TiVo : Tivo with scart and CRT TV

[tvout]

Hi all,
With the installation of Tivo due this Friday I'm still trying to decide if I'll be happy with it as I had a call from VM this morning about reminders and they told me they wouldn't be likely. Anyway, aside from that I believe the Tivo only has one Scart socket whereas I think the V+ boxes have two which suits me well having a CRT TV, DVD Recorder and VCR all connected through scart.
I also read somewhere about the quality of the Tivo over Scart wasn't that good.
I'm assuming the Tivo is aimed towards owners of newer TVs more and I'm also not massively fond of the concept of recording everything to watch it all at another time.
Thing is, aren't they changing the V+ boxes to be like Tivo as well so will I end up with a Tivo box with 160GB capacity in a sense. Also how would that work if a Tivo install has its own 10MB broadband connection?
Just worried I'll be paying £50 and be unhappy with the Tivo as they said I could go back but would lose that money.
Hopefully they might get cheaper or at least the £50 offer will still be there in the future if I opted not to go ahead with the install...

[Ben B]

How many SCART sockets does your TV have? I would assume that TiVo just uses RGB scart like all the other boxes so there shouldn't be issues with picture quality. They're not changing the V+ boxes to TiVo as they are incompatible. Personally, I don't think you'll want to go back once you've got the TiVo box with all the functionality it brings. If you are unhappy, as you are taking out a new service the 28 day money back guarantee applies so you can go back.

[jb66]

All stbs have a modem

[tvout]

Originally Posted by jb66

All stbs have a modem

I read somewhere that if you have a Tivo and a V+ box you can swap them over as they have the same connection. If that is the case why can't Tivos be delivered and installed by the customer?
I was thinking they might have needed some other changes?

---------- Post added at 09:51 ---------- Previous post was at 09:47 ----------

Originally Posted by Ben B

How many SCART sockets does your TV have? I would assume that TiVo just uses RGB scart like all the other boxes so there shouldn't be issues with picture quality. They're not changing the V+ boxes to TiVo as they are incompatible. Personally, I don't think you'll want to go back once you've got the TiVo box with all the functionality it brings. If you are unhappy, as you are taking out a new service the 28 day money back guarantee applies so you can go back.

Thanks Ben B, my tv has two scart sockets, one from the vcr and dvd recorder and the other from the V+ box.

[Peter_]

Originally Posted by tvout

I read somewhere that if you have a Tivo and a V+ box you can swap them over as they have the same connection. If that is the case why can't Tivos be delivered and installed by the customer?
I was thinking they might have needed some other changes?

Because the TiVo takes at least 45 minutes to set up which any of the people who have TiVo can verify and they have to ensure that it is working correctly or you will be on the phone soon after install.

[spiderplant]

Originally Posted by tvout

I read somewhere that if you have a Tivo and a V+ box you can swap them over as they have the same connection. If that is the case why can't Tivos be delivered and installed by the customer?
I was thinking they might have needed some other changes?

TiVo is much more dependent on the modem than the other boxes, so VM have decided to make all TiVo installs manned to make sure the signal levels are checked.

Originally Posted by tvout

Thanks Ben B, my tv has two scart sockets, one from the vcr and dvd recorder and the other from the V+ box.

Do you want to record on the VCR and DVD from the TiVo? If so you may need to connect it TiVo-DVD-VCR-TV. Otherwise it's just a straight replacement of the V+ with the TiVo.

As far as picture quality goes, the TiVo output is RGB, but it doesn't signal correctly at the moment, so some TVs don't realise RGB is available. This should be fixed by the next TiVo software update.

Regardless of this, most TVs only accept RGB from the first SCART socket (usually called AV1 or EXT1), so the chances are even now you don't get RGB from both the V+ and DVD. You need to decide which device is most important to you and plug this into the first SCART socket on the TV.

[zantarous]

Or get scart splitter like I used to have. Or if your DVDR player has two scarts and passes RGB through both you can use it to loop the RGB signal from the TiVo.

[tvout]

Many thanks all, I have a scart splitter I can probably use so should be ok. I think my RGB is only on AV1 so have the box connected directly to that and the other devices going through to AV2

[nicko]

I've had Tivo installed today and have question on this,

Do you have to manually select RGB or PAL Video scart output somewhere in the menus like on V+ ?

Originally Posted by nicko

I've had Tivo installed today and have question on this,

Do you have to manually select RGB or PAL Video scart output somewhere in the menus like on V+ ?

Should be automatic but someone said early in this thread thats not working properly so i would set it manually to RGB

[nicko]

Originally Posted by JethroUK

Should be automatic but someone said early in this thread thats not working properly so i would set it manually to RGB

Yes but where do you select RGB output, because it isn't automatic that I can see?

Originally Posted by nicko

Yes but where do you select RGB output, because it isn't automatic that I can see?

Not used scart myself but I cant see any settings for it

[nicko]

I can't see any setting for it like there is on V+, it's ridiculous if it hasn't got it because it would seem to be a basic requirement to fit peoples different home entertainment set-ups.

[zantarous]

The box is capable of outputting RGB nut currently no option exists to switch it on. Who knows if it will ever appear in a update.