If you’ve been following our blog posts about the issues with DIRECTV TiVos rebooting, you’ve seen that we got some internal confirmation that DIRECTV knows about the problem.
They’re now making that information public:
As far as we know, this applies to units beyond just the R10. You can read DIRECTV’s Twitter feed on the subject here.
Since this past weekend, we’ve been getting flooded with emails and phone calls about DirecTV TiVos rebooting. Reports include basically all units except for the new THR22 HD TiVo. So this DOES include the older HR 10-250 HD TiVo, and all SD TiVos for DirecTV.
While we don’t know the cause of the situation, considering that it clearly affects Series1 and Series2 models all over the country, the source of the problem must be the satellite signal. Many affected units are not plugged into phone lines. And we’ve had no similar wave of reports about either non-DirecTV units, or about DirecTV DVRs that don’t run TiVo.
We do have some queries in to various contacts. But we have no information as of yet.
There’s a thread over on TiVoCommunity that covers the issue. It’s mostly just a list of people saying “yeah, me too” at this point, but if you have this problem, it’s worth keeping an eye on the thread.
We’ll be sure to update everyone if we learn more. Hopefully, the problem will disappear just as mysteriously as it arose.
From time to time we come into possession of TiVo DVRs that already have lifetime subscriptions. So you can buy one, and never pay a monthly fee on the unit.
Further, TiVo charges $399.99 to $499.99 for the lifetime service alone. So these units are a great deal, especially for a new TiVo user who would be at the $499.99 price point.
We’ve just refreshed our inventory of lifetime units. See our page listing TiVo DVRs with prepaid Lifetime Subscriptions.
After big storms, we get a huge number of calls from people about their TiVo problems. These storms generate create serious issues with fluctuating power, and those power inconsistencies can really damage TiVos and other DVRs.
So, if you are in the Northeast and you have a TiVo or any DVR, just unplug it while the storm comes through. You might miss a few shows, but you might save your unit.
And if you’re reading this post after the damage has been done, we do have a full repair department:
DIRECTV has been promoting their new Genie system pretty heavily. The Genie is essentially one HR34 HMC (we’ve got those in stock also) and one to three C31 clients.
The C31 is a nice, small unit that was designed to work only with an HR34. It uses the tuners and storage of the HR34.
Since it does so little on-board, the actual component is extremely small – great for mounting behind a flat-screen TV.
You can order a C31 here.