# Please help a noob set up her tivo?



## _annie_ (May 13, 2007)

Hi all,
I just got a Tivo after reading these forums and thinking it was a good choice.. only I forgot how technically inept I am in this area. I'm hoping you can help  

I have the following set up:
1. Tv with SCART and RF plug
2. Homechoice box with SCART output
3. Tivo with VCR SCART (I don't think I need this), AUX SCART, TV SCART, and RF IN/RF OUT

So the way I've set it up is:
1. SCART on TV connected to Tivo TV SCART
2. SCART on Homechoice connected to Tivo AUX SCART
3. RF OUT on Tivo connected to TV RF IN

Is this the right set up?
I fully intend to call and get my subscription set up tomorrow when the call centre opens, but in the meantime I tried to get Tivo to show me Live TV. Every time I press the Live TV button on the remote, I get a message saying I need to subscribe.

I have tried pressing AUX on the Tivo remote and I get some sort of picture from my STB, except that it is wobbly and lines run all over the place. Not really recognisable at all, except the logo of my STB is visible. I thought maybe it might be a tuning thing, so I made sure my Tivo is set as 'HOMECHOICE' for the STB, and the RF channel is set to 21. I then tried to tune in my TV to channel 21 to receive Tivo (with AUX selected on Tivo remote beforehand). It got better, but still not watchable at all - totally wobbly and hissing audio.

Can anyone help? I don't know what to do with this at all. I've tried looking at manuals online because my Tivo being ex-eBay didn't come with one, but no joy.

Grateful for any advice!

Annie


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## blindlemon (May 12, 2002)

Hi Annie - welcome to the TiVolution 

First of all, I don't think you need the RF lead, so try disconnecting it and switching to whichever AV channel on the TV you have plugged the SCART lead from the TiVo into. If your TV has only one SCART socket then just select the AV channel on your TV. You should be able to see the TiVo menus nice and clear. 

Have you been through Guided Setup and selected "Aerial & Digital Cable/Digital Terrestrial"? If not, then do that next. Also, make sure you select Homechoice from the list of available STBs. You will not be able to use most of the TiVo functions until your subscription has been setup and your guide data downloaded and indexed, but you should be able to view Live TV and make manual recordings. 

Then try pressing Live TV again. If you get a blue screen saying "can't display Live TV" unplug the TiVo from the mains, wait 10 seconds and plug it in again. When it comes back up to the menu, try preessing Live TV again. Don't unplug or switch off your STB as the TiVo sometimes needs to "see" a signal on the AUX input before it will recognise it. 

Please let us know how you get on


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## Nebulous (Nov 28, 2005)

Hi Annie and welcome to the forum 



> I just got a Tivo after reading these forums and thinking it was a good choice..


It was :up: 


> only I forgot how technically inept I am in this area. I'm hoping you can help


We'll do our best  


>


No need to be embarrassed, we all have to start somewhere.  


> I have the following set up:
> 1. Tv with SCART and RF plug
> 2. Homechoice box with SCART output
> 3. Tivo with VCR SCART (I don't think I need this), AUX SCART, TV SCART, and RF IN/RF OUT


'fraid I don't know anything about the Homechoice box, but the rest sound OK.


> 1. SCART on TV connected to Tivo TV SCART
> 2. SCART on Homechoice connected to Tivo AUX SCART
> 3. RF OUT on Tivo connected to TV RF IN


Looks OK, although I suspect you won't need the RF lead, or at least not for the Tivo.


> I have tried pressing AUX on the Tivo remote and I get some sort of picture from my STB, except that it is wobbly and lines run all over the place. Not really recognisable at all, except the logo of my STB is visible. I thought maybe it might be a tuning thing, so I made sure my Tivo is set as 'HOMECHOICE' for the STB, and the RF channel is set to 21. I then tried to tune in my TV to channel 21 to receive Tivo (with AUX selected on Tivo remote beforehand). It got better, but still not watchable at all - totally wobbly and hissing audio.


Have you should selected the scart input on your TV. (sometimes called A/V or similar on the remote)


> Can anyone help? I don't know what to do with this at all. I've tried looking at manuals online because my Tivo being ex-eBay didn't come with one, but no joy.


Did you find the latest manual on the tivo website? If not you can find it here :

http://www.tivo.co.uk/255SSUG.pdf

Welcome to the wonderful world of Tivo.


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

_annie_ said:


> I have tried pressing AUX on the Tivo remote and I get some sort of picture from my STB, except that it is wobbly and lines run all over the place. Not really recognisable at all, except the logo of my STB is visible.


Hi Annie,

First of all I must say that you don't sound at all technically inept since you seem to have given us a perfectly clear and logical description of how you have wired things up, you seem to know exactly what a SCART and an RF socket is and appear to have connected it all up the right way. However perhaps you feel that in this mainly male and techno geeky type company you need to apologise in advance just in case you have made an error. 

However coming back to your comments above about the wobbly lines running all over the place I have to say that I don't like the sound of this at all, bearing in mind that you bought the Tivo off Ebay and that some naughty people have been known to try and dispose of Tivos that they know are irretrievably faulty on Ebay instead of placing them in the skip or breaking them up for spares as they should. It might help if you give us the Tivo auction number or even just the Ebay seller name but don't post a direct HTML link as that is meant to be against forum rules (to stop people who are selling Tivos clogging up the forum with self promoting posts).

I have owned a Tivo since 2002 and substantially uprated it and it is still trustily running over there in the corner. However a few weeks ago I bought a Tivo off Ebay that turned out to have not only a broken hard disk (which I overcame by putting the old hard drives from my other Tivo before I uprated its hard drive capacity in it) but also a terminally blown video stage of some kind (probably the MPEG encoder or decoder) so that although I could get a Tivo output of sorts on my television screen the whole thing was wobbling and had waivy lines on it. Sadly this particular problem is not fixable (it would require a new motherboard which is not cost effective) and I am still trying to get a refund from the seller.

Now I'm not saying that for certain this is your problem but I have to say I don't like the sound at all of this waivy output you can't get to show as a normal stable picture. Having said that my old Philips telly can get in a state where it does only show a flickering Tivo input on the screen from the Scart socket that goes round and round and the way to cure that is to turn the telly off then on again and cycle through the Scart inputs.

I don't agree with blindlemon's suggestion to disconnect the RF leads since you need the RF leads if you want other Tivo allergic or ignorant luddite members of the household to still be able to view normal Channels 1 to 5 on the tv using its remote and the built in analogue tv tuner and also if there is a fault with the Scart output but not the RF output from your Tivo then you may still be able to tune in a picture for it on one of your normal tv channel buttons that is spare (eg 0 or 6) on old fashioned UHF Channels 21 to 69. A SCART output from the Tivo is better and doesn't use any RF but an RF output is better than no output from the Tivo at all. Having said that if your Tivo is faulty I would avoid buying a Lifetime Sub for it although trying it for one month with just a regular £10 monthly sub couldn't do much harm as you can always cancel the sub after one month if you can't fix the problem.

Can you try the following:-

From the main Tivo Central menu can you go to Messages & Setup then Recorder & Phone Setup and then SCART Settings and tell us what you have against AUX Source, Video Output to TV and TV SCART Control. If you have a pretty old tv you might want to change "Video Output to Tv" to "PAL only" instead of "RGB and PAL" as some older tellies don't understand RGB signals on the SCART lead. Also if Tv SCART Control is Off you might want to try turning it On via the "Use TV SCART Control" setting or if it is On you might want to try turning it Off via the "Don't Use TV SCART Control" setting. Does changing any of those settings improved things at all?

Back at the main Recorder & Phone Setup menu you might also want to look at RF Settings and RF Output Channel as this is the channel the tv sends an old fahioned RF signal to the tv from the Tivo on the RF lead that you can tune in on one of the presets as an alternative to the SCART output source from the Tivo. You can also change this channel number if there is a clash with one of your normal channel freuqencies on Channels 1 to 5. Also try changing the Set Top Box RF Output channel number and see if you can find any channel on the tv tuner between 21 and 69 the HomeChoice box is outputting an RF signal on, although I don't know for sure if Homechoice boxes even output any RF signal at all.

I seem to remember that there is something funny and unusual about setting up Homechoice boxes on a Tivo that another Homechoice owner reported and then solved so your Tivo may not be faulty. I will have a hunt for and post that thread's link for you.


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

I found these Homechoice specific threads with Homechoice in the title but can't find your particular problem mentioned:-

www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/search.php?searchid=2452748

Also this wider range of threads have a mention of Homechoice somewhere in them, even though the word Homechoice is not in the thread title:-

www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/search.php?searchid=2452773


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## blindlemon (May 12, 2002)

Pete77 said:


> I don't agree with blindlemon's suggestion to disconnect the RF leads


You don't need the RF out unless you are a) using the builtin analogue tuner (which the OP is not) and need to 'pass through' the RF to the TV for off-tivo viewing *or* b) your SCART output isn't working or the TV doesn't have a SCART input.

For getting the TiVo set up and working in the first instance, which is what the OP is trying to achieve, you don't need the RF lead.

Wavy lines on the picture can be caused by using the RF output tuned to the incorrect channel for your area. As the OP was complaining of this problem and has a SCART equipped TV and digital STB I was simply trying to eliminate this possibility from the equation.


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

I find the RF being passed through useful for events such as my Tivo unexpectedly rebooting so I stil have some tv to watch while that is going on.


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## blindlemon (May 12, 2002)

True, but for the time being I feel that disconnecting it will help the OP to clarify exactly what the problem (if any) is.


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## TCM2007 (Dec 25, 2006)

Pete77 said:


> I find the RF being passed through useful for events such as my Tivo unexpectedly rebooting so I stil have some tv to watch while that is going on.


Yes, but we know that only effects you Pete.


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## _annie_ (May 13, 2007)

Thanks so much for replying to this thread. You guys are really helpful! I'll try all of your ideas one at a time..



blindlemon said:


> Hi Annie - welcome to the TiVolution


Thank you, so glad to be here finally! I've been lurking on these forums for a little while now 



> First of all, I don't think you need the RF lead, so try disconnecting it and switching to whichever AV channel on the TV you have plugged the SCART lead from the TiVo into. If your TV has only one SCART socket then just select the AV channel on your TV. You should be able to see the TiVo menus nice and clear.


Yup.. my tv is old, so only the one SCART. I press the AV button on it, and can get the Tivo blue screen with menu options fine.



> Have you been through Guided Setup and selected "Aerial & Digital Cable/Digital Terrestrial"? If not, then do that next. Also, make sure you select Homechoice from the list of available STBs. You will not be able to use most of the TiVo functions until your subscription has been setup and your guide data downloaded and indexed, but you should be able to view Live TV and make manual recordings.


This is where I become unstuck. I don't see Guided Setup as an option anywhere. I've tried resetting the box by using the menu option to reset, but I never get guided setup. I manually went in and set my STB to 'HOMECHOICE', but I never see an option to input my postcode, for example or set 'Aerial & Digital Cable' etc. My Tivo didn't come with an IR blaster (which I've since ordered from Tivoland but should be a while I guess) - not sure if that would affect it? I've trawled the manuals but can't seem to find an explicit way to start Guided Setup.

Edit: I found the Guided Setup option thanks to someone posting the latest manual link here. I was a bit squiffy last night when I originally posted and probably missed it altogether.. doh!



> Then try pressing Live TV again. If you get a blue screen saying "can't display Live TV" unplug the TiVo from the mains, wait 10 seconds and plug it in again. When it comes back up to the menu, try preessing Live TV again. Don't unplug or switch off your STB as the TiVo sometimes needs to "see" a signal on the AUX input before it will recognise it.


This is really good advice. I'm going to try doing things in the order you + the manual mentions. I'll let you know how I get on.

Thanks again for your help, you guys are lovely!


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## _annie_ (May 13, 2007)

Nebulous said:


> Hi Annie and welcome to the forum


Thank you 



> Looks OK, although I suspect you won't need the RF lead, or at least not for the Tivo.


I think you may be right, so I'll try with and without and let you know how it all works 



> Have you should selected the scart input on your TV. (sometimes called A/V or similar on the remote)


Absolutely.. see my post above, that part seems to be ok. But good point, sometimes the bleedin' obvious gets missed 



> Did you find the latest manual on the tivo website? If not you can find it here :
> 
> **deleted URL as I'm a new user and it won't let me post this message with the URL intact **
> 
> Welcome to the wonderful world of Tivo.


Ahh no I didn't find that one, thank you for the link. After reading it, I see my set up is just like page 26 (only I'll remove the RF cable) which is great.

Oh! that manual told me how to re-run Guided Setup.. that alone was worth the link (I must have missed it before). Thank you


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

The user manual and the 2002 software update section are available in more digestible bite sized chunks from this page:-

www.tivo.co.uk/1.2.asp

However to re-run Guided Setup its just a case of "Tivo Central" then "Messages & Setup" then "System Reset" then "Repeat Guided Setup", although you may want to first do a "Clear and delete everything" so you are not left with Thumbs data and Season Passes from the previous owner. That is if they haven't already run "clear and delete everything" themselves before they sent you the unit?

Also reading the earlier Homechoice threads it seems that originally there was only one postcode you could pick for a Homechoice setup but hopefully that has been remedied now and the database actually covers all the postcodes in which you can actually receive Homechoice.

There is also the business of the Homechoice box turning itself off after 6 hours of inactivity but hopefully Homechoice may have now revised their software to allow this feature to be turned off? If not you have to station a learning remote somewhere and get it to send out the box wakeup signal every so often.


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## _annie_ (May 13, 2007)

blindlemon said:


> Have you been through Guided Setup and selected "Aerial & Digital Cable/Digital Terrestrial"? If not, then do that next. Also, make sure you select Homechoice from the list of available STBs. You will not be able to use most of the TiVo functions until your subscription has been setup and your guide data downloaded and indexed, but you should be able to view Live TV and make manual recordings.


Ok done this. Not sure it worked though! I put in my postcode and it found Tiscali TV (Tiscali recently bought Homechoice, so I am assuming this is correct). I was able then to select Homechoice as the box, select channels etc. I noticed that someone said in another forum you need to input codes for Homechoice (20066 or 20044) but I found nowhere I could manually input these codes, all my choices were restricted to "friendly" options e.g Virgin Media, Sky, Tiscali Tv



> Then try pressing Live TV again. If you get a blue screen saying "can't display Live TV" unplug the TiVo from the mains, wait 10 seconds and plug it in again. When it comes back up to the menu, try preessing Live TV again. Don't unplug or switch off your STB as the TiVo sometimes needs to "see" a signal on the AUX input before it will recognise it.


Ok I tried this, in the order you mentioned (unplugged Tivo, making sure STB was on and tuned to BBC1, waited about a minute, turned Tivo back on). As soon as I hit "Live TV" it said I needed a subscription, and then went to the blue screen "can't display live tv" again. Any other ideas?

I called and activated my subscription, which they said could take up to 48 hours (which I expected). In reality though, how long do most people wait? Is it worth trying to check account status after an hour? 2 hours? a day?


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

_annie_ said:


> I called and activated my subscription, which they said could take up to 48 hours (which I expected). In reality though, how long do most people wait? Is it worth trying to check account status after an hour? 2 hours? a day?


It would take at least until tomorrow as Tivo's servers only update with this information once a night overnight in the USA. Often it seems to take 2 days and I think possibly it could take longer than this at the weekend depending on whether Tivo work as normal on those days. It definitely won't be today sadly.

Your Tivo has to make a daily call to pick up the change in status too. The next time your Tivo is due to call is shown in Tivo Central/Messages & Setup/System Information.

You can trigger a daily call manually in Messages & Setup/Recorder & Phone Setup/Phone Connection/Make Daily Call Now. You could force one right now but I don't think it will lead to the subscription on your box being activated sadly. You will have to wait a day or two.


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## _annie_ (May 13, 2007)

Hi Pete - thanks very much for your comments.. really helpful..



Pete77 said:


> However perhaps you feel that in this mainly male and techno geeky type company you need to apologise in advance just in case you have made an error.


Guilty  I take it all back, though!



> However coming back to your comments above about the wobbly lines running all over the place I have to say that I don't like the sound of this at all, bearing in mind that you bought the Tivo off Ebay and that some naughty people have been known to try and dispose of Tivos that they know are irretrievably faulty on Ebay instead of placing them in the skip or breaking them up for spares as they should.


I agree, and I recognise the risk taken is sometimes a jump with eBay, but I figure I've got good eBay karma, over 1000+ transactions and not many where I got burned. I take your point on this, which is why I'm a little anxious to make sure the box is fine before I leave feedback.



> I have owned a Tivo since 2002 and substantially uprated it and it is still trustily running over there in the corner. However a few weeks ago I bought a Tivo off Ebay that turned out to have not only a broken hard disk (which I overcame by putting the old hard drives from my other Tivo before I uprated its hard drive capacity in it) but also a terminally blown video stage of some kind (probably the MPEG encoder or decoder)


That sucks. Hard luck mate, you were really unlucky. I guess thats the chance we take on eBay. I hope you left feedback accordingly.



> so that although I could get a Tivo output of sorts on my television screen the whole thing was wobbling and had waivy lines on it. Sadly this particular problem is not fixable (it would require a new motherboard which is not cost effective) and I am still trying to get a refund from the seller.


Well the output of the actual Tivo menus and so forth is perfect, no wavy lines there. Is that what you meant?



> I don't agree with blindlemon's suggestion to disconnect the RF leads since you need the RF leads if you want other Tivo allergic or ignorant luddite members of the household to still be able to view normal Channels 1 to 5 on the tv using its remote and the built in analogue tv tuner and also if there is a fault with the Scart


This is interesting because I don't actually have an aerial in my flat (my landlord is very dodgy and won't let me put anything up). This is why I went for Homechoice in the first place - everything comes down the phoneline to my STB without the need for an aerial. I am wondering if Tivo might be unsuitable for me in this case.



> Having said that if your Tivo is faulty I would avoid buying a Lifetime Sub for it although trying it for one month with just a regular £10 monthly sub couldn't do much harm as you can always cancel the sub after one month if you can't fix the problem.


I've bought a monthly sub from today to test before committing to a lifetime sub.


> Can you try the following:-
> 
> From the main Tivo Central menu can you go to Messages & Setup then Recorder & Phone Setup and then SCART Settings and tell us what you have against AUX Source, Video Output to TV and TV SCART Control.


Okie dokie.. I have -
AUX source: Pal Only (by your suggestion earlier.. didnt seem to work though)
Video output to tv: Pal only
Tv SCART control: On
VCR Bypass: Auto



> If you have a pretty old tv you might want to change "Video Output to Tv" to "PAL only" instead of "RGB and PAL" as some older tellies don't understand RGB signals on the SCART lead. Also if Tv SCART Control is Off you might want to try turning it On via the "Use TV SCART Control" setting or if it is On you might want to try turning it Off via the "Don't Use TV SCART Control" setting. Does changing any of those settings improved things at all?


Unfortunately no. I'm going to post some pictures in a sec, as soon as I get my ImageBucket account set up. Maybe this will help.



> Back at the main Recorder & Phone Setup menu you might also want to look at RF Settings and RF Output Channel as this is the channel the tv sends an old fahioned RF signal to the tv from the Tivo on the RF lead that you can tune in on one of the presets as an alternative to the SCART output source from the Tivo. You can also change this channel number if there is a clash with one of your normal channel freuqencies on Channels 1 to 5. Also try changing the Set Top Box RF Output channel number and see if you can find any channel on the tv tuner between 21 and 69 the HomeChoice box is outputting an RF signal on, although I don't know for sure if Homechoice boxes even output any RF signal at all.


Homechoice boxes don't have an RF socket at all, just the SCART. I assume this means it wouldn't output an RF signal?



> I seem to remember that there is something funny and unusual about setting up Homechoice boxes on a Tivo that another Homechoice owner reported and then solved so your Tivo may not be faulty. I will have a hunt for and post that thread's link for you.


I did a search of the forum and found a few posts, but like you said nothing really relevant.. I'll keep looking (the links you posted later don't seem to work for me?)

Thanks again for all your help Pete!


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## _annie_ (May 13, 2007)

I thought it might help if I post some pictures. Hopefully these will turn out ok, I'm new at this 

This is what happens when my TV is set to AV, and Tivo has the "Aux" button pressed:









This is what happens when my TV is set to Channel 21, and Tivo has the "Aux" button pressed:









This is what happens when I have the AV button on my TV pressed, and the LiveTv button pressed on my Tivo:









The above quickly flashes up, but soon turns to the dreaded blue screen:









I should make it clear I am only trying to get LiveTV to work for now whilst I wait for my subscription to set up. Any thoughts are much appreciated!

p.s Please let me know if you need any more pictures in order to diagnose.


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

Annie,

Just responding to your various points and your photos:-

1. If you have no aerial in your building of any kind (although I would have thought some kind of legal action against the landlord over this would be possible depending what your lease says about provision of tv systems) then you don't need to output an RF signal of any kind to the Tivo and everything can be done via the SCART cables.

2. The screens you sent suggest that your Tivo is not receiving a Scart signal from the HomeChoice unit of any kind. Do you have SCART from the TV Out or similar socket on the HomeChoice Box to the AUX Scart on the Tivo and is the Homechoice box switched on and with a channel actually selected rather than in Standby mode?

If the Homechoice box is only in Standby mode the Tivo won't see any picture from it. The Homechoice box has to be on for the Tivo to see it hence my point about other Homechoice owners mentioning that the Homechoice box used to go back in to standby after 6 hours if it had received no remote control input. This may or may not be the case these days.

3. Clearly you don't have the problems I had with a dodgy broken video output as you have a totally clear picture on Live Tv where the Tivo is sending out the picture. I suppose I made the mistak of buying the unit from a house clearance firm on Ebay who said that as it came from a House Clearance there was no reason to think it did not work but they did not have facilities to test it fully. Only buy stuff on Ebay stated to be in A1 working condition is my advice. By the way 1,000 items is a lot to have bought and sold on Ebay. Do you sell stuff on their profesionally for your work. I only have Feedback of 12.  

So your issue now is why the Tivo doesn't see the Homechoice box Scart signal. So firstly change everything back to RGB and PAL instead of PAL only as I don't think that is the issue here. But then check the setup options on the Homechoice box by plugging it direct into your telly (bypassing the Tivo temporarily) and if there is anything about an RGB signal output there then make sure it is turned on. Also if you find any options about the box timing out due to inactivity make sure they are turned off.

Finally if still no luck you may want to try another SCART cable than the one you are using. You want a fully screened one saying "All Pins connected" or words to that effect. Ideally one of those gold plated plug jobs with a fairly thick cable. If your SCART cable is really thin that may be the problem. Sainsburys Superstores and Homebase do some Gold Plated Scart plug leads pretty cheaply for 5 or 6 quid.

Well I hope this may get you somewhere. Its always diffifcult to talk people through these things remotely when you are not on site with them.


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## cwaring (Feb 12, 2002)

_annie_ said:


> Hi Pete - thanks very much for your comments.. really helpful....


Hmm. "Pete" and "helpful" in the same sentence. Not something you see every day 



Pete77 said:


> However coming back to your comments above about the wobbly lines running all over the place I have to say that I don't like the sound of this at all, bearing in mind that you bought the Tivo off Ebay and that some naughty people have been known to try and dispose of Tivos that they know are irretrievably faulty on Ebay instead of placing them in the skip or breaking them up for spares as they should.


Don't worry about this, Annie. Chances are that there's actually nothing wrong with your unit. This is simply sour grapes on Pete77's part.



_annie_ said:


> This is what happens when my TV is set to AV, and Tivo has the "Aux" button pressed:


As others have suggested, that indicates a problem with the _source_ signal and not the Tivo.


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

cwaring said:


> Hmm. "Pete" and "helpful" in the same sentence. Not something you see every day
> 
> Don't worry about this, Annie. Chances are that there's actually nothing wrong with your unit. This is simply sour grapes on Pete77's part.


I'm always helpful to Tivo owners who have real problems and who want solutions to them.

I'm just not the most diplomatic person in the world when it comes to massaging the egos of the forum long termers like TCM or RobNesporBellis.


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

cwaring said:


> Don't worry about this, Annie. Chances are that there's actually nothing wrong with your unit.


Didn't I already say this in Point 3 in the post above though. 

Perhaps a case of sour grapes on your part is at work here?


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## _annie_ (May 13, 2007)

Pete77 said:


> I'm always helpful to Tivo owners who have real problems and who want solutions to them.
> 
> I'm just not the most diplomatic person in the world when it comes to massaging the egos of the forum long termers like TCM or RobNesporBellis.


Blimey guys, chill... I can see there's a bit of tension in this forum, but does it need to come up on EVERY thread? 

Seriously.. help is help, whichever way it comes. I'm grateful for all of it.


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## cwaring (Feb 12, 2002)

Indeed. Sorry. Coming on here a little late to this particular party. I don't even _like_ grapes, be they sour or not


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## _annie_ (May 13, 2007)

cwaring said:


> Indeed. Sorry. Coming on here a little late to this particular party. I don't even _like_ grapes, be they sour or not


They're bad for you anyway.. high in carbs


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

annie,

Why the picture of the sheep in your avatar now. You don't come across as being at all like that. We did have one female member who joined the forum and then kept asking us where she could find a Tivo Installer to connect her SCART leads and mains leads etc. Possibly she did reinforce some of our stereotypes a bit.

Another lady member called Judy_B lurks regulalry here but only posts from time to time, although usually fairly knowledgeably. I think she complains we are sexist if she posts.

Over in the US Tivocommunity forums there are large numbers of women forum members. Perhaps the difference has somehing to do with Tivo never breaking through into the mainstream here in the UK.

Anyhow did you get Homechoice working with your Tivo yet. You ought to be able to view Live Tv and set a Manual Recording without a valid subscription.


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## blindlemon (May 12, 2002)

_annie_ said:


> (unplugged Tivo, making sure STB was on and tuned to BBC1, waited about a minute, turned Tivo back on). As soon as I hit "Live TV" it said I needed a subscription, and then went to the blue screen "can't display live tv" again.


That sounds like your TiVo isn't "seeing" your Homechoice box.

If you have a DVD player (or even a VCR with a SCART output) try plugging that into the TiVo's AUX socket and pressing "Play" then repeat the above procedure with the TiVo.

If the TiVo can "see" the signal on the AUX SCART then it should be displayed when you tune to Live TV regardless of your subscription status.

One other thought: I see you have channel 3 selected - as this is also a valid analogue channel, try pressing the "3" button on the remote once (to change to channel 3) then again (to change to channel 3 again) while in Live TV. Under certain curcumstances (eg. when you have a mixture of analoge channels via RF and an STB) this will force the TiVo to switch to the other input - ie. to AUX if it was on the internal tuner or v.v..

Have you also de-selected the analogue "(aer)" channels from Channels I Receive?


----------



## _annie_ (May 13, 2007)

Pete77 said:


> annie,
> 
> Why the picture of the sheep in your avatar now. You don't come across as being at all like that.


Oh..it wasn't intended that way  I just like that picture, it always makes me laugh. No other reason!



> We did have one female member who joined the forum and then kept asking us where she could find a Tivo Installer to connect her SCART leads and mains leads etc. Possibly she did reinforce some of our stereotypes a bit.


A bit of research never hurt anybody. Still, it can be very daunting when you don't know any cool A/V geeks because TiVo isn't so easy to set up when you don't have straightforward Sky, IMHO.



> Over in the US Tivocommunity forums there are large numbers of women forum members. Perhaps the difference has somehing to do with Tivo never breaking through into the mainstream here in the UK.


This is quite dissapointing too. I got my TiVo yesterday at work and my colleague asked what it was. I told him and he said "Oh.. is that like Sky+? Why don't you get Sky+?".. had to explain to him why TiVo is much better!



> Anyhow did you get Homechoice working with your Tivo yet. You ought to be able to view Live Tv and set a Manual Recording without a valid subscription.


Ahh now the mystery deepens. I decided to try an earlier suggestion you had, that is to disconnect from TiVo (its currently going through its 'delete everything and burn to the ground' thing, just in case) and I connected Homechoice directly to my tv, as it used to be before I started this TiVo madness. Anyway, the picture is still like the one in those images I showed earlier, which means I have broken Homechoice now! Arrghh.. to be clear, TiVo is nowhere in the chain now, and my picture is all over the place.

What have I done?! How can I get it back? Homechoice is on the AV channel and my tv doesn't allow me to "tune" that channel, so I don't know how to get the picture back... help!


----------



## _annie_ (May 13, 2007)

Holy moly I figured it out.

Homechoice SCART OUT cable.. it *matters* which way around it is. I.e there is one end marked "tv" (in tiny letters) and one end marked "av2".. it you have these round the wrong way (I had "av2" in the back of the TV) the picture is messed up.

Frankly, that is unbelieveable! I'm SUCH an idiot!  Off to try with TiVo now..


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

_annie_ said:


> Holy moly I figured it out.
> 
> Homechoice SCART OUT cable.. it *matters* which way around it is. I.e there is one end marked "tv" (in tiny letters) and one end marked "av2".. it you have these round the wrong way (I had "av2" in the back of the TV) the picture is messed up.
> 
> Frankly, that is unbelieveable! I'm SUCH an idiot!  Off to try with TiVo now..


It doesn't normally matter which way round a SCART cable is and only whether its fully wired on all the pins. However Homechoice is quite a weird and unusual system not typical of other set top boxes so it could indeed be that you have to have the lead a certain way round.

Anyhow if for some reason your Homechoice box has broken don't they own it like a Virgin Media (ex NTL and Telewest) one and so are liable to fix it? Or do they charge a call out and swap out fee like Sky.

I guess the marketing success of Sky was that they agreed to come and do a fiddly job like installing a satellite dish for nothing but Freeview has proven that being far cheaper and having no sub can also get you a lot more sales.

By the way are you aware that Sky Digital will now install a free communal system with a single dish in small buildings converted into flats with up to 48 properties or less (possibly like yours). All that is needed is that 4 of the flat owners to agree to a minimum Sky package for just one year. Could that be any help in your case, especially as Sky also now have a cheap or free broadband deal bundle thrown in to so long as you live on a big town phone exchange covered by Easynet, as you probably do in London

See http://communaltv.sky.com/page.aspx?pageId=327


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## PaulWilkinsUK (Mar 20, 2006)

_annie_ said:


> Oh..it wasn't intended that way  I just like that picture, it always makes me laugh. No other reason!


Its OK Annie, Pete has a 'thing' about avatars...  Especially mine


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

PaulWilkinsUK said:


> Its OK Annie, Pete has a 'thing' about avatars...  Especially mine


Well I always notice them and wonder what kind of self image the person is trying to portray. Others don't seem to notice them. Not even the one Colin has with a paper bag over his head! 

Anyhow that's why I decided its safer not to have one at all.


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## _annie_ (May 13, 2007)

Pete77 said:


> It doesn't normally matter which way round a SCART cable is and only whether its fully wired on all the pins. However Homechoice is quite a weird and unusual system not typical of other set top boxes so it could indeed be that you have to have the lead a certain way round.


Well, that turned out to be it. After I switched them round the right way, waiting for TiVo to finish its resetting, it found all my channels and my set top box and was able to change the channels on my Homechoice box (albeit very slowly). It also displays LiveTV perfectly which is a big relief.

So.. for any other Homechoice people who find this thread when troubleshooting: make sure the SCART cable that comes from the back of the Homechoice box is round the right way, with the TV end in the TiVo (or TV if you are testing) and the AV2 end in the Homechoice box!



> Anyhow if for some reason your Homechoice box has broken don't they own it like a Virgin Media (ex NTL and Telewest) one and so are liable to fix it? Or do they charge a call out and swap out fee like Sky.


Nope, they own it. Getting someone out to replace the box is a bear though, they usually have a wait time of a week or more. That said, when it works, its a great service when you consider the broadband etc.



> By the way are you aware that Sky Digital will now install a free communal system with a single dish in small buildings converted into flats with up to 48 properties or less (possibly like yours). All that is needed is that 4 of the flat owners to agree to a minimum Sky package for just one year. Could that be any help in your case, especially as Sky also now have a cheap or free broadband deal bundle thrown in to so long as you live on a big town phone exchange covered by Easynet, as you probably do in London
> 
> See http://communaltv.sky.com/page.aspx?pageId=327


Actually I didn't know that, thanks for the tip. If this wasn't London (and our neighbours actually spoke ) then it might be a viable option. I dunno, I personally think Sky is overpriced for what it is.. by I do miss some of the cool stuff like new episodes of the Simpsons etc. 

Pete, thanks for all your help and attention. On FA Cup day too! (hows that for stereotypes?  )


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

_annie_ said:


> Pete, thanks for all your help and attention. On FA Cup day too! (hows that for stereotypes?  )


I hate football and rugby (all those years at school of being made to play a game I didn't like as a non team player are to blame) although I love Formula 1, Grand Slam rennis and strangely also Test Cricket because its a team game that still allows individuals to dominate and uses a complicated scoring system, which I as a statistics bod appreciate.

There is no doubt that flexible though our Tivo S1 is that setting it up for Mr and Mrs Jo Average can be rather fiddly, which is why a Freeview Playback box that could do Series Link etc to rival Sky+ but free of charge is sadly more of a killer poduct in marketing terms even though it can only support the one program source.

Of course if Sky or Virgin Media were to back Tivo for their PVR system then it would have sold like hot cakes. It is Sky's greed in insisting on using its own inferior technology just because it is more profitable for it to do so that has kept Tivo out of the mainstream UK PVR marketplace.

Hopefully your Tivo sub will activate in a day or two and then you can experience the full joys of Tivo. Has your Tivo been upgraded in any way? If not you may want to visit www.steveconrad.co.uk/tivo and www.tivoheaven.co.uk and www.tivoland.com to see all the ways in which you could further enhance your Tivo and control it remotely over the internet at work or even via your mobile phone.

By the way how did you come to hear about Tivo and its ability to work with Homechoice. By Googling perhaps? Would you describe yourself as being something of a female geek or perhaps just as being a telly addict like the rest of us?


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## cwaring (Feb 12, 2002)

_annie_ said:


> Homechoice SCART OUT cable.. it *matters* which way around it is. I.e there is one end marked "tv" (in tiny letters) and one end marked "av2".. it you have these round the wrong way (I had "av2" in the back of the TV) the picture is messed up.
> 
> Frankly, that is unbelieveable! I'm SUCH an idiot!  Off to try with TiVo now..


Don't worry. I think we've _all_ done that before at least once 



Pete77 said:


> It doesn't normally matter which way round a SCART cable is


I would disagree. It obviously matters with Homechoice and it mattered with my old Pace cable box. It might also matter with my newer Sammy but I haven't got it wrong yet to try out the theory


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

cwaring said:


> I would disagree. It obviously matters with Homechoice and it mattered with my old Pace cable box. It might also matter with my newer Sammy but I haven't got it wrong yet to try out the theory


It hasn't mattered which way round the SCART lead is with any Freeview box I have had or with my Sky Digital box or with the NTL box I once used with it for a few weeks. Of course I can only speak of the STBs I have personally used with my Tivo though.

There is nothing to stop any STB manufacturer having a proprietary socket or modified SCART socket and plug at their end of the cable even though they leave a standard SCART plug at the other end of it.

The replacement Targus power supply for this HP Pavilion notebook I got at Staples for a bargain £19.94 last Saturday (PC World price for same item £70) is a case in point of a manufacturer coming up with special plug designs for its power block and notebook power sockets just for the sake of having something to Patent.


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## _annie_ (May 13, 2007)

Pete77 said:


> I hate football and rugby (all those years at school of being made to play a game I didn't like as a non team player are to blame) although I love Formula 1, Grand Slam rennis and strangely also Test Cricket because its a team game that still allows individuals to dominate and uses a complicated scoring system, which I as a statistics bod appreciate.


Rightyo. I stand corrected 



> There is no doubt that flexible though our Tivo S1 is that setting it up for Mr and Mrs Jo Average can be rather fiddly, which is why a Freeview Playback box that could do Series Link etc to rival Sky+ but free of charge is sadly more of a killer poduct in marketing terms even though it can only support the one program source.


I agree. I am slightly miffed that my freeview box (digifusion) isn't really compatible with TiVo, but then again its in the other room (bedroom) and I like having it there, so no biggie.



> Of course if Sky or Virgin Media were to back Tivo for their PVR system then it would have sold like hot cakes. It is Sky's greed in insisting on using its own inferior technology just because it is more profitable for it to do so that has kept Tivo out of the mainstream UK PVR marketplace.


Totally. This is why I don't want Sky.. its just so expensive, when you consider the subscriber numbers they have, it feels a bit money grubbing to me. Still, they aren't a charity so I shouldn't be *too* hard on them.



> Hopefully your Tivo sub will activate in a day or two and then you can experience the full joys of Tivo. Has your Tivo been upgraded in any way? If not you may want to visit www.steveconrad.co.uk/tivo and www.tivoheaven.co.uk and www.tivoland.com to see all the ways in which you could further enhance your Tivo and control it remotely over the internet at work or even via your mobile phone.


No, its bog standard 40gb. I did a lot of research in the types of upgrades available on those websites (and thank god for them, TiVo in the UK is woefully under-represented) but my first concern was making sure they worked with Homechoice. My next project after I've got it working for a while will be to add a cache card so I can do the network thing. This weekend I've tasked myself with setting up TiVo and installing my first wireless network. So yeah, I'm a bit of a geek but I do get lost without a GUI  (Linux is tough for me to grasp.. luckily there are quite a few step-by-step-with-pictures web sites on how to upgrade TiVo).



> By the way how did you come to hear about Tivo and its ability to work with Homechoice. By Googling perhaps? Would you describe yourself as being something of a female geek or perhaps just as being a telly addict like the rest of us?


Well I had a friend back home in Oz who hacked a TiVo to work there, and I always wanted to try it. Then I got fed up with the ReplayTV and VOD available on Homechoice - I could never Replay anything I wanted really, except maybe EastEnders (addicted ). I remembered the TiVo so googled for it, found this forum and read about 30 pages of posts (it was a long night ). Then I got on eBay, got my box for about 50 squids and started. I've read that HomeChoice were going to put out their own PVR in June-ish.. but I didn't really want to wait, I wanted to check it out.

As for geek status.. well, you can see what I did with the SCART cables there  I'm a programming geek, hardware is lost on me!


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

_annie_ said:


> As for geek status.. well, you can see what I did with the SCART cables there  I'm a programming geek, hardware is lost on me!


A perfectly understandable mistake most of us could easily have made (as its not a usual requirement with most SCART leads) and anyhow you figured out the problem yourself.

If you first came across Tivo via an OzTivo hacker then this would explain your interest in and knowledge of the product. Also I'm sure anyone who is a programmer themselves has a logical enough brain to connect leads together, even if they usually have other people to do it for them.

But have we gained another regular forum member now or will you go quiet on us once your Tivo is up and running? Still it does sound like you have other improvements planned. The cost of getting a Cachecard and installing a large hard drive is pretty reasonable now. Costs only to start to spiral if you need to use the services of the two semi professional Tivo upgrade firms.

I'm sure Homechoice's PVR will be little more than a glorifiied video recorder when it finally appears and not at all like a Tivo in the way it works. Or at least that would be my expectation knowing Tiscali as a company.

Of course I suppose their PVR may support HD TV and Tivo does not but to me the resolution of the program I watch is not very important. Its the content of the program which is important to me.

Also another of the satisfactions of owning a Tivo for me is that only a very small and exclusive band of people in the UK know about them or have one. And the band of people in the UK with a hacked Tivo is far smaller still and even more exclusive. I never did like being one of the herd, another reason why I hate the £500 a year Sky ripoff so many people just fall for I suppose.


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## Prat77 (Apr 14, 2007)

_annie_ said:


> So.. for any other Homechoice people who find this thread when troubleshooting: make sure the SCART cable that comes from the back of the Homechoice box is round the right way, with the TV end in the TiVo (or TV if you are testing) and the AV2 end in the Homechoice box!


Does anyone know how to make the Homechoice box output a widescreen signal? There doesn't seem to be a setup menu anywhere where you can tell it what sort of TV you have.


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

Prat77 said:


> Does anyone know how to make the Homechoice box output a widescreen signal? There doesn't seem to be a setup menu anywhere where you can tell it what sort of TV you have.


Why not call Homechoice customer service and ask them?


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## mikerr (Jun 2, 2005)

http://www.homechoice.co.uk/helpsquad/widescreen.html


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## Prat77 (Apr 14, 2007)

mikerr said:


> http://www.homechoice.co.uk/helpsquad/widescreen.html


Cheers Mike, much appreciated.


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

Prat77 said:


> Cheers Mike, much appreciated.


I see its clearly not without good reason that you are called Prat77.


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## _annie_ (May 13, 2007)

Set up my wireless network and now I'm back..



Pete77 said:


> But have we gained another regular forum member now or will you go quiet on us once your Tivo is up and running? Still it does sound like you have other improvements planned. The cost of getting a Cachecard and installing a large hard drive is pretty reasonable now. Costs only to start to spiral if you need to use the services of the two semi professional Tivo upgrade firms.


Not sure about this. Obviously I can contribute to the forum, and more than likely will as more and more issues come up, but I'm still new enough not to have much experience with TiVo. More than likely I'll lurk for a while. It's not really the nature of the forum to be social, its a place where people come for advice really. Just my 2c.



> I'm sure Homechoice's PVR will be little more than a glorifiied video recorder when it finally appears and not at all like a Tivo in the way it works. Or at least that would be my expectation knowing Tiscali as a company.


You're probably right. I've been playing with my TiVo all day.. can't wait til it sorts out the subscription business and I can do all the other cool stuff.

One thing that was weird though.. Dr Who was just about to start and as I was cooking dinner, I didn't want to watch it right then. So I hit record on TiVo, turned the telly off, cooked dinner, ate it and noticed that the last 5 mins or something were still left on Dr Who. So I went into TiVo "now playing" and watched my recording, thinking it would letme watch what it had already recorded, whilst continuing to record the last 5 minutes. When I got to that point in the recording, TiVo said the program had ended, so I missed the last 5 minutes. Is that supposed to happen?

It was a rubbish episode anyway  In the end Homechoice's ReplayTV saved the day, but if that program wasn't being replayed I would have missed it.



> Of course I suppose their PVR may support HD TV and Tivo does not but to me the resolution of the program I watch is not very important. Its the content of the program which is important to me.


My telly is rubbish.. HDTV indeed


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## cwaring (Feb 12, 2002)

_annie_ said:


> Is that supposed to happen?


Sounds odd. The programme certainly started and ended within the scheduled time-slot so I have no idea what happened.


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## ericd121 (Dec 12, 2002)

_annie_ said:


> One thing that was weird though.. Dr Who was just about to start and as I was cooking dinner, I didn't want to watch it right then. So I hit record on TiVo, turned the telly off, cooked dinner, ate it and noticed that the last 5 mins or something were still left on Dr Who. So I went into TiVo "now playing" and watched my recording, thinking it would letme watch what it had already recorded, whilst continuing to record the last 5 minutes. When I got to that point in the recording, TiVo said the program had ended, so I missed the last 5 minutes. Is that supposed to happen?


Maybe your Tivo doesn't know what time it is. 

Have a look in the System Information page; it should give you the time.

I suspect that this Tivo hasn't called home lately, and therefore its clock has drifted.
A Daily Call should reset the clock.


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## alextegg (May 21, 2002)

Pete77 said:


> I see its clearly not without good reason that you are called Prat77.


But is the irony lost on you ?


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## TCM2007 (Dec 25, 2006)

Pete77 said:


> It hasn't mattered which way round the SCART lead is with any Freeview box I have had or with my Sky Digital box or with the NTL box I once used with it for a few weeks. Of course I can only speak of the STBs I have personally used with my Tivo though.
> 
> .


A fully wired RGB SCART doesn't matter which way round it goes.

If the SCART is used to send S-Video then it does (although that's a non-standard wiring)

But it sounds like this SCART is only half-wired - which I'm surprised saves Homechoice any money as fully wired SCARTs being much more common should be cheaper.


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

alextegg said:


> But is the irony lost on you ?


We already established that this member alleges his selection of forum name is a complete coincidence and is based on his surname and year of birth.

Of course I am not actually especially inclined to believe him though.


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

TCM2007 said:


> But it sounds like this SCART is only half-wired - which I'm surprised saves Homechoice any money as fully wired SCARTs being much more common should be cheaper.


It sounds like Annie should get hold of a decent fully wired SCART lead with gold plated sockets and see if it can be used either way round and also if it gives her a better picture quality or not.

When OnDigital was in business their spec always told manufacturers that they had to supply a particularly meaty looking fully wired SCART cable even though it only used standard metal plugs at either end. There again the total amount of money built in to funding an OnDigital box's production was clearly a lot higher than is now the case for the average cheapo Freeview box (many of which are supplied without any SCART cable at all).


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## _annie_ (May 13, 2007)

cwaring said:


> Sounds odd. The programme certainly started and ended within the scheduled time-slot so I have no idea what happened.


I'm not sure, maybe I am misunderstanding TiVo's functionality?

These are assumptions I've made:
1- You press 'record' on TiVo (i.e manual record, not scheduled) and it will record until you press stop - not when it thinks the program has ended?
2- Whilst recording, TiVo can let you watch what its already recorded, even if that's the same program you are currently recording (are you following me? )

So what I did was:
1. Hit record when Dr Who was on. Around 2 minutes had elapsed since the start of the program at that point
2. Turned off the telly as I didn't want it in the background
3. Came back about 35 minutes later
4. Hit the TiVo button on my remote, went to Now Playing, saw the generic 'BBC1 7.00pm' (or whatever the time was) generic labelling
5. Hit play now (and I noticed there was also the option to 'stop recording', but I didn't select that.
6. Watched the show, until about 5 minutes from the end when the recording cut off and TiVo said the show had ended

So I'm wondering:

- did it cut off because it thought the show had really ended (in which case, I should consider the clock time, and perhaps add some padding)

or

- did it cut off because thats the point I came in and hit 'play' on the 'Now Playing' screen and this caused TiVo to stop recording in order to let me watch the show from the start.

Or could it be some other reason?

I should also point out that at that point *I did not have a subscription* . Which means there was no guide data, which tells me TiVo couldn't have known when Dr Who was supposed to end?


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

_annie_ said:


> I'm not sure, maybe I am misunderstanding TiVo's functionality?


In the absence of a Tivo without a subscription to test the point its hard to be sure what might have happened.

Firstly as Carl points out Tivo's clock is normally reset daily to atomic timekeeping standards by its daily call in to Tivo. However when it is not calling in and is turned off for a long period in it relies on the CR2032 lithium battery to keep time, although I think that you have probably already made some daily calls since getting your Tivo and these should have reset the clock to 100% accurate time, even though you are not picking up EPG data yet.

However if you press the Record button on a subscribed Tivo unit it would normally ask about recording the current program to its scheduled end about including any part of the program it may already have pre-recorded in the Live Buffer if you were already on that channel and are willing to record it at Best quality (which the Live Buffer always records in). With a subscribed Tivo you could certainly not record forever by pressing the record button during a program so I don't know how this would work with an unsubscribed Tivo but I suspect Tivo may still cut up the live tv showing in to blank hourly or half hourly slots and consider the Live Tv program to end at the end of each of those half hourly or hourly slots?

Careful though Annie as you quite clearly have the mindset of a long term member of this forum in the questions you ask. After all you don't want to find you become addicted to regularly contributing here like some of us have.


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## TCM2007 (Dec 25, 2006)

Pete77 said:


> It sounds like Annie should get hold of a decent fully wired SCART lead with gold plated sockets and see if it can be used either way round and also if it gives her a better picture quality or not.
> 
> When OnDigital was in business their spec always told manufacturers that they had to supply a particularly meaty looking fully wired SCART cable even though it only used standard metal plugs at either end. There again the total amount of money built in to funding an OnDigital box's production was clearly a lot higher than is now the case for the average cheapo Freeview box (many of which are supplied without any SCART cable at all).


She'll have job finding a SCART lead with any kind of sockets... 

Gold plating only really helps if the socket on the STB is gold plated too; even then it's arguable.


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## cwaring (Feb 12, 2002)

_annie_ said:


> I should also point out that at that point *I did not have a subscription* . Which means there was no guide data, which tells me TiVo couldn't have known when Dr Who was supposed to end?


Ahaaa!! No sub. Right. That explains everything 

As far as I can remember, an un-sub'd Tivo will only record in half-hour slots from the moment you hit 'record'.


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## TCM2007 (Dec 25, 2006)

_annie_ said:


> I'm not sure, maybe I am misunderstanding TiVo's functionality?
> 
> These are assumptions I've made:
> 1- You press 'record' on TiVo (i.e manual record, not scheduled) and it will record until you press stop - not when it thinks the program has ended?


No, it's not like a VCR. If you press record while watching a programme it will record that programme only and stop at the end. (If you were watching it for a bit before pressing record, then the bit you've already watched will be in the recording too, up to 30 minutes anyway).



> I should also point out that at that point *I did not have a subscription* . Which means there was no guide data, which tells me TiVo couldn't have known when Dr Who was supposed to end?


With no guide data, TiVo will record for 30 minutes then stop; I believe that if you press record multiple times it extends it by 30 minutes a press, but i could be worng on that.


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## cwaring (Feb 12, 2002)

Thanks for confirming my thoughts, TCM


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## blindlemon (May 12, 2002)

_annie_ said:


> I should also point out that at that point *I did not have a subscription* . Which means there was no guide data, which tells me TiVo couldn't have known when Dr Who was supposed to end?


You've hit the nail on the head.

In the absence of guide data a TiVo will record 30 minutes when you hit record in Live TV.

BTW, if you like Dr Who then you are already 95% of the way to becoming a fully-fledged TiVo geek and esteemed member of this forum  Have you checked out Wishlists and Advanced Wishlists yet?


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## _annie_ (May 13, 2007)

blindlemon said:


> You've hit the nail on the head.
> 
> In the absence of guide data a TiVo will record 30 minutes when you hit record in Live TV.


This makes sense... thanks to everyone who pointed this out. My subscription has been activated now (less than 24 hours after I paid for it.. result!) and is downloading data so hopefully this won't be an issue going forward.



> BTW, if you like Dr Who then you are already 95% of the way to becoming a fully-fledged TiVo geek and esteemed member of this forum  Have you checked out Wishlists and Advanced Wishlists yet?


Dr Who is great (I am not a sci-fi geek ).. I liked series 1 and 2 better. I miss Billie. Still trying to decide if I like Christopher Eccelstone better as a Dr. David Tenant is getting too smarmy for my liking.

I haven't seen the wishlists.. off to check them out! So wish I was a linux geek, I bet hacks are dead easy.


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## blindlemon (May 12, 2002)

You don't need much linux for TiVo hacking as most of it is done in TCL anyway 

What you do need though is a network card - then you can have TiVoWeb, direct extraction to your PC (banned topic here so we can mention it, but can't discuss it!) and other useful stuff like EndPad, DailyMail etc. etc... Pete will provide you with a full list if you want one


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

blindlemon said:


> Pete will provide you with a full list if you want one


At last TCM you admit I have a use in the forum.  

So just for Annie's benefit and so she can keep it for the right time here is my recently extended list of all the useful extra things you can do once you have enlarged your hard drive and added a Cachecard. Also info on how to do add the Cachecard and enlarge the hard drive(s) as well.

P.S. I can see I need to add a title for what each of these html links are about now that the list has got so long.

www.steveconrad.co.uk/tivo

http://tivo.lightn.org/

www.ljay.org.uk/tivoweb/

www.planetbuilders.org/tivo/tivo_upgrade_diary.html

www.garysargent.co.uk/tivo/hacking.htm

www.beaconhill.plus.com/TiVo/tivohacks.htm

http://www.arielbusiness.pwp.blueyo.../TiVo/HowTo.htm

http://alt.org/wiki/index.php/TiVoWeb Modules

http://thomson.tivo.googlepages.com

http://tivo.stevejenkins.com/network_cd.html

http://hywel.underground-history.co.uk/tivo/logos/

http://thomson.tivo.googlepages.com/tivowebplus

http://widgets.yahoo.com/gallery/?search=oztivo&x=0&y=0

www.tivohackman.com

www.weethet.nl/english/tivo_extract_videos.php

www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=343331

www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=349298&page=1

www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=285228

www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=344615

www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=141201&page=1

www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=286938

www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=343473

www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=144021&page=1

www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=259645&page=1

www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=138225&page=1

www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=128288&page=1

www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=310535&page=1


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## blindlemon (May 12, 2002)

Pete77 said:


> At last TCM you admit I have a use in the forum.


I am not TCM


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## _annie_ (May 13, 2007)

So TiVo has finally downloaded the program data which is great.

To test it out, I wanted to search by title. I started typed "EastEnders" but it says no such program exists with that name. I went to BBC1 and scrolled through the on-screen guide data and it is indeed definately there.

Could it be an indexing problem? The download finished with success about 30 mins ago.. am I trying to search too soon?


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## _annie_ (May 13, 2007)

Pete77 said:


> So just for Annie's benefit and so she can keep it for the right time here is my recently extended list of all the useful extra things you can do once you have enlarged your hard drive and added a Cachecard. Also info on how to do add the Cachecard and enlarge the hard drive(s) as well.


<snip>

Thanks for this Pete.. I'll bookmark the thread for when I can get a cache card (they are not cheap and will cost more than my TiVo did ) Maybe I can get one next month.


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

_annie_ said:


> Could it be an indexing problem? The download finished with success about 30 mins ago.. am I trying to search too soon?


Tivo takes 2 to 3 hours to finish indexing after it has finished downloading the data and program listings will be incomplete and slowly extend day by day and/or channel by channel during this time.


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

blindlemon said:


> I am not TCM


Ah yes my mistake.

Although we do have our disagreements you and I quite often seem to agree on some Tivo matters.  :up:


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## TCM2007 (Dec 25, 2006)

It seems our secret is out blindlemon....

Now we just need Pete to admit that he's actually prat77 too...


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## ...coolstream (Dec 10, 2005)

Hi annie,

I've been reading this thread with interest. Sorry to read the hassle that the proprietary cable produced and glad that you persevered. It seems that very soon you will have obtained your month subscription and relevant guide data which will certainly make recording much easier.

Your question about pressing the record button and what is does can be summed up as basically 'it will save the programme you are watching to disc' i.e. tivo will refer to the guide data and add any of the programme that has already watched (up to the size of your cache, which by default is 30 mins) to that which is still to come and then stop saving.

I think this presupposes that the guide data already exists (or otherwise it should have filled your hard drive with one long recording - or at least until you told it to stop recording)! 

One possibility is that without any guide data to go by and to prevent endless recording, a tivo with no guide data might only make a recording of 30 mins. This would fit with the scenario you have described and provide a reasonable explanation. You could try doing the same thing again with a programme >30 mins before the guide data completes.

This would at least prove or disprove my theory, unless of course, those with more knowledge of tivo than myself are able to jump in with an answer right now.

Good luck with the tivo!

EDIT
Oops responded to thread before reading it completely.
I see that the question has already been answered making my post redundant, but I'll leave it here anyway as a lesson to myself to read a thread fully before making a post!


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## cwaring (Feb 12, 2002)

...coolstream said:


> EDIT
> Oops responded to thread before reading it completely.
> I see that the question has already been answered making my post redundant, but I'll leave it here anyway as a lesson to myself to read a thread fully before making a post!


LOL  I have the same problem when posting to the DS Forums as I only visit there once a day, so everything's usually been asked and answered by the time I get there


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## ...coolstream (Dec 10, 2005)

There is one question that has been bugging me for a while now and since I touched on it partly in my post, I wonder if it would be appropriate to ask it now...

I mentioned that if part of your programme is already in your cache, pressing record would add it to the recording and effectively save the whole recording. What I wonder is, is it possible to save a programme that is in your cache if the programme has already been broadcast and now a new programme has started on the same channel and is now the 'current' programme?

I suppose that what I am really asking is would it be possible to save part of (or even for ease of use, the whole of) your cache rather than just the currently running programme?

I appreciate that watching live tv is not what tivo was designed for, but there has been the odd occasion when I have watched live tv and thought I'd like to cap an ad or trailer that I could later use and found that it is being broadcast in the grey area between two programmes which means that hitting record won't include the bit I have just seen because the scheduled programme hasn't actually started and obviously the prior one has already finished.


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## blindlemon (May 12, 2002)

I'm not sure that TiVo recognises a 'grey area' between programmes - it's either one programme or the next.

However, the live guide does have a feature (I assume it's a feature not a bug) whereby it will show the upcoming programme's details rather than those for the current one when it gets close (I think less than 5 minutes, but it may be 3) to the scheduled end of a programme. Neverthless, AFAIK if you hit record during this time it should save the current programme rather than the next one, including any adverts at the end.


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

OK here is the definitive answer from someone with a 3 hour Live Tv buffer that hadn't recorded anything or changed channel in that period and during which time no less than four programs had shown on BBC Three including "Lucy: Teen Transexual" (which I thought I would hate and only stumbled on as Live Tv but was in fact incredibly movingly done) at 9.30pm, episodes of Two Pints at 10.30pm and 11pm and Radio 1's Big Weekend starting at 11.30pm.

I wound all the way back to early on in "Lucy: Teen Transexual" and hit the Play button and then the Record button and was offered only the ability to record the currently showing "Radio 1's Big Weekend" despite the fact that I was playing "Lucy: Teen Transexual" at the time. I then selected the option to record the previously recorded portion and the rest of the program in Best mode and the program changed to recording but was only then showing a 55 minute recording bar part way through Radio 1's Big Weekend.

Unfortunately all three earlier programs were completely lost and not recorded and the Live Tv buffer cleared down to just the start time of the current "Radio 1's Big Weekend program" when I stopped the recording.

So while you can get away with rewinding in to and watching programs that are no longer showing if you have a large Bufferhacked Live Tv buffer and can even go on watching them in the past (in my experience) if Tivo then changes channel to record something else live, what you can't do is record programs still in the Live Buffer but which are no longer the one that is currently showing from Tivo's point of view. From a technical standpoint clearly it should be possible for Tivo's hardware to be programmed to do this but its just that the Tivo software hasn't been designed to be clever enough to allow for people having larger Live Buffers and people wanting to record programs still in the Live Buffer but shown in the past.

Here endeth the definitive and empirically tested answer on this matter.


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## mikerr (Jun 2, 2005)

Maybe you could set a manual recording for a period in the past (in the live buffer) ?

I haven't tried that though !


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

mikerr said:


> Maybe you could set a manual recording for a period in the past (in the live buffer) ?
> 
> I haven't tried that though !


OK I didn't think of that.

When another three hours worth have accrued in the Live Buffer I will give it a try.


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## blindlemon (May 12, 2002)

Pete77 said:


> Here endeth [...] the answer


I beg to differ... 

... no I don't, and thanks for your diligence Pete - it's just that seeing you write the words "here endeth the answer" gave me few moments of severe mental trauma 

It was a bit like one might imagine feeling on hearing Julian Clary say "I'm no longer a homosexual" or Tony Blair "I made a mistake"... 

Personally, on the question of recording the live buffer, while I do like the sound of your big buffer - oops, another Julian Clary moment there! - neither of my TiVos are ever between recordings long enough to benefit :up:


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## ...coolstream (Dec 10, 2005)

Pete et al, thanks for your replies.

Pete's findings concur with my experiences  

The only way round it, as far as I can see would be to have a tivoweb module that could access the cache as if it were a recording.

If it were possible to know the FSIDs of the current cache, do you think it would be possible to retrieve some (or any) of them? I know that such talk is bordering on forbidden topics, but simply ask out of curiousity.

As far as extending the cache size is concerned, this is something I have done too, but without having the ability to save 'old' programmes from it, that particular hack is of limited use unless you are able to save a segment to an external device.


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

...coolstream said:


> As far as extending the cache size is concerned, this is something I have done too, but without having the ability to save 'old' programmes from it, that particular hack is of limited use unless you are able to save a segment to an external device.


I have occasionally found myself winding it back 60 to 120 minutes sometimes, since I went to 3 hours, when I have realised that by chance something interesting is playing on the Live Tv channel.

I agree with blindlemon that often one's Tivo is changing channel quite often (although not as often as the old buffer of only 30 minutes) but I have found that with a relatively full up Tivo that since getting the DailyMail email and the TrackerUpdate add on for it I am inclined to cancel a lot of unwanted scheduled recordings before they occur. Thus the buffer now often fills up for longer.


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

blindlemon said:


> ... no I don't, and thanks for your diligence Pete - it's just that seeing you write the words "here endeth the answer" gave me few moments of severe mental trauma


I suspect you were shocked that I might go to the trouble of scientifically testing something rather than simply asserting that I already knew the answer.


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## cwaring (Feb 12, 2002)

Pete77 said:


> Here endeth the definitive and empirically tested answer on this matter.


Which I knew without your testing. I thought this was common knowledge? I guess not


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## mikerr (Jun 2, 2005)

A large buffer is good for films - I can turn to live tv at the last 10 minutes of a film, and catch it all thanks to my 3 hour buffer - see sig.

There is no downside to a large buffer..just a little more disk space used up.

The live-buffer FSID is listed by mplayer/vserver if you want to access it,
and even in tivowebplus at http://tivo/mfs/Recording/InProgress


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

mikerr said:


> There is no downside to a large buffer..just a little more disk space used up.[/url]


I guess more diskspace could be a big downside if you only still have a 40GB Tivo. But then you wouldn't normally be implementing Bufferhack in those circumstances, as anyone fitting a Cachecard is almost certain to also upgrade their hard drive(s).

I did wonder if 3 hours of Live Tv buffer was enough but so far it seems to be as very few programs are over 3 hours. Some Grand Prix programs and the Eurovision Song Contest are I suppose examples of programs running up to 4 hours, but then I usually record those anyway.


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## ...coolstream (Dec 10, 2005)

Thanks for the info mikerr


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