We often get asked a question about whether DirecTV TiVos really need to dial in. Sometimes, it’s because the modem is broken. Other times, it’s because the phone line isn’t anywhere near the TiVo.

And the answer is: most DirecTV TiVos do not need to dial in. We’d love to sell you a TiVo external modem kit to fix your broken modem or to make your TiVo work with VoIP or digital phone lines, but in many cases, you just don’t need to have the TiVo dial in. Series 1 DirecTV TiVos DO need to dial in – the rest of this does not apply to these units (Sony SAT T-60, Philips DSR6000, or Hughes GXCEBOT). But Series 2 and the HR10-250 units get their guide data and everything else they need from the satellite.

If you don’t let your TiVo dial in, you’ll get the “nag” screen, once per day. Here’s a nag screen of a TiVo that hasn’t dialed in in quite some time.

My TiVo is crying for help!

So what is your TiVo missing out on if it can’t dial in? The main things it misses are:

• Pay Per View: Once you fill up your unit’s limit,  you won’t be able to do more Pay Per View until your unit dials in and unloads the info.
• System OS Updates: While the update itself generally comes down from the satellite stream, it’s the phone call that authorizes the installation of the update. So if you don’t have a phone line connected, the update won’t install.
• Uploading your data: TiVo uses information from viewing habits to aggregate and sell to advertisers and other interested parties. If your unit can’t connect back, it can’t send this data.
• The “nag” screen: dialing in gives you relief from this once-per-day message for 30 days.

If those issues don’t bother you or don’t apply to you, then you can happily just leave your Series 2 or HD DirecTV TiVo disconnected from the phone line, and you shouldn’t have problems.

We hear from a lot of customers who have problems with their TiVo modems. And we sell a TiVo external modem kit to address many of those problems – basically the ones either involving hardware failure, or VoIP phone lines such as Vonage.

But there’s another issue that accounts for many modem failures at the moment, and you don’t need our modem kit to fix it: a problem with local dial-in numbers. We’ve been getting calls from many customers over the last week about this problem, and TiVo has a support page up for these problems. They are basically telling customers to access a new dial-in number by having them query the main TiVo number for an updated list of local access numbers.

So if you think you might be having a problem getting local guide data, and you use a phone line to access TiVo, then you should visit the above link, or, if you have a Series2 or Series3 TiVo, consider networking your TiVo to avoid these problems.

For years, we have had the largest inventory of replacement TiVo power supplies around. We can now add another notch to the bedpost (and believe me, we TiVo geeks do notch our bedposts over this stuff).

After years of searching, we finally have power supplies for the Toshiba SD-H400 TiVo DVR with DVD player. This short-lived TiVo seems to be prized among TiVo owners, since it has TiVo Basic service and consolidates a DVR and DVD player into a nice compact box. Although the cost of the power supply is unfortunately nothing to sneeze at ($149), they are brand new authorized parts.

With this addition, we now have replacement power supplies for every TiVo made, with the exception of the latest TiVoHD models. Those power supplies should be coming soon.

As TiVos age, repair has become increasingly important to TiVo owners. Whether it’s a TiVo hard drive, TiVo power supply or TiVo motherboard, we can repair most problems. TiVo repairs will preserve lifetime service and in many situations (failed power supplies, motherboards and some drive problems), we can also preserve recordings! As always, help is just an email away.

Tags: power supplies, power supply, sd-h400, sdh400 power supply, tivo, tivo repair, toshiba

If you’ve got an HD TiVo and you want to get all of the channels from your cable company, you’ll likely want a Switched Digital Video (SDV) Tuning Adapter. These items are just rolling out in from cable companies around the country.

Briefly, the idea is that this enables the TiVo to tell the cable company which video stream to send down to your unit. So more options are available, since not every stream has to be sent at once. The unit plugs into your TiVo’s USB port and then you plug the cable line into it, and the output from it goes to the TiVo. See more info on our earlier blog post about SDV and TiVos.

Now Time Warner seems to have a way to pre-order the unit for any eligible customer. See this page where you can enter you zip code and confirm eligibility, then sign up!

As far as we know, the adapters will be free for eligible customers.

We really believe that CableCARDs are a great new technology in that they allow DVRs to work with a wide variety of cable providers. But, sometimes, getting them configured is a bit of a hassle.

Early on in their history, CableCARDs caused a whole host of problems, largely just due to the lack of knowledge of cable installers. But since then, the problems have really almost totally disappeared, and their installation and use has become routine and reliable.

But if you do have a problem, you should try calling TiVo’s CableCARD hotline. These folks have pretty deep knowledge of CableCARD issues.

Phone number: 866-986-8486

Hours of operation:
Monday – Sunday
6:00 AM – 9:00 PM Pacific