Beginners FAQ

Intro

If you are new to OzTiVos in Australia, then start here to get answers to the most common questions.

Table of Contents

Are TiVo Inc. planning to bring out a TiVo designed for Australia?

Channel Seven have started selling TiVo's here in July 2008. The official website is www.mytivo.com.au

The official TiVo service is currently only available in Canada, China, Japan, Mexico, Taiwan, USA and the UK. They no longer sell new units in the UK, but still provide a paid service there for existing customers.

What does the service cost?

The OzTiVo group is made up of volunteers, there is currently no charge for using this service and hope that will be the case for many years. As long as members help with the entry and editing of guide data, this service should continue. That said we make no promises that this service will last for ever. However unlikely, it may stop without warning.

UPDATE 3rd JUNE 2008: Due to the fact we now have to pay for server hosting, there may be a request for some donations to assist covering these costs soon.

Which TiVo models work in Australia?

Glad you asked! Not all of them do. Please read the WhichTiVoToBuy page carefully before making any purchase.

Where Do I Buy a TiVo (and Add-Ons such as Network Cards)?

Visit the BuyTiVoAndAddOns page.

If you decide to buy a TiVo then, while you're waiting for it to arrive, please take the time to review the FAQs, Hints, Tips and HowTos on this site. Once it arrives you'll be so keen to get it working that you'll want to ask the Mailing List all your questions. Asking questions covered on this website are (gently) frowned upon so please check this site before asking the Mailing List for help.

How do I set it up for Australia?

This is covered in the Install/Setup section, mainly PrepareTiVoDisk and GuidedSetup16. As you will see, OzTiVo in Australia is not really a consumer device as it requires some technical ability to setup and maintain.

Do I really need to modify my OzTiVo's hardware?

Only if it is a U.S OzTiVo and you want to use an antenna input with the internal tuner Hardware (see TunerModALPSHowTo for more information).

If you are going to use a cable STB, a digital STB, a VCR, or you have a UK OzTiVo, then you won't have to modify the hardware.

There is no OzTiVo program guide service in Australia, so how will the OzTiVo know what is on?

Your OzTiVo will call this server twice a week to download data that we create using our own software. See HowIsGuideDataMade.

Is Pay TV program data available as well as Free to Air data?

Yes! Guide data is obtained (through volunteer effort) via the TVGuide Database.

Does the Season Pass feature in OzTiVo work in Australia?

Yes the Season Pass feature works in Australia, the same as it does in the US/UK.

You can also use the Wishlist feature in the OzTiVo to search for keywords in the title, or a particular director, or..... see the offical OzTiVo wishlist hints, and if you really want to have some fun use an AdvancedWishlist.

Is there a way of skipping through Ads? (30 second skip)

Yes. You can set the skip-forward arrow on the remote to skip 30 seconds as follows.

Start playing an existing recording. Using the remote press:

Select Play Select 3 0 Select

The OzTiVo will go bing. That's it.

Note that the button reverts to its normal behaviour (skipping to the next "tick mark") if you TiVo is rebooted.

If you overshoot into the next part of the program you can use the 8 second replay button on the remote to get back again.

Can I record two shows at once?

No, not with a Series 1 OzTiVo. Even with two inputs, you can only record one show at a time. You can however record one show while watching any recorded show already on OzTiVo.

What's the Biggest Disk capacity OzTiVo can take?

Standard Series 1 units are limited to 137gb via the stock kernel that ships with them.

The OzTiVo image includes a patched kernel that enables the OzTiVo to see disk space above 137gb. So the current largest IDE drives (Sept 2004) are 400Gb, allowing you to use 2 x 400gb drives for an 800gb OzTiVo. This give about 960Hrs in Basic and 280Hrs in Best. Theoretically the maximum drive size supported by LBA48 is 144 petabytes (144000 million gigabytes or 50,400 hours at BEST!).

When restoring an image to a Hard Disk over 137GB, be sure to boot off the ISO image downloaded from OzTivo. Boot images obtained from other sources (eg 9thTee) might not contain the updated kernel (most do now though).

The following table will give your a rough guide to times from the Size of the HDD:

What type of Harddisk (HDD) should I get for OzTiVo?

OzTiVo will work with any type of (Parallel ATA) IDE HDD (not SATA though). It will work with ATA66,100,133 drives fine and 5400 or 7200RPM doesn't matter. You will be pushing to find a non 7200RPM drive anyhow.

Remember the OzTiVo will be in a living room, so you don't want to hear a spinning disk. Try and get a drive that is fairly quiet.

Note: There is an issue using Seagate 7200.9, 7200.10, and 7200.11 (and assume newer) series drives in Tandem with another drive. There does not seem to be any problems them if you only have one drive.

I still have lots of other questions. What do I do?

Read the other FAQs the Howtos. If you still have more questions, try searching this site via the TopicSearch page. If that fails then join the OzTiVoMailingList or OzTiVo Forums and ask your questions there. If you get an answer, then please add a new FAQ or Howto to the Twiki for us!

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