Thinking of getting Vonage, but then I wondered, will I be able to plug my tivo into the phone line and have it be able to dial up and get new data? The digitizing of the signal might render an analog modem unusable - does anyone happen to know?
This CNET article says TiVo won’t work over Vonage. Though if you look at the comments, some are reporting it does work, while others are confirming it doesn’t.
I’ve seen a couple of anecdotes about people that didn’t know any better (one example was a guest at the home of someone who had VOIP service) and plugged laptops into a VOIP phone jack and let their modem dial into AOL or whatever.
It works, but is spectacularly slow thanks to all of the signal conversions - one person said they were getting through at about 9600 baud.
Why would you need to? To use Vonage you need a broadband connection, and TiVo can connect over a broadband connection. The only reason I can see not to is a)extra hardware to purchase (though not much) or b)Series 1 TiVo. It that’s the case I belive I’ve heard that it does work, but when I used to surf the TiVo boards it seemed to be a hit or miss thing.
Yeah, I’m probably just going to grab a usb to ethernet adapter for the tivo… that’d end up being the best solution. I was just wondering if I could get around that - I’ve got enough wires running around the place as it is, and I don’t feel like buying wireless gear for that purpose. Hopefully newegg has a usb-ethernet adapter that’ll work… since I’m making an order off there anyway. I saw the tivo site had “approved lists” for adapters - is there a reason that any adapter not on their list wouldn’t work?
I believe you still need a phone line for the initial setup of the TiVo. After the initial setup you can disconnect the phone line and use the network cable exclusively.
Yes, it may not be work because it’s, um, not supported. As in, the chip used in the adapter may not be the one that TiVo knows how to communicate with. The adapter manufacturer provides Windows drivers, but not TiVo drivers.
By the way, I believe some of the supported adpaters are wireless adapters, if cabling is a problem.