Few newbie questions

[sparky26]

Was thinking of buying a topfield pvr till i stumbled across TIVOs I am hooked Have done the deal with George in US will have Tivo & turbonet card next week.
Few newbie questions

1 I have a Dlink broadband router which should look after the network side of the instillation, but once it’s installed on the network how do I communicate with the tivo box and where in the guided setup do I tell the box to go out on the internet and download the program guides
.
2 Am going to input Foxtel digital satellite through the cvbs input and a hotchip terrestrial decoder through the s-video connection as I don’t want to modify the tivo and add a second audio input till I am sure it works would this setup give me fox with sound and digital with no sound till box is modified

3 If and when the above all works do I need to tell the tivo box about the second audio input.
Thanks in advance for all the hard work you guys have put in here GREAT SITE

[zollymonsta]

Hi Sparky,

Good on ya!! You can't beat a TiVo! :)

1 I have a Dlink broadband router which should look after the network side of the instillation, but once it’s installed on the network how do I communicate with the tivo box and where in the guided setup do I tell the box to go out on the internet and download the program guides

http://minnie.tuhs.org/twiki/bin/view/Network/ChangeHostNameofTiVoForNetworkAccess

See the url above. You can also connect via serial during setup
and run nic_config_tivo (going from memory here!) and set up an IP you want to use. This makes it easy to find the TiVo on your home network.

From memory the OZTiVo image is already setup to connect over the internet and download the guide data etc. It's if you decide to use the built in modem that you'll need to manually change some files.


Sorry, I can't offer any assistance with the other two questions.

ZollyMonsta

[DavidSymons]

Hi there,

Welcome. Great choice (IMHO :) ).

I can only really answer #1 with much surety. I haven't done the second audio mod but I can make some educated guesses.

1. The image installed from the CD is preconfigured to assume that you have a Turbonet card and to look for a DHCP server and get an address. It is also preconfigured with minnie's IP address as its mothership.

Hence, assuming you've got a DHCP setup going, the getting onto the internet and downloading bit should just work (tm). In order to communicate with the TiVo yourself you'll need to find out what address it was given and then you can use telnet, ftp and (via your web browser) TiVoWeb from your PC.

2. Yes - but actually you can choose to have the audio from the Sat box if you wish...

When you do the guided setup you'll be doing a "Satellite & Cable" configuration. It will ask separately which box has which input and you'll be able to say that one box (Fox) uses Composite with L/R audio and that the other box (Sat) uses S-Video with L/R audio. The TiVo won't protest that you're using the same audio input for both boxes. Then the audio comes from whichever one you choose to plug the audio in from - with the risk that you'll record the wrong audio some of the time.

Maybe you could plug the left channel from one box and the right channel from the other box and adjust the balance of your TV according to which source was used for the recording you're watching :) .

3. Not sure what you mean here. I think I've answered this above regarding the initial setup. When you later do the hardware mod you'll need to do the software configuration steps described in the HowTo to tell the TiVo about the second input.

Good luck.

Cheers, Dave.

[sparky26]

Maybe you could plug the left channel from one box and the right channel from the other box and adjust the balance of your TV according to which source was used for the recording you're watching

The above is true lateral thinking IE there is an answer to every problem
some are just more obvious than others

Thanksfor the help fellas all starting to make sense now
One more question re
you can use telnet, ftp and (via your web browser) TiVoWeb from your PC

Which is easier given i have little experience with any????

[DavidSymons]

Hi Sparky,

Hehe. I'd be interested to know if you try the separate L/R channel thing. I imagine it'd run the risk of missing ___ on ___ of ___ dialog :) .

Anyway the three programs have different uses:

telnet - Used to establish a command-line interface so that you can do things like move/edit/run files on the TiVo. It's like the DOS command prompt.

ftp - Used to transfer files to and from the TiVo.

TiVoWeb - Provides the ability to perform various functions on the TiVo via a Web Interface.

You'll probably use TiVoWeb mostly. The other two come into play more when you want to do some hacking or there are problems.

HTH.

Cheers, Dave.