Our series 1 Tivo has exhibited a potentially fatal flaw. Since the weekend, the tivo has stopped responding to commands from the remote control. Reboots don’t help. Resetting the remote control according to the instructions in the Tivo forums doesn’t help. The remote still sends commands, as it is still able to control the television. The most likely cuplrit seems to be the infrared receiver in the Tivo.
The question now becomes, spend valuable time and effort opening the Tivo, figuring out how to replace the IR sensor, ordering it, and trying it out, when I’m not even 100% sure that’s the problem, or should I just be glad I got exactly four years of service out of a relatively inexpensive peice of consumer electronics, and buy a new one?
DirectTV is running a rebate on their receiver with 80-hour Tivo; it comes out to $50 for the unit itself, with the monthly charge at about $45 including the Tivo fee. That’s less than I’m paying today for extended Comcast cable plus the Tivo service. Andrea and I have been dissatisfied with the quality of many of the channels on Comcast, especially the Sci-Fi channel and the WB. DirectTV also has a few additional channels we’d be interested in having, BBC America, Oxygen, and when Elizabeth gets a little older, the Disney channel.
Seems like a decent idea to me!
Anyone know how I can extract some video from my series 1 Tivo?
Don’t fret too much. I (years ago) used to watch all my TV off of videotapes, since I wanted TV to fit around MY life, and not the other way around. Well, the VCR started having problems, so we switched to DirecTivo. Haven’t looked back since. We love DirecTV. Especially with kids. Lots of great channels. Recently, our Tivo started making loud noises. We think it was the fan. Anyway, I called DirecTV and asked them about when the large capacity units (100 hours) were coming out. This summer sometime, they said. But we couldn’t wait. I mentioned our problem, and they said that they’d put a $100 credit on our account that would become active once we bought a new unit and activated it. Turns out the new units are 70 hour instead of our 35 hour, and they cost about $100. So we did that, and essentially got a new unit for free. The old one had been 2 1/2 years old. If you currently have a stand alone Tivo, you probably have a higher capacity unit, though, so I’m not sure what to tell you about a downgrade. And as for getting stuff off the unit, we talked to the DirecTV people about that. You can do the “Save to VCR” option (assuming yours has that – I’ve never seen a stand alone unit), but you can’t transfer programs from one unit to another. At least that’s what they said. It’s possible that you might be able to rig something, but I have no information.
Not sure if this has helped at all. But good luck with your switchover. It’ll take a day out of your life, but I’m sure it’ll be worth it!
And the Disney Channel has some really fun shows for kids these days. Noggin is our favorite because it has absolutely no commercials and kid stuff 12 hours a day (though where we live, it’s 4am to 4pm or 3am to 3pm depending on season, not 6am to 6pm like you people in the East).
Jenny