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[marsmail]

Thanks for the prompt reply.
Hopefully, when the time comes, (June 1st??) we will get an email letting us know what the new dial up number is and what else (if anything) we need to do to continue using our TiVo's?
Sorry if I am being a pain in the proverbial but I am starting to get anxious!

marsmail

[spitfires]

Just keep checking back here regularly - the instructions will be posted in the Installation & Configuration forum when the time comes

[marsmail]

Sorry, me again!
The mentioned forum is not available to me, it says I "do not have the required permissions to view topics"
Will this be changed or is it something that I have set/done wrong?
Otherwise there is no point in posting the info where it cannot be accessed.

marsmail

[pemills]

I have the same message, it may be because there is nothing to see yet and will be 'opened up' to all when there is meaningful to read and act on.

[healeydave]

Alpha Testing has commenced.

The Installation & Configuration forum is not open yet as there is no significant information in there yet.
There is 1 thread relative to Alpha Testing only.

[gcobb]

The process of changing the dial-up number will be the simplest method (using only the remote) and will allow you to use your existing disk and hence have your existing recordings. Testing on this is still underway.

Just to let people know, I have been doing some testing on the "simplest" option: enter the new phone number and just do a Guided Setup. It seems to work (albeit with some teething problems) and it preserves your existing recordings and requires no intervention to the system. There is more testing to do, of course.

But there are a few considerations with this simple approach:

• Your season passes will all get deleted. I have been unable to find a way to preserve them.
• If you do not need to preserve existing programs, I recommend doing a "Clear and delete everything" instead. This is the lowest risk of problems in the future. As I, personally, want to keep my recordings I will be trying to make sure that that continues to work but there is a risk of a problem appearing which does not appear on Tivo's that were cleared.
• The new phone number will be a chargeable number. And it is likely that the volumes of data downloaded will be higher than with the Tivo service and calls will be longer (there are issues with schedule changes which we won't have time to optimise before the service goes live).
• Despite volunteers working hard on the dialup infrastructure, it may not be as reliable as Tivo's (after all, their's was a paid-for service, and they had customer service people to help with problems).

So, while the simple approach should work, I would encourage people to consider a network card and disk replacement (which, I am sure, Dave will be happy to sell you, complete with easy-to-follow instructions ).

[smatson]

Ok any news on the config for setup existing image yet ?


please

[gcobb]

Ok any news on the config for setup existing image yet ?

A little more patience needed, I am afraid

We are in Alpha test and are understanding what works, what doesn't, what changes are needed, etc. We will be opening it up to a wider Beta test as soon as possible. At the moment, you really wouldn't want to use it on your main Tivo (I'm not and I am working on the software!).

[healeydave]

At the moment, you really wouldn't want to use it on your main Tivo (I'm not and I am working on the software!).

[1]Arh Graham, where's your sense of adventure

Poppadum has just loaded more data into the system. I have just set off a DC on my test tivo. When its finished, if the guide looks ok'ish, I plan to put this disk in the lounge TiVo as promised

Hey, why not, someone's got to have faith eh?

[2]Edit:
scratch that, I jumped the gun, the listing slices are not done yet
will do another DC in a while
loop to [1]

[smatson]

Ok

[drgeoff]

.....
[*]The new phone number will be a chargeable number.

It is quite understandable and acceptable that the phone number will be chargeable. However many TiVo owners may have a phone service which includes 'free' calls eg in the evenings to 'ordinary numbers'. With the official TiVo service there was no real user control as to when the unit would phone in. I don't know if the time was controlled solely by the unit or if the TiVo server told it when to make the next attempt. For the AltEPG it would be good if there was the possibility to match the dial-in time to the free calls period.

If nothing can be effected via the TiVo's software or the AltEPG server software then it should not be too difficult to use a simple cheap timer switch feeding mains to a wall-wart PSU feeding a small relay in series with the TiVo's modem lead. (The low voltage PSU is strongly recommended to avoid the possibility of mains voltages getting to the phone line.)

[Ant]

In terms of chargeable phone numbers, could I make a few "wouldn't it be nice if..." suggestions?

1) If the Tivo configuration itself cannot be influenced to avoid calling during the daytime, maybe it would be possible to provide an alternative dialup number which simply did not answer outside the hours of 6am-7pm, thereby avoiding call charges for people who only have off-peak free calls?

2) Potentially, an option for the dial-up numbers to disconnect automatically once a call reaches 59 minutes? (To avoid the 'free calls cost money after an hour' rules.)

Admittedly that second option would depend more on how gracefully TiVo would deal with a dropped call - whether it processes what it has downloaded and just requests the rest on a subsequent call, or whether it would sulk, discard the lot, and want to download it all again next time - in which case, obviously a forced drop would no longer be such a good idea.

[healeydave]

The tivo dialing functionality will be the same as usual which usually means it tends to cascade onwards 24 hours from its last call.
If you forced a dial at a convenient time for your (e.g in the evening), you should be ok to let it carry on by default after that.

[jezza1956]

On the subject of the phone number, may I enter a plea for there to be a real geographic number, as I get free calls to them but not to 08xx numbers. I have a network card in my main Tivo but was thinking of putting my spare into service too, attached to a Freeview box.

[healeydave]

Considering all special numbers usually map to a regular geographical number, even if we end up utilising an line, I can't see any reason why we can't find out what is regular geographic number is that's just an educated guess at the moment.