On Command Hotel Service

[jenkinstod]

I'm going to be in a Marriott Residence Inn for a couple of months, and I'm hoping to be able to use my Tivo during my stay. I've used a Tivo in a hotel recently, and it worked pretty well, but the Residence Inn uses an "On Command" service, and I don't know how to setup Tivo to work with this service.

Does anyone have any suggestions?

Todd

[gastrof]

Describe this "On Command" service to us. I'm not familiar.

Do you by any chance mean "On Demand"?

[jenkinstod]

Maybe so. I thought I heard the front desk person say On Command, but mayber you're right.

[Gai-jin]

No, On Command is correct. The TV's have a box mounted to the back that the cable input goes through before it hits the TV. That box communicates with their main system, and lets you order ppv, view your bill on screen, etc. You may need a security tool to disconnect the oncommand box from the tv, as often they have a sleeve around the connector. Or if the security sleeve is plastic, a good pair of snips will let you cut it off enough to work around it, but I wouldn't encourage that.

(Security tool is very similar to a long 7/16 socket, but fairly thin and one side has a slot cut out. You slide the cable into the tool through that slot, slide the tool down into the sleeve and around the hex shaped F connector on the end of the cable, and use it like a wrench to turn the connector. Available at your local Greybar or other industrial tool/electrical supply type place. )

FWIW, if you bring a tivo/vcr/personal TV/any analog tuner, and flip through the channels, you may well get more channels than you do through their on command box, and often can view PPV movies that have been ordered by other rooms. (The movies are just broadcast out on channels you can't normally turn to through their on command box, but with your own tuner, they show just like any other cable channel.)

[jenkinstod]

Yep, the configuration you described is right. The engineer here at the hotel actually helped us get the Tivo hooked up, although I had to tweak it to get the cable input to the Tivo (he just had an output from Tivo to an A/B switch).

My problem is configuring Tivo to understand the service. Will it let me select something like "On Command?" I haven't tried yet, but I assume it won't be an option.

Thanks much for the help so far.

Todd

[Gregor]

You'd have to run guided setup at a minimum, and I don't know if the Tivo service has the hotel channel guides available.

[Gai-jin]

Unfortunately, to my knowledge there is no way to set the tivo to recognize the lineup. When I was using my tivo in a hotel (and this was probably 6 years ago) I had to do everything as manual recordings.