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TiVo and DirecTV in a Cellular-Only Household?
Balthisar
asks: "Like so many others, my wife and I have recently made the move to pure mobile telephone use, and have disconnected the landline permanently. Today, I turned on the TiVo and received a stern warning that only three days of the program guide remained! I screwed up. Anyone have a good emergency way of refreshing the program guide while I wait for my TiVo networking card to come in? An additional concern is DirecTV: I never use Pay Per View, but it's not connected, either. Any horror stories about not having your DirecTV connected to a phone line? If you don't have any advice, at least take this as a cautionary tale to make a good checklist before taking the leap of eliminating your terrestrial line!" This topic was handled in a previous article over 2 years ago. What suggestions do you have for others, that find themselves in this position?
I dunno about DirectTV, or Tivo, but I have DishNetwork and it doesn't mind not being able to dial out. I leave a phone line hooked up to it so that we have the CallerID-on-TV feature, but since I don't use PPV and am the suspicious type, I've effectively disabled its dial-out capability by setting the "dial this number for an outside line" to a "4". Six months, no probs.
As for Tivo's guide, maybe I'm missing something but is it that big a deal? I've never used a Tivo but I'd guess that the guide you get from your satellite TV receiver ought to have most of the same functions. Granted, it won't guess at shows you might like to watch, but then again that 'feature' leads only to bad standup comedy jokes which reference Will and Grace, in my experience...
Perfectly Normal Industries
DirecTV does not require a phone line, unless you use pay-per-view options. It gets the program guide updates over the air. If your phone has an accessory to provide dial tone, you'd be able to use that to allow it to phone home. However, you'll probably have to tell them about the phone number, as they don't seem to like units reporting in from the phone number that's not associated with the account.
As you've figured out, TiVo gets its updates over the phone line. If you have an integrated TiVo/DirectTV receiver, I'm not sure what happens in that case. I've got the original, and it can only do it over the phone line (not including network mods).
It's not a problem. You'll get a warning every time you press your tivo button that says something like "It's been 175 days since you've dialed up" but unless you want to do pay-per-view it simply doesn't matter. At least it hasn't mattered to me. The Direct Tivo sends programming data to you machine via the satellite.
Heil Sig! -Rob
I have a tivo and am cellular only. I took it to a friend's house, left it overnight to update, and brought it home. I have hooked up a usb->ethernet adapter, and run it through a router to my broadband connection. The latest tivo software (downloaded while it was hooked up overnight at my friends) supports usb ethernet natively.
It works perfectly, with the only hassle being that initial setup.
And phone line or not, you can always buy your Pay-Per-View shows by going to the DirecTV website.
I had mine disconnected for a while and I slowly lost programing I paid for. I ended up having to call tech support, they said that it needed to be connected to verify the card was still in use.
Devise, Repair, Solve, Build
http://www.tivocommunity.com
Enjoy!
I presume you have a Series 1 DirecTiVo, otherwise the network card you bought won't work. If your DirecTiVo is a brand new one, it is Series 2 and will not accept the network card you listed.
As others have said, there's no need to have a DirecTiVo connected to the phone line except in one specific case: software upgrades. Software upgrades are always sent over the dialup modem, not over the satellite. There is a software release for DirecTiVos going out right now that fixes a significant bug (the TiVo always reports that there's only a day or two of guide data, even though there's far more). The bug is only cosmetic though and doesn't cause any functionality loss, according to most users. If your TiVo software is version 3.1.0b or less (Series 1) or 3.1.1b or less (Series 2) you'll need this new version. The version number is on the System Information screen.
In your case, I'd wait a few weeks until the software is completely rolled out to all users. Then take your TiVo over to a friends and force it to dial in right then (there's a selection in the TiVo phone setup to do this). This call will take about an hour and download the new software.
Others have mentioned tivocommunity.com, excellent resource for stuff like this.
If you only have 1 DirecTV receiver then it's true, you don't have to have it connected to a land-based telephone line. BUT, if you have multiple DirecTV receivers in your home, then you MUST connect them all to a telephone jack in your house or EACH of the receivers will be charged the full monthly subscription price. So, let's say you have 3 DirecTV receivers in your house and you've signed up for the $39.99 per month DirecTV package...if you don't connect any of the receivers to a telephone jack then the total monthly price would be, 3 receivers times $39.99 for a total of approx. $120 per month!!! If you connect all of your receivers to a phone jack then DirecTV only charges you $4.99 for the second and third receiver. I can tell you for a fact that this is what they do. DishNetwork on the other hand doesn't have this policy. DishNetwork does NOT require you to connect any of your receivers to a phone jack, and they will only charge $4.99 per month for each additional receiver. So, in summary, if you have only one receiver, you won't have any problem with either DishNetwork or DirecTV as far as not having them hooked up to a phone jack, but if you have more than one receiver in your house, then DirecTV pretty much forces you to connect all of them to a phone jack or you'll pay a huge monthly subscription price for each receiver. Hope this helps.
Um, no, you're the dumbass, AC. My Motorola t720c, (and its new revision, the t730), purchased in 2003, is a tri-mode phone. This means it supports analog, both as a fall-back when digital service is unavailable, and with a menu option to set the phone to Analog Only mode.
Clue, meet AC. AC, meet clue.
As far as the existence of an RJ-11-to-cellular adapter and its viability for TiVo, (A) Cellular modem is usually a 14.4 connection unless you pay for "real" service from your phone company. Ouch. Take all night if a software update came. And many providers make you pay by the KB. (B) When you connect the phone to your computer, it's via serial or USB/serial, and the computer talks to the phone like a modem. Your computer doesn't use its own modem. TiVo already has a modem. You'd have to get the serial cable going into the built-in modem and hack in an interface to your phone's serial interface. HUGE PITA if possible at all (not likely).
To the original poster, just get an ethernet adapter for TiVo and connect it that way. Much less stupid solution, and your program guide won't take the whole night to download.
To the person who claimed to have seen such an adapter, perhaps it was designed to let you use a standard telephone handset--not a telephone--as a "headset" (mic and speaker) device for the cell. Not that it seems very logical, but hey, you never know.
Subject covers it.
Your DirecTV only needs the connection if you try to order PPV stuff directly through the box. You can still call them up, order that way, and the box will get the approval signal over the air.
Your Tivo, though, needs to contact the service to download updates and guide data. All Tivo's with USB ports (Even Series 1 Tivo's, I have one in my bedroom) have USB-connected Ethernet supported once you get your software revision to 4.0+. Once you're on Ethernet (wired or wireless, both are supported, see Tivo's website for supported hardware), you can use your broadband service to connect to the service and download Guide data and software updates.
The problem is, though, that I have not seen an out-of-the-box Tivo with 4.0+ software - all 3 that I've purchased in the last year are running in various stages of 3.* software, and had to dial in at least once to grab the new software version. You might want to call Tivo and see if they have a suggestion, or maybe even take your Tivo to a friend's house and force it to connect over a night or two to download the 4.0 software before taking it home and hooking it into your home network.
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