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Care for Your TiVo During Power Outages

While we certainly expect that many of you in the mid-Atlantic region who have lost power due to the storms last weekend have bigger problems to deal with, taking a moment to unplug your TiVo or other DVR while your power is out is a good bit of preventative caution.

This advice can probably apply to many different types of electronic equipment, especially computers, but since we’re all about DVRs here, we’ll speak directly to these. One of the main components in a DVR is a hard drive, and hard drives really like consistent power, or consistent lack of power. But spinning up and down as they get and lose power is really not great for these components. And that’s generally what happens when power is out – bits come through as the crews work on getting everyone’s power back on. So you might have power for a bit, and then it’ll go off again for a bit, or the amperage or voltage will be below normal.

We generally recommend a UPS for just about everyone, and especially for situations with power fluctuations. But a UPS can only help short-term. The power it stores probably can sustain a DVR for a few hours. And it’ll be beeping that whole time, generally. See our earlier blog post for more info about a UPS working with your TiVo.

Even if you already have a UPS, you should unplug both that and your DVR, and wait until your power is on consistently. That should do a lot to protect your unit – those quick fluctuations can’t touch your unit if it isn’t plugged in.

So if you don’t have power at the moment (and you’re somehow reading this) unplug your TiVo! It can’t record now anyway! And if you have friends or relatives without power, tell them to unplug next time you talk to them.

And, should you have a problem with your unit after power restoration, we have a complete TiVo repair department, and lots of TiVo troubleshooting resources, and we can take care of almost any problem.

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Extra THR22 Remotes are Now in Stock for New DIRECTV TiVo

The remote that shipped with the new DIRECTV TiVo was certainly a surprise. While it looks and feels like a standard TiVo Peanut Remote, it’s different. It has totally different IR codes (and it has RF!).

Now, up until this point, all TiVo Peanut Remotes basically had overlapping capabilities. They all could share the standard buttons like TiVo, pause, the numbers, channel up/down, etc. And then some had more specific buttons, like the DVD playing buttons the DVD TiVo remotes have, or the ABCD buttons on the TiVo Premiere remotes, or the keyboard on the Slide Remote. But the main buttons just worked with any other TiVo that also came with a Peanut-shaped remote.

The compatibility for any Peanut remote with any other Peanut remote ended with the THR22. The THR22 is just not compatible with any other TiVo remote. So we had to find and source this remote separately, and they’re now in stock – you can order one from our TiVo THR22 accessories page.

But there’s a silver lining here, at least for some. While it’s not compatible with other TiVo DVRs, it is compatible with DIRECTV HD DVRs. So if you’ve got, say, an HR22 and you’ve always fondly remembered the TiVo remote, well, you can use this! IR code wise, it’s basically the same as the white remotes supplied by DIRECTV.

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Product Information Site Change WeaKnees News

Pre-Paid TiVo Lifetime Service Boxes

If you’re looking for a DVR that doesn’t require a monthly fee, we have something that might work for you.

We have several TiVo DVRs here that already have lifetime service paid on them. These are true TiVo DVRs that don’t require a monthly fee. Just to be clear, lifetime service isn’t transferable from one unit to another. So to take advantage of the lifetime service attached to these units, you’ll have to actually use this specific hardware.

All of these units have been refurbished, tested, and warranted by us. All ship with cables and remotes. And, in weaKnees fashion, we can upgrade the recording capacity in these units.

TiVo Product Lifetime Service (PLS) alone costs $399.99 to $499.99 from TiVo. Our units, with this service already on them, start at $199.99!

We currently have several different models in stock – Series 1, Series 2, Series 3 (HD) and even some units with DVD burners in them. But we don’t have a lot of any of these, so if you’re looking, don’t hold off too long.

For cord-cutters, these units make a great way to receive and record OTA channels, and pay no monthly fees at all. Just note that for OTA, the Series 1 units won’t work at all, and the Series 2 units will require a digital converter box (separate hardware, but still no monthly fee). The Series3 HD units have built-in digital tuners to receive and record OTA signals, and, in fact, they can record two at once.

Please see our page of TiVo DVRs with Pre-paid Lifetime Service.

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Product Information Site Change WeaKnees News

WeaKnees Now Upgrading the LG BD690 to 2 TB

We’re always looking for another video storage unit to upgrade, and it looks like we’ve found one: the LG BD690 Blu-ray Vudu box. If you’ve got one, it’s got a 250 GB drive in it. We can upgrade it to 1 or 2 TB.

Here’s a screenshot of a 2 TB unit:

Please see our page for LG BD690 upgrades.

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DirecTV Product Information WeaKnees News

DIRECTV TiVos are Fully In Stock

We’ve gotten through our first backlog, and then our second backlog, and now we’ve finally got plenty of units on hand and in stock.

So if you’re looking for a DIRECTV THR22 HD TiVo, we’re shipping them out every weekday. And we’ve got them in the stock size (500GB) and up to four times that (2TB).