TiVo Blog Mailbag (iPhone Remote, Networking, Infomercials, DirectTV, USB)

Here’s a roundup of some of the questions that I recently recieved via this site’s feedback form.  Feel free to chime in via a comment….

Jan Wrote (via YouTube):

This must be the series 3? I have a series 2 here at the house and was wondering what would happen if I plugged in one of my USB stoarage drives to it. I’ve just learned about upgrading the hard drives IE putting the software on the drives and installin them in the Tivo.:) New toy sort of thing. Hope to hear from you soon.
Jan

My Response:
The usb port on your s2 is used for connecting a network adapter. Connecting a usb drive won’t do anything. if you choose to upgrade to a series 3 you could upgrade the dvr using its built in esata port. good luck…

It appears that Tivo and/or DirecTV updated the HD Tivo receiver with a new build overnight (3/1/09) that disabled the select-play-select 30 select shortcut and cut the “short channel banner” option from the 3 options. Now the only choices are to display either the full display banner (covers ~1/3 of the screen) or the full width banner that covers only the top of the screen. Have you heard of this release, and perhaps do you have any additional information on the (de)features in the release?

My Response:
I have not heard anything about this update. I just checked out TCO however, it doesn’t look as though anybody is talking about it. Hopefully somebody will see this post and chime in…

Question, I have 2 tivos and want to connect them to each other and to tivo service.

I have one tivo that is wired to a netgear wgr614 v6, another new one that I would connect via wire to a linksys 54gs (dd-wrt) wireless router that will connect wireless back to the netgear router. Does any one have the setup to allow this to happen and will i be able to share program between the 2 tivos?

My Response:
It sounds like your setup should work just fine.  In fact, your setup is similar to mine (other than the router –> router wireless connection).  Are you having a problem or, are you just asking if it should work?

Thought you and your readers might appreciate which was created for Sports fans who have Tivo - www.shouldiwatch.com. Record a game and then it will tell you if it’s worth watching – without spoiling the outcome.

My Response:
Great idea!  I’ll definitely us this site during the upcoming MLB season.

i have two lifetime tivos and have way befor most ever heard of tivo and i work nights and lately i cannot even back a show up to listen without my tivo taping more infomercials if i wanted to listen to that crap i would not have tivo!further more back everything up for my shows to listen to ,to also be interrupted by loud commercials.i even tried deleting the info channels and tonight i come home and there it is taping some more commercials like i’m going to watch that shit, that’s why i have a tivo!

My Response:
I’m sorry to hear that your TiVo isn’t working out for you.  Is your DVR recording these shows as a suggestion.  If it’s a suggestion, you probably don’t have to worry about it.  Your DVR will automatically delete any suggestions whenever it needs more space.  That being said, you might want to checkout your “Thumb Ratings” (Find Programs –> TiVo Suggestions –> [Enter] to view your thumb ratings).

Tivo remote on the iPhone? How do I get access to that?

My Response (via Twitter):
@jaredslighter Check out this mini review – http://is.gd/gUjo Note that these apps only work with a TiVo HD or a Series 3. Does that help?