FAQ
From NLTiVo
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Why is this site in English?
The fact that this site is in English and not in Dutch, has two reasons:
- We believe in sharing knowledge. Knowledge on the internet is best shared in English. By writing in English we hope that people from foreign countries can benefit from the information that can be found on this site.
- Some of our community-members who live in the Netherlands and have a TiVo, moved from Australia, the U.S. and England to the Netherlands. Their English is better than Dutch.
Which TiVo should I buy?
Not all TiVo-models can be used in The Netherlands. Please see Which TiVo Should I Buy? to see which TiVo you should buy.
How much does a working TiVo cost?
This depends on the amount of money you pay for your TiVo, the tuner-selection, the type of connection and the size of the harddisk you want to use. Also see WhichTiVoToBuy to see which TiVo you should buy.
Here are the prices per item (these prices include shipping costs):
| Item | Price (EUR) | Optional |
|---|---|---|
| U.S. TiVo (series 1) | 100-120 | No |
| Turbonet-card | 65 | Yes |
| PAL-tuner | 30 | Yes |
| Stereo-decoder (only with a PAL-tuner) | 30 | Yes |
| Extra or replacement harddisk (IDE PATA 80GB-300GB) | 55-150 | Yes |
If you want to input the analogue signal from the cable-provider directly into your TiVo, you will need a PAL-tuner which must be soldered into your TiVo. You can also use an external receiver (i.e. digital cable- or satellite-box) which your TiVo can control via infrared, in which case a PAL-tuner isn't needed. If you have access to an analogue phone-line and you already have a dial-up ISP-account, you don't need a Turbonet-card. The system can hold up to two harddisks.
This means that on the budget-side you will need to pay EUR 100 for a working PVR. If you want all the bells and whistles, like a Turbonet-card, a do-it-yourself stereo PAL-modification, and 120GB recording space (which is enough for most people), the price is around EUR 335 for a working system.
How much video can a harddisk contain?
This depends on the size of the disk(s) and the quality of the recording. Please refer to Recording time to find out how many hours of video you can record on any given drive.
Is there something like a TiVo userguide?
In fact there is a TiVo viewer's guide, which guides you through all of TiVo's functionality. This manual can be found here. Please note that since the TiVo-software needed to be hacked in order to function in the Netherlands, a few functions described in the manual don't work with our version of the software.
I heard something about hacking and hidden functionality?
Yep. That's correct. A list of TiVo-codes can be found here. With these codes it is possible to do things like skipping 30 seconds at once in a recording, using advanced Wish-lists and sorting the 'Now-playing' list. Please note that not all of the codes can be used on our TiVo, since we can only use a Series 1 TiVo (Series 2 is not yet adjustable to work in PAL-countries like ours).
Which external receivers are currently supported?
TiVo can control your external receiver via infrared. Infrared-codes can be captured and stored in the nlTiVo IR-database. When they are in the database, the codes for the devices are automatically downloaded by your TiVo via the emulator (during initial setup and during a daily call). After downloading, the device of choice can be selected via a menu-option on your TiVo. No hacking needed.
Currently the following devices are supported:
- Echostar DSB-2000 (digital satellite receiver)
- Dreambox DM500C (digital cable receiver)
- Dreambox DM7000S (digital satellite receiver)
- Panasonic TU-DC-40RD (digital cable receiver)
- Strong SRT-6855 (digital satellite receiver)
- Samsung DCB-9401R (digital cable receiver)
More devices can be added on request.
How do I program the TiVo-remote control to control my TV/audio-set?
Here you will find two documents for programming the TiVo remote control to control your TV or stereo unit. If none of these codes work, there is another option (out of the TiVo User's Manual):
On your TiVo remote control, hold down the TiVo and TV power buttons simultaneously for about 3 seconds, until the LED at the top of the remote lights up. Now enter the code 0999. Your remote is now ready to try all the TV control codes. The code to search through the list of stereos is 1999.
Point the remote at your TV and press the Channel Down button. See if the TV turns off. Keep doing this (leaving enough time between Channel Down presses to make sure it doesn't work) until the TV finally turns off. You have now found the right TV control code.
Now press Enter on the TiVo remote so that it remembers the correct code to use.
The User's Manual says that if the TiVo remote's LED goes off then you have reached the end of the list of TV control codes. However, I found that my LED went off after only a few codes, but I perservered and it did find the right TV control code even with the LED off.
How can I check the MFS-database for errors?
The TiVo-system relies heavily on MFS. MFS is a proprietary system designed by TiVo in which all recordings, logo's, preferences, guidedata, lineups etc. are stored. When this 'database' has errors, it can effect the stability of your system. You can check the database by telnetting into your TiVo and running 'mfscheck' from the command-prompt. After running 'mfscheck' you must reboot your TiVo.
How big should the TiVo swap-partition be?
Swap-space is used to have more memory available to the system. To accomplish this, diskspace is used as system-memory. On a TiVo a special, dedicated partition is used for this.
When preparing a disk for your TiVo, you can change the default size of the swap-partition. The default (127MB) swap partition size is OK for total disk storage of up to 274GB. Above that, the rule of thumb is to divide the disk capacity (in GB) by 2 and to use that many megabytes (for example use 300MB for a 600GB TiVo). The largest value for swap supported by mfsrestore is 511MB. If you are restoring an image to an original TiVo drive (eg. to a 40GB drive or smaller) then you should use a size of 64MB (otherwise you will see a message stating that the drive is too small).
What is a Green Screen of Death (GSOD) and what causes it?
While booting the TiVo you see a green screen saying "A severe error has occurred."
If you see the following screen while booting, don't worry it's not as bad as it looks.
This is commonly called a GSOD (Green Screen of Death) which is not generally as bad as it sounds. An error has occurred on the TiVo's hard drive and the TiVo is just running thru trying to fix the problem. It can take up to 3 hours so be patient. It is vaugely similar to a scandisk on windows, caused by a marking of the filesystem as inconsistent.
If the tivo keeps rebooting and showing this screen it is possible that there is a problem with your swap file. Your TiVo needs a swap file large enough to be able to fix problems on the disk. If the swap file is not big enough you may need to reimage your disk.
During the GSOD, the TiVo is running fsfix, and probably mfscheck. Fsfix is like scandisk, it goes through the "normal" (ext2) partitions, like / and /var, and probably looks for orphaned inodes etc, like a normal fsck. The mfscheck goes through the MFS-partitions, where the recordings are held, along with all the TiVo's settings, guide data etc, probably looking for corruption.
If you want to force a GSOD, there are a couple of ways of doing it, but beware that if you don't have enough swap space, it will never complete, and you'll be stuck in a rebooting GSOD loop until you reimage the disk.
Is the standby-function on my TiVo useful?
Some people think that the live-buffer on the TiVo is disabled when in standby-mode, but this doesn't seem to be true. There are reasons to believe that standby saves on the use of system-resources, uses less power and dissipates less heat.
What is the normal operating temperature for my TiVo?
Anything between 37 and 42 degrees Celcius is considered "normal".
How do TiVo suggestions work?
TiVo will only record suggestions if there has been no activity (e.g. pressing a button on the remote) for 30 minutes or more, otherwise it thinks you are busy watching and doesn't want to disturb you. Suggestions will also only be recorded if your TiVo has plenty of available drive space left, suggestions are always the first things to be deleted when space is needed and they will never be recorded in place of another show. If a suggestion has been recorded and you would like to prevent the TiVo from deleting it too soon, this can be done by changing its "Keep until" value for it from the "Now Playing" menu.
The "TiVo suggestions" menu off the "Pick Program to Record" menu lists all the shows that TiVo has determined it thinks you would enjoy. These suggestions are based on a number of factors. Using the "Thumbs up" and "Thumbs down" buttons on the remote provide the greatest influence for the generation of the suggestions. The "Thumbs up" and "Thumbs down" values influence more than just that particular show, the actors, directory, genre and channel are all influenced by your "thumb" selection as well.
Be careful about setting any show to three "Thumbs down", doing so will pretty much prevent TiVo from ever suggesting a show that contains any of the actors listed as well as provide a negative rating towards the show genre. Setting any show to one "Thumb down" should prevent that show from being suggested.
Suggestion are not a guaranteed way of recording a show but rather just a recording TiVo thinks you may be interested in watching. The best way to guarantee TiVo will record your show is to specifically select it to be recorded or better yet, if it is a series you can get a Season Pass or an auto-recording Wish-list which will ensure every wanted show or movie gets recorded for you.
Is there an overview of trickey-keys?
For those, who do not now it, trickey is a program for the TiVo that watches your remote control keypresses and does cool stuff when you press certain key combinations. This page gives an overview of the keys on your remote that trigger actions on your TiVo.
