TiVo works, but no video until power down & up

[Chesterfield]

I've got a 1-year old series 2 that has on 2 occasions not been sending video to the TV. In both cases, I disconnected power to TiVo, let it sit a minute, and the powered it back up. That solved the problem, but since it happened the second time, I'd like to find a better solution--or at least understand more about what happened.

In the second case, it was recording a show, so I didn't power it off until that was finished. In the meantime, I went to our second TiVo and could access the "troubled" TiVo. The problem seems to be constrained to the lack of video.

Any ideas?

Thanks,
Paul

[Chesterfield]

OK, it happened again tonight. (Not a good time with the World Series on!)

I got TiVo on the phone and the techie suggested switching from ch 3 to ch 4. That got video back to the TV.

Channel 3 has been the means of communicating with the TV for over a year. Has anyone heard of a similar thing? Any ideas as to what might be going on inside TiVo?

Thanks,
Paul

[ajwees41]

How old is the tv? Have you considered the tv might be the problem?

ajwes41

[Chesterfield]

Actually, it is old, but has been reliable. I'd be more suspicious of it, except when I reboot (unplug & plug back in after 30 seconds) TiVo the video works fine.

A new TV might be in the offing, though...

[ajwees41]

It was just a thought. Have you tried a different tv if you have one?
ajwees41

[RoyK]

Is your unit a Toshiba SD-H400 by any chance? If so check the position of the video interlace switch on the back of the unit.

[wscannell]

When the TiVo stops showing video, have you tried pressing the TiVo button on the remote? It is possible that the TiVo was put into standby mode. In standby, it has all the normal functions, except the video output is turned off and the rf passthrough is enabled.

[gastrof]

One other flakey suggestion-

Since you're apparently using the RF (antenna connection) to reach the TV, get an RF modulator from Radio Shack or some other store, and feed a signal into it from the TiVo's A/V outputs.

Feed the RF modulator into the TV's antenna input.

See if the problem keeps happening.

If not, the TiVo's RF modulator might be going bad. Using an external one solves the problem.

(Another method might be to start using the TV's A/V inputs, if it has any.)