Worked Great - Now no Digital Channels

I can think of three possibilities:
1. The cable between the splitter and the "cable company device" is bad/loose.
2. The S-video cable is now bad/loose.
3. The cable company's device suddenly went bad.

Does your TV have an S-video input? If it does, try disconnecting the S-video cable from the TiVo and plugging it into the TV, and see if you get a signal there.

-- Don

 

Reboot the cable box

 

Technically, the second tuner isn't involved since you're recording the input to the audio jacks and the S-Video jack, although the software that handles the whole "use the second tuner or the line inputs, depending" situation may be having problems.

Find an old VCR or something that can run into the audio and composite video (yellow jack) inputs, and see if you can record anything that way.

If so, then the S-Video input circuitry itself has gone bad.

If not, it may be a software problem.

Does the cable box have any outupts besides the S-video (and, I assume, white and red audio jacks)?

 

Co-axial out meaning imitation analog channel 3 or channel 4? Silver metal threaded thingie, no yellow RCA jack anywhere?

How does the TiVo tell the cable box to change channels?

(if all else fails, there's some surgery that can be done to allow accessing the two tuners co-axial inputs separately, although if it's not a lifetimed box it might be simpler to pick up another of the same model off of Craigslist for $20)

Perhaps the troublesome TiVo has just gotten confused.

You could try re-running Guided Setup, telling it a different configuration, and then re-run it again telling it the truth and see if it resets.

You could also try other TiVo red, white, yellow (stored program playback) into troubled TiVo input jacks (nothing plugged into S-video jacks on either machine) and see if you get picture and sound that way, in which case suspect S-video input circuitry.

 

Use your TiVo that's not giving problems as a known good audio/video source.

Get one of those cables with red, white, and yellow RCA plugs at both ends (look in one of your old TiVo boxes), or the electrical equivalent, they can all be the same color or any color, but you want to go from good TiVo composite video out (yellow jack) to problem Tivo composite video in, and the same for the audio.

Have no S-video cables attached to either machine.

Play back a recording on the good Tivo, say a one hour one.

Tell the problem Tivo to record a show (maybe a half hour one) from the cable box (which won't actually be attached to anything at this point, but while we're at it, check to make sure that the TiVo actually gets it to change channels).

See if the problem Tivo actually recorded what the good Tivo was feeding it.

If so, the problem isn't the TiVo software, it's the problem TiVo's S-video input and/or the associated circuitry, including possibly whatever it uses to detect the presence of an S-video cable/signal.

 

On the back of the TiVo, to the right, if viewing the back of the TiVo, of the audio/video inputs and outputs are black plastic jacks with 4 round holes (that are for luminence and its ground, and chrominance and its ground) and smaller and larger rectangular holes at top and bottom, which are not electrical but help with aligning the plug with the jack. They look similar to PS/2 mouse and keyboard jacks (but the pin placement is incompatible, as are the electrical signals).

Those are the S-video jacks. They get used instead of the yellow jack if you do an S-video hookup. (supposedly the video is better that way) The left and right audio (white and red) still get used for the audio.

So, now that we've established that your cable box outputs composite video (its "composed" of the luminance and chrominance signals joined together as one signal that has to be unjoined by circuitry in the TiVo or TV) and 2-channel stereo audio, and/or an RF signal from the silver threaded thingie (which joins the composite video and the audio into one signal that rides on a channel 3 or 4 carrier), and apparently does not have an S-video output, we have to figure out a new way to approach troubleshooting.

Go ahead and do the "good TiVo as a red, white, yellow source" experiment anyway, and let me know if it gets recorded (and if the cable box changes channels like the TiVo tells it to) while I try to brainstorm something else to try.

And dig through your old TiVo boxes and see if there isn't an S-video cable (it'll be black) in one of them.

After you do the above experiment, do it again with the S-video cable running between the good Tivo's output and the problem TiVo's input, with the yellow plug cable disconnected on both ends, but the red and white still hooked up.

 

Check your Video settings on the TiVo. You can switch between composite and s-video without running the entire Guided Setup. If it's set to s-video and you're using composite (or the other way around) it would cause your problems.

It's also possible that the yellow RCA jack for composite has broken loose from the motherboard, especially if you use Monster brand cables. A little soldering sould fix that, or you could just switch to s-video. Most local stores charge a fortune for s-video cables, but monoprice.com is cheap.

P.S. I can see a definite improvement in picture quality using s-video, but you have to use it from the cable box to the TiVo AND from the TiVo to the TV. My TV is a 36" Sony Vega with an incredible picture, so YMMV.