a lifetime off a debit card. So rather than wait I opted for DD. That slight impatience has cost me rather a lot of money down the years although not that much in real terms. I am an inveterate early adopter and bought a plasma screen in early 2001. Including the bracket it totalled £5500!! (for a bog standard 852 x 480) and when my 3 year old managed to destroy it earlier this year, my insurance company gave me £799.00! Now thats what I call depreciation & makes the amount I have spent on TiVo pale into insignificance. TiVo is without doubt the best piece of technology I have ever bought & certainly the longest lasting.

As an aside to earlier posters. I am on my original PSU & only the second HDD & my last 4 figures begin with an A.

Martin


----------



## Nero2 (Aug 22, 2005)

My one and only Tivo is a 601E, bought it from Dixons about four years ago when they where clearing their back room "rubbish".


----------



## iankb (Oct 9, 2000)

Pete77 said:


> It is likely that these machines may have been supplied to stores a week or two before the main Tivo stocks arrived ...


I had one of the first two delivered to Reading, on the day that they arrived. I know that, since I had been in each day for a week or so. One was provided as a demo, and the second one I bought. And yes, they were thinking of returning them because they couldn't get the front open to insert the tape. 

As far as I'm aware, they only appeared in stores in October, and then only a couple at a time.


----------



## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

iankb said:


> I had one of the first two delivered to Reading, on the day that they arrived. I know that, since I had been in each day for a week or so. One was provided as a demo, and the second one I bought. And yes, they were thinking of returning them because they couldn't get the front open to insert the tape.


Yet still your last block of four Tivo service characters begins considerably further on in the sequence than mine starting with a 3.

Of course the likelihood is that Tivo or Thomson did not necessarily ship them in the order they built them with the earliest production units perhaps beingstockpiled in a warehouse and then the later manufactured 601Es being positioned in the warehouse in front of them and so shipped out first to retailers.

Also did they ship direct from Thomson in Ireland to UK retailers or were they stockpiled somewhere in the UK by Thomson or Tivo where again they could have got in to reverse order in relation to the sequence in which they were produced. Or did they go to a central Currys/Dixons stock warehouse where again they may have been retrieved for despatch in reverse order to their order of production by Thomson.

It seems we will probably never find out the real answer................


----------



## -MC- (Dec 9, 2005)

My oldest Tivo, which I bought 6-11-00 at Currys is 601E E*** 
so maybe they started with 601E A*** ?


----------



## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

-MC- said:


> My oldest Tivo, which I bought 6-11-00 at Currys is 601E E***
> so maybe they started with 601E A*** ?


Hexadecimal numbering always runs as follows:-

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 A B C D E F

As demonstrated in the third block of the Tivo Service Number commencing at 601E then 601F, 6020, 6021, 6022, 6023, 6024.

So the lowest service number in the last block after 601E would be 0???.

However there is no guarantee they started at 0 or 1 and we know they didn't issue every number in the sequence but skipped large gaps between Service Numbers (perhaps to to try to make life hard for subscription counterfeiters). Although we don't know for sure that they released any Tivos for sale or as demonstrators commencing with the last block at 0 or 1 or 2 we do know there is a Tivo PVR10UK out there with the last block commencing at 3 because I have such a Tivo with that Service Number.  

Does anyone have a 601E with the last block commencing in 0, 1 or 2?


----------



## GeneD (Jun 26, 2002)

I know this is an old thread, and I'm on the wrong side of the pond, but I have a Series 1 TiVo with a service number starting with 002-0000. It has been running continually for 10 years on the original drives, and sadly, I have been paying for annual or monthly service fees for the full 10 years.


----------



## mikerr (Jun 2, 2005)

GeneD said:


> It has been running continually for 10 years on the original drives, and *sadly*, I have been paying for annual or monthly service fees for the full 10 years.


Not sadly - it's the tenner a month'ers that kept TiVo alive!


----------



## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

mikerr said:


> Not sadly - it's the tenner a month'ers that kept TiVo alive!


GeneD is in Florida in the USA so arguably the S1 service Lifetime customers could still afford to be cheaply supported as much the same EPG data for cable etc in the USA also had to be prepared by Tribune for the later series of Tivo models on which Tivo is still earning substantial amounts of subscription revenue.


----------



## mikerr (Jun 2, 2005)

So you think the US service should be subsidising the UK service?


----------



## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

mikerr said:


> So you think the US service should be subsidising the UK service?


I think Tivo should be honouring its commitment to provide Lifetime Service on S1 Tivos so long as they are still operational and Tivo is still in business.

However I would also imagine that the revenue Tivo is earning from the deal with Virgin would have more than enough margin to continue to provide EPG service to the UK S1 machines.


----------

