TiVo. Problems, hints and tips!
 

As the other TiVo thread seems to be getting quite large now, and is mostly concerned with people actually trying to get one, I thought perhaps another thread is needed for those lucky enough to actually have had TiVo installed, where any questions could be put or tips given.
Kicking things off then, does anybody know if it is possible to back up something from the TiVo hard drive to a DVD recorder as could be done with a V+? I've been through the menu but can't seem to see it as an option!

Re: TiVo. Problems, hints and tips!
 

Yep just link the recorder into scart on tivo play/watch what you want to transfer and record it on your recorder.

Re: TiVo. Problems, hints and tips!
 

Excellent, thanks. Presumably you can't have that going on in the background then whilst you watch something else like you could on the V+, or can you?

Re: TiVo. Problems, hints and tips!
 

Don't think so, mainly cause you have 1GB of storage. You don't really need to back it up lol.

Re: TiVo. Problems, hints and tips!
 

That is a pain.
I send a lot of shows over to family in Canada and
having to do it one by one and not able to watch anything
else is going to be a non starter for me.:td:

Re: TiVo. Problems, hints and tips!
 

That's how it's done for now ;)

Re: TiVo. Problems, hints and tips!
 

Another of the "to do" items to add to the list then, the HDD could fail whatever capacity it has, so important recordings need a facility to back up and it would be crazy to limit this to something you have to watch to record. Needs same facaility as V+. In our house it is used to copy a programme onto DVD so it can be played on another TV in the house with a DVD player.

Re: TiVo. Problems, hints and tips!
 

I agree. Although TiVo is a step up from the V+ in so many ways, this is obviously not one of them!:confused:

Re: TiVo. Problems, hints and tips!
 

How do you send to family in Canada with things being different formats (PAL/NTSC)? Just curious as there's things I'd love to send to a couple of friends/family back home, but unable to do so.

Feel free to pm me as I suppose this question is already taking the thread off course.

Re: TiVo. Problems, hints and tips!
 

Does anyone know if you can connect Tivo to your wireless network to stream content from your computer - or a NAS - I seem to think they can do this in the US?

Re: TiVo. Problems, hints and tips!
 

You could use a tool like Handbrake to convert it to a more portable format (MKV/MP4).

Re: TiVo. Problems, hints and tips!
 

The box doesn't have wireless but has an Ethernet port and in the menus a media key is mentioned so I think it's possible that network playback will be possible eventually.

Re: TiVo. Problems, hints and tips!
 

It's a bit like here
The cheap DVD players will play anything
And the Sony type won't.
My cousin bought a DVD player for 40 bucks
And it plays everything
No conversion req

Re: TiVo. Problems, hints and tips!
 

I'll have to send something over and see if they're able to play it then. When I've sent home movies I've always changed them to NTSC format to make up the DVD on the computer.

Will have a go and see what happens - thanks :)

Re: TiVo. Problems, hints and tips!
 

Some remote tips from the guys over at tivocommunity, many still from the S1 days...

* Pressing CLEAR works as a shortcut for delete on most pages - most handy on the "my shows" page
* Press and hold TEXT switches your TV AV sources - that's how I flip between VM TiVo / TiVo S1 / DVD
* Press and hold POWER button turn turn TV on/off - a short press makes TiVo go into standby
* Press SLOW to toggle mini TV screen at top right

* The good old shortcuts still work - though it's "home" and not "TiVo" button:

Home+Home : My recordings (now playing)
Home+1 : Manage series links
Home+2 : Planned recordings (todo list)
Home+3 : Wishlists
Home+4 : Search all TV
Home+5 : Browse all TV
Home+0 : full screen TV + pause ?

Cheers,

A.

Re: TiVo. Problems, hints and tips!
 

That's excellent, thanks for that.

Re: TiVo. Problems, hints and tips!
 

Not a tip per se, but a couple features that I loved on my old Tivo that for whatever reason never appeared on V+ or Sky+.

1. Record First Run Only - only record if it has never been shown on any UK channel ever. Great for pulling out that occasional new episode of the Simpsons or whatever.

2. Record at Most... great for getting stocking fillers of loads of shows - the wife likes the odd Oprah, 2 and a half men, that sort of rubbish. This feature used to let me always have the past 3 or 5 most recent episodes of fillers.

Re: TiVo. Problems, hints and tips!
 

Those feautures are on VM TiVo.

Re: TiVo. Problems, hints and tips!
 

I did have a Sony DVD player and Pioneer DVD player, which have now been replaced with a Samsung DVD recorder, and a JVC dvd recorder. All four play both NTSC and PAL disks fine, and will covert to PAL if needed (although all my TVs will do NTSC playback as well, so it's not a problem if they didn't anyway).

I don't know if it's the same in the US, but generally any DVD player sold in the UK will play NTSC discs, as long as either the disk is not region coded (which if recorded on a DVD recorder is likely to be the case) or the player has been unlocked.

Re: TiVo. Problems, hints and tips!
 

Nope - they're not as 'advanced' as this lot over here LOL. I'm from Canada (same video formats and equipment as the US), and while I can buy and play NTSC formatted discs and Videos from Canada and US and play them here, over there their TV's and video equipment cannot decode the PAL into an NTSC signal.

Though the other poster has said that his recorded videos work fine, so I may try recording a programme here onto DVD and seeing if my family can play them. Obviously as you say region coded DVD's cannot play (and you cannot cheaply - if at all - unlock regions in North American players to my knowledge - unlike here where most companies build in a code to unlock them) but maybe they can cope with just a recorded DVD. I'll have to give it a go.

Re: TiVo. Problems, hints and tips!
 

I think the main reason our DVD players will play NTSC discs is that region 2 includes Japan as well as Europe and they use NTSC in Japan. PAL-playback DVD players do seem to be getting more popular Stateside though. I have a friend in San Diego who has several players that'll convert PAL to NTSC as his family are huge Anglophiles and buy loads of British DVDs from Play.com

Re: TiVo. Problems, hints and tips!
 

Surely you mean 1TB.

Re: TiVo. Problems, hints and tips!
 

Actually, I read an article in a DVD magazine that suggested it was simply because it's considerably cheaper to maintain one manufacturing line that manufactures DVD players that can do both than it is to maintain two manufacturing lines that can each manufacture DVD players that can play PAL or NTSC.