Its just stopped working.

peterpi · 01-23-2006, 07:30 PM

I have a TIVO which I bought in 2000. It has not missed a beat, but tonight it has almost completely stopped responding to commands from the remote. When it does, like change channel command, it executes several minutes later. HDD seems to be thrashing around a lot and green light does not change to amber when remote is operated.

Its a bog standard TIVO, can anyone help please.

Cheers

Pete

WebAgents · 01-24-2006, 12:51 AM

Unplug it for 5 minutes and the plug it back in.

Paul Stimpson · 01-24-2006, 10:55 AM

Hi Peter,

Welcome to the family.

There is a clue in your symptoms that may be important. You say it is changing channels several minutes after you tell it. If your TiVo detects infra red interference that could prevent its commands being received by your STB then it will wait until the coast is clear before changing channel. The most likely source of interference is another remote. Have a good look around and make sure there isn't a remote under a pile of magazines/a cushion/ the dog or that has a button stuck down. I would recommend locating all remotes you own and taking them out of the room to make double sure. An unlikely possibility: Do you have a practical joker in the house that might have bought one of those remote jammers just to **** you off?

Cheers,
Paul.

Ian_m · 01-24-2006, 11:01 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Paul Stimpson

......The most likely source of interference is another remote.......

Or a TiVo being close to a plasma screen does it as well. When my mate was having harddisk issues, hiked his TiVo out on top a unit near his plasma screen and when the screen was on TiVo took ages to change channel on his Sky box !!! (sometimes 25minutes on a 30minute programme !!).

Putting TiVo back in pile of HiFi stuff under the screen and TiVo changed channel perfectly.

peterpi · 01-24-2006, 11:18 AM

Well do you know, last night before I went to bed I noticed I was having trouble with the Sky+ box. Remote was not controlling it very well, but as it was 2.00am although the thought did cross my mind, I thought "no can't be that simple", but it was. Just rounded up all the remotes, re booted, and back to 100% again. I think it was the remote for a Philips DVD recorder which was under a pile of stuff that my wife has been begging me to move.

Thanks a million guys, now to do an upgrade.

Paul Stimpson · 01-24-2006, 11:36 AM

Hi Peter,

You're welcome.

Just out of interest which Philips DVD recorder do you have and does it work out if programmes being played by the TiVo are widescreen and record them correctly please? I'm asking as my DVDR70 always records as 4:3 even though I've got the TV aspect ratio set correctly on it. Is ther some menu item I've missed.

On the subject does anybody know which widescreen signalling system TiVo uses to tell the TV the programme is WS?

Thanks,
Paul.

sanderton · 01-24-2006, 11:45 AM

Tivo uses both pin 8 and line 23 IIRC.

One of the DVD formats (+R?) doesn't allow for the widescreen tag, so you have to set the TV by hand.

Paul Stimpson · 01-24-2006, 12:05 PM

It's a +R recorder so that could be it. Oh bum! If I'd known that I wouldn't have bought it.

Thanks Stuart,
Paul.

cwaring · 01-24-2006, 04:24 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Paul Stimpson

Just out of interest which Philips DVD recorder do you have and does it work out if programmes being played by the TiVo are widescreen and record them correctly please? I'm asking as my DVDR70 always records as 4:3 even though I've got the TV aspect ratio set correctly on it. Is ther some menu item I've missed.

How odd. I have the same model and don't have that problem. Have you got your 70 set to W/S mode too?

Quote:

Originally Posted by sanderton

Tivo uses both pin 8 and line 23 IIRC.

I think my SCARTs are fully-wired so could that be why mine works okay?

Quote:

One of the DVD formats (+R?) doesn't allow for the widescreen tag, so you have to set the TV by hand.

No such problems with +Rs here.

peterpi · 01-24-2006, 05:56 PM

I got the DVDR 75, and mine does not automatically switch to 16:9 either.

Its hooked up to Sky+ most of the time, although I have used it to record off TiVo, I don't remember if I had the same problem then. I got to record some stuff I want to archive off the TiVo box, I'll report back when I do that.

I have been paying monthly for over sixty months now, ouch!

Can I still make a one off payment?

Paul Stimpson · 01-24-2006, 06:00 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by cwaring

How odd. I have the same model and don't have that problem. Have you got your 70 set to W/S mode too?

I will double check but I'm sure I set TV type to 16:9. It does play shop DVDs at the correct AR though. BTW I think I brain-farted I'm not at home but I think my machine is a 75 not a 70. There was one strange thing tho. The old dvdplusrw.org site (RIP) listed firmware versions and how to work out which one you had from the status screen. If I read it correctly then my version was a number of versions higher than the latest version in the download section. It could of course have been that their download section was out of date... Have you ever done a firmware upgrade?

Quote:

I think my SCARTs are fully-wired so could that be why mine works okay?

I'm on my second set of SCARTS (the current set are £20 Cambridge Audio Premium ones from Richer Sounds) I would be sorely disappointed if they weren't fully wired.

Quote:

No such problems with +Rs here.

From what I just read I believe that issue is specific to -R but I could always be wrong.

Cheers,
Paul.

cwaring · 01-24-2006, 06:27 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Paul Stimpson

Have you ever done a firmware upgrade?

Yes, but I don't remember off-hand what the version number/date of it is.

Quote:

Originally Posted by peterpi

Can I still make a one off payment?

Yes.