OK, so this one probably isn’t exactly the fault of the customer, but maybe the shipping company?
I’m pretty sure that with a little work we’ll get this baby up and running in no time.
So the moral of the story isn’t really “pack your TiVo well,” but “don’t let a truck run over your TiVo.”
We often get asked a question about whether DirecTV TiVos really need to dial in. Sometimes, it’s because the modem is broken. Other times, it’s because the phone line isn’t anywhere near the TiVo.
And the answer is: most DirecTV TiVos do not need to dial in. We’d love to sell you a TiVo external modem kit to fix your broken modem or to make your TiVo work with VoIP or digital phone lines, but in many cases, you just don’t need to have the TiVo dial in. Series 1 DirecTV TiVos DO need to dial in – the rest of this does not apply to these units (Sony SAT T-60, Philips DSR6000, or Hughes GXCEBOT). But Series 2 and the HR10-250 units get their guide data and everything else they need from the satellite.
If you don’t let your TiVo dial in, you’ll get the “nag” screen, once per day. Here’s a nag screen of a TiVo that hasn’t dialed in in quite some time.
So what is your TiVo missing out on if it can’t dial in? The main things it misses are:
If those issues don’t bother you or don’t apply to you, then you can happily just leave your Series 2 or HD DirecTV TiVo disconnected from the phone line, and you shouldn’t have problems.
Yes, we get the question all the time: How can I see how much space is left on my TiVo?
It’s a good question. Since we’re in the capacity-upgrade field, our customers often want to know how far they are from filling up their unit.
The problem is, TiVo has no official way to tell how much space is left. Why is that, you may ask? We surmise that TiVo thinks it would cause more problems than it would solve. There really is just no easy way to express how much recording space is left, for a few reasons. On standalone TiVos, you have four different recording qualities, so TiVo would have to pick one, and it may not be the one you’d choose. On DirecTV combo units, different shows are compressed at different ratios, so a number could only be very general. Further, on each of these units, deleting a one-hour show may not make the reported number rise by one hour, further adding to the confusion.
But there is a way to get a rough, but usable, gauge about how much space there is left on your unit: TiVo Suggestions.
TiVo Suggestions is a feature where, based on your recording history, your Season Passes, and your thumbs settings, the TiVo will try to determine what shows you like. And it can auto-record them, which is the key.
When it is set to auto-record TiVo Suggestions, the unit will fill up all remaining space with suggested shows. This may take a few days. But once the Suggestions list is full, those shows are the first to delete as other shows that you’ve picked to record take priority on the drive.
So by viewing the list of TiVo Suggestions, and since they take all otherwise ‘available’ space, you can gauge how much space you have left.
Here’s a screenshot of one TiVo with some suggestions recorded:
As the list grows from 11 shows, more space is available. If it shrinks to single digits, then your shows may be in jeopardy of being deleted. If it’s down to one or two, watch out!
To turn on auto-record of TiVo Suggestions, you’ll find the option on most units here:
Messages & Settings -> Settings -> Recordings -> Suggestions
Just set it to auto-record, wait a few days for the queue to fill, and you’re all set!
We hear from a lot of customers who have problems with their TiVo modems. And we sell a TiVo external modem kit to address many of those problems – basically the ones either involving hardware failure, or VoIP phone lines such as Vonage.
But there’s another issue that accounts for many modem failures at the moment, and you don’t need our modem kit to fix it: a problem with local dial-in numbers. We’ve been getting calls from many customers over the last week about this problem, and TiVo has a support page up for these problems. They are basically telling customers to access a new dial-in number by having them query the main TiVo number for an updated list of local access numbers.
So if you think you might be having a problem getting local guide data, and you use a phone line to access TiVo, then you should visit the above link, or, if you have a Series2 or Series3 TiVo, consider networking your TiVo to avoid these problems.
DirecTV and TiVo: The Update
At WeaKnees, we constantly have DirecTV and TiVo users calling to ask what to do, given the existing hardware, current channel lineups, and future products. The landscape has changed a few times over the last year, so we’re writing to update readers on hardware plans, channel lineups, and our recommendations for what to do in various situations.
To start, a history (skip down further for our current recommendations): DirecTV and TiVo partnered together almost ten years ago to make some of the first DVRs. Along with hardware companies, they produced many models, most branded by those third-party hardware companies.
In April of 2004, DirecTV released the first HD TiVo – the HR10-250. This was DirecTV branded, and only worked with DirecTV and OTA (over the air antenna) programming. This was a landmark unit, being the first mainstream HD DVR. That unit is the only model of HD TiVo for DirecTV produced to date. The HR10-250 could read all of the standard definition and HD signals that DirecTV then broadcast, from every satellite that DirecTV used for transmissions.
DirecTV and TiVo stopped working together to produce new hardware after the final unit – the DirecTV branded, standard definition R10. At this point, when there was no new DirecTV and TiVo hardware on the horizon, we recommended that TiVo lovers who valued TiVo more than DirecTV, switch to cable and get an HD TiVo for cable. This is still a great option – especially because these units use CableCARDs which make the experience seamless.
But, to be clear, DirecTV and TiVo had agreed to continue to support the software on the existing hardware. So, even without producing new hardware, all of the millions of TiVo/DirecTV DVRs in use would continue (and do continue) to get software updates with new features, bug fixes, and other changes (like those needed to properly support daylight saving time).
After DirecTV and TiVo parted ways on the hardware front, DirecTV went on to produce their own DVRs. These units were the R15, R16, and R22 for standard definition, and the HR20, HR21, HR21 Pro, and HR22 for high definition. The numbering system confuses many customers since they assumed they could “upgrade” from an R10 to an R15 or from an HR10 to an HR20 and gain features, only to find they received a completely different unit with a completely different interface.
On the standard definition front, the new non-TiVo units really didn’t add features or capabilities beyond a bit of interactivity. (For more details on these units, see the WeaKnees R10 – R15 DirecTV DVR comparison.)
The new HD DVRs from DirecTV, however, added an important feature: the ability to decode and record MPEG4 signals. DirecTV had begun a transition to MPEG4 from MPEG2 for HD broadcasts, and the HR10-250 – the HD TiVo – is not able to see these signals at all. So that left the HR10-250 stuck with its current lineup of HD channels. At the time, DirecTV hadn’t yet started broadcasting HD in MPEG4. But after DirecTV launched new satellites, they started rolling out local HD channels for more and more cities in MPEG4 format, leaving HR10-250 users without the ability to view and record those channels. The HR10-250 can, however, record OTA HD channels, so in many cases, HR10-250 owners weren’t missing any HD broadcasting.
Over time, though, DirecTV began to release new HD channels in MPEG4 format. These were national HD feeds of channels like CNN, A&E, FX, and STARZ. At this point, customers with HR10-250s started having to choose between keeping their equipment, and getting access to the newer channels.
The next step in the transition to MPEG4 has been to decommission the MPEG2 stations that older hardware relied on for HD. DirecTV started this process earlier in 2008, beginning with the West Coast HD feeds of local stations. At this point, once HR10-250 users began to actually lose access to programming they had already been receiving, the push to move forward was on. So this left customers with a big decision: leave DirecTV and get TiVoHD units for cable, or stick with DirecTV, and use their generic DVRs instead of TiVo. The choice was largely a decision of whether the DVR interface was more important, or the specific programming channels offered by DirecTV or a customer’s local cable company.
But a few months ago, TiVo and DirecTV amazed us all, and announced that after years of hiatus, they would, in fact, produce new hardware together, specifically, a new HD DVR that would support MPEG4 signals. So this really changes the possibilities again. And we hope, but we don’t know for sure, that the new hardware will support services that the non-DirecTV HD TiVos now support like Amazon Unbox, streaming Netflix, and all of the other networking features that make current HD TiVos for cable much more than just DVRs.
For HR10-250 or just TiVo-loving DirecTV customers in general, we currently recommend one of these three paths: