Newbie to Tivo

[DavidClarke]

So after deciding that a Media Server of some sort was needed for the home, dismissing Windows Media server for all the usual reasons (cost, noise, cost, inflexibility, cost, lack of EPG), looking at a couple of Linux/Mac solutions and arriving at the conclusion that they were in their infancy... What about a Tivo? I stumbled across the NZ and Oz tivo sites and read everything I could

Tivo arrived yesterday from the US after 8 weeks in the care of the US Postal service, CacheCard arrived 5 days after I ordered it (7 weeks ago) along with a spare drive bracket (just in case), and an IR thingy, a local PC shop for the 250GB drive and a 512MB SIMM. A friend's PC to image the drive - Mac and PC laptops only in this household, 6 weeks ago. Time was passing very slowly just lately... I made a serial cable I am yet to use "just in case" - took 15 mins, didn't pass much time...

Assembly, setup and playing - 3 1/2 hours last night and its all good. It works, does more than I expected and I am delighted by the results.

Some suggestions for others that follow.

* The ORAC http://210.48.107.133:8000/ emulator has a lot going for it, perhaps make a note of the address, I am using it and not sure what the downside is - yet...

* IF you use the ORAC emulator you get logos, you have to browse the Tivo and manually (in my very recent experience) and associate them to a channel

* The setup of the Pace Sky box is a little vague in the guide. I have chosen the unit id ending in "1", fastest speed and three digit channel numbers, this works, but I couldn't find any better advise here.

There are probably a bunch of sensible hacks beyond the 30sec skip - done!

Any recommendations?

I am considering installing vserver as its mainly a Mac house and I like the idea of using TivoTool to pull the media files off and converting to MPEG or DIVX as I have a DVD player that plays both and it would be a good way of making DVD's that will keep a 4 yr old happy. Inter standard video conversion is a house speciality.

Its great that such a community and site(s) exist, thank you to all who post here and build this stuff. Is there a need for any funding of the hosted Emulators or such?

[DavidClarke]

For anyone with a Mac... Can confirm that www.tivotool.com is a viable solution and surprisingly fast.

[DJC]

Assembly, setup and playing - 3 1/2 hours last night and its all good. It works, does more than I expected and I am delighted by the results.


Personally I was looking for things to involve a little more hacking around when I did mine, but the same result, its almost a no-brainer now days.

[SeanOffShotgun]

Stuff I have enhanced my TiVo with (and like):

TiVoWebPlus
http://www.dealdatabase.com/forum/showthread.php?p=231574#post231574

(Next 3 are all modules for TiVoWebPlus)
ChannelGrid
http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=116879

Manual Record
http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=117985

AutoSpace
http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=153732

...my favs...

BufferHack
http://www.dealdatabase.com/forum/showthread.php?t=37240

DailyMail
http://deepinthejungle.servehttp.com/TiVo/DailyMail_Module.htm

Enjoy (if you aren't already).

Sean.

[DavidClarke]

Personally I was looking for a things to involve a little more hacking around when I did mine, but the same result, its almost a no-brainer now days.

I know what you mean, I love the results but was looking forward to more of a mental excercise. I had a new house alarm arrive the same day, now thats a project!!!!! Hugely complicated! Expect it to take days, hence the interest in hacking the Tivo about some more. So thanks Sean, will check these out!

I am going to set up no-ip.com so I can see my Tivo from work (or anywhere on the internet) as well in case I want to program up some recording, like when I am travelling. Should also work from my Harrier PDA/Smartphone. Now that's geeky and an interesting challange!

[Darren King]

There's no doubt about it. Accessing your TiVo remotely to schedule something is fantastic!

.... and welcome to TiVo!

[jaidev]

I know what you mean, I love the results but was looking forward to more of a mental excercise.

Ah well I guess we've done a good job :)
Heh if you want a challenge then lets step into a time machine, would like to take you back to my first experiences 4 years ago... :P

[Darren King]

LOL! I'll second that. Hours of manual configuring scripts and tivosh bash prompt entries just to configure a basic setup..... and I did it for about a dozen people who got the first of the internal PAL tuners put in by me. I cheated though as I did one config for Melbourne and another for Sydney (I thankfully didn't see any TiVo's from anywhere else), dumped the pre-configured hard disk image back to a file and just imaged from this.... saved a lot of work which in those days was serial connection to a PC running a terminal program :)

You young'uns to TiVo don't know what you missed out on :D

[DavidClarke]

Am I right in assuming that if I add a PAL tuner, I can record from free to air and STB at the same time, i.e. Sky Movie at 8:30 and CSI on TV3 at 8:30 ??? If so, time to get out the soldering iron!

[zollymonsta]

There's no doubt about it. Accessing your TiVo remotely to schedule something is fantastic!

.... and welcome to TiVo!


Yep, I have both my tivo's on my router (broadband) and I can access either one of them from anywhere in the world (via the internet) to schedule recordings.. :)

[zollymonsta]

Am I right in assuming that if I add a PAL tuner, I can record from free to air and STB at the same time, i.e. Sky Movie at 8:30 and CSI on TV3 at 8:30 ??? If so, time to get out the soldering iron!


No, you can only record one channel/programme at a time.

But you can watch something you've recorded previously, while recording something.

[DavidClarke]

So, since Sky Digital re-transmit free to air channels, (TVNZ, TV3, PRIME) there is limited value to the PAL tuner in NZ if you have a Sky Digital tuner. I see there is a Thompson UK Tivo on trademe, probably no advantage over the US Philips Tivo I now have...

[Darren King]

Am I right in assuming that if I add a PAL tuner, I can record from free to air and STB at the same time, i.e. Sky Movie at 8:30 and CSI on TV3 at 8:30 ??? If so, time to get out the soldering iron!

Sorry, no. One recording at a time. And yes if you currently can get your FTA via other input means then no point in getting a PAL tuner installed unless you want a true "stand alone" TiVo that does not need to be tethered to anything else to get it's input.

[DavidClarke]

Darren,

Thanks, what are you doing up this early! Appreciate the advice, whilst I would love to kill off my sky box, would miss the 3% of the content that is actually interesting, hence the purchase of the Tivo in the first place.

A second unit in the house with a PAL tuner only would get around the two channels at once issue... Hmmm, more toys :)

Can you ftp content from one to the other easily? Watch on the big screen, record in the bedroom, etc.

I just read your post on the PAL /Stereo Mk 2 mod... No NICAM yet, is this also true of the Thompson unit??

[Darren King]

No that is not true of the UK Thompson unit. NICAM stereo is possible from them.