Just today I received the following email from a confused Comcast user.  Since I don’t have Comcast I didn’t feel right answering the question. Can somebody else who does have Comcast help KC out?

Dear Tivo Guru,

I have enjoyed Tivo2 for several years. I recently purchased an HD monitor, and I decided to upgrade my Comcast box to an HD capable box. The lady at the local Comcast office told me that not only does the existing Comcast HD box not have a serial port as does my current old cable box, but it will not receive IR blasts from a Tivo as well for channel changing. Is this correct or is it bad information?

The wonderful people over at TiVoCommunity have done a great job documenting many of the bugs that are present in the latest version of TiVo’s software (7.3.1).  Version 7.3.1 was supposed to fix a number of issues with 7.3 however, it apparently didn’t fix everything.

Nice job TiVoCommunity!

Have you ever wanted to play unprotected AAC, WMA, Ogg Vorbis or FLAC files on your TiVo? According to TiVoLovers.com, you can use this plugin (TiVo Desktop Universal Audio Plug-in) which will convert these file types on the fly so that you can play them on your TiVo. I’m just about to try the software out myself so don’t blame me if it breaks your TiVoDesktop install. 

I hope somebody can explain this to me…..

My TiVo seems to “know” that I am using a HDTV. Ever since I hooked my TiVo to my HDTV, I have noticed that my TiVo is displaying its content using a 16:9 aspect ratio.

For the life of me I can’t figure out how it knows to use 16:9 and not 4:3. Can somebody explain why it is doing this? At first I thought I had found the answer to my question via the following setting: “Read New Messages & Settings” –> “Settings” –> “Video” –> “TV Aspect Ratio”. That was until I read that the “TV Aspect Ratio” setting is only good for internet content which may be downloaded to your TiVo.

Am I missing something or does this have other people confused?

Several people on TiVoCommunity have reported that their new Series 2 dual tuner TiVo has been rebooting at random times.  Nobody seems to have a solution to this problem however, if enough people call TiVo I’m sure that it will get fixed.  TiVo is normally pretty good about getting out a fix ASAP.

Like any “first” generation device there are bound to be problems.  Hopefully it’s not a hardware problem and only a software fix is required.  Stay tuned if you are having this problem….

Just today I received the following email. Since I’m not a DirecTV user I thought it would be a good idea for me to post the question here in order to see what other people who have DirecTV think.

I am writing with what may be an easy question to answer, but I am not current on my Tivo knowledge. I know that you do not run a “Q&A” service, but I’ve seen your blog, and I thought you might be able to point me in the right direction.

A few years ago, I got Tivo and DirecTV for the first time. I got one Sony SAT-T60 DIRECTV Satellite receiver (35 hour TiVo) for the living room, plus I got non-Tivo Hughes receivers for the other rooms. My wife and I fell in love with Tivo. We love it. But we never upgraded or anything. Aside from having not enough storage capacity, we loved our Sony T60 and thought it worked seamlessly with DirecTV.

Fast-forward to today. My wife says she wants one and only one thing for her birthday: Tivo in the bedroom, to go along with the Tivo in the living room. So I call DirecTV and ask. They are sly. They do not immediately tell me that what they are selling me their own dvr, not Tivo, but I ask them directly and finally they admit it. But they also tell me their dvr “works just like Tivo.”

They install it.

Two weeks later, my wife and I are so disappointed in the product. It basically has many of the same functions as Tivo, but it is so user-unfriendly. We hate it.

So what are our options? We really think the way to go is a unified Tivo/satellite receiver, but it seems that no one makes them anymore (we assume because DirecTV is the 800-pound gorilla that caused this). We understand that DirecTV still supports old Tivo machines, like our living room one, but that we are not permitted to hook up a new one.

Should I ditch DirecTV? Should I buy a used DirecTV/Tivo machine and try to get DirecTV to provide service (somehow I doubt that would work)? Please point me in the right direction.

Mike

The other day I received the following question via email:

Will the tivo series 3 box work with pay per view and video on demand or will I need the cable company’s box and the tivo box? Comcast is my provider. THANKS!

Just so I don’t provide misinformation, I thought it would be a good idea for me to post my response on this site. If I say anything that is not correct, please set me straight.

The answer to this question depends on the status of CableCARD 2.0 when the Series 3 TiVo is released. Based on the pictures from CES, it looks as though the Series 3 TiVo will support both CableCARD 1.0 and 2.0. CableCARD 1.0 supports only one-way communication.  CableCARD 2.0 will support two-way communication however, as far as I know the standard for 2.0 is still being developed. So, I guess my answer to this question is yes and no. A Series 3 TiVo will not require a cable box for pay per view and vod content however, I’m not sure that CableCARD 2.0 will be available when the Series 3 TiVo is released.

For more CableCARD information, you might want to check out this write up.

Yet another person thinks that TiVo customer service is great…..

Long story short: I’m sticking with TiVo for a while. They’ve treated me right and I totally adore their product, so I’m pretty much a complete mouthpiece for their service.

I wrote about my experience with TiVo customer service back in December.

Several people are reporting a problem where by their TiVo is reducing the recording time of certain shows for no apparent reason. Could this be a bug in TiVo’s new overlap projection feature? It’s hard to say but it sure does look like overlap projection may be causing the problem.

My wife just told me that she has seen this problem as well. Now that I’m having the problem, I would like to find a solution ;). A couple of people have said that turning off overlap protection fixes the problem. If you are having this problem, head on over to TiVo’s support forum and get in on the discussion. I’m going to try turning off overlap projection so I’ll let you know how it goes.

Thanks David: via the feedback form.

Update 01/24/06: Setting up my Mother’s TiVo was easier then I thought it would be. Here’s a picture which depicts how I connected everything together.

My Mother called me other day and told me that she wanted to hook up a DVD player to the same TV that she has her TiVo hooked up to. After doing a couple of Google searches, I came up with this article on TiVo’s website. The article recommends that you use an A/V receiver for this type of setup. Before I go out and purchase an A/V receiver for my parents, I want to make sure that there isn’t another way that I could do this. Also, assuming I add a RF splitter to the setup, will this allow my Mom to watch TV while recording another channel?

Any help would be greatly appreciated. I certainly don’t claim to be an A/V expert ;).

Here’s some additional information that may be useful:

• No cable box is involved in this setup

• The TV is rather old so it doesn’t have a lot of connections in the back just: RF & Composite A/V (Red, Yellow, White)