New to Tivo: account OK but no guide data?

[swlondonj]

Hi,

I may just be guilty of gross impatience here :eek: but I got my first TiVo yesterday and am in the process of setting it up...

So I called Tivo last night and got my sub set up. This morning I forced a call and found that my account status changed to 'in good standing'. It also said 'Downloading' and then 'Indexing' for quite a while...

But now when I use the Tivo button it says it has no programme guide data...I've forced another call to no effect. Any idea what might be going on?

Swlondonj

[tivosnoopy]

Anything ticked in Channels You Receive?

go to My Prefrences - Customise Channels

[ozsat]

'Downloading' and 'Indexing' will take 6-8 hours - the listings will gradually appearing during this time.

[swlondonj]

Hi thanks for the helpful responses. I picked the Channels ok, but actually now when I search for programs by name they are there...so I think the data is slowly being indexed and beginning to appear!
Thanks a lot,
Swlondonj

[tartan_haggis]

Yes, you need a LOT of patience - particularly if you have a lot of channels in your lineup. It does take ages to index for the first time.

After the initial wait, it will do the daily calls and index in the background and you won't notice it again.

[swlondonj]

Well after a bit of waiting it all turned out ok and is working.

With the gradual proliferation of boxes under my tv, and a set of scart-based relationships between them that I struggle to comprehend (and I am technical - it's just that life seems too short to invest time in this) I have barely recorded a single hour of programming in the past year.

I've now had a couple of days with the Tivo working and it's turning out to be fantastic. I never knew there actually was good stuff on TV in the UK. Of course it is also recording Batfink and various cartoons (I presume its default settings try to appeal to a whole family before you train it) which I need to knock out of it, but it's looking good.

I had a brief failure on saturday when it recorded the wrong channel, when I discovered I needed to reset the STB to update its numbering, and then one oddity yesterday evening when it simply recorded the wrong channel thinking it was Match of the Day, but as long as this isn't a regular occurence things are looking good.

[tartan_haggis]

The channel change failures could be down to IR interference.

Are you using the IR Blaster or the wands?

If it's the blaster and the TiVo and STB are not in a cabinet, then you can get interference from all sorts of seemingly innocent objects that emit light - e.g. the Christmas tree lights (wrong time of year I know), but I had terrible problems last Christmas with channel changes all of a sudden until I realised that the IR signals were being lost in the "noise" of the tree lights - or from other IR devices nearby.

Make sure the IR receiver on your STB (Freeview, Sky, whatever) is clear of obstructions. Again, Mrs Tartan Haggis put an ornament in front of the Freeview box a couple of weeks ago, and normal viewing was temporarily suspended as a result.

A more reliable alternative (I am told) is to use the IR wands that come with the TiVo, although I am also told there is a particular way to position to wands for maximum reliability.

As for recording Batfink, you can switch off the "Record TiVo Suggestions Automatically" option. You can "educate" TiVo by going into TiVo Suggestions and marking each one with thumbs up or thumbs down depending whether you actually like the suggested programme or not. TiVo gives each programme you record one thumb up by default which is how is learns to make suggestions as you go along. What you may find is that it will be suggesting programmes that the previous owner of your TiVo liked watching. You can reset ALL of the thumbs ratings in Systems Preferences and start again.