Well, it looks like our customers aren’t alone. We’ve had several customers call with HR2X problems, that were solved by a simple restart. And it looks like this affects a pretty large group of people – at least, those who care to go online to report it.
The problem, as reported, is that the unit seems to be off, and is unresponsive to the remote. Pulling the plug and rebooting the unit seems to solve the problem
More at Engadget.
This is definitely a hot topic, and we get questions about how to make these transfers all the time. We also get tons of spammers clogging up our forums with their posts on how to do it – and where to purchase their software (and, yes, we delete those threads as fast as we can).
But, in the end, TiVo.com has the best tutorials on how to make these transfers, so we recommend that you just see their pages for the best information. Links are at the bottom.
Some notes about what’s required for this to work:
Then, you just follow the steps in TiVo’s tutorials:
We sell add kits for almost all versions of TiVo DVRs (as opposed to replace kits, which we do have for every single model). These add kits won’t install with version 6.4a of the DirecTV TiVo software on these models:
This same problem came up a few years ago with standalone TiVos running some subversions of TiVo OS version 7.2.
Here are the symptoms: attaching one of our add kits will cause the TiVo to go to the “Welcome, Powering Up” screen, followed by the “Almost There, a few minutes more” screen, then reboot back to the first screen. This cycle repeats endlessly.
Now that we’re aware of the issue, we’re notifying all customers of the potential problems before we ship the kits. Here are the options in this situation:
We really think #1 is the best option, as we think these units generally need replace-style kits, but we do still continue to offer add kits to those unwilling to lose their programming, or to send us the unit for us to install a replace kit and copy the contents.
So if you’re looking for an add kit, check your OS version first. If you haven’t gotten 6.4a yet, unplug the unit from the phone line immediately! You can then install an add kit, and let the unit upgrade later.
(Note: that’s not “an” SWM, since it’s generally read as “swim,” at least, in these parts.)
A customer just purchase a SWM from us, and he plans to solve a slightly different problem than we’ve previously encountered: he couldn’t get KCET (our local PBS station) in HD, since DirecTV doesn’t carry that signal in HD, even over the 5LNB dish.
He previously had KCET in HD from his OTA antenna, but when he upgraded to MPEG4, he lost the ability to diplex the OTA signal into his satellite cables. But, with the SWM, the ability to diplex OTA (or cable, or most CCTV signals) into the stacked satellite signal is back. DirecTV made sure to keep their signals on different frequencies than the common cable and antenna frequencies.
So if you’ve been stuck with a choice between OTA and MPEG4 due to the number of cables, this box can solve that problem.
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.