# Mode 0 - is the difference noticeable?



## John McE (Dec 23, 2003)

I puchased a new TIVO hard drive about 6 months ago, which was supposed to be set up as Mode 0, however when I installed it I really couldn't see any difference in the PQ. The company I bought from went out of business soon after I bought the drive, so there was no way to check with them, and I can't help wondering if I got a drive that wasn't set to Mode 0 after all.

My question is, on a 50" plasma is the difference in PQ between Mode 1 and Mode 0 really apparent, or could I have got Mode 0 on the new drive and just not noticed the difference?

The reason I am asking is that much as I love my TIVO, I find myself recording more and more on my Virgin V+ box, simply because of the PQ. If by buying a new drive that is REALLY Mode 0, I would receive a definite PQ improvement I'd be willing to buy (yet another) new drive.

Thanks for any advice anyone can give me.


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## mikerr (Jun 2, 2005)

I think it makes a huge difference personally.

If you have no network card inside that tivo, then it's hard to know for sure if it's enabled.

Tune to BBC1 (digital) and see if you see any white flashes at the lower right of the screen.
Some tivos are more affected with those white flashes than others when using mode0 - but its a dead giveaway that mode0 is enabled, and occurs more often on BBC channels due to their mpeg encoding.


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## John McE (Dec 23, 2003)

I certainly can't see any white flashes. Maybe I really should buy another Mode 0 drive. Who are the best retailers to get them from?


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## blindlemon (May 12, 2002)

John McE said:


> I certainly can't see any white flashes. Maybe I really should buy another Mode 0 drive. Who are the best retailers to get them from?


lollery

Well, Mike runs www.tivocentral.co.uk the second best retailer  and I run www.tivoheaven.com the best 

Another forum member healeydave runs www.tivoland.com but as he's not posted in this thread yet he gets 3rd place - lol!

Where did you get the drive from, what size is it and how many hours at "best" quality are reported on the System Information screen?


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## John McE (Dec 23, 2003)

I bought it from TIVO.co.uk, which certainly isn't a live web address, so I would assume they are no longer in business. Looking back in my Quicken records to find the vendor, I apparantly paid £49 for the drive (not sure of the capacity, but according to the TIVO it holds 34h 41m at Best Quality).

As I said before the drive was supposed to be set to Mode 0 - does anyone know if this retailer perhaps didn't actually bother to do this?


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## John McE (Dec 23, 2003)

By the way I forgot to say "thanks" to Blindlemon for the info. I thought it was extremely generous to mention other sellers of hard drives apart from yourself... and as a result I'll definitely be ordering from you!

John


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## blindlemon (May 12, 2002)

John McE said:


> I apparantly paid £49 for the drive (not sure of the capacity, but according to the TIVO it holds 34h 41m at Best Quality).


Hmm... how many hours at Basic quality? This may give an idea of the base size of the drive from which we can infer whether Mode 0 is in use or not.

Alternatively, pop the lid off the TiVo and find the drive's physical capacity in GB that way.


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## John McE (Dec 23, 2003)

154h 34m in Basic Quality (34h 41m in Best). Can you deduce anything from that?


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## blindlemon (May 12, 2002)

154 hours Basic implies possibly a 160gb drive without the LBA48 kernel. That would normally yield 45 hours Best so the fact that it's only reporting 34 hours would indeed imply that Mode 0 may be enabled.


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## John McE (Dec 23, 2003)

Ok Thanks. I've had this drive for almost a year now, and really didn't notice any improvement when I first installed it (or white flashes!).

However, I think that my perception of the PQ is probably heavily influenced by having (a) HD and (b) the upscaling of SD by the Virgin V+ box.

Thanks again for your help, I really appreciate it.

John


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## johala_reewi (Oct 30, 2002)

You should be able to tell from the Tivo log file.
Something like
TmkMediaswitch::Trace[155]: using VBR, bitRate=4800000, maxBitRate=9000000


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## a_tivo_noob (Jan 2, 2004)

another vote for mode 0 making a difference (only got a 37" lcd)


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## blindlemon (May 12, 2002)

johala_reewi said:


> You should be able to tell from the Tivo log file.
> Something like
> TmkMediaswitch::Trace[155]: using VBR, bitRate=4800000, maxBitRate=9000000


Good point - and the logfile is viewable via the TV screen once you enable backdoors 

Ahhh.... I really don't spend enough time playing with TiVos these days having found a more amusing way to spend my retirement


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## hazydaze (Nov 12, 2001)

I bought an upgrade from one of the posters here, and the customer service was absolutely first rate.
I didn't get on with mode 0 because of the white flashes which really affected my experience, but a quick post here, and I was informed how to turn it off.

Also had a problem with progs re-ordering themselves, and again a solution was given within an hour of posting.

I don't pop in much now, but it's still the friendliest board I've been on.


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## John McE (Dec 23, 2003)

Right, now I've found out how to enable Backdoors, I'm getting something like:
TmkMediaswitch::Trace[155]: using VBR, bitRate=9000000, maxBitRate=9000000

Does that indicate Mode 0 is enabled?


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## blindlemon (May 12, 2002)

John McE said:


> Right, now I've found out how to enable Backdoors, I'm getting something like:
> TmkMediaswitch::Trace[155]: using VBR, bitRate=9000000, maxBitRate=9000000
> 
> Does that indicate Mode 0 is enabled?


Yes, although the bitrates are a little wasteful if you're using VBR.


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## John McE (Dec 23, 2003)

OK thanks - I'll turn VBR off then. At least I won't have wasted money on buying another new drive for nothing. Thanks for all your help.


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## blindlemon (May 12, 2002)

What I meant was: as both bitrates are set to 9000000 there is no benefit from using VBR. 

Normally for Mode 0 (best) I would use a Bitrate of 7500000 and a MaxBitrate of 9000000 thus telling the encoder to "aim for" 7.5mb/s and go up to 9mb/s if necessary. What your bitrates are saying is that there's no difference between VBR and CBR, so the encoder will actually use CBR even if you specify VBR. 

God knows who set that drive up, but it seems a little cockeyed to me!

To be honest, I wouldn't be surprised if whoever it was forgot to set the Resolution value to 0 (thus enabling mode 0) anyway if they had that little understanding of how the bitrates work


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## John McE (Dec 23, 2003)

So, if I understand correctly, it is more than simply setting the "quality" to Mode 0? Now I'm more confused than ever! Does anyone here have any experience of Tivo.co.uk, from whom I bought the drive? It does sound like perhaps they didn't really know what they were doing.

I guess I'm going to have to bite the bullet and order a new drive, although I will be a bit irritated if it doesn't result in imporved PQ. Too bad you can't buy them from Argos


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## RWILTS (Apr 21, 2006)

If you are going to invest there are several good suppliers who are on here.

In no particular order

Blindlemon


Someone else will post soon other alternatives for fairness 

But i can personally vouch for BL.


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## blindlemon (May 12, 2002)

John McE said:


> So, if I understand correctly, it is more than simply setting the "quality" to Mode 0?


Yes. The correct Resolution setting in the resources needs to be set to "0" and the bitrates need to be changed to support the increased resolution.


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## John McE (Dec 23, 2003)

Drive & Mode 0 ordered - will hopefully finally get to see the big improvement in PQ that I've read about.


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