DON'T yell but US Tivo's in the UK - possible work arounds

[TTL32]

I've read the FAQ and searched the thread so please don't yell at me but...

As I understand it, the two main problems with getting a US Tivo to work in the UK are:

1) The US Tivo unit expects an NTSC signal and would receive a PAL signal from UK equipment

2) Tivo UK will not accept EPG requests from US equipment

Well, to solve 1) you could simply use a NTSC to PAL converter available from Keene for £44.

It seems that 2) is the bigger issue. However, if you already have a UK Series 1 Tivo with lifetime subscription, could you not just(!) hack the firmware on the US Tivo to use your subscription info from the UK Tivo. If you then retired the UK one (so that you are still only using one device) you should even be OK as far as the licensing goes???

[cwaring]

..could you not just(!) hack the firmware on the US Tivo to use your subscription info from the UK Tivo.
No because that's Theft of Service and is not to be discussed (nor condoned) on this Forum.

[TTL32]

No because that's Theft of Service and is not to be discussed (nor condoned) on this Forum.

That's why I was very careful to say that I already have a UK Tivo with lifetime subscription. I am only proposing to transfer the service from one piece of hardware to another, in much that same way that I assume you could if your UK Tivo broke and was replaced during the warranty period.

[blindlemon]

Even if you could make the US (I assume Series 2?) box pretend to be a UK box in this way (and I agree with Carl that the legitimacy of doing so is dubious to say the least) I doubt whether you'd get it to work, as the US box would have to be running version 2.5.5 of the software (UK build) - and the US Series 2 boxes have a different processor!!

Using a US Series 1 box would gain you nothing as the hardware is virtually identical to the UK boxes.

My advice would be to get another UK box with a lifetime sub from eBay and stop worrying about this :)

[cwaring]

That's why I was very careful to say that I already have a UK Tivo with lifetime subscription. I am only proposing to transfer the service from one piece of hardware to another, in much that same way that I assume you could if your UK Tivo broke and was replaced during the warranty period.
Sorry. Mis-understood. However, BL's answered the point :)

[TTL32]

Even if you could make the US (I assume Series 2?) box pretend to be a UK box in this way (and I agree with Carl that the legitimacy of doing so is dubious to say the least) I doubt whether you'd get it to work, as the US box would have to be running version 2.5.5 of the software (UK build) - and the US Series 2 boxes have a different processor!!

I was actually thinking of waiting for the Series 3's but I get your point - I guess I should have known that if it was possible to make it work, someone would have done so by now!

My advice would be to get another UK box with a lifetime sub from eBay and stop worrying about this :)

Yep, that looks like the way I will go now. But thanks for humouring me and answering my questions anyway :)

[harryw]

There is another solution to Point 1

Most of the chips on the US tivo can handle Pal so you can hack the Tivo to set the up for pal input from composite - then you just need to connect an STB (or an old VCR for analog) to the composite input. Look for Palmod-US-3.0-19-Nov-04.zip (might be a newer version out there)

[katman]

1) The US Tivo unit expects an NTSC signal and would receive a PAL signal from UK equipment

Well, to solve 1) you could simply use a NTSC to PAL converter available from Keene for £44.



Perhaps you can explain how an NTSC to PAL converter would help TiVo to record programs in the first place.

Yes it could convert the NTSC output of TiVo to PAL but it would be trying to record NTSC which it wouldnt be receiving. You would need a PAL to NTSC converter to record.

Many of the cheap converters only tinker with the colour encoding and not the frame rate. I had a VCR that could play back NTSC videos and view them on a PAL TV but the output was a bastardisation of PAL known as PAL 60 which has the correct colour encoding but incorrect frame rate. Most TV's would accept it OK but it was impossible to reocrd to another VCR as it was expecting a 50Hz signal and couldnt lock to the 60Hz signal it was receiving.

Proper digital standards converters cost several hundreds of pounds for entry level converters.


The actual broadcast standards are totally different so it is doubtful that the tuner would receive anything without modification/replacement

From http://www.ee.surrey.ac.uk/Contrib/WorldTV/broadcast.html

United Kingdom

Frames 25
Lines 625
FreqBand UHF
Sound Carrier +6.0Mhz
Colour PAL
Stereo NICAM

USA

Frames 30 (29.97)
Lines 525
FreqBand VHF/UHF
Sound Carrier +4.5Mhz
Colour NTSC
Stereo MTS


If it was a simple matter then it would definately have been done by now.

[b166er]

Looking at this from the opposite side. Which features of the series 2 and/or series 3 is it that make it so attractive? Wouldn't the hacks we've all got running give you most of that functionality? If the dual-tuners are what interest you, then that's even more NTSC-PAL converters would be needed. Wouldn't two UK tivos do the job anyway?

[katman]

Looking at this from the opposite side. Which features of the series 2 and/or series 3 is it that make it so attractive? Wouldn't the hacks we've all got running give you most of that functionality? If the dual-tuners are what interest you, then that's even more NTSC-PAL converters would be needed. Wouldn't two UK tivos do the job anyway?

Personally I think that an inbuilt Freeview tuner would be nice as it would enable lossless recordings to be made if it recorded the digital bitstream.

Having said that, despite having 3 Freeview boxes I rarely use them as the reception here is not very good. Its OK most of the time but there are times when it just breaks up and sods law says that it will be when you want to record something.

I dont think twin tuners is all its cracked up to be. I have SKY+ and whilst it is nice to be able to record two programs simultaneously, you can only play back one at a time. Worse still with SKY+ is that you lose "Live" SKY whilst watching anything you have recorded.

I love TiVo because whilst I can record from SKY, because it is a separate box, someone can still view SKY directly whilst a TiVo recording is being viewed by someone else.

I think two separate Tivos (even series 1) would provide a more flexible recording/playback than a single Twin Tuner machine.

I just wish that brand new TiVo's were still available in the UK because I think they would now be selling a lot better than they did due to increased public awareness of PVR's. Increased sales could then hopefully lead to a Series2/3 machine for the UK.

[hustler]

Looking at this from the opposite side. Which features of the series 2 and/or series 3 is it that make it so attractive?
Looking at this from a realistic side.......Having full manufacturer support would be nice...and more than one firmware update in six years is not asking too much is it? Jeez...my £20 Pioneer 111D DVD-R drive has had 3 firmware updates in less than 12 months.

Wouldn't the hacks we've all got running give you most of that functionality?

I think you are deluded here. Despite what you are led to believe on these forums......hacked TiVo's are still the minority.

If the dual-tuners are what interest you, then that's even more NTSC-PAL converters would be needed. Wouldn't two UK tivos do the job anyway?

Have you seen the under-TV screen real-estate that two UK S1 Tivo's take up??

[aerialplug]

I know it's possible to hack a S1 tivo to work in PAL - I have one! However, the tuner's completely incompatible so input can only be provided via the phono (or S-Video) sockets on the back.

It IS possilble to spoof the US TiVo into giving out a valid UK lifetime serial number BUT the software will be incompatible and even if it did work of sorts, would soon be spotted by TiVo and the account closed. And, as others have said, this would almost certainly be viewed as theft of service by TiVo.

So the short of it is - a S1 US tivo can be modified to work in the UK as a standlalone TiVo, but can't be easily modified to work.

To be honest, this is a bit pointless as standlaone's functionality is pretty basic compared to some of the dedicated PVRs that are available on the market today and the nag screens would soon get on your nerves!

[TTL32]

Looking at this from the opposite side. Which features of the series 2 and/or series 3 is it that make it so attractive? Wouldn't the hacks we've all got running give you most of that functionality? If the dual-tuners are what interest you, then that's even more NTSC-PAL converters would be needed. Wouldn't two UK tivos do the job anyway?

It's the twin tuners - two UK Tivos will do the job but at £200 each (with lifetime subs) plus 2 Sky digiboxes, it's a pricey option.

At the moment I have Sky+ in the lounge <- two tuners built in running off one Sky card, plus a second digibox and Tivo in the kid's playroom. I am so sick of the crap Sky+ interface that I want to go back to Tivo but the wife wants to keep the ability to record two programmes at the same time. I'm willing to dump the Sky+ but not willing to fork out another £450+ for the pleasure...

[blindlemon]

If you keep the $ky+ you can still use the 2nd tuner in that for occasional recording clashes while letting the TiVo control it 99% of the time, recording from the "live viewing" tuner.

AFAIK a number of forum members do this and it works well for them.

In that scenario all you need is one more TIVo :)

[iankb]

If you keep the $ky+ you can still use the 2nd tuner in that for occasional recording clashes while letting the TiVo control it 99% of the time, recording from the "live viewing" tuner.The only problem with that is trying to find time to watch a Sky+ recording that doesn't conflict with TiVo trying to use the single output for its own recording.

[TTL32]

The only problem with that is trying to find time to watch a Sky+ recording that doesn't conflict with TiVo trying to use the single output for its own recording.

That shouldn't be such a big deal for me as we don't record that much - only about 3 or 4 series a week - it's just sod's law that they are bound to be screened at clashing times, hence the need for two tuners.

So it's off to eBay for me then - unless someone on the forum has a spare Tivo with lifetime, cachecard, tivoweb, etc. etc. ...