Series 2 TiVo branded becomes unresponsive to remote...

At times, it just does not respond. I've changed batteries in the remote
with no joy, and after maybe 5 pushes of any button, it will finally
respond. Finally, I restarted it about 2 days ago, and that seemed to
fix it then. Tonight it happened again, But cleared up after I finally
got something to play. What's happening? I don't want to have to restart
the TiVo every night.

I had the same problem a few months back. I too thought restarting the Tivo
would temporarily fx the problem. What I found was that I had an infrared
repeater that was behaving badly and occasionally flood the entire cabinet
with IR. During these times, the Tivo remote had a difficult time getting a
signal through. Any chance you have a remote in a semi-permanent send mode?
By the way the errant signal apparently wasn't strong enough to cause the
yellow (IR receive) light to flash on the Tivo.
"Steve Henderson" wrote in message
...
At times, it just does not respond. I've changed batteries in the remote
with no joy, and after maybe 5 pushes of any button, it will finally
respond. Finally, I restarted it about 2 days ago, and that seemed to
fix it then. Tonight it happened again, But cleared up after I finally
got something to play. What's happening? I don't want to have to restart
the TiVo every night.

Peter wrote:
I had the same problem a few months back. I too thought restarting the Tivo
would temporarily fx the problem. What I found was that I had an infrared
repeater that was behaving badly and occasionally flood the entire cabinet
with IR. During these times, the Tivo remote had a difficult time getting a
signal through. Any chance you have a remote in a semi-permanent send mode?
By the way the errant signal apparently wasn't strong enough to cause the
yellow (IR receive) light to flash on the Tivo.
"Steve Henderson" wrote in message
...

At times, it just does not respond. I've changed batteries in the remote
with no joy, and after maybe 5 pushes of any button, it will finally
respond. Finally, I restarted it about 2 days ago, and that seemed to
fix it then. Tonight it happened again, But cleared up after I finally
got something to play. What's happening? I don't want to have to restart
the TiVo every night.



Wow - you're right - I DO have a IR repeater. Didn't know it was
flooding it tho. Next time it happens, I'll check it out. I have it
upstairs so I can control TiVo from there. Good info. Sounds like you
might be on to something.

Thanks!

Steve,
I just ordered a TiVo2 so I'm a newbie for sure. Why do you control the
TiVo from a remote location, can you feed to a second TV? If so, how?
Paul


"Steve Henderson" wrote in message
...
Peter wrote:
I had the same problem a few months back. I too thought restarting the
Tivo
would temporarily fx the problem. What I found was that I had an
infrared
repeater that was behaving badly and occasionally flood the entire
cabinet
with IR. During these times, the Tivo remote had a difficult time
getting a
signal through. Any chance you have a remote in a semi-permanent send
mode?
By the way the errant signal apparently wasn't strong enough to cause
the
yellow (IR receive) light to flash on the Tivo.
"Steve Henderson" wrote in message
...

At times, it just does not respond. I've changed batteries in the remote
with no joy, and after maybe 5 pushes of any button, it will finally
respond. Finally, I restarted it about 2 days ago, and that seemed to
fix it then. Tonight it happened again, But cleared up after I finally
got something to play. What's happening? I don't want to have to restart
the TiVo every night.



Wow - you're right - I DO have a IR repeater. Didn't know it was
flooding it tho. Next time it happens, I'll check it out. I have it
upstairs so I can control TiVo from there. Good info. Sounds like you
might be on to something.

Thanks!

Paul Schilter wrote:

Steve,
I just ordered a TiVo2 so I'm a newbie for sure. Why do you control the
TiVo from a remote location, can you feed to a second TV? If so, how?
Paul


"Steve Henderson" wrote in message
...

Peter wrote:

I had the same problem a few months back. I too thought restarting the

Tivo

would temporarily fx the problem. What I found was that I had an

infrared

repeater that was behaving badly and occasionally flood the entire

cabinet

with IR. During these times, the Tivo remote had a difficult time

getting a

signal through. Any chance you have a remote in a semi-permanent send

mode?

By the way the errant signal apparently wasn't strong enough to cause

the

yellow (IR receive) light to flash on the Tivo.
"Steve Henderson" wrote in message
...


At times, it just does not respond. I've changed batteries in the remote
with no joy, and after maybe 5 pushes of any button, it will finally
respond. Finally, I restarted it about 2 days ago, and that seemed to
fix it then. Tonight it happened again, But cleared up after I finally
got something to play. What's happening? I don't want to have to restart
the TiVo every night.



Wow - you're right - I DO have a IR repeater. Didn't know it was
flooding it tho. Next time it happens, I'll check it out. I have it
upstairs so I can control TiVo from there. Good info. Sounds like you
might be on to something.

Thanks!




Paul,

As you've probably learned by now (or soon will), there's a zillion
combinations of ways to hook all your video/audio stuff up. I use the
RCA jacks to feed my main TV downstairs from the TiVo (for better
quality). However, I have a small 13" TV upstairs in the "computer
loft", and want to watch whatever is on TiVo while surfing, etc. My
maint TV downstairs has an RF OUT connection. So, I ALSO run an RF feed
from the TiVo to my Input B to the TV. Then, I tell the TV to use Input
B for the "antenna" feed, which makes it available at the RF Output. I
then ran a coax upstairs to the 13" TV. Of course, you could just use a
splitter on the RF out from TiVo, and run one to each TV. I only run it
to the main tv for those rare times when I want to watch Tivo on TV
while recording something else on my old VCR. Bottom line. Whatever I
see on my main TV - I now also see on my 13". Then, I wanted to be able
to CONTROL the TiVo when I was home alone and upstairs, so I went to
Radio Shack and bought their IR repeater. I put the transmitter
upstairs, and the emitter downstairs in my entertainment cabinet. That
way, when I go upstiars and point the TiVo Remote at the small TV, I
"hit" the RF receiver (which I mounted upside down on the bottom of the
corner shelf that holds the TV), and it sends the signal down via UHF
signal, and the receiver down there rebroadcasts the IR to all my
components. One little thing... the Radio Shack model has a "main"
emitter, and it also has a plug-in "remote" emitter at the receiving
end. Trouble is, when you plug in the little extra IR emitter (just a
little IR LED on the end of a 3' cable), the jack cuts the "main" IR
emitters off - so I had to take it apart and do a wee bit of soldering
so that the receiver would drive BOTH emitters (built-in and remote) at
the same time, because my cabinet didn't allow me to use just one to hit
all my components. To my surpirse, it worked. I really don't know why
Radio Shack has the defeat built in to the "remote out" jack. It seems
to drive both emitters very well at the same time.

This is a little more complicated that it really should be because I
have a stand-alone TiVo serivs 2, and use both the DirectTV (for
Satellite channels) and an Antenna (for my local channels). I'm too
cheap to pay DirectTV for my local channels grin.

Hope all that helps. It does the tick for me, and I can watch my TiVo
either place. Now, I just need to buy another pickle (TiVo Remote) so
that I don't always leave it in the wrong place, like I do now grin.

Steve Henderson

Steve,
Thanks for the info, I'm learning.
Paul

"Steve Henderson" wrote in message
...
Paul Schilter wrote:

Steve,
I just ordered a TiVo2 so I'm a newbie for sure. Why do you control
the
TiVo from a remote location, can you feed to a second TV? If so, how?
Paul


"Steve Henderson" wrote in message
...

Peter wrote:

I had the same problem a few months back. I too thought restarting the

Tivo

would temporarily fx the problem. What I found was that I had an

infrared

repeater that was behaving badly and occasionally flood the entire

cabinet

with IR. During these times, the Tivo remote had a difficult time

getting a

signal through. Any chance you have a remote in a semi-permanent send

mode?

By the way the errant signal apparently wasn't strong enough to cause

the

yellow (IR receive) light to flash on the Tivo.
"Steve Henderson" wrote in message
...


At times, it just does not respond. I've changed batteries in the
remote
with no joy, and after maybe 5 pushes of any button, it will finally
respond. Finally, I restarted it about 2 days ago, and that seemed to
fix it then. Tonight it happened again, But cleared up after I finally
got something to play. What's happening? I don't want to have to
restart
the TiVo every night.



Wow - you're right - I DO have a IR repeater. Didn't know it was
flooding it tho. Next time it happens, I'll check it out. I have it
upstairs so I can control TiVo from there. Good info. Sounds like you
might be on to something.

Thanks!




Paul,

As you've probably learned by now (or soon will), there's a zillion
combinations of ways to hook all your video/audio stuff up. I use the
RCA jacks to feed my main TV downstairs from the TiVo (for better
quality). However, I have a small 13" TV upstairs in the "computer
loft", and want to watch whatever is on TiVo while surfing, etc. My
maint TV downstairs has an RF OUT connection. So, I ALSO run an RF feed
from the TiVo to my Input B to the TV. Then, I tell the TV to use Input
B for the "antenna" feed, which makes it available at the RF Output. I
then ran a coax upstairs to the 13" TV. Of course, you could just use a
splitter on the RF out from TiVo, and run one to each TV. I only run it
to the main tv for those rare times when I want to watch Tivo on TV
while recording something else on my old VCR. Bottom line. Whatever I
see on my main TV - I now also see on my 13". Then, I wanted to be able
to CONTROL the TiVo when I was home alone and upstairs, so I went to
Radio Shack and bought their IR repeater. I put the transmitter
upstairs, and the emitter downstairs in my entertainment cabinet. That
way, when I go upstiars and point the TiVo Remote at the small TV, I
"hit" the RF receiver (which I mounted upside down on the bottom of the
corner shelf that holds the TV), and it sends the signal down via UHF
signal, and the receiver down there rebroadcasts the IR to all my
components. One little thing... the Radio Shack model has a "main"
emitter, and it also has a plug-in "remote" emitter at the receiving
end. Trouble is, when you plug in the little extra IR emitter (just a
little IR LED on the end of a 3' cable), the jack cuts the "main" IR
emitters off - so I had to take it apart and do a wee bit of soldering
so that the receiver would drive BOTH emitters (built-in and remote) at
the same time, because my cabinet didn't allow me to use just one to hit
all my components. To my surpirse, it worked. I really don't know why
Radio Shack has the defeat built in to the "remote out" jack. It seems
to drive both emitters very well at the same time.

This is a little more complicated that it really should be because I
have a stand-alone TiVo serivs 2, and use both the DirectTV (for
Satellite channels) and an Antenna (for my local channels). I'm too
cheap to pay DirectTV for my local channels grin.

Hope all that helps. It does the tick for me, and I can watch my TiVo
either place. Now, I just need to buy another pickle (TiVo Remote) so
that I don't always leave it in the wrong place, like I do now grin.

Steve Henderson

Steve,
I use the pyramid transmitters from Radio Shack in some applications and
they work 99% reliably. The other 1% is another story. Sometimes the
receiver (the unit that emits IR) needs to be unplugged for a bit. This
usually solves th problem.
"Steve Henderson" wrote in message
...
Peter wrote:
I had the same problem a few months back. I too thought restarting the
Tivo
would temporarily fx the problem. What I found was that I had an
infrared
repeater that was behaving badly and occasionally flood the entire
cabinet
with IR. During these times, the Tivo remote had a difficult time
getting a
signal through. Any chance you have a remote in a semi-permanent send
mode?
By the way the errant signal apparently wasn't strong enough to cause
the
yellow (IR receive) light to flash on the Tivo.
"Steve Henderson" wrote in message
...

At times, it just does not respond. I've changed batteries in the remote
with no joy, and after maybe 5 pushes of any button, it will finally
respond. Finally, I restarted it about 2 days ago, and that seemed to
fix it then. Tonight it happened again, But cleared up after I finally
got something to play. What's happening? I don't want to have to restart
the TiVo every night.



Wow - you're right - I DO have a IR repeater. Didn't know it was
flooding it tho. Next time it happens, I'll check it out. I have it
upstairs so I can control TiVo from there. Good info. Sounds like you
might be on to something.

Thanks!