I'm back! (well, nearly)

[aerialplug]

I was really into the TiVo scene since even before launch in the UK (when I was a tester as my then employer was one of the initial TiVo partners) to around 2006 where a job and house move back to Wales from Kent and other circumstances caused me to reluctantly move to other viewing platforms - though the TiVo was still in use for most of the period between 2006 and 2011 as a backup. For a long while, some people may remember me as the main source for channel logos for TiVo.

Well, I've since moved to Cork, in the Republic of Ireland and while I get most UK channels on the Sky Ireland service, I don't get any of the ITV channels (though UTV is going to launch in January, it's uncertain if it'll have the same programming as UTV Northern Ireland) and I don't get any of the Channel 5 family of channels - nor do I get some of the Channel 4 channels on the Irish EPG guide so I can't timeshift them. Almost all of the online players IP block anywhere outside the UK so using the iPlayer and other similar platforms is also tricky (though not impossible).

The flat I currently rent has two satellite receivers and both can run at the same time as there are 3 feeds going out to the dish - an old Gen 1 Sky Digital which came with the flat and the Sky+ HD box I got with my Sky Ireland subscription. I plan to get the TiVo to control the old Sky box with a UK Sky Freesat card so that I can once again time-shift the channels not available in RoI (after a hack that you could use here to trick the Sky+ box to record channels it didn't have in its guide stopped working with the most recent update).

I don't know why I didn't think of this sooner - I guess with the TiVo service being switched off shortly before my move to Ireland, I never looked up to see if AltEPG had gotten off the ground - though I vaguely knew there were those working on getting it up to speed before TiVo finally pulled the switch.

My TiVo is currently in a lockup in Wales and I go back in a month's time for Christmas - I'll hopefully be able to bring back everything to get the setup working once again so it'll be January before I get fully on board, but I plan to also help out with the customisation of the guide data (after all, that's exactly what I used to do full time for a former employer!!) I can't do that currently as the AltEPG interface needs my TiVo service number in order to give me full access to certain bits of AltEPG and as already mentioned, TiVo is locked away at present so there's no way of getting the service number until then.

It's a shame the freely available for any use BBC Backdoor project TV-Anytime feed was switched off when Backdoor was closed down - that gave rich metadata for all the BBC channels - and I wrote most of its back end and server side code. This happened before the TiVo switch-off, so wouldn't have come into play for the AltEPG project use, I guess.

[mikethebike]

Best of luck

Hope you get it all to work

[steveroe]

Welcome back - always good to see some of the old faces around again

[aerialplug]

Sorry folks - I grabbed the TiVo from storage while I was back in the UK over Christmas and today was the first time I got to power it up. 3 years in storage haven't been kind to the old box I'm afraid. I think the power supply is failing - the box boots well enough, but there's a loud whistle coming from the PSU board and to make matters worse, it seems to re-boot every few minutes. I was only able to keep it on for about 10 minutes as work colleagues complained about the whistle.

I did buy a replacement PSU (along with a remote control) in the early-mid '00s but that's almost certainly at the bottom of a storage container in Wales or long gone.

While I know I can still get a replacement PSU and where to get one from the existing TiVo community, I also wonder what else is about to give on it given its age (one of the first off the production line) - I opened it for the first time since 2006 and there's a think layer of dust on everything! So sadly, I'm reluctantly re-shelving the TiVo for now.

I also bought a Humax Freesat+ HD receiver while I was back over Chritstmas and this now does what I was hoping to revive the TiVo to do (record ITV/Channel 5 et al from a Gen 1 Sky box that came with the flat I'm renting) and of course it does a whole lot more and the only thing stopping me cancelling my Sky Ireland subscription is the loss of Irish TV channels - I live in a dip and can't pick up Saorview, the Irish equivalent to Freeview - and the Irish channels are only available with a valid Sky subs. (no equivalent to Sky Freesat here).

[mrtickle]

It would be the drive or the PSU as main failure candidates really. Cleaning all the dust would certainly help

[mikethebike]

Surely the Tivo software does much more than the Humax set up ?

There are Tivos being given away too.
See message under for a freebie

[aerialplug]

It's definitely the PSU, not the hard drive.

Getting the freebie to me would probably be more expensive than buying a power supply as I now live in Cork, Ireland.

I may give it a go - however I'm now using all 4 satellite feeds into the flat (2 going through the living room window to the dish!) There is a fifth feed (the one that came with the apartment to feed a basic Sky receiver, described by the estate agent as "cable TV") however, my plans to use this for the TiVo have also been holed as there's a fault with this feed that causes it to drop out during rain (faulty LNB - easy to replace as the dish is at head-height on the other side of the living room wall).

[mikethebike]

Probably would be more to ship than a PSU, but you would have a working, clean Tivo !

Best of luck