a few questions from a newbie :)

[starchee]

hi :) i havent bought a tivo yet, im still researching and trying to figure out if itll actually work for me without a huge ginormous effort. i can sorta make things work, i build my pcs from parts etc but im the kinda person who plugs stuff in where it fits and hopes it works. anyway....

my main concern for the moment is the plain text authentication thing. ive been chatting to some friends on IRC and they say that most ISP's dont support it, and they heavily doubt iinet will. but then they went on to explain that there is no need to use ppp as i have dsl and am on the net 24/7.

for what its worth my network is totally wired and made of 3 pcs (all xp), 1 notebook, 1 xbox. i have 2 nics in my internet connecty XP machine, 1 nic is for the DSL on a d-link dsl300 ethernet modem which automagically takes 192.168.0.1 on my network. the other nic is for the network, which is connected to a netgear fs108 switch. the network exists on the ip range of 192.168.1.x... somehow i got windows xp internet connection sharing to work somewhat happily, even though it complained about wanting to use 192.168.0.1. i dont have a firewall, either physical or softwareical.

does my isp (iinet!) still need to support plain text login?

ok next question. as i have not yet purchased a tivo (will probably get it from eksys in USA!) im wondering what um, other parts i should get with it apart from a turbonet card. i hate buying things and then realising later i should have paid that extra 20$ and got something else with it. i guess i should get the 2nd audio input. i dont have paytv atm but its always a posibility in the future. there anything else that should make it onto the "so cool! must have!" list?

ive been reading the how-to's quite extensively and i cant wait to get my own tivo, assuming itll actually work for me that is :) and im quite annoyed because i know i had more questions than this, but ive forgotten them all!

christina

[Darren King]

Hi Christina

If you have a network and DSL already then what you are referring to does not apply as you won't be using the internal modem in the TiVo to dial out. Instead you will be using the network card and it does things differently.

In regards to your ability here's the steps I take when setting up TiVo's:

Put blank hard drive in PC as secondary master device
Make sure PC can boot from CD
Put OzTiVo CD into PC
Boot PC
Do what's instructed in the how-to document
Pull hard disk out of PC
Put hard disk into TiVo
Make sure Turbonet card is installed
Turn On TiVo
Follow on-screen menus as per the how-to document
Job done

This is assuming that your XP machine can dish out DHCP IP addresses as that is the native mode of the TiVo ethernet device. You can set it to a static IP and that is covered in another how-to document.

If you are talking about getting the second audio input mod done and don't have anyone local in mind to do it, then you can always send me the hard disk with the TiVo and I'll do all the dirty work for nothing.

As for what you require hardware wise, you are going to need:

* A Series 1 Stand-Alone type TiVo.

* One or two hard drive brackets depending on if you want one hard drive or two. I would get a second bracket anyway - just so later on if you want to add a second hard disk you can do it right as there is no other easy way of securely mounting it otherwise.

* Network card. Either Turbonet or Cachecard. You can run a cachecard with no RAM and just pop the RAM in later if you like. Personally I wouldn't bother with the RAM but that's just my opinion. I'm sure others will disagree.

I'm sure you have more questions, but luckily the OzTiVo group have covered pretty much everything that gets asked (and sometimes the more obscure Q's as well!) in how-to documents. These how-to documents I mention are all on the OzTiVo website off the left hand sidebar menu:

http://minnie.tuhs.org/twiki/bin/view/Main/WebHome

As to buying a TiVo maybe your starting point is the page listed below and you can take it from there:

http://minnie.tuhs.org/twiki/bin/view/FAQ/BuyTiVoAndAddsOns

Cheers

[starchee]

thanks for your help :)

i actually just logged in to totally reword what ive said, and cut out the waffle, but it appears there is no need. yay! i was pretty worried bout the pap/chap thing, good to hear it wont be a problem

feel like a bit of an idiot but i have read a good deal of the help files - just tends to blend together after a while. went from looking for a dvd-recorder, to looking at tivo, to being annoyed because im not in america and i hate them because they get EVERYTHING i want (like a sci fi channel!) to finding oztivo + happiness in about a weeks time :)

mmm.. now to just wrestle with paypal, as ive never been able to set it up in the past :/

[tenty]

Paypal have upgraded their services recently to include "Australian Dollar" as a currency of choice, so hopefully it'll help and you don't have to worry about conversions and such on ebay!