TiVo Community Forums Archives - Got the TiVo last night, set it up, 1000's more ?'s

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Got the TiVo last night, set it up, 1000's more ?'s
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Posted by: JamDordek

Thank you to everybody who answered my questions yesterday. Your recommendations were invaluable. I ended up getting the 80 hour unit. I figured that I'd rather have more space than fill it up every other day. I still have a couple questions and I wondered if you all wouldn't mind helping out again?

1.) I read through the manual and I understand that changing the channel through the TiVo is always going to be a slow process, but is there any way to make it a least a little faster? It takes the TiVo a good 10 seconds to type in the channel numbers. I'm not sure I can use it this way.

2.) I used a splitter to connect the cable to the TV and the box. That part seems to work ok, but I noticed that the reception through both the tv and the TiVo/cablebox was pretty poor on some channels. Did I do something wrong, or is this just a function of splitting the cable signal? Is there anything I can do to improve this?

3.) It turns out I don't have a phone jack behind the TV. (I don't know why I thought my digital cable was plugged into one?) The closest jack is about 25 feet away in a place that would make it impossible to wind the cord to. I noticed that in the manual it says that you only have to make a call once a week. Is this an effective way to do it? Will I miss anything if I manually hook it up once a week? Should I look into having a jack installed?

Thank you again for your help! I am looking forward to learning all this stuff so that I can pass my knowledge on to everyone I know.

Jamie

Posted by: pendragn

Welcome to the TiVolution! Let's see if I can help with some of these questions.

quote:

1.) I read through the manual and I understand that changing the channel through the TiVo is always going to be a slow process, but is there any way to make it a least a little faster? It takes the TiVo a good 10 seconds to type in the channel numbers. I'm not sure I can use it this way.

Are you talking about when you're watching live TV, or when the TiVo is changing channels to record something? If it's the former, stop watching live TV!!!! Just kidding. Sort of. One of the pleasure of TiVo is that you don't need to watch live TV. Actually when you do, you miss out on fast forwarding through commercials. Each person is different, but I found once I broke myself of watching live TV, my TiVo experience got a whole lot better.

If it's during recording that it bugs you, there is one option I know of. When I had my SAs and used a DirecTV receiver, there was normally three speeds that the TiVo could spit the IR code out at. You might see if you can bump that up.

quote:
3.) It turns out I don't have a phone jack behind the TV. (I don't know why I thought my digital cable was plugged into one?) The closest jack is about 25 feet away in a place that would make it impossible to wind the cord to. I noticed that in the manual it says that you only have to make a call once a week. Is this an effective way to do it? Will I miss anything if I manually hook it up once a week? Should I look into having a jack installed?

Well, TiVo is nothing without it's guide data, so keep that in mind when messing with when TiVo can get it's guide data. :) Normally the TiVo has guide data two weeks out, so if you let it call in once a week, you should always have a week in reserve. Of course you'll miss any last minute changes, like the stuff that happened around the World Series a couple of weeks ago. If that's not important to you, then dialing out manually once a week will work, but I feel obligated to persuade you to get the phone jack put in and do it "correctly", although your idea will work.

Good luck,
tk

Posted by: tomlouie

1. You may want to experiment with different IR code speed settings. Have you tried Fast or Med?

2. A splitter will weaken the signal. Have you considered not splitting the signal, and just having the signal go to the cable box/TiVo only? Everyone at first thinks that they'll need a split signal separate from their TiVo, but eventually, they use TiVo 100% of the time. :)

3. You could run the wire out once a week and manually force a call. You'll only miss something if they change the schedule during those few days. There are also wireless phone jacks you can buy. The TiVo store www.tivo.com sells them.

I hope that helps.

Tom

Posted by: devdogaz

I have used the Wireless Modem jacks and they work fine. I got mine off ebay for under $30. Do a search for Wireless Modem Jack and there should be plenty of sellers. You could hook up the phone cord occasionally but that would just be a hassle. It's great to have the TiVo all set up so it really never requires much user maintenance. It gets it's own data, knows what you want to watch and all you have to do is plop down on the couch and watch away.

Posted by: Sopranoman

If you have a wireless router you could buy a adaptor and go that way too:D .