So several years ago my parents gave me their Tivo, thinking I could do something with it. It has a lifetime subscription on it, so there’s no monthly fee. It sat around for a few years, and then when I moved in with some friends who had cable, I plugged it in. Worked like a charm. I even bought a special TiVo branded wireless adapter for it so that I didn’t have to run a ridiculously long telephone cord from it to the nearest phone outlet.
But at the end of 6 months, I bought a house, and cut cable from my monthly bills. The TiVo has sat in a closet ever since. I see on eBay this thing still has some value. But what value does it hold for me, apart from selling? Can I use it for over-the-air television broadcasts? I doubt it, since it’s pre-digital conversion. Can it be hooked to my computer in some fashion to do as-yet-unknown wonderful things for my life?
The later Series 2 Tivos were dual tuner models. The dual tuner models were intended for use with cable or satellite only and did not support OTA. So if you have a dual tuner model, you are out of luck.
The single tuner models DO support Over The Air (OTA) reception. But just like people who had old television sets, you’ll have to get one of the converters.
Series 2 models support IR Blasters. IR Blaters work like a remote control. Originally they were there to change the channels on cable boxes. For example, if you wanted to record HBO on channel 999, the Tivo would send a signal to the cable box to tune to channel 999 over the IR Blasters. When the digital conversion for OTA broadcasts came about, they adapted the software to also control the external digital converters. They support a limited list of converters. (This is a very old list, in many cases a newer version of the same converter will work, but Tivo does not guarantee it.) Of course, you are going to have to search for a converter.
Since he’d need a digital convertor box these days, and since they only output to 3 or 4, and since VHS channels like 3 and 4 are the same for OTA and cable, why couldn’t he use it with OTA even if it was intended for cable/sat only?
All of the converter boxes that Tivo supports have composite video outputs (the kind that use the yellow/red/white RCA plugs) which is what Tivo uses as its input from the converter boxes.
In order to tune the converter to the selected station, Tivo must know the sequence of signals to send via the IR blaster. This sequence of signals is different for each model of converter. To the best of my knowledge Tivo did not release software for its dual-tuner models to control the converters.
Could they have done so? Possibly. But since the dual tuner models were advertised as not supporting OTA, I guess they chose not to.
No, not really. All the sensitve info would be on the account, the only thing that ties the account to the TiVo is the TSN (TiVo Service Number). The most sensitive thing on the TiVo is your zip code and maybe the shows/Season pass list depending on how you feel about that.
If you want, you can go into the settings and hit Clear and Delete everything and then Redo Guided Setup to wipe it about as clean as it’s going to get though it’s always going to retain the original TSN.
I’d sit on it for a while though. From time to time TiVo runs specials where they let you transfer your lifetime subscription from one box to another. If that comes around you could take advantage of that and transfer the lifetime sub from that one to a new one. Also, the run deals where you can get a discount on a second TiVo. Claiming this one as your first would let you get a second one with a discounted subscription.