[2004raptor]

My brother recently added a cable box to his setup. I talked him through it and everything went OK (or so we thought).

He had a 30 minute show scheduled to record and it only shows 30 seconds of blank screen. He also had a 3.5 hour show and all it got was 3.5 minutes of blank screen. I haven't had a chance to get over there to look at things but does anyone have an idea of what it could be???

Curretnyl the signla comes in through the wall and goes to cable box. The cable box only has composite outs on it (red/white/yellow). They go to the tivo and the tivo goes s-video/composite sound out to the tv. The tivo menu works, the guide works and I think I heard him say he can view previously recorded programs. SO tings seem to be connected properly but obviously something is up.

Does it need the actual coax cable to come out of the cable box, into the tivo, and into the tv????

 

[JimSpence]

That setup should work fine. The first thing to do is a reboot.
Does the Recording History screen give any hints?

 

[twoglongo]

This is a silly question but needs to be asked. Are the cables from the output of the cable box to the input of the TIVO?

If yes, is the TIVO set up for cable channels?

Just a thought.

 

[2004raptor]

Thanks to both of you.

I told him to look at the recording history and tell me what that says. Haven't heard back. After that I figured a reboot would be in order.

twoglongo - Not a silly question but if he hadn't connected from output of cable box to tivo he wouldn't be able to see anything, right????
According to him, yes, composite cables from cable box output to input of tivo. I will doublecheck though.
And he did a new guided setup since adding the cable box so it should be correct.

Thanks for all the help.

 

[bkane]

Did he connect either the IR blasters or the serial connection so that the TiVo can control the cable box?

 

[2004raptor]

Did he connect either the IR blasters or the serial connection so that the TiVo can control the cable box?

yes, he did connect the ir blaster. Would it matter though? I mean, I know it would matter in general but it wouldn't cause this issue would it?

 

[wscannell]

If the IR blaster is set to the wrong speed or the wrong cable box type, it may not change to a valid channel. This would result in a black screen.

 

[2004raptor]

If the IR blaster is set to the wrong speed or the wrong cable box type, it may not change to a valid channel. This would result in a black screen.

OK, I don't use a cable box in my setup so I have no first hand experience with them. How would he check the speed of it? And the cable box is a small motorola box from comcast. Not sure of the model # but I can get it later today.
Is there a way to find out which ones will work with tivos?

Could comcast actually have a way to make it to where you could view with the tivo but not record from a cable box???

 

[2004raptor]

Small update but figured I would mention it. The motorola box is model number DTC700/US

I've tried googling but still do not know how to set thespeed ofthe IR blaster. Is this within a tivo menu or the cable box menu?

He also mentioned to me his tivo has randomly "rebooted" a few times recently. When mine started doing that I figured it was a hard drive going bad so I replaced it. No problem doing it to his but I really want to work on one issue at a time unless I am certain they are related.

 

[wscannell]

The speed and the box type are generally set up during guided setup by asking what make box you have. Then it tries to change channels and asks whether it succeeded or not. If the questions are not answered properly, this could cause a problem. You can go into cable box setup and use advanced mode. Then the speeds are listed as A, B, and C at the end of the code number. I believe A is the fastest.

 

[2004raptor]

OK, the mystery has been solved. Apparently, somehow, the cable box had been powered off. But there are more issues.

I can start a new thread if need be but I'll go ahead and mention them here.

He had the tivo set to record a certain program but purposely left the tivo on the wrong channel. It recordered the correct time frame but never changed to the correct channel. Is this related to the IR blaster? He said it's changing channels fine via the remote.

Also, ther was another show on HBO that he wanted to record. He said it would let him select the show but gave no option to record???? Never heard of this one before?
Any ideas?

 

[2004raptor]

Still need some help with the not recording on the correct channel issue. He said it's not changing the channel but the now playing list shows the correct show/channel has been recorded.

Does this definately sound like an IR issue? I saw a thread that said to change the last letter of the IR code. His was set at B and I told him to set it at C. I'll find out if it helped tomorrow.

Any other info in the mean time??

 

[2004raptor]

Changing the code to "C" did not help. Still doing the same thing. I am out of ideas. Can anyone add anything to help here?
I told him he may just have to call Tivo support but I don't know how helpful they are. SO I think he's gonna try that later.

In the mean time if anyone has otehr ideas please let me know.

 

[2004raptor]

anyone?

 

[RoyK]

It sure sounds like an IRBlaster problem except for the part where you say he's changing channels fine with the remote. Is it possible he's changing channels with the cable box remote?

With IR Blaster the TiVo has no way of knowing what channel the cable box is really on - it just trusts that when it tells the box to change channels it actually does (no feedback to the TiVO). So its not surprising that the Now Playing List would say that the correct program was recorded even though the channel didn't actually change.

 

[2004raptor]

Thanks for the reply RoyK. I have never used a cable box with a tivo so I have no idea. He said the remote works fine and I am fairly confident it's the tivo remote he is using.

I agree. It sounds like the tivo is doing exactly what it should except fot the changing channel part. Which seems to have to be solely related to IR issues.

Not sure if he called tivo last night for help.

 

[shields8]

2004raptor,

did you get any closure on this issue? My wife's TiVO has the exact same problem: works fine when she's using the TiVO remote to manually change channels, but when TiVO tries to change for a scheduled recording, it sometimes messes up. if you watch it, you can see a channel number is left off (i.e. it'll record channel 6 instead of channel 63). I've tried all kinds of things, slowing down the speed of the blaster, etc. No luck.

the strangest part to me is we *never* experience this when doing it manually, which (you would think, at least) should rule out any IR blaster issues.

Any ideas would be appreciated.

 

[2004raptor]

Not much help but my brother did call tivo one evening and was on the phone with them for a while. I think all that was done was to relocate the IR blaster and affix it (velcro or sticky tape) to the cable box. He said he hasn't had an issue yet.