Users in the UK need your help please

[MrNicePommie]

London calling... London calling...

Hi Chaps,

It's looking increasingly likely that TiVo Inc will stop supporting our beloved Thomson S1 TiVos in the UK, within the next few months. Following the UK deal with VirginMedia they want everyone to "transition" (their word!) to the new VM TiVo. Only problem is you need to be on Virgin Media's cable TV network to do this - they have no alternative for those of us (c. 45% of the UK population) who aren't on cable.

This will leave us without EPG data. Thinking about alternative sources for guide data updates we naturally thought of you guys, so I thought I'd drop by to ask for your help.

Before we consign our TiVos to the bin, I was wondering what's technically involved in setting up a replacement Daily Call and Guided Setup service?

Obviously we need a source of EPG data (either scraped or a pukka paid-for XML supply), but what do we do then? What do we need to set up/do to get the guide data onto the TiVo?

We need to consider that the majority of UK users are not techies like us, so we need a solution that is simple to implement. Therefore we don't want to re-image if we can help it (we run either 2.5.5 or 2.5.5a). Ideally we would want two alternative connection methods: 1) internet via network, 2) dial-up (i.e. just replacing the existing TiVo dial-up connection).

I will appreciate your comments.

Thanks.

[Skolink]

I don't know how the emulator works, other than you need some programming skills. If you don't hear anything in a few days, post back here again and I'll see if someone on the mailing list can help you.

[MrNicePommie]

Thanks for that.

p.s. I've been a programmer since the 70's so not frightened of getting my hands grubby ;)

[petestrash]

There is no way of migrating users without them re-imaging their hard disks to allow the units to contact an alternate server and run foreign software.

Peter.

[MrNicePommie]

Thanks Peter. What sort of effort is involved in running the alternate server? I'm trying to get a feel for what resources we need.

Once it's up and running, how much ongoing tech effort is required?

I've read a lot of the old posts on here from when you set up the service back in 2005/6 (?) but I don't know how much it has all been 'streamlined' since then.

Thanks,
Geoff

[petestrash]

Once it's up and running, how much ongoing tech effort is required?

I've read a lot of the old posts on here from when you set up the service back in 2005/6 (?) but I don't know how much it has all been 'streamlined' since then.

We set this forum up in 2004 as a safe alternative after a web outage of our main server. The main server has been running since about 2001 from memory, before that using mailing lists and our website for contact.

For the small amount of channels compared to the UK, we have a team of about half a dozen admins and about 30 guide volunteers on average to make sure the data is usable and everything works ok.

Here we run as a community project, with most member being fairly technical. Even with that there is a lot of tech support required with it being given here and mostly on our mailing lists.

We have not done much with the UK image, we have modified the US image for our use.

Since TiVo launched a box here a couple of years ago, we now have half the number of S1's connecting and getting less and less each month.

I would suggest it would be much easier to appoach tivo/sky to see if you as a community can purchase/takeover the service to support the remaining TiVo's till they die a natural death.

Peter.

[MrNicePommie]

Thanks for the info. We intend to run ours too as a community project (a small monthly subscription would pay for the EPG data if we decided to purchase it rather than roll our own).

Unfortunately Sky aren't interested (they have their Sky+ "alternative"). Tivo seem only interested in cable tie-ups (in UK, Spain and USA) and are backing away from direct sales, and don't seem at all interested in doing anything to help. Obviously we have approached them but what with it being their year-end as well as their general lack of interest, we have got nowhere.

I appreciate there are significant differences between UK and Aus/NZ - significantly we already have a working service whereas you were starting from scratch and had to reprogram new channels, postcodes, etc etc. All we really need is a way of getting guide data & channel changes onto the Tivo - our software already works as we want (fortunately!). It seems likely therefore that your set-up will be too complex for our needs.

Thanks for taking the time to reply.

[MrNicePommie]

Well TiVo have just pulled the plug :(

http://support.tivo.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/318/kw/uk

At least they've generously given us 3.5 months to sort out a replacement EPG service :)

[petestrash]

Anyone form the UK looking for options should visit the forums at tivoland (http://www.tivoland.com/forum/index.php).

We are assisting them with setting up a service to help UK users who cannot get Virgin Cable.

Peter.

[MrNicePommie]

Ah yes I should have posted that link! Things have been so hectic here this past week. I just wanted to say thanks very much for all the help you are giving us :)