As part of the on-going duplication of data around the interweb, this page is more for my reference than anything else, but if you find this page (and find it useful, then good on you. The TiVo sites I frequent the most are NZ Tivo – The NZ TiVo Community and Oz Tivo which, despite it’s name – has a lot of valuable resources for us Kiwis too!
30 Second Skip
The most used feature on our TiVo, great for skipping the lead-in / lead-out of recordings and all that stuff inbetween.
Grab your TiVo remote.
Bring up any recorded program.
On your TiVo remote, key in the following sequence:
If you’ve successfully entered the code, you should hear three “bings” in succession to let you know that you’ve successfully enabled the 30 second skip feature.
The skip-to-hash button on your remote will now skip forward 30 seconds during playback.
Setting the Time
When the TiVo drops the last few minutes of my Wifes favorite home-grown soap opera Shortland Street then I’m in trouble – while it’s great that she has grown to depend on the TiVo over the short time that we’ve had it, I still find sleeping on the couch uncomfortable and, thus – it’s essential that the TiVo keeps it’s time as accuratly as possible (the broadcasters keeping to their advertised schedules is another arguement – and one which I never win). The following details the steps required to get your NZ TiVo keeping itself in sync with the regions NTP time sources. To do this, you need to:
Check your ntpdate file
#cat /bin/ntpdate
#!/bin/sh
# Stop time warp messages
touch /var/timestamp
# Set the time to time server with appropriate timezone offset
/tvbin/settime `rtimetz 207.126.98.204 207.126.98.204 129.6.15.28 131.107.1.10`# Now set hardware clock
/tvbin/settime -rtc# A list of public time servers in case the ones above stops working:
# …
# [A list of alternate NTP Servers]
# …
# Not a good place to run this, but it might be necessary.
#checkgsstate.sh &
exit 0
Change the Postcodes file
Make the TiVo Read/Write
rw
Edit /etc/postcodezones to add the code 02113 and Pacific/Auckland – these columns *MUST* be separated by a Tab
vi /etc/postcodezones
# A list of TiVo postcodes and the timezones that they represent
# Two columns, separated by one tab only.
#
02113 Pacific/Auckland
00800 Australia/Darwin
02000 Australia/Sydney
02600 Australia/Sydney
03000 Australia/Melbourne
04000 Australia/Brisbane
05000 Australia/Adelaide
06000 Australia/Perth
07000 Australia/Hobart
Save the file
:wq
Set the TiVo to be Read Only again
ro
Create the Postcode directory in /hack/zoneinfo
mkdir /hack/zoneinfo/Pacific
Drop the Auckland Timezone file into /hack/zoneinfo/Pacific
Get the Auckland Time zone file from here
Make the filesystem read write
rw
FTP the file in binary mode to your TiVo using your favorite FTP client
$ftp [Your TiVos IP]
Connected to [Your TiVos IP].
220 You are in TiVo Mode.
220 Login isn’t necessary.
220 Please hit ENTER at the login/password prompts.
Name ([Your TiVos IP]):
331 No Auth required for TiVo Mode.
Password:
230 Running in TiVo Mode.
Remote system type is UNIX.
ftp> bin
200 Type set to I.
ftp> cd /hack/zoneinfo/Pacific
250 Directory change successful.
ftp> put Auckland
local: Auckland remote: Auckland
200 PORT command successful.
150 Opening BINARY mode data connection for Auckland.
226 File transfer complete.
870 bytes sent in 0.00 secs (13275.1 kB/s)
Make the filesystem read only
ro
Check that the system understands the NTP server addresses, the post codes, and will generate the correct format date/time string
rtimetz 207.126.98.204 207.126.98.204 129.6.15.28 131.107.1.10
should return something like: 20050321090327
Run the settime command
/tvbin/settime `rtimetz 207.126.98.204 207.126.98.204 129.6.15.28 131.107.1.10`
Time set to: Mon Mar 21 09:04:33 2005
Have a nice day.
That’s it, if you’re getting something like the above then all should be well in TiVo land. Don’t forget to set your TiVo back to read only mode with a ro
Forcing a Re-index
Every so often, my TiVo gurks and it gets the guide all FUBARed. Occasionally just getting the TiVo do make a daily call (by browsing to http://[Your TiVo IP]/Phone/) will fix it, but in some cases it’s still feked and the only thing which seems to work for me is to force a re-index – this can put a heck of a load on the box, so use with caution, but what you need to do is:
Telnet to your TiVo using your favorite client (but, I’d suggest steering clear of the Windows native telnet client as it seems to disagree with the TiVo and can cause crashes).
Enter the following command to force a reindex
/hack/bin/force_index30.tcl
or
/hack/bin/force_index.tcl
Be patient, the re-index can take minutes or hours, go outside and look at some trees or something, there’s life beyond the screen, honest!
Loading a Manual Slice
On rare occasions, the daily call will fail and no guide data will be avalible- in these situations, it’s possible to load the slice manually by following thise steps:
Telnet to your TiVo using your favorite client (but, I’d suggest steering clear of the Windows native telnet client as it seems to disagree with the TiVo and can cause crashes).
Enter the following command to manually load a slice
wget http://216.58.174.222/tjvinfo/nztivo.slice
dbload30.tcl nztivo.slice
Be patient, this can take quite awhile.