# Allow Opt Out of Amber Alerts



## GoodSpike (Dec 17, 2001)

Having bought a Bolt I've come back to Tivo after about a 10 year absence.

Twice now in less than a week I've been hit with government alerts. The first was the practice emergency alert. The second last night was an Amber Alert. In both cases I effectively got the alert twice, because it interrupted what I was viewing and I saw it again on a recording from that timeframe.

I can see why Tivo can't do anything about the government alerts, and it probably shouldn't, but Amber Alerts should be optional. You can turn them off on Android phones (but not all emergency alerts). On a Tivo they seem particularly useless. At 8:00 p.m. I'm not likely to see a car with a kidnapped child from my livingroom.

Also I would note that the format of the alerts is rather bad, being mainly audio. That means you have to listen and comprehend the description of the car and the children. In this particular case the kids were found even before the alert went out to the Tivo, and when my wife saw the pictures of the kids in the news story it did not begin to match what she thought from the audio alert.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

They're required by law to show these. There is no way they could offer an option to opt out. Amber alerts maybe, since phones offer that as an option, but I'm not sure the CableCARD spec differentiates between them. I think it just sends an OOB signal to the host device and it has to obey it.


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## Skotch116 (Nov 24, 2015)

They can definitely present the option to the user disable the EAS. WMC has a setting to disable this. Why couldn't Tivo


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

I'm pretty sure that's illegal. Also I'm looking at WMC right now and I do not see such an option. Where is it located?


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## Skotch116 (Nov 24, 2015)

I moved away from wmc a few months ago but i know i was able to disable the EAS. It could have been a tweak in a registry but i thought it was a menu item.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

Well since MCE was a Windows program there were all sorts of unofficial hacks/tweaks you could do. But I'm 99.9% sure that it would be illegal for TiVo to offer a menu option to turn EAS on/off. And even if it's not illegal it would violate the CableCARD rules which they agreed to follow when they got certified.


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## GoodSpike (Dec 17, 2001)

Dan203 said:


> I'm pretty sure that's illegal. Also I'm looking at WMC right now and I do not see such an option. Where is it located?


I never received any such alerts using WMC with an HD Homerun, and I don't believe I opted out.

But you can opt out with Android--why not Tivo? In Android you can opt out of Extreme, Severe and Amber Alerts, but not Presidential Alerts, which it indicates are mandatory. I assume that's for 9/11 type events.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

I don't think the CableCARD standard has that sort of granularity. I think all EAS alerts are treated the same. They send a simple OOB signal to the TiVo which tells it which frequency to tune. They then send another when the message is over so it can tune back to whatever it was on. Although I do think there is a new system being worked on in some areas where they can send a message that is actually overlaid on the video as some sort of scrolling text, rather then forcing a tune to another channel, which shouldn't effect recordings. But that system isn't being used in my area yet.


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## ertyu (Nov 4, 2003)

I don't think the alerts should be recorded and played back later, doesn't make sense. I'd also like to opt out as I receive alerts on out of market stations that have no relevance, although usually weather alerts and not through this system.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

The reason they're recorded is because the tuner has been confiscated and forced to tune to the alert. The alternative would be to stop the recording while it's happening then you would just see the recording jump a section of the show with no explination as to why. At least with the EAS recorded you know why you lost a bit of the show and don't think it was just a malfunction.


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## FreydNot (Feb 6, 2002)

Dan203 said:


> ... Although I do think there is a new system being worked on in some areas where they can send a message that is actually overlaid on the video as some sort of scrolling text, rather then forcing a tune to another channel, which shouldn't effect recordings. But that system isn't being used in my area yet.


I got a scrolling banner message alert system test on my premiere tonight and it was a disaster. The tuner changed to the message channel like normal, and the scroll overlayed on top.

The text crawl was very slow and there was lots of text (in both English and Spanish). The tuner was released after about 20 seconds (to a static "holding" channel) but the scroll took about 4 minutes to get through all the text and return me to live TV.

Major fail. This needs to be fixed.


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## tomhorsley (Jul 22, 2010)

I love the weather alerts where they describe the affected region with millimeter precision using landmarks no one on earth recognizes.

"Tornado warning remain in effect from 2.4 miles west of little toad canyon to 4.3 miles south of bumble bee gulch extending to 1.5 miles east of clothespin rock and 1.35 miles north of little munchkin peak."

By the time they finish scrolling all that, it is time for a new update because the warning area has drifted a half a mile so they need to revise all their landmarks and distances.

And what am I warned to do with all this information? I'm supposed to stay indoors, which I already am while watching TV .


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## JoeKustra (Dec 7, 2012)

If you get this to work, I'd like to opt out of school closings.


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## kenboy (Sep 24, 2006)

Gah. I got hit with an EAS test around 1 am the other night as I was drifting off to sleep. Super awesome BUZZ BUZZ BUZZ BUZZ that went on forever. I'd kill for a secret remote code to turn that garbage off. 

What's even the point of the test? Say my cablecard is broken in some way and I never receive the test: I'm not going to know I didn't see it, right? And I assume it's a one-way signal and my provider also isn't ever going to know I didn't get it and that I need a replacement ... so what was this for in the first place?


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## JoeKustra (Dec 7, 2012)

kenboy said:


> Gah. I got hit with an EAS test around 1 am the other night as I was drifting off to sleep. Super awesome BUZZ BUZZ BUZZ BUZZ that went on forever. I'd kill for a secret remote code to turn that garbage off.
> 
> What's even the point of the test? Say my cablecard is broken in some way and I never receive the test: I'm not going to know I didn't see it, right? And I assume it's a one-way signal and my provider also isn't ever going to know I didn't get it and that I need a replacement ... so what was this for in the first place?


Oh, to be so young. You don't remember the sirens going off every Wednesday at noon? That was a test. The sirens were to let you know to find an air raid shelter or you were going to die since the U.S.S.R. just fired their missiles. I never hear them on the radio anymore either.

I get a weekly county test and a monthly state test. They always happens during the day. To keep them from being recorded you can put the TiVo into Standby. Even a Mini in Standby will ignore them. In 10 years I've had one tornado warning. It missed by two miles. All this was before The Weather Channel too.


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