Wireless Adapter "Unsupported"

[cleverdevil]

I just upgraded the Series 2 in my bedroom to a TiVo HD, and plugged in the wireless adapter I was using on the old S2, and the HD reports that it is "unsupported." I bought this adapter a few years back specifically because the TiVo tech support line told me it was a "supported" adapter.

Is there any way to use this thing with the TiVo HD, perhaps some way to enable previously supported adapters, or am I screwed?

[bedelman]

The only wireless adapter that's supported on the TiVoHD is TiVo's own wireless adapter. I don't know of any way around that.

[dianebrat]

Is there any way to use this thing with the TiVo HD, perhaps some way to enable previously supported adapters, or am I screwed?
The TivoHD has never supported the non-Tivo adapters, so while they were and are supported in the S2 line, they're not in the TivoHD.

I'm sure this had a lot to do with the calls they used to get and finding out that simply supporting their own adapter was a lot less help desk intensive then a variety.

Diane

[lew]

My memory is the original S3 units had drivers (supported) the same wireless adapters that worked with S2. AFAIK the Tivo HD never had those drivers. Most of those adapters used the older wireless "B" standards and really wouldn't work very well with any of the S3 units.

Check your box of "stuff". A number of routers can be configured in bridge mode and work with the TivoHDs ethernet port. Flashing the router with DD-WRT firmware may be necessary.

[scandia101]

My memory is the original S3 units had drivers (supported) the same wireless adapters that worked with S2.

They were officially unsupported.

[cleverdevil]

Thanks for the details. I ended up getting a 200Mbps Ethernet over power adapter pair off of eBay for less than the cost of the very overpriced TiVo wireless adapter. Should perform a lot better than the wireless as it's low power up in my bedroom anyway :)

[lew]

The powerline adapters will probably give you better performance then wireless.

You can purchase the tivo wireless G adapter for under $40 delivered from a variety of internet vendors. The adapter was designed to work with tivo. Some of the "processing" is done by the adapter instead of being done by tivo. It's not really overpriced but you're not likely to find the adapter sold for almost free after rebate.

[NostromoST4]

I just bought the new Premiere and had the same experience, but ended up doing what Tivo must be betting we will do, run out and pay three or four times the retail price of a standard wireless adapter for their proprietary adapter. I would love to hear someone from the company explain why this is not just a scam (and isn't an illegal tying arrangement).

[scandia101]

I just bought the new Premiere and had the same experience, but ended up doing what Tivo must be betting we will do, run out and pay three or four times the retail price of a standard wireless adapter for their proprietary adapter. I would love to hear someone from the company explain why this is not just a scam (and isn't an illegal tying arrangement).

:rolleyes:

[classicsat]

There are two reasons for TiVo ( and other companies) to use their own adapters on their relativly embedded systems.

First is support. TiVo was finding it very hard to support the ever changing crop of PC network adapters, often with no source code or assistance from the chipset or adapter manufacturers.

Second is processing power. PC adapters put quite a lot of processing on the host processor, of which in an embedded system is usually pretty occupied, and lower speed than a PC processor. TiVo's adapter offloads some of the processing for wireless to the adapter.

[pdhenry]

The TiVo G adpater is something like $35 at Amazon. It has some processing capability to offload the TiVo processor compared to a generic wirelss adapter such as the S2 uses.

The TiVo N adpater is pretty expensive but it's essentially a single-port wireless bridge. I'd look into a real wireless bridge if the TV or Blu-Ray also has an Ethernet port.

[nogee]

I'm thinking about upgrading my router to an N. We have an old S2 and no longer interested in Tivo-to-go. I just need to get my programming updates.

Since the router should be backwards compatible I will see if my generic adapter (NetGear B) works if not, then I think I'll just get the Tivo G adapter.

Any issues with my logic?

[alexofindy]

Tivo sells two tivo-branded wireless adapters, an older, less expensive model, which only support the slower wireless-G standard, and which plugs in to the tivo's USB port. If you want an inexpensive adapter, this is probably your only choice.

Tivo also makes a wireless-N adapter, which connects via the Tivo's ethernet port. As someone above pointed out this is a wireless bridge, which bridges a wireless connection to a wired ethernet one. The tivo unit itself cannot tell that is is connecting to a home lan via a wireless bridge (i.e., via an adapter) or directly, via an ethernet cable.

The tivo bridge costs about $90, and is not as overpriced as it sounds. For some reasons wireless bridges cost this much; for example, a Linksys WET610N which has very similar functionality costs almost exactly the same. Incidentally, the WET610N also works fine with the tivo; this is what I use (because the Tivo wireless N bridge was not available when I installed my Premiere XL). That said, if I were buying a bridge now, I would choose the Tivo branded bridge over the Linksys, it's has a more versatile configuration utility (the Linksys does not have a default IP address, for example, you have to DHCP it to configure it). Also, the Tivo wireless N bridge has two modes, bridge and client; you usually use client, but the bridge mode is nice to have if you don't have an existing wireless network.

Incidentally, though the devices are single port, the Linksys, and probably the tivo adapter as well, will support multiple devices with a simple ethernet hub, which is quite inexpensive.

As other users have pointed out, powerline adapters can also be used with tivo.

As for wireless N versus wireless G, if all you wish to do is let the tivo phone home, wireless G is fine. But if you will be downloading or transfering video, spring for the wireless N or powerline models, the extra speed is worth it.

finally a note to tivo: for the price I paid for my XL, you should have build wireless in.

[pdhenry]

Theoretically, wireless G is faster than most peoples' internet connections, isn't it?

I have a TiVo HD on a Wireless G adapter upstairs (the main TiVo downstairs is hardwired). I should try streaming something...

[scandia101]

Yes, 802.11g operates at a maximum raw data rate of 54 Mbit/s, or about 19 Mbit/s net throughput
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/802.11g

que the minority of people with faster internet speeds that need to inform us of their speed

[achav00]

Just bought Netgear's universal wireless adapter WNCE2001 so far working great. Can be powered by USB or pwr adapter. Setup is similiar to TIVO's Wireless N adapter. It uses the Ethernet port to plug into the wireless device. You have to initially set it up from a desktop to configure the settings then attach to the Tivo. The previous Tivo adapter I had was a g and the transfer would always fail now since installing the N adapter can transfer shows with no problems and it is definitely cheaper than Tivo's which goes for $89 I picked this up at Best Buy which is not known for good prices but at $59 was not bad.