Comments on: Advice for TiVo Series3 owners

By: shadoh

shadoh — Mon, 16 Apr 2007 18:55:17 +0000

hrm. funny. Back before I had a TiVo, I always used to turn off my cable box when I wasn’t watching TV. I knew there wasn’t really any necessity to do so, other than perhaps saving a dollar a month on electricity. So when I got my first TiVo and I learned I had to “leave it on” 24/7, I found this a strange concept, though I understood why. Now, ironically, putting my unit into standby sounds like such a foreign concept.

Thanks for the tip. Don’t have an S3 yet, but hoping it won’t be too long before I do (but long enough for the prices to drop a little — sheesh!)

By: xdreamwalker

xdreamwalker — Sat, 14 Apr 2007 12:10:07 +0000

Yes, the Harmony remotes will put a TiVo in standby with a single button press. I know for my S3 is it ‘Power Toggle’
So when you hit off it will turn the TV and other things off, and then place the TiVo in Standby mode.
What I did find out is that I had to add the ‘Tivo’ or ‘Live TV’ command when I pressed my watch TV button to bring it out of Standby.

By: buran

buran — Fri, 13 Apr 2007 23:19:48 +0000

I may be abnormal but I like to stay up late and I’ve gotten hit by that bit of “They did WHAT?!?!” user-friendliness failure more than four times. I really don’t know why something that simple would be ignored if you do get a prompt for channel changes.

For the last few updates I’ve forced it to reboot on my terms, not its. HAH! Take THAT.

By: maeglin73

maeglin73 — Fri, 13 Apr 2007 23:14:19 +0000

Thanks for the info. I’ve been putting mine into standby out of habit as well since I got it, and this is one more reason.

By: megazone

megazone — Fri, 13 Apr 2007 23:06:46 +0000

Time travel rocks.

By: megazone

megazone — Fri, 13 Apr 2007 23:06:03 +0000

It used to reboot at 2AM come hell or high water when it had new software to install.

Way back around 3.x they changed it so it will not reboot if it is recording, but it still reboots otherwise.

I filed an RFE several years ago to not have it reboot if it is in use. Just like Suggestions have a 30 minute activity timer before it’ll record one, I said to do the same thing for reboots. But I think the reason is that there are only a handful of updates each year, so this really doesn’t impact a lot of users. You have to be watching something at 2AM the night the box happens to get an update. And even if you watched it 2AM every night, that’s normally maybe 4 times a year.

By: krellis

krellis — Fri, 13 Apr 2007 23:02:24 +0000

I misparsed your last sentence as “I first got my unit” instead of “I got my first unit” and was on my way to say “wow, that’s a hell of an early preview unit” before I realized I’d misparsed

By: buran

buran — Fri, 13 Apr 2007 22:51:22 +0000

While we’re on the topic of “what not to do unless there’s been activity in the last X minutes”, my other desire would be a “don’t reboot if user has done something recently”. I can’t stand being in the middle of something, hearing the speakers pop, the screen go black, and then getting the “now rebooting” screen. If I wanted a reboot while active I would have triggered one.

“It’s hardcoded” is all anyone ever says when people complain about it, but so what? That’s what updates are for …

I certainly hope it doesn’t do that if a recording is scheduled for 2AM but I’ve never thought to try it.

By: buran

buran — Fri, 13 Apr 2007 22:48:53 +0000

I do have a 688, so I’ll check that out … or … the stock remote is programmable, after all, so I could always program a button I never use to the “standby” code, and just have to remember that that button sends that code instead of whatever it’s labeled as.

After I move, if I manage it, I want to get one of those touch-screen Harmony remotes…

By: mhaithaca

mhaithaca — Fri, 13 Apr 2007 22:47:44 +0000

Would be nice if you could set it to go into stand-by mode automatically after so many hours without input from the remote, say four hours. It would of course put up a little warning over Live TV along the lines of “The recorder is going into stand-by in one minute,” just like when it’s going to have to change the channel to start a recording.

By: megazone

megazone — Fri, 13 Apr 2007 22:45:15 +0000

Unfortunately there is no shortcut, you have to go into the menus. Though the S3 does obey the StandBy IR signal, I believe, it isn’t on the S3 remote. But if you use a 3rd party remote, like Harmony, I think you can program the code into a button.

By: buran

buran — Fri, 13 Apr 2007 22:40:49 +0000

That’s useful. Now I’ll have to see if there are any quick ways to do it (I’m not at home so I can’t check).

This idiocy (someone didn’t think when writing those rules) is probably responsible for my having lost a great photography-related show that stopped recording after 15 minutes â€” AND â€” has never been rerun. Boy, was I angry â€¦