TiVos from JustDeals-au - Are they really PAL?

[JoeHolloway]

Hi all,

Dang! Wish I'd seen this thread before I bought one of these from Just Deals (or should it be Unjust Deals). Paid $149 for it including delivery and it arrived yesterday. Looks OK, fairly clean although it is obviously second hand.

Darren's comments on the package contents are spot-on although my unit is in fact a PTV300 box, not the PTV100 as advertised-don't know what the difference is except there is an RJ 45 socket above the phoneline socket that doesn't appear in the photos on Ebay.

Geoff

Hi,

I just received my unit from JD. I am delighted with it...

I had no ecpectation that the modem would work and had a Turbonet card, drive mount kit, imaged hard drive and IR blaster ready to go into it as soon as it arrived. These things I bought locally from: http://www.tivodownunder.com/

I was also psyched to do a case mod and was delighted (but also a bit deflated) to find a RJ-45 connector already on the rear of the case. Exactly where I would have put it, above the defunct modem.

I had to crack the case a second time to check the internal patch lead, as I had a (ahem) slight network airgap problem during Guided setup, but apart from that, I am overjoyed at the ease of getting the unit set up.

I was even more impressed to find I could reprogram my TiVo remote to control the TV, so now it does everything except the dvd player. Yeah!!

After reading your article, I went back to check the RF Tuner and found that it seems to work fine, although I have chosen to use an external STB (analog reception here is not very good). So yes it seems to be a PAL unit.

I haven't figured out exactly which model, 100 or 300. How do I tell ?

So I would be prefectly happy to purchase another unit from those guys...

-Joe-B^)

[geoffo]

Hi Joe,

Glad to see you had such a smooth run. I guess my lack of TiVo knowledge led me to believe JD's Ebay description of the unit as "Refurbished"--meaning just that, fully working, but not new.

Anyhow, after some excellent advice, especially from Darren I gave up on the modem and went ahead and purchased a cache card plus ram, installed a network cable to my router and, Bob's ya uncle, everything went swimmingly EXCEPT I'm suffering the "Green Line" effect which according to my searches is a hardware fault which can best be resolved by replacing the SAA7114 chip.

I consider this to fall outside the definition of "Refurbished" so I've emailed JD for their advice but I really don't expect a reply.

BTW the model type is on a plate on the rear of the unit, at least on mine anyway and refers only to a different HDD size (thanks Darren).

Once bitten, I don't think I would buy anything else from JD, if I'm ever in the market for another box I think I'd buy from George at Eklectic, more expensive certainly but at least I could be sure it works!

Good luck with your unit.

Cheers

Geoff

[geoffo]

Update!

Just heard from JD, they have agreed to replace the unit! Apologies for what I was thinking of them.

G

[T1voZA]

I'm suffering the "Green Line" effect which according to my searches is a hardware fault which can best be resolved by replacing the SAA7114 chip.

Try setting the "Screen Width" to 720 pixels using palmod_config, it's been known to remove the green line.

[JoeHolloway]

Try setting the "Screen Width" to 720 pixels using palmod_config, it's been known to remove the green line.

I've wondered about tweaking palmod... though this question might be suited to a different topic.

What are most people using ?

I don't have any problems with green lines or green borders and generally, the picture quality is great, but occasionally I notice some pixelation or 'blockiness' during fast pans or high motion video sequences. I even get this when watching live TV. It is only moderately annoying.

I am a hard disk miser, so have set the recording quality to basic.

Should I use medium or will tweaking palmod help this problem or potentially make it worse ?

I have read on the ozTiVo site that using the 720 setting pushes the mpeg encoding chip too hard and that it should only be used if you need good widesreen recording(s).

I'd love to know what recording setting and palmod tweaks other people are using.

I guess I can experiment myself, my housemates will understand if their favourite shows look terrible

-Joe-B^)
Current Household TiVo Popularity ranking: 60%

[Darren King]

I am a hard disk miser, so have set the recording quality to basic.

Anything less than "high" is going to show plenty of artifacts. At this rate you consume (roughly) 2GB/hr and at "best" it is 2.5GB/hr

[Darren King]

Update!

Just heard from JD, they have agreed to replace the unit! Apologies for what I was thinking of them.

G

Well that is good news. But then again if you HAD bought from George (or asked me if I had any, as per my webpage regarding where to get one from) then it would not have to be such a painful excercise. Afterall I am George's authorised repairer in this part of the world

FWIW I have repaired plenty of green line TiVo's too. Wonder what JD will do with this one... Probably just bin it I'd imagine.

[geoffo]

Ouch! Sorry Darren. Realised when I re-read my post late last night that I had neglected to mention your excellent service! Apologies. Will post again when JD have done their thing.

Thanks to T1voZA for suggestion on screen width but, since I'm getting my signal from a standard STB and not the tuner it probably won't make a difference.

Cheers

[Darren King]

No apologies needed! I did not take offence and knew what you meant. It's all good