Basic Tivo info required

Hi kevandali,

The only bit you seem to have missed is that you don't plug TiVo into the Sky dish; you need a Sky set top box which is plugged into the Sky dish. TiVo then connects via Scart to the sky set top box to receive the picture and it uses infra-red transmitters to control the sky box.

Cheers,

Ian

 

A typical connection is;

Sky Dish -> Sat Cable -> Sky set-top-box -> Scart -> TiVo -> Scart -> TV

You could also have a standard aerial feed into the TiVo so that it can record from Sky and Tivo's internal terrestrial analogue tuner. I believe there's also a way that allows TiVo to record/control both a Sky box and a Freeview Box, but I'm a bit clueless about this set-up.

Correct-a-mundo TiVo has IR-transmitters it uses to change channel on the Sky box when a program starts.

Cheers,

Ian

 

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Also note that you'll be using the tivo remote and the tivo GUI (on screen EPG)
- so you'll never need your sky remote again.

 

...unless you use any interactive services - The TiVo remote can't cope with those nor can you automatically record from them. I wouldn't let that minor issue put you off though

 

EDIT: Too slow in posting, didn't mean to repeat the others, but comments still valid I think.

Hi,

The way TiVo works is as follows;

Take a SCART from your current SKY digibox & instead of plugging it into the TV you plug it into TiVo.

Take a SCART from TiVo to the TV.

TiVo controls the SKY digibox (in most cases)through a set of IR wands. These plug into the back of the TiVo & sits in front of the IR window on the Digibox. TiVo then controls everything. The only time I ever use the SKY remote is to turn it back on after a power failure.

Once you have a TiVo you will need a subscription. You can buy a new lifetime subscription for about £200.00 or pay £10.00 per month. This will be really dependent on which TiVo you buy from ebay. Prices vary considerably although you pick up a standard, unmodified one with no Lifetime subscription from about £20-30.00 to get you started. You can then get used to how TiVo totally changes your viewing habits without a tremendous outlay upfront. The other route is to dive in & buy an upgraded (bigger HDD), networked (Turbonet, Cachecard etc) plus Lifetime subscription straight away. It depends on budget & preference. These two different options are both valid & really depend on your wallet.

Have a look around this forum (it's the friendliest forum on the internet with one or two exceptions), you will find people delighted to help you with even the simplest problems.

The monthly vs Lifetime payment has been discussed ad nauseum here & people are usually delighted to debate it again....and again! Likewise which box to buy form ebay. Ask the questions & I promise the answers will come flooding in.

Cheers & welcome to the forum.

Martin

 

The best value option these days would be to buy a basic, unmodified box with a lifetime sub from eBay (usually for less than the cost of the sub alone!) and then upgrade it to your own specification with the hard drive of your choice plus a network card etc. if you want to control it from your PC

 

Only snag nowdays with Tivo and Sky is when the Sky box asks for a PIN.

You can end up with a recording of a nice blue screen

Tivo minor hacks and hardware devices do exist to overcome this but some Tivo / linux skills are required to setup unless you get one already moded with irblast

Automan.

 

In my experience the best value these days is actually to buy a Lifetime Subbed Tivo box from Ebay that has also had a Cachecard network card and 512MB of RAM and a replacement larger hard drive already installed in it along with Tivoweb, the web browser for Tivo.

Generally speaking that works out at least £100 cheaper than buying an unmodified box and upgrading it later with all those bits. In fact more than that if you bought your upgrade drive from a certain supplier.

It seems rather unlike blindlemon to have miscalculated in this way. Or did he mean that the best bet for him was for you to buy an unmodified box and then buy all the upgrade bits and pieces from www.tivoheaven.co.uk later at a higher price.

To be honest unless you are a major gadget freek like many of us and love fiddling you may find a basic non upgraded Tivo with a Lifetime Sub or a Tivo with a Lifetime Sub and just a larger hard drive already installed by the previous owner perfectly adequate for your needs.

Only problem is that there is a lot less choice of secondhand Tivo boxes on Ebay now as most of the Tivo owners who "upgraded" (if you can call it that) to Sky HD have now already flogged off their old Tivo boxes.

 

This is only a problem if you like recording pay per view movies on to your Tivo.

As most people would probably either only view such movies live or choose not to pay for them at all I doubt this would be a problem for many potentials users of a Tivo box with Sky Digital.

 

I thought the problem was actually related to non-PG rated films being shown before 9pm, and that the PIN was basically a kind of parental-approval type system.

Ian

 

Forgive my ignorance if it only affects subscription Sky movie channels and not pay per view movies.

But if so what exactly is the point given that no such PIN control system on Sky boxes by film rating category exists for movies broadcast on any non Sky movie channels.

 

It can be an issue if you have wishlists setup to record items with your favourite movie stars e.g. Wayne, John - Flynn, Errol - Reed, Oliver

These can get a standard un-modified Tivo stuck on a PIN message.

Also I assume a problem now with MCE when used with a Sky box.

P.S. If I could get a full Freeview service I would tell Sky where they can stick their service with it PIN numbers and zero interest in what it's customers want.

Automan.

 

Oh Pete - you tumbled my little ruse

But seriously, if you buy an already-upgraded TiVo you have no idea whether it has been done properly or whether the drive(s) used are likely to last more than a couple of weeks. Many early upgades were done using Maxtor drives for instance. Granted, the cost of the cachecard and RAM will be absorbed into the overall price somewhat (they will be used rather than new for a start), but you may be buying a pig in a poke in terms of the drive and/or the reliability of the upgrade.

 

But then again you may be buying the Sale of The Century.

My own advice regarding buying a heavily upgraded machine would be to buy one from someone who appears to be an enthusiast who has owned for it years and who knows what they are doing and not from a trader who buys Tivos in cheap and sells them on without knowing their history (clearly therefore I am better at giving advice than taking it!).

As to Cachecards and RAM failing the only time I have ever heard of a Cachecard failing that worked at new is due to a local lightning surge of some kind.

Although the upgraded hard drive may fail shortly after you purchase the Tivo it probably won't and at the prices one can get a pre upgraded machine with a larger hard drive and Cachecard the upgraded drive is often almost for free in pricing terms.

However luckily for TivoHeaven and Tivoland most of the cheap and value for money heavily upgraded Tivos being sold on Ebay by people who had moved to Sky HD or to Virgin V+ HD have now all gone so upgrading a non upgraded Tivo may well be the only route now available........................

 

You could always tell Sky where to stick their overpriced subscription and instead become a Sky Freesatter as I am.

At present not one of the non subscription channels available on a Sky Digibox is afflicted by the PIN protection issue.

 

Er, it affects subscription Sky movie channels, TCM, and the PPV movies. Plus any other channel that uses it.

So that Sky's channels can broadcast stronger material during the day, not just squeezed into a tiny window after 9pm. Loads more showings meant loads fewer clashes on my TiVo during the last 3 months I've had Sky Movies (£1/month offer).

That's wrong: the PIN control system exists for all channels. Any channel wanting to broadcast stronger material during the day either uses this system or waits until 9pm. Ofcom rules.

The fact that it stuffs up every recording system except Sky's own Sky+, and a handful of TiVos which have been sufficiently hacked so as to run irblast, is a happy stroke of luck for Sky.

 

Except the Freesat channels also broadcast on Freeview don't have movie content that requires the pre 9pm PIN protection and their program output is the same on Astra (Sky) as on Freeview.

And Freesat channels like Bloomberg Tv, CNN and Al Jazeerah that are not in Freeview don't broadcast movies.

So in reality this is a Sky pay tv channels only issue.

 

Because they choose to do so, as I said. (It would obviously make sense for a channel on other platforms as well as Sky's to do so). The PIN control system exists for all channels to use.