First, please understand that I am an idiot about this stuff. My late husband set up our phone and tivo and I never learned about it. We have Vonage, and a wireless network for tivo to connect. I never liked Vonage because the connection wasn’t clear. Now vonage isn’t working at all. I had someone come look at it tonight and he told me that the vonage router (linksys) is broken. So…here’s my questions:
What is the easiest, most reliable way to have tivo get its programming? I seem to remember we used to hook it up to the phone. I wouldn’t mind getting a phone line for it installed. On the other hand, I suppose I could dump tivo and get the comcast version. Would that be simpler?
Type slowly and use small words, please. I meant it when I said I didn’t understand this, and I am not in good shape right now to learn this stuff. I didn’t think I would have to tackle this so soon after Rick’s death.
Tivo can get their data over a phone line, but it sounds like your tivo is networked to your router, so it would get its data from the internet via that router. If the router is broken, the tivo won’t work.
The forums at tivocommunity.com is a good place to get help with things like this.
Yeah - get a new router. Updating Tivo via a phone line is terribly unreliable. It’s easier to set up a router than it is to set up Tivo to call in for information.
What? There is no TiVo DVR available from the TiVo site that displays the name of the program being recorded, plus I have a TiVo HD XL that does no such thing. At first I thought maybe there existed a Series 3 that was not a TiVo HD, but I can’t find any such thing on Amazon or via Google. What Series 3 do you have?
A new router will require set-up which may be more complicated than switching the Tivo over to use a phone line depending on how the wireless is currently configured.
Switching to use a phone line is pretty easy. I don’t have a Tivo in front of me, but you go into the Settings menu and find the Phone and Network Settings. There’s a choice there to switch to the phone line. You may then have to select a number to dial from a list it presents to you.
However, if you switch to using a phone line you will lose functionality that relies on the broadband internet connection. For example, do you stream movies from Netflix to the Tivo? If so, you won’t be able to do that with the phone connection.
The people at tivocommunity.com will be nice and work with you as long as you are willing to work with them. That means answering their questions to the best of your ability. If you don’t find them helpful, what have you lost? They are best equipped to help you.
I can’t even figure out how to get to that model from the TiVo site w/out using your link! I just bought my HD XL a couple of months ago, so it’s not a matter of having a modern TiVo. Huh.
If Vonage is your only phone service, then I wouldn’t recommend using the telephone to get Tivo data. Vonage computerizes the phone connection and it actually ends up causing problems for the Tivo communication. It may or may not work.
I assume you currently have internet service at your house. Is that correct? The easist thing is to connect the ethernet cord from the Tivo to the device you’re using currently for internet. However, it’s going to be difficult for us to give you specific instructions without knowing your current setup.
Do you know any friends (or their kids) who know about computers and networking? It’s not too complicated and anyone who’s done any sort of home networking should be able to help you out very easily. They don’t need to know anything about Tivo.
Ok, here’s what I know. We have a wireless network that tivo somehow uses. I also know that tivo won’t work when the vonage is unhooked, which it is now because of the bad router. It was messing up the internet connection, so I had to take it out of the loop. Does that help? Oh, and the tivo is an old one–at least 5 years old.
