Using TIVO in Europe

[colinatgarrison]

Using TIVO in Europe

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I'm sorry if this topic has been covered recently - but I can't find it!

I have a UK TIVO that I am preparing to take to France. I'm happy to dial the UK to download programs (I have cheap calls to the UK) - but will adding 0044 (UK country code) do the trick? In my experience UK freephone numbers cannot be accessed from abroad by merely adding 0044. Any thoughts would be helpful - bearing in mind that I am an absolute novice!

PS - for those of you who may be seeing double, this is a copy of a post I directed to the wrong section of the forum! Sorry!

[cwaring]

I'm sure there is at least one happy Tivo user in France already, going be past posts to this Forum so you should not have any problems.

A couple of things to ponder, though.

1. There should be a local number you can use to over-ride the UK 0800 one as I believe it connects though UUNET.

2. If you have Broadband access in France, get youself a Turbonet or Cachecard and download the guide data over the internet :)

[iankb]

Find a local UUNET POP from this list (http://www.verizonbusiness.com/external/pops_verizonbusiness.xls.zip).

You should be able to access the TiVo service for the cost of a local call.

[frogster]

I can confirm that the UUNET numbers on the continent work just fine for the UK Tivo. A Turbonet/cachecard + broadband also works fine and will pay for itself in the long run.

[cwaring]

I knew someone would know the link to the list :)

[kitschcamp]

The problem in some places is the delay between getting a landline and getting broadband. For my move to Sweden there is about a 2 week gap between the two.

[tormat]

Hi

In the list of uunet numbers posted in this thread there are 2 listed for France, freephone and International access only, can anyone tell me which is the correct one to use please? Also can anyone post a link to a description of how to add these numbers in the correct format in Tivo?

Many thanks

[kitschcamp]

You'll probably find the freephone one won't work. Certainly the freephone Swedish one doesn't.

I've not got the dial screen in front of me, but you need to put into the dial prefix box the FULL telephone number plus one or two pauses afterwards.

[tormat]

thanks for that Stephen, sorry for the late reply, been away in France funnily enough! I'll give that a go.

[kitschcamp]

If you get stuck, give me a yell and I'll try and help.

[suebrugge]

Apologies for resurrecting an ancient thread - but this seems quite similar to what we're trying to achieve.

We had Tivo in the UK and have moved to Belgium. We have Sky installed now and would love to start using the Tivo again. The problem we had was that the Tivo automatically tried to dial the UK number as soon as we started it up and we couldn't work out how to go about changing what it was dialing. Can anyone advise on this? We have cheap calls to the UK and would be happy to tell it to call the UK number but can't see how you can edit the number to add the 0044 in the front.

Would be really grateful of any help anyone could offer. We have Sky+ but its not a patch on Tivo.

[steveroe]

You need to go into the phone settings and add it as a "dial prefix".

However ... you may not be able to access "08" numbers from abroad - in which case you'll need to find a UUNET local access number and add that as a prefix instead, try this link http://www.wcom.net/customer_support/access_numbers/index.shtml

[suebrugge]

Thanks very much for that really quick reply.

I'm not back home in Belgium until Friday evening so will give it a go then. It's a fairly old Tivo (we probably got it back in 2000 or thereabouts) - presume that advice is still valid??

[Sneals2000]

Thanks very much for that really quick reply.

I'm not back home in Belgium until Friday evening so will give it a go then. It's a fairly old Tivo (we probably got it back in 2000 or thereabouts) - presume that advice is still valid??

There was really only one model of Tivo (with a few variations internally) sold in the UK - so if it works, it works AIUI.

[kitschcamp]

Yeah, in a few countries it may not work. For example, the Swedish numbers don't seem to work with the service, yet people had no problem in Spain and France it seems.

[Pete77]

We have cheap calls to the UK and would be happy to tell it to call the UK number but can't see how you can edit the number to add the 0044 in the front.

You will almost certainly find the 0808 number dialled by Tivo classed as a premium rate number by your "cheap calls" provider to the UK. If that is it allows you to dial UK 0800 numbers at all. For instance I can call normal numbers in the USA for 0.5p per minute + 4p connection fee with www.18185.co.uk but 1-800 numbers in the USA are charged at 3p per minute. You will probably find a similar position with the default provider of your Belgian landline if that is it is different from your cheap calls provider.

So if you can insert a UUNet local number for Belgium you may be better off. Although the UUNet number may be the Belgian equivalent of a UK 0845 number and so cost more than your regular Belgian calls.

Really being based overseas you would be better off getting the daily data via a network card but if you haven't installed one up to now then I suppose its expecting a lot for you to do it at this point in time. Hopefully you may get somewhere using the UUNet numbers inserted as dialling prefixes.

[suebrugge]

Really being based overseas you would be better off getting the daily data via a network card but if you haven't installed one up to now then I suppose its expecting a lot for you to do it at this point in time. Hopefully you may get somewhere using the UUNet numbers inserted as dialling prefixes.

We haven't installed one up to now as we haven't been using Tivo for quite some while. We have been out of the UK now for about 5 years now and have only just got Sky set up over here so have only recently tried setting it up again.

Would be more than happy to install a network card - is this something which is easy to do? Could you point me in the direction of some sort of guide which would help us install a network card??

Thanks so much for all your help so far.

[Pete77]

Would be more than happy to install a network card - is this something which is easy to do? Could you point me in the direction of some sort of guide which would help us install a network card?

These guides show the basic process:-

www.steveconrad.co.uk/tivo/cachecard.html

and

www.steveconrad.co.uk/tivo/tivoweb.html

The problem is that you both have to open up the Tivo and install the network card (not too tricky for anyone with any basic DIY type skills) but also you have to put the Tivo hard drive in a desktop PC and install the files that tell it to talk to the network card (Cachecard or Turbonet card). Or you can buy external caddies for notebook PCs where this is possible but you have to boot the notebook PC up in to Linux off a CD to do the driver installation. The website www.mfslive.org has more details on all of this.

However you would probably find it easier either to buy another Tivo off Ebay that has a Cachecard and a larger hard drive already installed with a Lifetime Sub (they go for under £200 these days on Ebay) and then sell this Tivo on Ebay or to a friend in Belgium or back in the UK. Or you could buy the Cachecard and an enlarged upgraded hard drive to go with it with the files to support the Cachecard pre-installed from www.tivocentral.co.uk, www.tivoheaven.co.uk or www.tivoland.com but this is likely to cost more than buying a pre-upgraded Tivo with Lifetime Sub on Ebay and selling your current Tivo.

However as you have been happy with your basic non upgraded Tivo up to now and as none of us knows how much longer Tivo S1 units will be supported for (one likes to be optimistic but banking on more than another three years service that would take us to 10 years since the final units were sold in the shops in the UK would seem unwise) it may be best to try and get the Tivo working via just a regular phone call. If that doesn't work you could consider the other options.

[Pete77]

The Belgian Point of Presence number for UUNet/Verizon appears to be a Freephone number:-

Belgium $ Freephone-v.90-x2 V.90-X2 [0]80040102 WAN

So if you can get this to work then your Tivo may be able to connect using a free phone call each day, just as it did back in the UK. You need to install this 0800 number as a dialling prefix and see how you get on.

Select Messages & Setup/Recorder & Phone Setup/Phone Connection/Change Dialling Options/Set Dial Prefix and enter the above number (080040102) followed by the Pause key to enter a comma causing a 2 second pause in dialling after the Belgian 0800 number. This should hopefully ensure your Tivo connects to the Belgian 0800 number and modem sound before trying to dial the UK 0808 number (pre-programmed). The Point of Presence will then ignore the dialling of the UK number and hopefully simply try to synchronise with the Tivo's modem.