Official AVS TiVo HD Topic! - Page 58

OK I downloaded 2.6 and it worked right away. Except no audio. Why is that? Thanks

When I first got my TiVo HD, I did some testing between passing the Dolby Digital signal to my receiver and having the TiVo decode to PCM. This was over a year ago and I thought I remembered it showing up as multichannel PCM on the receiver. But now it seems that I'm only getting a two channel PCM coming from the TiVo. I haven't been able to find any documentation on PCM output. The problem with passing through the Dolby Digital signal is that it causes silence at the beginning of any stream break (resume from pause, ff, etc) while the receiver detects the signal and switches appropriately. So PCM runs much smoother, but I guess if it doesn't send multichannel PCM, I guess I should switch to using Dolby Digital (and also lose out on the TiVo sounds).

I believe that is an AVR problem not TiVo problem.

But those TiVo experts here can correct me if I am wrong.

It never happens for me and I ONLY Bitstream to my AVR.

happened to me on my Onkyo. It's an Onkyo problem. I just got a Pioneer and it works fine. Both bitstreamed.

Thanks for helping with that answer. I thought it was
an AVR problem. I have one TiVo hooked to an Anthem
D2 and one Hooked to a Pioneer and neither one has
a Problem.

no problem. Here's BFDTV who helped me out:

All recordings are downloaded as is. Are you certain that recording had a 5.1 track? Some movies on premium channels only have stereo tracks.

How are you removing the TiVo wrapper to play the file on the PS3? Are you using VideoRedo or something else? If you have VideoRedo, try running the recording through Quickstream fix -- you can also automate this for all downloads using the free VideoRedo Autoprocessor add-on (see FAQ in first post). If you don't have VideoRedo, you can try the trial right here.


This is not a feature TiVo supports. That said, it is possible to add remote access by forwarding two ports on your router.


As per the first post, you need the right codecs installed for playback on your computer.

TiVo officially confirmed support for the new 1TB My DVR Expander (external drive), sold at Amazon.com and J&R Music World for $179-$185.

Sorry I dont understand. How do I do that?

If you have a Windows PC, download and run the K-Lite Codec Pack (click link). During installation, be sure to check "Cyberlink" as the default MPEG-2 decoder and Windows Media Player as your default player. You will need to reboot for installation to take effect.

First I want to thank you for the effort. Nowhere in the installation did it give me the choice to check "cyberlink". I've tried all sorts of things to get this to work. And personally I find it remarkable that Tivo would require a download of this type(Desktop), that requires jumping through hoops to get it to work. This should work on all PCs effortlessly. After all, its to run their program! And maybe its frustration talking.

Hi all,

I looked over the FAQ and couldn't find the answer to my question.

I am currently using the DTVPal DVR which means I can only use an antenna to receive digital TV. With my DVR I notice that in order to get a good recording the digital signal strength needs to be at least 80. Lets say I tune into a channel that has a signal strength of 70 and try to record a program, the final recording will be alitte choppy is at certain spots during playback. so if I wanted a good recording from that particular channel (and its only a few that require some tweaking) I need to first slightly move my indoor antenna until the signal strength of that channel went above 80.

can someone tell me how signal strength is displayed on the TV with the Tivo HD using only OTA broadcast?

with the DTVPal DVR, everytime you change channel the signal strength is one of the items that gets displayed in addition to what is on, channel, time, etc...

thanks

With the Tivo HD and S3 the signal strength is not available on the screen when you change channels. When tuned to a channel, you can get the signal to noise ratio, SNR, and signal strength through the system information menu. SNR is usually more informative than signal strength, but is buried a couple of menu items down.

That is my fault. K-Lite appears to have changed the codec contents, such that the Full pack is now required to get the Cyberlink decoder and AC3 support. I updated the FAQ to reflect that. And don't worry about selecting the Cyberlink decoder, which it should by default; just make sure you've got Windows Media player selected as your default playback program.


You cannot really blame this problem on TiVo. You had this problem because the recordings you were trying to play have Dolby Digital audio. Windows XP and Vista do not include support for Dolby Digital audio. Had you previously installed some sort of DVD playback software, then you'd have that support on your machine, and the installation of a separate codec pack would be unnecessary.

Why, you ask, did TiVo not include MPEG-2 and Dolby Digital support with the TiVo Desktop install? They did. But you don't get these until you activate the pay-version -- TiVo Desktop Plus. These codecs are not free for commercial distribution; they are the same codecs you find in [pay] DVD playback software.

I am using Tivo Desktop to attempt to download files to my PC. I am able to see the Tivo now playing list. When I try to download a particular file the transfer seems to end early but Tivo Desktop seems happy. For example if I try to download one of the Tivo tour files which occupies around 200MB on the Tivo, the file on my PC after "transfer" is 8KB! Similarly a recorded 18 minute SD segment "transfered" as about 300MB. Neither played. I am networked using the Tivo wireless adapter which connects around 75% or better and works fine for routine operations. If I publish photos on my PC I can display them on the Tivo. I can also play You Tube videos on the Tivo. I have Kaspersky AV and placed the 3 key Tivo executables in the trusted zone. Windows XP firewall shows all Tivo items are allowed. I tried using the web based interface to the now playing list. I could see the list but downloading resulted in the same outcome. Any help would be very welcome...

If the web interface gave the same result, then this is not a Tivo Desktop problem. The most obvious suspect would be your firewall and/or antivirus software. Try turning off both of them completely and see if that makes a difference.

I was under the impression that the only way to report channel lineup issues to TiVo was by calling their customer support number which I loathe. However, I was referred to the following page by someone in my local forum today. I tried it, and it seems to work and is a much more efficient way of reporting lineup issues, so I thought I would share it with everyone here.

http://www.tivo.com/setupandsupport/...neup_tool.html

The page comes and goes, from what I've gathered. Three months from now, it could be gone again.

Okay, I'm having what I'm afraid is a unique problem, since I've never seen anyone mention something like this here...

I have a tivohd with the "officially supported" sata expansion drive, had it for over a year with no problems. For the past month or two, though, I've been getting some recordings that just stop recording! It can be after 6 minutes, or 35 minutes, or 0 minutes. There doesn't seem to be any pattern, channel/time/length of recording, it happens randomly. That's why I've waited to ask about it, trying to see if there was a pattern. It happens to about 40% of my recordings, I'd say. I called tivo, they didn't know/hadn't heard of it, they want to send me a refurbished unit under exchange for 150 bucks, I said no. I'm wondering if the external drive could be the problem, I'm trying to catch up on my shows and then I'm going to disconnect it to test and see if I still see this problem.

btw, I also have a series 3 in another room, running from the same feeds (from a home-run source) and it hasn't ever done this.

Has anyone heard of anything like this? any suggestions?

Unfortunately, it sounds like your My Expander is going bad. What you've described is exactly what occurs with a failing eSATA drive.

TiVo's own SMART tests aren't able to reliably detect all drive errors, but there is another way. Unplug your TiVo, then connect the eSATA drive to your computer (with either a a SATA->eSATA cable or USB->eSATA adapter). Download Western Digital's Data LifeGuard utility and run its extended test. That should confirm that your drive is failing.

Edit: The Windows version of the Data LifeGuard utility does not work under Windows Vista. Those with Vista can use the bootable CD version.

One of the complaints about the 11.0 software is that it is more particular about drive errors. Prior to 11.0, you'd only see some extra pixelization or dropouts when recordings were written to a failed / defective part of the drive. Since 11.0, any attempt to write to a failed / defective part of the drive causes the recording to halt.

Since the TiVo divides individual program storage between the drives, do you lose your saved programs when you disconnect the eSATA drive, either temporarily or permanently?

Yes, you permanently lose all recordings made since the external drive was added, once you confirm the removal as seen below:



There have been countless reports of failures on the WD Expander 500GB after 12-16 months. Hopefully, the new 1TB version will be more reliable.

Personally, I prefer internal drive upgrades to eliminate the potential second source of failure.

If your 1TB drive replacement starts to go bad in a few years, you can do a complete backup to a new 1TB drive, preserving your recordings. I'm not aware of any way to backup / restore the external drive. If your external drive starts to go bad, recording is no longer reliable, and removing the drive causes you to lose all recordings made since it was added, beyond what you saved to your computer.

does anyone know if it's good to occasionally wipe the drive(s) of programs by doing that? considering you don't have anything you want to keep. I assume it just clears the file table and doesn't actually do a 1's and 0's wipe.

I don't think there is any benefit. As you say, it probably just clears the file table since removal takes 3-5 minutes.

As an aside, Amazon.com just dropped their price on the 1TB My DVR Expander to $167 shipped.

I've manged to lock up my TiVo HD 3 times now, over the last 6 weeks. All 3 times were during NetFlix operations. It's never locked up during the actual streaming of the program. The lockups have always occured while navigating menus to either choose a program for viewing or the post viewing menu. All other DVR operations have been rock solid. To recover from the lockup requires pulling the plug for a few minutes then restarting.

I've only had my TiVo HD since 2/1, so my understanding is that the NetFlix streaming code is relatively new and came in with the v11 software. So it probably still has a few bugs in it they have to work out in future revisions. Has anyone else gotten it to lock up with NetFlix?

I'm not a heavy Netflix user, but the only times I've ever had a lockup in that application...is when Internet connectivity goes out for more than 30 seconds.

The Netflix application seems to be very sensitive to temporary loss of Internet connectivity. You can demonstrate this by unplugging your router for 40 seconds or so while using that application. In some cases, you won't even be able to use Netflix [for awhile] after this happens on the "one-out" plan, because the Netflix site still thinks you are connected and streaming.


The 11.0 software was the first to add MPEG4/VC1 support and it's clear from using Streambaby that there are still some issues that need to be resolved, especially with regard to stream compatibility. Occasionally, when playing an incompatible MP4 or WMV stream in Streambaby, streaming MPEG-4 and VC1 playback can be broken entirely, requiring a reboot to restore that functionality.

Moxi deployed DLNA V1.0. I was told that the upcoming DLNA V2.0 includes PVR capability. That means a DLNA v2.0 media server may have a built in PVR which can be accessed from any DLNA capable TVs anywhere on the home network.

Yes, it has happened to me once out of about ten times I have used it so far. And the only way to clear that was to unplug the unit.

Thanks, good to know it's not just mine. As in your case, not very frequent at all.

Pardon me if this has been mentioned, but a search here didn't find it and TiVo Support was no help.

I've been using my TiVo HD for about 3 weeks now and decided it was time to use the WishList search.

I'm confused, because the manual and the TiVo website both state that I should be able to use the PAUSE key on the remote to put quote marks around a "search phrase" keyed in Title keyword for the WishList search, but my unit doesn't do anything there when I press the PAUSE key. TiVo support told me quote marks aren't supported in WishList keyword searches???

From the TiVo HD User manual (page 21) you can even see this in their online pdf user manual;
Use quotation marks to specify an exact phrase in a Keyword or Title WishList search (to enter quotation marks, press PAUSE)


From the TiVo website->My Tivo->Tips and tricks;
Find your fav documentary with WishList search - If you know the title of the documentary you want to see, select Create a WishList search, then Title. Don't forget to use " (press the PAUSE button) to indicate exact phrase.
&
WishList "Trip" tip - Use a TiVo WishList® search to suss out potential vacation spots so you know where to go, what to see, and at which restaurants you should eat. From Find Programs, select WishList SearchSelect Keyword and enter the name of the country or city you'd like to visit (Try your hometown, just for kicks.) If the city is more than one word, use quotation marks [PAUSE button] to indicate exact phrase.