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Tivo with Cable Box missing programs
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Posted by: BLeonard

Well I've avoided using my digital cable box at all and have always used my Tivos with direct cable feed to the Tivo tuner.

I recently added a second Tivo to my living room and hooked it up to the cable box. Everything appeared to be working fine (with the exception of my cable box turning itself off once during the night resulting in black screen recordings.) I was able to select a code that works great with changing channels accurately. I've tested it many many times and it never seems to miss a digit and always lands on the right channel...

However, I came home today and my Tivo was tuned to TBS. I figured a suggestion must have been recorded on that channel and checked the Now Playing List. No suggestions and no recordings were made on that channel. I checked the two recordings that had been made that day and they had recorded the wrong show but not on TBS. One recorded a block of MSNBC news programming instead of a movie I wanted on a premium channel. (By the way I tried to rerecord it but there were no more upcoming showings.) The MSNBC channel wasn't even close in numbers to the channel that should have been recorded so I don't think it missed a digit and I've tested it further and it always changes channels correctly.

I'm frustrated. This is why I avoided using the box at all before. I'm glad this is not my main machine. I don't trust the Tivo with cable box setup at all.

By the way I'm pretty sure my Tivo isn't getting stray IR from the other Tivo as I checked it and it hadn't recorded anything on MSNBC or TBS.

Posted by: DJRobX

Stray IR can be from anything, including your TV remote.

If you happen to be changing the volume while TiVo is IR blasting a channel change, that's enough to screw it up. Think of IR like Morse Code. Two people sending morse code at the same time results in undecipherable jibberish.

The only way to get truly reliable channel changes is with a "Fort". If the cable box doesn't "see" extraneous IR commands it can't get goofed up by them.

Also, if you're using the Motorola DCT2000 cable box (as most people are), you really need to set the IR code to it's slowest setting. As painful as it is, it's the most reliable.

-- Rob

Posted by: BLeonard

Actually my cable box is a Pioneer.. and I was surprised at how quickly I was able to find a code and have it appear to work perfectly. I am using the fastest one of it's type but evertime I make a manual selection of a channel it changes to it correctly. It just seems to have a problem when it is actually going to record something I want to see.

Today I came home and found a recording that was set for channel 254 and it recorded channel 25 so it obviously missed a digit there. And I was probably home at that time and it's possible I was using another remote. But yesterday it recorded on the wrong channel at 11:00 AM when no one was home. I guess I could try building a fort around the cable box. I have both IR devices scotch taped to the front of the box.

Do you think it would help to use a slower setting of the same code? The speed doesn't really bother me as this unit is really just used to record the premium channels. I never channel surf with it.

Posted by: BLeonard

By the way, I also have it set to just enter the three digits and not press enter although pressing enter when selecting manually would work also. Which is the most reliable setting to use?

Posted by: OLdDog

If you are, as it appears from your post, missing the last digit then adding the "Enter" will make no difference.

The most likely fix is to slow it down. Use at least medium and if that gives probems try slow. Ch changes are subject to many variables and slowing down ch changes increases reliability in most cases.

Some think that the TiVo always uses the "slow" mode for ch changes that are automatic but this is not the case. Timing the changes proves this. Again use a slower code and it should help.