Does every1 who has their TiVo hooked up thru a cable box use an IR control cable?

[Alaina]

Does everyone who has their TiVo hooked up through a cable box use an IR control cable? I just want to make sure it's needed. If I couldn't get my TiVo to work with a cable box and I didn't have an IR control cable hooked up, that must have been the reason it wasn't working, right?

Thanks. Also, is the IR control cable hard to find? Where might I find one? It didn't come with the TiVo, did it?

[funtoupgrade]

The TiVo needs to change the channels on the cable box one way or another, either with IR blaster cable, IR home control cable, or IR serial cable. Some cable boxes use one or the other of the last two and others neither of the last two hence the need for the IR blaster(s).

[RedMan8]

Yes, the TiVo does come with the IR blaster cable.
You can see a nice picture of it (and instructions) on the "Start Here" poster that comes with the TiVo... or from TiVo's website:
http://customersupport.tivo.com/Content/Instancy%20V2%20Folders/2988/TiVo%20Series2%20DVR%20Start%20Here%20poster.pdf

Hope this helps!

[mick66]

Why are you starting a new thread for your old problem?
http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=344355

[Alaina]

because I'm asking a different question...we're supposed to use the same thread no matter what we ask? :confused:

mostly I wanted to know if the TiVo came with the IR control cable. Thanks for the responses, I'll go look for it.

[JimSpence]

It's okay to start another thread, but sometimes if it is related it helps to keep everything in the same thread. This way we can get a feel for the overall picture.

If you got the TiVo new, then it should have come with the IR emitter (or blaster as some like to call it). It could be easy to miss in the packaging.

[Alaina]

thanks! I found it and everything's hooked up and working (or so it seems!) but I did get an error..

"Error tuning Live TV Tivo was unable to find any valid channels in your channel lineup" or something like that =/

BUT I just clicked thru the error, it finished doing the final step that it does when it makes that phone call, then it gave me the error again, I clicked thru it again and I flipped thru five or ten channels and it seems to be working. the info's there and it lets me tune to the cable box channels, so I don't know what that error was about.

(when it asked me if I saw video in the background I did this time. everything worked fine and it seems to be working except for that error, so I don't know what that error meant.)

oh well.. hopefully it doesn't mean anything. Idk. it seems to be working..

thanks for the replies and sorry I made a diff. thread, oops

[gprimr1]

If your cable box supports it, i think serial is better. My cable box supports serial and it's very easy.