UK TiVo

[aliennz]

I am a kiwi living in the UK and will shortly be returning to NZ. It has been suggested that I should buy a TiVo here and send it home with other stuf I will be freighting. Only problem is that I don't know what to buy! I understand that I need a series one stand alone model but the information I have found when searching web sites here is not very specific. It seems that the only TiVos available here Thomson models. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[thomson]

I am a kiwi living in the UK and will shortly be returning to NZ. It has been suggested that I should buy a TiVo here and send it home with other stuf I will be freighting. Only problem is that I don't know what to buy! I understand that I need a series one stand alone model but the information I have found when searching web sites here is not very specific. It seems that the only TiVos available here Thomson models. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

The Thomson models are fine (they are a Series 1 TiVo running v2.5.5 of the software). I have not yet tried to get one working against the emulator (but hear it is possible). There are a number of people using them with the latest OzTivo boot image (which uses the v3.0 software against the existing NZ emulators) without issues.

[aliennz]

Thanks, that gives me confidence that I can go ahead and buy one of the many boxes I see here on e-bay. Really appreciate your help.

[catdog]

Just to confirm it works ok, I am running a Thompson PVR10UK in New Zealand with the emulator without any issues :)

[DJC]

Just to confirm it works ok, I am running a Thompson PVR10UK in New Zealand with the emulator without any issues :)

Yep same; setup and running off emulator on thomson unit.

Now, catdog do you have sound coming out of your tuner on the 3.0 unit? I don't (hiss) but video is fine ... have mucked around with iicset manually, no help, and modded ukchan (nz) in a number of ways no luck.

[thomson]

do you have sound coming out of your tuner on the 3.0 unit? I don't (hiss) but video is fine ...

You might want to have a look at the changes to the ukchan30 module in this thread (http://forums.oztivo.net/showthread.php?t=886). I am still a little at a loss why people would run the 3.0 software on the UK units... I originally thought it was because the v2.5.5 software might not work against the emulator, but apparently it does...

[catdog]

Now, catdog do you have sound coming out of your tuner on the 3.0 unit? I don't (hiss) but video is fine ... have mucked around with iicset manually, no help, and modded ukchan (nz) in a number of ways no luck.
I am just using AV input & output rather than using the tuner so can't help you there. I would like to use the tuner for FTA channels and AV inputs for sky channels but am not sure how to configure this (and risk breaking something which is currently working fine!)

[DJC]

You might want to have a look at the changes to the ukchan30 module in this thread (http://forums.oztivo.net/showthread.php?t=886). I am still a little at a loss why people would run the 3.0 software on the UK units... I originally thought it was because the v2.5.5 software might not work against the emulator, but apparently it does...

Ok have been tracking that thread, is it relevant for NZ, seems to be more related to frequencies.

The reason I am running v3 at the moment is because the emulator as it stands can't take a 2.5.5 through a guided setup.

Now if anyone can correct me on this I'd be more than keen to know how and what sources to select? And that will save me a job.

Otherwise; I will be winding back to 2.5.5 to get it working once I have completed a sort out of the current legacy emulator headends... more on that much later, its a bit of a mission.

However, in the interm I am on 3.0 and am keen to get to the bottom of the hissing so that we can also declare that configuration working in NZ as well.

I've diff'ed the ukchan oz 2.5.5 and 3.0 modules and only come up with the following changes

[code]
[TiVo [p1] /hack/src]# diff ukchan30/ukchan30.c ukchan25/au/ukchan-2.5.5.c
134c134
< install_bypass(((u32)fpga_get_channel)-0x3b44, newfn, call);
---
> install_bypass(((u32)fpga_get_channel)-0x3a60, newfn, call);
139c139
< install_bypass_fn((u32)getFreq_x, 0x74b8);
---
> install_bypass_fn((u32)getFreq_x, 0x73b4);
[code]

I added an extra def in your (thomsons) nz ukchan and made the above changes and also changed the make file to give me a full range of outputs, for example...

[code]
CC = ../bin/gcc
CFLAGS = -D__KERNEL__ -I../include -Wall -Wstrict-prototypes -O2 -fomit-frame-pointer -mcpu=403 -msoft-float -DMODULE -DEXPORT_SYMTAB

all: ukchan255_nz.o ukchan255_nz_nicam.o ukchan30_nz.o ukchan30_nz_nicam.o

ukchan255_nz.o: ukchan_nz.c
$(CC) $(CFLAGS) -DNZTVCHANNELS -c ukchan_nz.c -o ukchan255_nz.o

ukchan255_nz_nicam.o: ukchan_nz.c
$(CC) $(CFLAGS) -DNZTVCHANNELS -DNICAMSTEREOMODE -c ukchan_nz.c -o ukchan255_nz_nicam.o

ukchan30_nz.o: ukchan_nz.c
$(CC) $(CFLAGS) -DNZTVCHANNELS -DVER30 -c ukchan_nz.c -o ukchan30_nz.o

ukchan30_nz_nicam.o: ukchan_nz.c
$(CC) $(CFLAGS) -DNZTVCHANNELS -DNICAMSTEREOMODE -DVER30 -c ukchan_nz.c -o ukchan30_nz_nicam.o

ukchan255.o: ukchan_nz.c
$(CC) $(CFLAGS) -c ukchan_nz.c -o ukchan255.o

ukchan30.o: ukchan_nz.c
$(CC) $(CFLAGS) -DVER30 -c ukchan_nz.c -o ukchan30.o

install:
cp *.o /lib/modules

clean:
rm -f *.o
[code]

Inserted each of the modules on the fly and with reboots and not one made a difference... lsmod and the right versions were loading

Its almost as if the code isn't talking to the decoder chip. I've even tried manually setting it to auto detect and that made no difference.

:(

[thomson]

The reason I am running v3 at the moment is because the emulator as it stands can't take a 2.5.5 through a guided setup.
Might want to talk to the AUS mob about this... I think it was Peter that let me know the v2.5.5 software can talk to the emulator, but I am not sure if it can be taken through the guided setup.

Not sure what is happening with the audio stuff... I do not have the v3.0 software on the UK Unit so can't test it, but the "iicset4 (http://minnie.tuhs.org/twiki/pub/FAQ/NzStereoSupport/iicset4.zip) 0x88 0x10 0x00200008" command should work. It could be that another hook is required into on of the modules as this command could be getting overridden - I know when I play with the palmod source there are a number of things that need to be set very frequently as they are being reset all the time. You might want to have a quick look at my palmod.c source (attached) to see if there is something there that could help.

[petestrash]

Hi,

The pvr10uk.255.oztivo_emulator.release1.3beta (http://minnie.tuhs.org/TiVo/files/images/pvr10uk.255.oztivo_emulator.release1.3beta) image will pass the OzTiVo guided setup, I am not aware of anyone localising it for NZ.

The only reason we have stuck with 3.0 is that we have now modified it enough that one image will run on all hardware (Sony, Philips, Thomson, TiVo) making support for the group much easier.

Some people prefer the loopsets in the Sony or Thomson images to go with their machines, but we do not encourage using them and at this point we have no intention of releasing updated OzTiVo versions.

Peter.

[thomson]

The pvr10uk.255.oztivo_emulator.release1.3beta (http://minnie.tuhs.org/TiVo/files/images/pvr10uk.255.oztivo_emulator.release1.3beta) image will pass the OzTiVo guided setup, I am not aware of anyone localising it for NZ.

DJC,
I recently gave this image a go on a friends unit but had a little trouble connecting to the NZ emulators. I am hoping that there might be some logs on the emulator that might help you get such an image working with it?

I am happy enough to supply all the latest packages for the UK units as I keep mine up-to-date and stable.

[tarx]

I am running my Thomson UK Tivo on 2.5.5 from the OzTivo beta 1.3 image. I couldn't get the guided setup to work at the time (this may have changed now).
I got it working by manually setting up the source and adding the channels using the scripts and implementing LOADGUIDE. I have this process roughly documented if you need it.

The reason I moved from the US 3.0 to UK 2.5.5 software was stability. I found the 3.0 software to be slightly unstable on my UK Tivo. The UK 2.5.5 software is absolutely reliable on the UK Tivo currently 100 days up time and still going.

All the best with your Tivo adventures.

Cheers

[DJC]

DJC,
I recently gave this image a go on a friends unit but had a little trouble connecting to the NZ emulators. I am hoping that there might be some logs on the emulator that might help you get such an image working with it?

I've had access to a Thomson UK unit from a mate to install for him. The unit is not mine, but if anyone has one for sale to a good development home ... :) especially if they are as stable as tarx says.

Anyway I've run through quite a number of tests. The old/legacy emulator setups will not pass a UK 2.5.5 through GS. The 3.0 images, as Peter pointed out, work fine on the emulator (with the scartctl backgrounded to allow emuProxy to start) with a UK tivo in NZ.

The new emulator configuration I've been working on does work with the UK unit under 2.5.5 and I have sucessfully installed the first emulator UK tivo today. Worked pretty much just as a 3.0 GS very simple.

So... once the new emulator system is released into the open UK tivos including those used for FTA can go emulator.

[Thomson PM me if you want to give your friends one another crack; its a 25 minute job. Cheers/DJC]

I've not had the unit long enough to sort out the ukchan sound issues for NZ under 3.0, so that will have to be passed along to someone else with the UK tivo.

The ozTiVo UK 2.5.5 image was pretty complete the only things that needed update to GS were: no postcode zones, tclient, added emuproxy (option), zoneinfo files are missing for anything outside Australia. I've got the updates stored away for a localised image at some stage in the future.