Old EPG STILL Here.

[Heuer]

Presumably TiVo/Virgin will know how many networked S1's are getting daily EPG data and I am guessing that number will be in the hundreds given many have moved over to AltEPG. In which case I doubt anyone will care or even want to divert any IT effort into closing the loophole. But then again having seen the decisions many companies make (large and small) it beggar's belief. They lose sight of the primary mission (making money) and go off on weird expensive tangents. So leave off having a go at the guys at the top, it will be some little twonk low down the chain who will pull the plug because he will "want to make a difference"!

[IBP]

Yeah, make too much noise about the official feed still being active and someone may want it stopped. Say nothing and it can just carry on quietly. I can't see it being a high priority as it will cost money to close down.

[Pete77]

Yeah, make too much noise about the official feed still being active and someone may want it stopped. Say nothing and it can just carry on quietly. I can't see it being a high priority as it will cost money to close down.

One of the Tivocommunity forum members is already suing Tivo for compensation for loss of Lifetime Service and Tivo have engaged high powered lawyers to defend the claim so this is hardly an "under the radar" type situation. Also the cutting off of S1 service is only being done to meet specific contractual restrictions with Virgin that the Tivo service is now exclusively their property within the UK. Its not an insolvency type situation where there might be no staff left at Tivo to take the steps required to cut off access to a data feed from a third party source.

Whilst I personally do hope that we continue to be able access the Tribune EPG the likelihood is that we won't be able to and that that the final wielding of the axe is just awaiting an hour or two of some technical person's time in Alviso to change the status of all UK S1 Service numbers so that they can no longer access the EPG updates.

[Pete77]

how do you change the tivo phone number on an unmodded series 1? just tried the usual number (not sure which i am dialling) for normal EPG and get call not answered, want to try the 0845 one.

1. Go to TIvo Central by Pressing the Tivo button on the remote.

2. Select Messages & Setup

3. Select Recorder & Phone Setup

4. Select Phone Connection

5. Select Change Dialling Options

6. Select Set Dial Prefix

7. Enter either 02079061000 or 08450885336 according to personal preference and press Select

8. Select Accept and test new options

9. Once the Test Phone Connection call has been made and succeeded Select Use these dialling options

10. Select Make Daily Call Now To Update your Tivo using the newly installed number

11. Leave the Tivo to take maily daily calls on its own using the newly entered phone number

[IBP]

Also the cutting off of S1 service is only being done to meet specific contractual restrictions with Virgin that the Tivo service is now exclusively their property within the UK. Its not an insolvency type situation where there might be no staff left at Tivo to take the steps required to cut off access to a data feed from a third party source.

I didn't realise Virgin were behind it, all the messages have been from tivo. Do you know any more about the specifics or aren't you allowed to say!!

Whilst I personally do hope that we continue to be able access the Tribune EPG the likelihood is that we won't be able to and that that the final wielding of the axe is just awaiting an hour or two of some technical person's time in Alviso to change the status of all UK S1 Service numbers so that they can no longer access the EPG updates.

Exactly, not a high priority.

[Cainam]

IBP wrote:
Do you know any more about the specifics or aren't you allowed to say!!

Pete77 says he has a "journalistic mind". And you know the old journalism adage - never let the facts get in the way of a good story...

He may well be right, but until somone from Tivo or Virgin tell us, we will have no way of knowing either way.

[Pete77]

I didn't realise Virgin were behind it, all the messages have been from tivo. Do you know any more about the specifics or aren't you allowed to say!!

The only people who know for sure what has been going on are Tivo and Virgin Media's Board Directors and they aren't willing to talk. This goes as far as Tivo refusing to even reply to any emails or letters complaining about the service being withdrawn. Perhaps Tivo didn't feel comfortable sending out a letter in answer to complaints saying "we are cutting of your service because we have entered an agreement with Virgin to only supply Tivo service to their customers."

If the cutting off of the service was Tivo's idea I would have expected it to have happened long ago and the timing to not have coincided exactly with the rollout of the Virgin Media Tivo to the main Virgin Media customer base.

The owner of this forum and website (healeydave) also seems to know the exact circumstances of the termination of the service (which led him to conclude that putting in all the work to launch this AltEPG website and coordinate the project between the technical volunteers was worth his time) but like the various parties involved at Tivo and Virgin appears to be subject to an NDA (Non Disclosure Agreement) so can't directly explain to us the reasons for Tivo ending official S1 Service.

Exactly, not a high priority.

Cutting us off is a job for a techie as it probably involves fiddling with the account status of lots of Tivo service numbers (since I don't believe there is actually a physical single server at Tivo only supplying UK S1 customers). Techies are always fire fighting between different problems of different levels of importance. At the moment its not their priority. It may become their priority when and if a Virgin Media director complains to Tivo that non Virgin customers are still managing to obtain official Tivo EPG service..........

[cjanderson]

how do you change the tivo phone number on an unmodded series 1? just tried the usual number (not sure which i am dialling) for normal EPG and get call not answered, want to try the 0845 one.

1. Go to TIvo Central by Pressing the Tivo button on the remote.

2. Select Messages & Setup

3. Select Recorder & Phone Setup

4. Select Phone Connection

5. Select Change Dialling Options

6. Select Set Dial Prefix

7. Enter either 02079061000 or 08450885336 according to personal preference and press Select

8. Select Accept and test new options

9. Once the Test Phone Connection call has been made and succeeded Select Use these dialling options

10. Select Make Daily Call Now To Update your Tivo using the newly installed number

11. Leave the Tivo to take maily daily calls on its own using the newly entered phone number

thanks

I unfortunately went into guided set up, and as it can't dial the existing tivo number (0207) as that doesn't answer and i don't think it would do 0845 without some internal work via a serial cable (which i don't have), i am now stuck in guided set up FOREVER.

Only way to get out is to use the new EPG number, but that number has been busy since 11am. so can keep trying that all weekend. Or try the old 0207 number Monday and hope that works (of course will be at work during day when people say its active so can't do that either duuuh)

[Tcm2007]

It's also possible the Tribune (or whatever they call themselves now) will wake up to the fact that they are providing data for platforms and channels that they don't need to any more. If they don't have other clients for that data it may stop.

[Pete77]

It's also possible the Tribune (or whatever they call themselves now) will wake up to the fact that they are providing data for platforms and channels that they don't need to any more. If they don't have other clients for that data it may stop.

Does Virgin Media have Horse & Country, Current Tv, Wedding Tv etc, etc. If anyone can name channels they don't have that Sky does we can then check if they are still in the S1 Sky EPG listings.

To be honest I would tend to suspect that Tribune Media Service just provides a dump of every single UK channel in their database for which they currently source data (we know that they don't source data or CBS Drama for instance) and Virgin then feed this through to any channels currently in their EPG matched by channel ident. The fees paid by Tivo to TMS almost certainly involve a flat fee for the basic work in maintaining a UK EPG and then a variable fee related to the number of customers Tivo says they currently have for the EPG rather than the total number of channels for which they are currently supplying EPG data.

[Pete77]

I unfortunately went into guided set up, and as it can't dial the existing tivo number (0207) as that doesn't answer and i don't think it would do 0845 without some internal work via a serial cable (which i don't have), i am now stuck in guided set up FOREVER.

I just tried calling the 0845 and the 020 phone numbers from my phone handset and they are both answered with modem tone but when my Tivo calls either of them it gets stuck at Connecting. I don't know if this means they have now been blocked for good like the 0808 Freephone number built in to the Tivo software or if for some extraordinary reason connections through these numbers are only possible at certain weekday times even though the actual number answers with modem tone all the time.

I just tried a call from my networked Tivo with a Cachecard and it got straight through to Tivo and set the clock and completed the call as normal.

I don't know if there is a way to get out of Guided Setup using a Kickstart Code sequence. I did try Googling but had no joy but I'm sure that mikerr or healeydave will know if such a kickstart code sequence for getting out of Guided Setup exists.

[healeydave]

I don't know if there is a way to get out of Guided Setup using a Kickstart Code sequence.

No, I have implemented a Guided Setup abort via Kickstart in the latest tivoland/AltEPG build, but I haven't even uploaded that version yet.

[Mike Sugar]

Where I have experienced several "Failures to Connect" throughout the day, I have just had a successful download from 0207....... at 18:50 this evening.

Mike

[Pete77]

Where I have experienced several "Failures to Connect" throughout the day, I have just had a successful download from 0207....... at 18:50 this evening.

It remains a mystery as to why these two numbers are so erratic about allowing a connection through to Tivo's servers. They always answer and play a modem tone but our Tivos only seem to be able to successfully establish a connection through to the Tivo servers at certain times. It is almost as though only some of the modems on this number have been configured to understand Tivo's unauthenticated PPP connection methods whilst others have not.

Suppose that the first modem on this number is not set up for unauthenticated PPP whilst some of the other ones further down the modem bank are. That would explain why at quieter times of day it is impossible to get a connection on these numbers with a dialup Tivo.

[ByTheCringe]

Where I have experienced several "Failures to Connect" throughout the day, I have just had a successful download from 0207....... at 18:50 this evening.

Mike

Boy, you were lucky! I've just tried, with no success.