Master Thread: Tivo Technical questions

[shopaholic]

We just bought a TIVO yesterday (40 hour) and we are having problems.

The quality of our picture has gone down dramatically since hooking up the TIVO. We have a Song Wega TV (if that makes a difference). When watching Live TV it looks like a tape recording....its horrible. Our picture was crystal clear before hooking up TIVO.

We went back to the store today and bought component video cable but the back of the TIVO does not have the outlets for this, the tv does. The guy aty the store said the TIVO would have the outlets for this component.

I guess this component video cable uses fiber optics for a better/clearer picture.

What did you use to make the picture clear?

If we can't fix the problem, we will return the TIVO.

[stevesbabygirl]

We have a Sony Wega TV too, but we haven't had that problem with our TiVo. The problem we have is that the sound cuts in and out on the TiVo feed. They told us to buy a new cable for it, so we did, but it keeps doing it.

[SarahKatG]

Tivo shouldn't cause any troubles like that. If it was just the recordings, DH said to make sure you choose a higher quality level. But if it's on live TV as well, he said something may be wrong inside the Tivo. The best cables you can use are S-video cables with Tivo for now. You could try that to see if it helps, but make sure you use it in all the parts of the connection (cable box to Tivo, Tivo to TV, etc.). You could also try just a different cable cord to make sure that's not the problem.

Another thing to try would be to use the same cable to hook the cable box back up straight to the TV, and make sure it wasn't some weird coincidence that your cable messed up at the same time as the new Tivo. Hopefully one of those works, but Tivo shouldn't mess quality up at all. We've had a Tivo in various stages for years now, and never had any troubles like that! Worst case, try a new Tivo if it's still under warranty. It would suck to go through the trouble, but worth it if it fixes the problem.

[skyblu]

I have no advice but a group of us gave Tivo to a good friend for her birthday and she reported the exact same problem. I'm eager to read about it if you can get it to clear up. Thanks!

[oceaneast]

Current Tivos should not be experiencing this problem. What model is the Tivo you bought. (It will help me diagnose potential issues)

[shopaholic]

nevermind..we returned it to the store this afternoon. SO was beyond annoyed with the whole situation so we just said forget it.

Its a shame it didn't work properly. Oh well :(

[oceaneast]

That's too bad. I love my Tivo, in fact I'm not sure what I'd do without it. (Pitiful I know)

[jeepgirl]

For all of you Tivo lovers out there... I have a question. If I have BASIC cable (just the prime stations) and I buy a Tivo like this one: TIVO (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00029ZE2S/ref=amb_center-3_99765101_2/104-1499307-7778325), and pay the 12.95 monthly fee (or whatever the fee is) will the TIVO still work for me?

[I am just wanting one to record a few of the weekly shows I like and Oprah, etc. but am not always home to keep up with a VCR.]

[jeepgirl]

P.S. By BASIC cable, I literally just mean a step above rabbit ears, I think it would give me clear reception to about 10 stations or so.

[shopaholic]

It will still work.

I have basic cable (but I get E, MTV, TLC, HGTV, etc).

I did notice that since I don't have digital, the TIVO dramatically reduced the sharpness of my picture and it looked like I was watching a recorded show...even when it was live tv.

[laura]

We have DirecTV, if that matters. In any case, you can still get Tivo. It will work for whatever channels you have.

[jeepgirl]

I meant to reply sooner... THANK YOU for the responses! Its encouraging. I'm going to look into it further.

Have a great weekend everyone!

[Katy]

The hubby got a free Tivo years ago (before I met him, so like about five years ago) that he's NEVER used. Of course, now, we're thinking of plugging it in and using it (as our VCR is screwy when it comes to recording) and I'm clueless.

I can't find a model number on the box or in the manual. All I know right now (I haven't taken it out yet) is that it's a 14 hour model (but since we're used to the VCR, that should work for us).

Does anyone still use an outdated model? Can they be upgraded, or do we just need to bite the bullet and buy a new one? And we'll need to get some $10 switch so we can watch and record at the same time too, right?

Bear with us, we're Tivo virgins - but OH so desparate for our de-flowering as we hear such good things.

Any help or insight will be greatly appreciated...

[Annette]

The folks over at www.tivocommunity.com will probably be able to help you.

[Katy]

I peeked over there briefly. I couldn't see a forum that jumped out at me as the place to ask anyone. But I'll post something there as well. Thanks Annette.

[Leia]

Yup, TivoCommunity can answer your question, I am quite sure. Try TivoCoffeeHouse and TivoHelpCenter.

Make sure to advise them if you have a series 1 or 2, if service was every subscribed, etc.

Tivo just dropped the prices on the boxes again - I think to 49$ - so def check around on there. It's a great site.

[Katy]

Tivo just dropped the prices on the boxes again - I think to 49$ - so def check around on there. It's a great site.

Right on. That's what made me actually dig out his old box - I wanted to buy one. I'll most definately be checking that community out. Thanks again

[Orange]

I think you should definitely be able to use it. Just hook it up and when you turn it on, you should be able to find the serial number in the menu. Once you dial up for the first time, your software will be updated to the latest version for your box. I'm sure it is Series 1 since it is that old. It will definitely work though - we just retired one a couple months ago. It worked fine but we switched to VoIP for our phone service so we couldn't dial in anymore over the phone lines.

I'll warn you though, although TiVo is great, their customer service is really awful. I've had to call back numerous times to get stuff straightened out.

[Leia]

I agree - that box should def work, but I do think series 1 is not compatible with some of the more recent features, like HMO and TivoToGo.

[Katy]

That site must be a bit slower than we are (especially since it's a weekend). That can be a little challenging to get used to - we're pretty hoppin' over here. Heck, I had a response within an hour last night.

*waitin'* *waitin'* *waitin'* :o

[Katy]

Well, I did manage to get my one, lone response from the TivoCommunity folks. So I guess, our old Tivo will work just fine for now.

My question now...is it difficult to install? Is it difficult to set the season pass?

[lawyerlee]

Well, I did manage to get my one, lone response from the TivoCommunity folks. So I guess, our old Tivo will work just fine for now.

My question now...is it difficult to install? Is it difficult to set the season pass?
Not at all. If you follow the directions, you shouldn't have any trouble. :)

[Katy]

Okay, good to know. I don't know why I'm scared of this stupid little machine. Maybe it's the addiction I know it's going to create :o

[lawyerlee]

Now *that's* the thing to fear. It really is addictive! But it truly is simple to operate, I think. And if you run into problems their customer service is helpful. :)

[ShelbyMay]

DH and I just set up our new Tivo last night. We did the setup where you can also hook up a VCR, and that seems fine. My question is, can we record one thing on Tivo and simultaneously record another show with the VCR? For instance, LOST and Veronia Mars both come on tonight at the same time. Can we record them both this way?

[IUAlum]

YES! You can. If the cable is split to both the Tivo and the VCR, it should work.

I would test it in advance to make sure it works, but I use my Tivo and VCR this way all the time. And Lost/ Veronica Mars is a prime example! :)

But Veronica Mars doesn't start until next week, from what I understand.

[IUAlum]

If my father in law can use it, ANYONE can use it. ;)

[SarahKatG]

From DH:

Yep! IUAlum is correct, though I do have one question/comment. If your VCR is hooked up right after your Tivo in line, then no you cannot record a second show in that case (but you can record your Tivo shows onto a tape this way).

To record a second show, you'll want to split the cable from the wall and put one into the Tivo's input, and one into the VCR's input. Both of those would then need to connect to the TV separately (to a different TV input) if you wanted to be able to watch both of them. You'd have to switch between Video 1, Video 2, etc. in this case though to view either the Tivo or the VCR (and you wouldn't be able to archive your Tivo shows onto the VCR this way either).

Hopefully that makes sense, feel free to ask any questions you might have.

[IUAlum]

Yes, SarahKatG was much clearer than I. She's exactly right.

[ShelbyMay]

See, I have the splitter at the wall, but I think there is only one hook-up thingy on my tv. So far, we can't get the VCR to work at all, and the dvd player has the video come up in black and white and the sound from the tv comes through...??? Something's gotta be wrong.

[PrincessDivine]

I"m able to record two shows at the same time on my tivo...not sure how I'm able to :confused:

[JRPAGV]

I'm able to record two shows at one time on my TIVO too.

[ShelbyMay]

We've been having a bunch of problems with the TIVO and have decided to return it. :( I know it's supposed to be great, but it's been too much of a hassle with our other equipment. Instead, we've decided to get dvr through our cable company, which is what we used to have and already know we like. Plus, the price includes someone to come set up the whole thing for us. :)

[Kopper]

We have a DVR from our cable company and we can record two shows at once.

[Foley42]

I hooked up our new Dual recording Tivo a week or two ago. I love it so far! One thing that annoys me to death is it automatically records things that I didn't schedule. I remember the spokes lady saying that it records things that interest you, but I don't want it to. Anyone know how to change the setting?

[ejs]

I hooked up our new Dual recording Tivo a week or two ago. I love it so far! One thing that annoys me to death is it automatically records things that I didn't schedule. I remember the spokes lady saying that it records things that interest you, but I don't want it to. Anyone know how to change the setting?

Isn't it fun seeing what Tivo suggests for you? :rolleyes: Go to those recorded items and give them three thumbs down. That will "train" your Tivo to realize that you don't like those shows.

[jnshanna]

I'm glad you're loving your new dual, Foley. When it records things for you that you didn't schedule I'm pretty sure that means that the TiVo suggestion option is turned on. I turned mine off by going to "Read new messages & Settings", then select "settings", then select "suggestions". From here you can tell it not to record suggestions. HTH! Have fun!

[jesvet]

New master thread is here!

[Foley42]

Shanna: worked perfectly! Thanks soooo much:) The red record light seemed to constantly be lit up...so annoying, but it's all fixed now :D

[ManteoChik]

So something is up with my TiVo. I noticed that it didn't record some shows that were on my season pass.

For example, I've had Desperate Housewives on my season pass for a while now with no problem. All of a sudden when it came back on from winter break it wasn't recording. Then, One Tree Hill wasn't recording and when I deleted it from the season pass and went to put it back on (to see if that would help) OTH was nowhere to be found.

There are also several other shows that I've seen are getting ready to start again and are no where to be found when I search for them on TiVo to set up a season pass.

Anyone else have this problem and how do I fix it?

[Soulmate]

So something is up with my TiVo. I noticed that it didn't record some shows that were on my season pass.

For example, I've had Desperate Housewives on my season pass for a while now with no problem. All of a sudden when it came back on from winter break it wasn't recording. Then, One Tree Hill wasn't recording and when I deleted it from the season pass and went to put it back on (to see if that would help) OTH was nowhere to be found.

There are also several other shows that I've seen are getting ready to start again and are no where to be found when I search for them on TiVo to set up a season pass.

Anyone else have this problem and how do I fix it?There is a glitch in the software that has nothing to do with anything you did. You may also find that it turns off randomly and has to reset which takes friggin forever. They are working on both glitches now. DH deleted the season passes that were effected and added them back and it seemed to fix it...at least for now.

[ManteoChik]

There is a glitch in the software that has nothing to do with anything you did. You may also find that it turns off randomly and has to reset which takes friggin forever. They are working on both glitches now. DH deleted the season passes that were effected and added them back and it seemed to fix it...at least for now.

Thanks for the response. Well, I deleted the season pass for Desperate Housewives and when I went to search for it to re-add it and it was no where to be found.

[jnshanna]

Yep, we're having the exact same issue. Really frustrating!! One of my shows didn't record so I went into the to do list and checked the "view recording history" screen for it and it said that someone in our household had modified the season pass. We KNOW we didn't do that. So we called in and they said it's the sofware just like Soulmate said. They told us it was supposed to be fixed within the week and it's been a week and we haven't seen a change. We've also noticed that the sound goes out randomly for about 30 seconds at a time.

As far as finding shows to record, I had trouble finding certain shows when I searched for them but if I went to live tv and went to guide and scrolled to the date that it was on I could find it that way.

I also learned that as long as my to do list shows have 1 check mark next to them, they will record. It's just the ones with 2 check marks that randomly fell off the list for whatever reason because they were recorded by the season pass. I didn't want to take any chances so I switched all my shows over to manually being recorded.

I hope they fix it soon!!

[Foley42]

I"m able to record two shows at the same time on my tivo...not sure how I'm able to :confused:

I'm able to record two shows at one time on my TIVO too.
The newer Tivos can record 2 shows at once. It's the one we got also. Pretty neat :)

[Lucy Van Pelt]

ManteoChik, Soulmate, and jnshanna - are you using a DirecTV Satellite receiver Tivo box and having this issue or is it a stand alone TiVo box?

[Soulmate]

ManteoChik, Soulmate, and jnshanna - are you using a DirecTV Satellite receiver Tivo box and having this issue or is it a stand alone TiVo box?We have the DirecTV receiver with Tivo.

[jnshanna]

ManteoChik, Soulmate, and jnshanna - are you using a DirecTV Satellite receiver Tivo box and having this issue or is it a stand alone TiVo box?

Ours is DirecTV TiVo HD.

[Lucy Van Pelt]

We have the DirecTV receiver with Tivo.

Ours is DirecTV TiVo HD.

We also have the DirecTV Tivo receiver and have been having the same issues. DH did a TON of research on this issue. Apparently there;s a software glitch and it's very widespread. For now, the best thing to combat the issue is to manually reboot the TiVo in as often as a daily basis. (There's a whole bunch of conspiracy thoeries about how DirecTV did this to get people to buy THEIR DVR sustem and get rid of the TiVo formats...)

We have now gotten in the habit of checking our upcoming recordings and rebooting every other day or so to make sure the glitch hasn't happened again. It really sucks.

If either of you want, I can link to the communities regarding this issues...I'll just have to check with DH to find out where they are!

[njnewyearsbride]

does anyone have directv and tivo?
we're switching to directv and looking into tv - but the boxes available on the tivo site say they cant record 2 satellite channels at once?

is tivo.com the best place to get the box?
thanks!

[stevesbabygirl]

We have DirecTV with TiVo, and we're able to record two shows at once with no problem.

[Soulmate]

We have DirecTV's receiver with Tivo and it records two channels at once. DirecTV no longer has Tivo boxes but I'm sure the Tivo brand also records two at the same time. After all that is the beauty of Tivo!

[Foley42]

is tivo.com the best place to get the box?
I'm guessing you mean price? When I searched online for Tivos other sites were way more expensive. I bought ours from tivo.com and ordered a yearly subscription all at once.

[Cali_Katy]

we're switching to directv and looking into tv - but the boxes available on the tivo site say they cant record 2 satellite channels at once?

It is my understanding that you would need to get a DirecTV Tivo to do this, and I don't believe they are on the market anymore because DirectTV and Tivo severed their relationship. You can still get the boxes on eBay, though.

[Sophia]

We have a Tivo/DirecTV box and it's always recording programs off channels we don't get (for our "Suggestions" folder). Is there a way to stop it from recording things we don't even get? Shouldn't it know we don't get those channels? It's not really an issue except when we're watching one program and recording another, and the tuner will switch to record a channel we don't even get. When we find phantom stuff in the "Suggestions" folder we just delete it, although we've gotten excited a few times only to find black screen.

[laura]

We have regular Tivo but DirecTV service and ours does this. I believe it does it b/c DirecTV does offer those channels, but they are blocked locally so we don't SEE them, but the signal is there to make Tivo think we do receive them - at least that is my understanding, if not entirely correct in technical terms. For us it is the 380s channels that are the east coast feeds of the regular network programming. I *think* there is a way to manually tell Tivo you don't receive those channels or to just simply 'block' them from being recorded, but I think you would have to do it one by one. Though our Tivo is ~5 years old or so, so it could be completely different, and I have never actually done it. I guess I'm not that helpful. :)

[Sophia]

I think our box is 2 1/2 years old. The interface is pretty user friendly and DH has explored it pretty thoroughly, but we've never figured out how to tell it to stop recording stuff we don't get. :p Oh, well, it's not really hurting anything. Since it's in the Suggestions folder it doesn't take up space for stuff we actually want.

[Nakakna]

I own a regular TiVo, but this might work for you. In your guide, do the channels that you don't "get" appear? If so, you'll need to manually turn them off in settings.

Go to Messages and Settings>Settings>Channels>Channel list. You'll have to manually delete each of those "don't get" channels separately, unfortunately. I think this should "tell" Suggestions to not record things on those channels anymore.

A good way to double-check this is to look at the upcoming suggestions that will be recorded in the future that you know are on channels that you don't receive. I have Suggestions turned off so I don't actually know if you can view those "to do's" ahead of time. Turn off those channels and after the TiVo updates, see if it deleted those upcoming shows.

I hope this helps! Sorry if it doesn't work...it's my best guess!

[Sophia]

Our guide is set to show only the channels we get. That's one of the things that confuses us.

Thanks, though. :)

[jnshanna]

Go to Messages and Settings>Settings>Channels>Channel list. You'll have to manually delete each of those "don't get" channels separately, unfortunately. I think this should "tell" Suggestions to not record things on those channels anymore.


I was also going to suggest this so I'm stumped!