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Need some Tivo information

D

de8212

Diamond Member
My brother's wife bought him a tivo and the lifetime service for xmas. He wants me to come over and set it all up for him.
So I have some basic questions for those that actually have tivo.
looking at this page here it says you have to hook a phone line up to it one time and then you can use your wireless network after that.
So, it has a usb port on it that a wireless usb adapter can connect to?
Is that how most epople have it hooked up? How easy is this to configure?
Anything I need to know before going over there to set it up?
Alos, they have an old tv in the room it's going in. I'll have to hook up a rf modulator to get it connected to the tv. Any problems going this route?
I'm sure I'll have some otehr questions later.
thanks.
 
Check here for usb adapter compatibility. Not all wireless adapters work out of the box, so it is important to get one that tivo has tested.
 
looking at this page here it says you have to hook a phone line up to it one time and then you can use your wireless network after that.
Click to expand...

That is correct, although there is a way to do it without the phone line. Search AT.

So, it has a usb port on it that a wireless usb adapter can connect to?
Click to expand...

Yep it's USB. So you can use either a USB adapter (we use a Netgear MA101) or USB to Ethernet adapter.

Is that how most epople have it hooked up? How easy is this to configure?
Click to expand...

I think most people use a phone line although I prefer WiFi, more freedom, faster updates and goodies like Yahoo! TiVo

Anything I need to know before going over there to set it up?
Click to expand...

Yes, TiVo is like crack.

Alos, they have an old tv in the room it's going in. I'll have to hook up a rf modulator to get it connected to the tv. Any problems going this route?[/quote]

Sorry all my TV's are modern, 2000 or newer.
 
Thanks for the info jp and rossman.

I'll have to tell him to pick up one of the wireless adapters. Rossamn, yours isn't listed as one of their compatible ones unless I overlooked it. How did you know that one would work?
BTW his linksys is a "b". So I'll make sure he doesn't accidently get a "g".

Any other cool features or random tips on this thing? I will probably go by tomorrow and hook it up. Will just use a phone line stretched across the room until he can get an adapter.
 
I'm not 100% sure on the model number but it's a Netgear I'll post the model # here when I get home.
 
Originally posted by: RossMAN
I'm not 100% sure on the model number but it's a Netgear I'll post the model # here when I get home.

And the price. At 6 stores. And the rebates at 3 of the stores. And the factory rebate. And the coupon. And the price match
Click to expand...

Fixed
 
Another question about the products they have here. The wireless "g" says
Easily connect your TiVo Series2 DVR to your 802.11g or 802.11b wireless home network
Click to expand...
I thought if you had a "b" network you couldn't connect "g" devices? I know you can connect "b" devices to "g" networks.
 
Originally posted by: de8212
Another question about the products they have here. The wireless "g" says
Easily connect your TiVo Series2 DVR to your 802.11g or 802.11b wireless home network
Click to expand...
I thought if you had a "b" network you couldn't connect "g" devices? I know you can connect "b" devices to "g" networks.
Click to expand...

Someone correct me if I'm wrong.

It all depends on the router, if it's a G it can connect B and G.

If it's a B router (which I have) it can only connect to B. So my USB adapter is 802.11b not g.
 
That's the way I understand it too Rossman. So if somone has a Linksys B Router then it cannot connect to a "G" network adaptor.
If that's trues then the "Wireless G USB network adapter" listed on Tivo's site must either not be able to connect to a "B" router or it's really a Wireless G and B USB network adapter.

 
Update:
I went to my brothers house to hook it up. We had to use the phone line because the guy at BB sold him the wrong usb adapter. I told him to just order the one off of tivo's site and it should work.
Another question for my brother. Can I hook a dvd player up to thge tivo? IOW can I use the DVD players outputs to the TIVO's inputa and watch dvd's on the tv? The reason I want to know is because the tv doesn't have any more free inputs on the back.


This has got me considering if I should get one or not. What all can this thing do? I know it's similar to a vcr but what other kinds of neat things can I do withit?
Also, can I copy stuff off of it to my laptop/home pc?
Can you upgrade the hard drive?
Any otehr info would be appreciated.
thanks
 
Originally posted by: RossMAN
Originally posted by: de8212
Another question about the products they have here. The wireless "g" says
Easily connect your TiVo Series2 DVR to your 802.11g or 802.11b wireless home network
Click to expand...
I thought if you had a "b" network you couldn't connect "g" devices? I know you can connect "b" devices to "g" networks.
Click to expand...

Someone correct me if I'm wrong.

It all depends on the router, if it's a G it can connect B and G.

If it's a B router (which I have) it can only connect to B. So my USB adapter is 802.11b not g.
Click to expand...

It actually shouldn't depend on the router. B and G are backwards compatible, so either router should work on either spec. It will, however, scale back to 11mbps if you use a B adapter on a G router.
 
Originally posted by: de8212
This has got me considering if I should get one or not. What all can this thing do? I know it's similar to a vcr but what other kinds of neat things can I do withit?
Also, can I copy stuff off of it to my laptop/home pc?
Can you upgrade the hard drive?
Any otehr info would be appreciated.
thanks
Click to expand...
You can't use a wireless adapter to perform guided setup. You can only do it two ways:

With a wired ethernet adapter
With a phone line

So his adapter might be OK.

You can't pass through the DVD signal through the Tivo. I've heard of complicated ways of making it work by adding a custom channel lineup, but I've never done it myself (and can't remember where I saw that). Your best bet is to get an AV switch from Amazon, they're pretty affordable, usually under $20.

You can pull programs off the Tivo onto your laptop with Tivo2Go - as long as it's a standalone Tivo box it should get that update automatically.

You can upgrade the hard drive.

The best place to answer your questions more in depth would be the Tivo Community Forums here:

http://www.tivocommunity.com
 
What all can this thing do? I know it's similar to a vcr but what other kinds of neat things can I do withit? The usual pause live TV, record shows, season passes (record the whole season of an episode), etc. Then there are some neat things like being able to connect to it from your yahoo account to tell it to record stuff if you're away from home and forgot to program a few shows.

Also, can I copy stuff off of it to my laptop/home pc? Yup, that's what the wireless adapter is for.

Can you upgrade the hard drive? Yes, plenty of hacks online about how to open it and even add a second hard drive if one large one isn't enough.


 
I think I may just pick me the 40 hr one up this weekend.
And as far as the wireless adapter, I thought I read in the documentation you could use a wireless adapter to initially set it up. May have mis read though. And tivo's site says the adapter he got at BB will work but only certain serial #'s. We checked and his s/n is not one of the ones listed. So he's going to return it.


Unfortunately my brother called and said some of his channels have static in them now that the tivo is hooked up.
Not sure what's going on with that. I don't think it's the connection because he said most of the channels are fine. May have to calltivo about that.
 
Originally posted by: RossMAN
Tell your brother to buy a newer TV, CostCo has a nice Sharp 27" for $229.
Click to expand...

He definately needs one but I think he's saving up for a plasma/lcd.

Any idea on what coul cause some of his stations to have static in them after the tivo was connected?
 
Have him check the cables he used. I have regular cable and have coax running from the wall into a spitter, from which it runs into both my TV and my Tivo (Tivo is connected by video imputs). I had a poor quality piece of coax and any channels over a certain number were slightly fuzzy.

As far as I know, you must use a wired adapter to hook up the Tivo initially, or use a phone line. They may be shipping them now with newer firmware that supports wireless adapters out of the box.
 
Can a Wireless USB network adapter added to the back of a TIVO series2 be used to "sling" recorded shows to any computer on the network for viewing. It that the "TIVO to go" that I have heard about? That would be awesome if I could download kids shows onto my laptop for watching in the van during long trips. Even better if they could be burned to DVD. I have a Linksys WRT54GS Wireless-G Broadband Router with SpeedBooster for the home network.
 
Originally posted by: HomeAppraiser
Can a Wireless USB network adapter added to the back of a TIVO series2 be used to "sling" recorded shows to any computer on the network for viewing. It that the "TIVO to go" that I have heard about? That would be awesome if I could download kids shows onto my laptop for watching in the van during long trips. Even better if they could be burned to DVD. I have a Linksys WRT54GS Wireless-G Broadband Router with SpeedBooster for the home network.
Click to expand...

Not sure what you mean by "sling". But with the wireless adapter I can transfer the tivo file to any of my pc's that have tivotogo installed.
Then I use Sonic mydvd to burn the tivo file to a dvd.
Note: For some reason, I cannot actually view the tivo file through wmp10. I've searched around tivocommunity.com and I am one of the few with this issue. It seems to be a codec problem.
 
I meant "sling" like Slingbox. The oldest PC is going in the basement family room and has TV out so I could be used to store and replay recorded TIVO shows. I hope.

My laptop has built-in Wireless-G Broadband Router with SpeedBooster and the three PCs are connected by CAT-5 to the router. The TIVO is at the far end of the house which is why I wanted a wireless connection to it.

Anyone have a TIVO die. My wife's friend said her's did at three years and the TIVO rep said that was about how long they last. I am thinking of swapping or backing up the hard drive as a pre-caution. Thanks.
 
Rossman, I got the tivo brand G adapter.

Home Appraiser
I've heard of the sling box but don't really know how it works. Bottom line is it doesn't "stream" the video (unless I'm missing something). You can just copy it to any pc running the tivotogo s/w and watch it (unless you are unlucky like me) then you can burn to dvd.
BTW I have the linksys g w/speedbooster. It takes me ~ 1hour to copy a 1 hour show @ ~1.6GB (second highest quality setting).
As far as them dieing, I guess that could be the same for any electronic product similar to this.
Just do what you suggested, swap the drive. Keep the original as a backup. I don't have any hard facts but I bet a large percentage of failures would be do the hd issues.
 
Originally posted by: HomeAppraiser
I meant "sling" like Slingbox. The oldest PC is going in the basement family room and has TV out so I could be used to store and replay recorded TIVO shows. I hope.

My laptop has built-in Wireless-G Broadband Router with SpeedBooster and the three PCs are connected by CAT-5 to the router. The TIVO is at the far end of the house which is why I wanted a wireless connection to it.

Anyone have a TIVO die. My wife's friend said her's did at three years and the TIVO rep said that was about how long they last. I am thinking of swapping or backing up the hard drive as a pre-caution. Thanks.
Click to expand...

Have you checked out Orb?
 
Orb site says it needs a 2.4Ghz Intel Pentium IV processor or equivalent (Note that a slower processor may cause "stuttering" when streaming TV or videos), the old PC is a 2.2Ghz Pentium IV with a PNY FX5700 Personal Cinema card. Tthe other PCs are AMD XP & 64 3000+ with VIVO cards. I will have to look in to the minimum AMD processor required. Does Orb have and hidden fees?
 
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