TiVo Buying Guide

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mentalinc

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#2880201 7-Mar-2022 13:26

Does anyone have a link of what the view looks like on these once modded? Keen to use them as a backup if the in-laws panasonic one dies...

CPU: AMD 5900x | RAM: GSKILL Trident Z Neo RGB F4-3600C16D-32GTZNC-32-GB | MB: Asus X570-E | GFX: EVGA FTW3 Ultra RTX 3080Ti| Monitor: LG 27GL850-B 2560x1440

Quic: https://account.quic.nz/refer/473833 R473833EQKIBX

Spong

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#2880538 7-Mar-2022 17:38

What do you mean by "what the view looks like"? Do you mean the UI? If so, it looks just the same, as it is the same original UI. The main changes are to point Tivos to the new hosted OzTivo server so that the EPG can be downloaded, the time is synchronised, and enabling survival of a guided setup if anyone deletes all data and settings and does a factory reset.

Tivo upgrades to operate with the new OzTivo EPG, support and service. Over 400 performed here so far. See: www.hillcrest.net.nz

SteveC

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#2884038 9-Mar-2022 22:25

Hey Auckland People!
One of the TiVos on my watchlist has been offered for $20. No remote, as is, probably not modded. Pickup Waitakere.
I could buy it for you if interested ... https://www.trademe.co.nz/a/marketplace/electronics-photography/tvs/terrestrial-receivers/listing/3496099716?cc=21&pid=1682255356&ct=title-link&tm=email&et=21&mt=CF3324BC-A3B5-4999-8278-6CD920CE1119&bof=zmFvf7D9
In the meantime, I'm still trying to get the TiVo that I bought on Sunday. Chap seems a bit hard to keep in touch with.
Steve

SteveC

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#2884594 10-Mar-2022 22:37

Got my TiVo this evening!
All looks good. Bigger than they looked in the photos!
Turns out it has been upgraded to 2 TB. Would have been prepared to pay more if he had mentioned that in TradeMe.

Initial questions:
* is there a way to delete bulk recordings? I think the guy left over a thousand on it! Would take an age to delete them one at a time.
* I noticed that near the end of the five minute + boot process, some boot messages appear on the screen, including notification that Telnet (yikes!) and ssh (whew) have been started. Can I do anything useful with a command line?
* Anything else of any particular note in these four screens of system info please? https://photos.app.goo.gl/DzSPNgXmz4GsyHkr9

I didn't have to re-tune the device. RF is weird! For our first ten years in Newtown we had an aerial pointing at Kaukau (almost line of sight) and had pretty crap reception. I looked at other people's aerials and moved ours to the other side o fthe house and pointed it out towards the Hutt Valley. Worked OK ever since. Earlier this year I had to select frequencies for NextPVR to use, and tonight checked frequencies that the TiVo is using. Both Kaukau. Go figure. Add to this the fact that the guy I got it from lives on the lower northern face of a hill above Petone. How the signal gets though that hole I don't know.

Thanks again for your advice. We are on our way. Perhaps our post-September solution will be TiVo + Chromecast. Such a shame to go back to using two remotes + though.

Steve

Spong

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#2884613 11-Mar-2022 00:44

The only way to delete huge amounts of recordings quickly is to do a full clear and delete. 1000 recordings would take you forever to delete one at a time. A modified Tivo will survive that process, then take you through a guided setup. If your Tivo has a MAK, and you want to keep it, don't do a full clear and delete, otherwise you'll lose it. It's always a good idea to do a full channel rescan, deleting all existing channels from time to time, as changes happen from time to time, such as the 2x new channels starting on 21/3/22. (Choice being a rebrand I believe, so probably no frequency change). Turn off Tivo Suggestions, unless you want your Tivo to fill up with recordings you haven't chosen, but fit a similar profile to ones you've already recorded. The screens all look fine and normal. Your Tivo is running the final version software as of Oct 2017, patched of course, and I can confirm you have a 2TB drive. Sorry, I can't offer any advice on connecting to it with Telnet or SSH.

BTW, someone mentioned that they thought the Tivo tuners were not very good. I'd tend to disagree. Although I haven't performed measurements, I have found them to be the equal or better than most TV tuners, although it's possible they don't deal as well with serious multi-path. I can't say. Occasionally a Tivo can find the same channels transmitted from 2x transmitters on different frequencies, and very occasionally may pick the weaker one, although I've never seen this happen personally. Usually a Tivo will pick the best transmitters automatically. You can manually choose the one you prefer from the channel list as shown in one of your pics. Our transmitter at Pinehill used to go down after a major power cut, then we could retrieve signals from Waiatarua, until the power came back, even though our antenna was pointing in the wrong direction.

Tivo upgrades to operate with the new OzTivo EPG, support and service. Over 400 performed here so far. See: www.hillcrest.net.nz

SteveC

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#2884636 11-Mar-2022 07:37

@Spong: ... If your Tivo has a MAK,

Thanks for your comprehensive advice. All looks good. I seriously doubt we have a MAK, but how do I tell?
:-)

SteveC

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#2884663 11-Mar-2022 08:49

@Spong: ... Sorry, I can't offer any advice on connecting to it with Telnet or SSH. ...

Logging in is easy - standard port and no password!
BufferHack and endpadplus-1.2.2b have been downloaded to the box but I'm not sure they are running. Not sure what to do next. Not a priority anyway.
Is a simple web page standard?
Congratulations!
You’ve successfully connected your TiVo® box to your home network, enabling a number of exciting new Home Media features:
... Wow! All that was exciting and new in 2006! Apparently, it could take up to 36 hours to schedule a recording without Broadband.

GoodSync

GoodSync. Easily back up and sync your files with GoodSync. Simple and secure file backup and synchronisation software will ensure that your files are never lost (affiliate link).

Spong

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#2884753 11-Mar-2022 09:51

You can see if you have a MAK by going to the Main menu (Tivo Key), then choose "Read new Messages & Settings" then "Account & System Information". If you see a menu item titled "Media Access Key" then you have a MAK. If you select that menu item, you'll see the Media Access Key.

There was some talk of changing the recording buffer from 30mins to 1 hour at one stage, but it wasn't implemented, possibly for reliability reasons.

A simple welcome webpage is accessible as you saw, but you can't do anything there.

Tivo upgrades to operate with the new OzTivo EPG, support and service. Over 400 performed here so far. See: www.hillcrest.net.nz

Spong

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#2884761 11-Mar-2022 10:07

Just in relation to the MAK, back when the official service was operating, you could purchase the "Home Networking Package" which automatically downloaded a MAK key to each of the Tivos in your account. This was around $125 so wasn't particularly popular. With a MAK, any recordings could be decrypted and copied between Tivos, allowing you to start a recording in one room, then finish it or start from the beginning in another room. You could also use their pretty lousy "Home Networking" software to decrypt/copy recordings to a PC. If you have a MAK now that the service closed down, the copy between Tivos function no longer operates due to security keys that have expired. You can still decrypt and copy recordings to and from your Tivos, to a PC and I still do this with mine, using kmttg and pyTivo (3rd party free programs). A little work has been done recently, attempting to get MAKs onto Tivos, with some, but not complete success. If anyone is interested in communicating with the person who's been looking at this lately, PM me and I'll put you in contact with them. I think they posted their progress in this forum some months ago also.

Tivo upgrades to operate with the new OzTivo EPG, support and service. Over 400 performed here so far. See: www.hillcrest.net.nz

Glars

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#2899379 10-Apr-2022 11:41

"or for moving media files to and from using pyTivo"

Spong are you saying pyTivo can now move files from a PC to a Tivo?
I used to use PyTivo for queuing multiple files and sending from my PC to our Tivos but when the original service was shut down I thought that feature no longer worked?

Spong

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#2899404 10-Apr-2022 13:07

Glars:

"or for moving media files to and from using pyTivo"

Spong are you saying pyTivo can now move files from a PC to a Tivo?
I used to use PyTivo for queuing multiple files and sending from my PC to our Tivos but when the original service was shut down I thought that feature no longer worked?

Yes, pyTivo works fine still, as long as you have a MAK on your Tivo. If you're using Windows 10, the built-in firewall will block it, so disable it for testing, then enable exceptions to allow it to operate with the firewall enabled. You can send most common video file types to a Tivo, except Quicktime and x265. The Tivo Desktop software stopped working around the beginning of 2018 from memory.

Tivo upgrades to operate with the new OzTivo EPG, support and service. Over 400 performed here so far. See: www.hillcrest.net.nz

Glars

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#2899456 10-Apr-2022 14:00

I already had pytivo as an allowed app in the firewall in my network and it hadn't worked before but this time I turned the firewall off completely and I still get the same error

ERROR:pyTivo.video.video:<urlopen error [Errno 10060] A connection attempt failed because the connected party did not properly respond after a period of time, or established connection failed because connected host has failed to respond>

old3eyes

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#2899524 10-Apr-2022 15:44

Spong:

Glars:

"or for moving media files to and from using pyTivo"

Spong are you saying pyTivo can now move files from a PC to a Tivo?
I used to use PyTivo for queuing multiple files and sending from my PC to our Tivos but when the original service was shut down I thought that feature no longer worked?

Yes, pyTivo works fine still, as long as you have a MAK on your Tivo. If you're using Windows 10, the built-in firewall will block it, so disable it for testing, then enable exceptions to allow it to operate with the firewall enabled. You can send most common video file types to a Tivo, except Quicktime and x265. The Tivo Desktop software stopped working around the beginning of 2018 from memory.

Some time by changing the file name from say .mkv to .avi will allow the file to be transferred to the TiVo.

Regards,

Old3eyes

Glars

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#2899533 10-Apr-2022 16:17

I've taken an .avi, a .mkv and a .mp4 file and tried all three of them with all three extensions and no joy.

Unless there's some other network setting that needs changing, I guess pushing from the PC will just have to remain a memory for me.

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