Giving up on tivo

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150 posts

Master Geek

#663370 28-Jul-2012 18:31

Well for the second time today I have the gray screen of death! Unplugged and tried to reboot, welcome screen then gray. Mildly miffed to say the least! Have to hook up the T1020 again now

mattwnz

20147 posts

Uber Geek

#663373 28-Jul-2012 18:39

Cloudy: Well for the second time today I have the gray screen of death! Unplugged and tried to reboot, welcome screen then gray. Mildly miffed to say the least! Have to hook up the T1020 again now

Thats the problem with buying on trademe, unless they also provide you with the original receipt. it may have been one of the free ones that telecom gave to new customers. But you could still try tivo to see what they will do.

Skolink

1081 posts

Uber Geek

#663471 29-Jul-2012 00:02

Cloudy: Unfortunately for me I bought mine off Trademe. I've emailed the people I bought it off, they offered a 30 day return to base warranty, which ends basically today. hows that for bad luck. still waiting to here back from them. I have a feeling I will just have to write this of to fate.
Does anyone know what it costs roughly to get these things serviced to make them reliable?

Just the price of a new SATA hard drive (Eg $100 for 1Tb). If you are in Christchurch I can do it for you. Only takes a few minutes.

Cloudy

150 posts

Master Geek

#663501 29-Jul-2012 09:45

thanks for that. I'm in Hamilton though. Cheers anyway

DanHybrid

112 posts

Master Geek

Trusted

Hybrid TV (TiVo)

#663535 29-Jul-2012 11:22

Cloudy, go through the process of contacting Telecom if you haven't already.

Cloudy

150 posts

Master Geek

#663562 29-Jul-2012 12:32

I haven't yet as I got it off trademe as a new one being on sold. But I will have a go at them tomorrow and see what comes of it. honestly if i can get my money back from the trade me guy I would just as soon be quit of TiVo. There seem to be a huge number of fails.
One thing that the TiVo does that annoys the hell out of me is that the hard drive runs all the time. Constantly recording the last half hour of tv seems completely pointless, if theres something I want to see I would have booked it to record.
Will prob look at one of the dish tv dual tuner recorders as I've had no problems with the single tuner one

old3eyes

9119 posts

Uber Geek

Subscriber

#663583 29-Jul-2012 13:26

DanHybrid: Cloudy, go through the process of contacting Telecom if you haven't already.

What would be the point of calling Telecom if it was purchased somewhere else??

Regards,

Old3eyes

Sharesies kids

Free kids accounts - trade shares and funds (NZ, US) with Sharesies (affiliate link).

DanHybrid

112 posts

Master Geek

Trusted

Hybrid TV (TiVo)

#663607 29-Jul-2012 14:20

old3eyes:
What would be the point of calling Telecom if it was purchased somewhere else??

In this case because it's from Telecom via Trademe

Cloudy, Sorry to read you don't like the TiVo functionality.
On the 30 min of recording, I can give you an example from my own personal use:
I'll be channel surfing, come across the start of a program that looks so so interesting. My partner will be in the other room talking with her mother on the phone.

Watch a few minutes, decide its not bad, and the wife will probably want to watch too, with the 30 min buffer, it will record from the beginning of the program, as opposed to when I realize.

Another use is: watching the news, one of us leaves the room for a few mins, something comes on that's interesting, easy to rewind back.

Still, go for the product that meets your particular needs :)

Cheers,
Dan

rugrat

3107 posts

Uber Geek

Lifetime subscriber

#663631 29-Jul-2012 15:26

I'm not happy with drive going all the time either, i record what i'm interested in, and am organised enough to set it up.

Drive going all the time is unnecessary wear and tear, even in standby it's going. Sky has theirs shut down when not needed and i'm sure it gives the box a longer life as well as save some power.

Had a drive that was sounding like an airoplane preparing to take off. Rang tivo support, telecom passed message onto them to ring me back. Also told them to pass on that I was not happy about not having option to shut off drive, when not needed.

In meantime i deleted everything off hard drive, and reset tivo. While it was downloading data from tivo service, suddenly the drive went out of airoplane take off mode, and queitened down.

Been over two months now, and still going ok. Because of this though if new tivo's are around $600 there's no way I'd buy another even though I like the features. If they stay around $300 then I guess there's nothing priced close to that for what it does.

Very user flexible, more then mysky, its just that they won't let you shut the drive down on something you own. Even my laptop shuts the drive down after a certain period.

mattwnz

20147 posts

Uber Geek

#663658 29-Jul-2012 17:02

rugrat: I'm not happy with drive going all the time either, i record what i'm interested in, and am organised enough to set it up.

Drive going all the time is unnecessary wear and tear, even in standby it's going. Sky has theirs shut down when not needed and i'm sure it gives the box a longer life as well as save some power.

Had a drive that was sounding like an airoplane preparing to take off. Rang tivo support, telecom passed message onto them to ring me back. Also told them to pass on that I was not happy about not having option to shut off drive, when not needed.

In meantime i deleted everything off hard drive, and reset tivo. While it was downloading data from tivo service, suddenly the drive went out of airoplane take off mode, and queitened down.

Been over two months now, and still going ok. Because of this though if new tivo's are around $600 there's no way I'd buy another even though I like the features. If they stay around $300 then I guess there's nothing priced close to that for what it does.

Very user flexible, more then mysky, its just that they won't let you shut the drive down on something you own. Even my laptop shuts the drive down after a certain period.

But that is the way it is designed, so I presume that shouldn't be a problem. People do have computers that stay on for years and the drive keep going, so harddrives are designed to stay on. But you are still protected by the CGA even when the warranty runs out, and from what I have heard they do have very good customer service.

Klipspringer

2385 posts

Uber Geek
Inactive user

#663664 29-Jul-2012 17:14

I too am very surprised about all the people who have had problems with Tivo. I have had mine now for nearly a year and never had any issues. It works great, will highly recommend it to anybody and considering its price its probably by far one of the best PVR's out there.

CutCutCut

1039 posts

Uber Geek

#663688 29-Jul-2012 18:29

rugrat: I'm not happy with drive going all the time either, i record what i'm interested in, and am organised enough to set it up.

Drive going all the time is unnecessary wear and tear, even in standby it's going. Sky has theirs shut down when not needed and i'm sure it gives the box a longer life as well as save some power.

Had a drive that was sounding like an airoplane preparing to take off. Rang tivo support, telecom passed message onto them to ring me back. Also told them to pass on that I was not happy about not having option to shut off drive, when not needed.

In meantime i deleted everything off hard drive, and reset tivo. While it was downloading data from tivo service, suddenly the drive went out of airoplane take off mode, and queitened down.

Been over two months now, and still going ok. Because of this though if new tivo's are around $600 there's no way I'd buy another even though I like the features. If they stay around $300 then I guess there's nothing priced close to that for what it does.

Very user flexible, more then mysky, its just that they won't let you shut the drive down on something you own. Even my laptop shuts the drive down after a certain period.

I thought MySky had the "pause live TV" functionality, wouldn't that require a constant cache of the data strem? Or can you catually switch that functionality off all together?

CutCutCut

1039 posts

Uber Geek

#663689 29-Jul-2012 18:31

Personally I've been involved with the buying/setting up of 4 TiVos, and have had one that had the GSOD on arrival (my own! haha) and that was replaced by Noel leeming no probs. I highly recomend them at the $300 mark.

PimpMyMagic

267 posts

Ultimate Geek

#663693 29-Jul-2012 18:44

I thought MySky had the "pause live TV" functionality, wouldn't that require a constant cache of the data strem?

No. It would only start recording from when you selected "pause" and display s freeze of the first frame.

The limitation would be that you would not be able to rewind to a prior point, as you can on a TiVo.

old3eyes

9119 posts

Uber Geek

Subscriber

#663695 29-Jul-2012 18:55

DanHybrid:
old3eyes:
What would be the point of calling Telecom if it was purchased somewhere else??

In this case because it's from Telecom via Trademe

Cloudy, Sorry to read you don't like the TiVo functionality.
On the 30 min of recording, I can give you an example from my own personal use:
I'll be channel surfing, come across the start of a program that looks so so interesting. My partner will be in the other room talking with her mother on the phone.

Watch a few minutes, decide its not bad, and the wife will probably want to watch too, with the 30 min buffer, it will record from the beginning of the program, as opposed to when I realize.

Another use is: watching the news, one of us leaves the room for a few mins, something comes on that's interesting, easy to rewind back.

Still, go for the product that meets your particular needs :)

Cheers,
Dan

Dan. What it needs is for the drive to stop recording when it is put into standby and only come on when there is a program to record. No point in having it going for weeks on end when your on holiday and no one is watching it.

Also . Do you have any feed back as to what the GSOD is caused by. Bad hard disks, power supplies or what??

Regards,

Old3eyes

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