Starting today, customers using Google Checkout to purchase from WeaKnees get $10 off orders of $60 or more.
Here are the exact terms:
Look for this button and get your discount:
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Many of us remember when Oprah gave out TiVos to her viewers, but we haven’t heard much about a partnership between Oprah and TiVo since. But something small is brewing.
A customer of ours mysteriously got some copies of O Magazine delivered, and couldn’t figure out where they got his name. Well, TiVo to the rescue! The following notice arrived, asking him to renew:
Some company is making money somehow – and I, for one, don’t see how TiVo gets much out of this one, unless they’re the ones getting paid. But based on what this customer claims to be recording on his TiVo, something’s wrong with the demographic match. Or he’s a closet daytime TV viewer.
We’ve just gotten the AM21 in stock. This is a peripheral unit that will tune digital OTA signals. It works with the H21, the HR21 (all models), and the HR21 Pro. It is the same color and look (black and shiny) and footprint as the H21 and HR21, but not the HR21 Pro. [Note: This is NOT compatible with the H21]
In this picture, the AM21 is the top component, and the bottom is an HR21 that has been paired to it.
We have the AM21 on our DirecTV equipment page.
So what is OTA and why would you need it? OTA is over-the-air, as in, antenna broadcasts. These are the newer digital antenna broadcasts to which all local broadcasters are migrating. You may have read about the changes in broadcast methods that will be complete in February of 2009 (see our blog post about the digital TV transition); the older analog signals will cease to be broadcast, and only the newer digital signals will continue. It is those digital signals that the AM21 can record.
Local broadcasters will be sending digital signals out in HD (and, in some cases, SD) for free. These transmissions generally are less compressed than the HD signal put out by DirecTV. In many cases, these signals are also unavailable through DirecTV’s satellites. So adding this component will likely increase the quality of your local HD channels, and potentially it will increase the variety. You may also choose to discontinue paying DirecTV for local channels if your reception is good enough where you live.
The AM21 seamlessly integrates the OTA channels (both HD and SD) into the interface of the H21 or HR21. Unless you’re looking for it, you’ll never really know that the channel is coming from the antenna instead of the satellite. Further, these channels are fully recordable on DVRs, just the same as the signals coming from the satellite dish.
In most areas, you’ll need an antenna to get decent digital OTA reception. We sell a few OTA antennas. If you already have an old antenna on your roof, that may be perfectly fine – the technology of these new ones is similar enough that older ones often get good reception. In some cases, these new antennas can even be used indoors to get reception.
The AM21 has a power pass-through for the host DTV receiver (H21 or HR21) so that you don’t need an extra power outlet for this unit.
Finally, if you want an all-in-one solution, where the DirecTV DVR has an internal OTA tuner, we still have the HR20 DirecTV DVR in stock.
We’ve got a pretty extensive TiVo troubleshooting page on our site, but I thought I’d recap about the issues specific to power supplies, because we get a lot of questions about these.
The primary symptom of a bad power supply is getting no video out of any output port. That includes the gray screen – if you get even a gray screen, likely you don’t have a bad power supply. You need to get no video out at all – not even a flicker on your TV screen when you power up the TiVo.
But people often are convinced that the power supply is OK even without video, for some other reason. So here is a list of problems that people report that are all still consistent with problematic power supplies. If you have any of these same occurrences, you can still have a bad power supply – we see it all the time:
Customers often ask, “If one or more of the above is taking place, how could the power supply be bad?” Well, in many cases, when a power supply is bad, none of the above take place. But power supplies fail in different ways. The connector that delivers power to the drives uses different components on the motherboard than the flat white (parlex) cable that delivers power to the motherboard. And that cable holds several connectors, so sometimes there is a failure of some power delivery through it to certain components (like the processing chips) but not to the fan.
In short, the best way to diagnose a bad power supply is the video test: no video = bad power supply. Then, the best way to check that is to install a replacement power supply. Our power supplies are returnable subject to our normal terms.
We now have replacement TiVo power supplies for almost every model out there.
In Part 1, we posted about problems where networked TiVos can’t transfer shows because they don’t realize they have been authorized to transfer. This segment deals with a common network problem: different subnets.
A “subnet” is an isolated area of a network, generally with an IP address list in a reserved area of the IP space specifically for networks behind gateways and/or routers. This is extremely common in homes and small offices – almost all home networks use subnets. Essentially, in addition to adding security to the network, this also enables several network devices to share one public IP address to communicate with the outside world.
The router, then, creates a table of the local IP addresses, and figures out what traffic from the outside internet goes to what computer or other network device on the inside network. This inside network is where computers typically have lower security enabled, which allows computers to share files, printers, etc.
For two TiVos to talk across a network, they need to be on the same subnet. They scan this internal area to see what other DVR is out there, and they check to see if both units are on the same account and if each has “Allow Transfers” enabled (see previous post).
So if your Now Playing List doesn’t contain entries for the other TiVo(s) on your network at the very bottom, then it’s possible they aren’t on the same subnet.
To determine this, go to your TiVo Central -> Messages & Settings -> Settings -> Phone & Network. On that screen, first verify your subnet mask. Essentially, this “mask” tells your device that if certain other devices have similar IP addresses to this one, then they are “local” and they don’t need to go through a gateway to talk to each other.
The most common subnet mask, and the only one we’ll cover here, is 255.255.255.0. In almost all cases, this will be what your TiVo shows. What this basically says is, if the first three sets of numbers (octets) between the dots are the same on another device as they are on this one, that other device is on the same subnet, or local.
Now, assuming your shows 255.255.255.0, then make sure that, in fact, you are on the same subnet. So see if your IP address (in the area marked “IP addr.:”) is the same as that of the other TiVo DVR, except for the numbers after the final dot. Also be sure they both have the same information for their routers.
What should you do if they aren’t on the same subnet, as evidenced by these numbers? Most likely, that means you’re on two different wireless networks. If you’re using wireless, you should check the network names. If the names are generic (like “linksys”) it may mean that there are two networks with the same name floating around in that area. If that’s the case, reconfigure your router with a unique name (and, you should be using WPA also, to keep hackers off your network).
In some cases, you can show the right information on each unit, and still you aren’t on the same network. That’s because in the subnet world, the internal IP addresses are reused. Most start with 192.168 for the first two octets. So it’s possible the two TiVos are on different networks that use the same subnet set. If that’s possible, and it’s not a WiFi issue (see above) then you may be plugged into different networks in the same location. The best test of this is to hardwire each unit to the same router, and reboot each.