Help TiVo Setup

Posts: 1 · New Forum Member Joined: Nov 16, 2004 Posts: 1

Hi -

I have a Tivo Series 1 HDR312. I bought a USRobotics external modem from weakness (to slow down my transfer to work with VOIP), and alas - it's a no go.

I've set the dialing prefix to ,#396 (also tried ,#319). Everything works fine when I plug the extenal modem into the POTS (both test and daily calls) - I still have AT&T hooked up.

Yet, when I used Vonage, i am only able to make test calls about ~50% of the time. Daily calls never go through.

Help! This has taken way too long to get to work, and the potential long term savings of not having AT&T are being consumed by more parts.

-Bennett

Posts: 29 · Vonage Forum Junior Joined: Nov 17, 2004 Posts: 29

Probably not much help but...

I'm a Series 1 Tivo owner like yourself who's wanted to do Voip for some time. Before I did, however, I "hacked" my Tivo and installed a TivoNet card purchased from 9thtee.com. After reading many postings about issues with data over Vonage and other providers, I felt it was a hit or miss proposition and just didn't want to take the chance. Anyway, by adding the TivoNet card and doing updates over the Internet, I've now not only eliminated that rather inefficient Tivo daily phone call, but also added the capability to extend my Tivo with cool hacks such as TivoWeb, TyStudio, and others.

Good luck trying to get the Tivo modem working, but I highly recommend adding a network card to your Tivo. You won't regret it.

Posts: 3 · Posted: Wed Nov 17, 2004 11:57 pm Post subject:

Agreed. After I moved I mistakingly did not hook up my Tivo modem through a phone line surge protector and managed to fry the modem after a storm (pre-Vonage of course). Got the TivoNet from 9thtee.com as well. Setting it up was a breeze and it works great. The hardest part is probably the physical part of moving the fan out of the way to string the network cable in through the bottom of the unit.

But on the subject of Tivo modem dialing through your Vonage line, I'm assuming that you are dialing on your regular voice line and not a separate dedicated FAX line, correct? I haven't experimented with this at all and I'm pretty new to the forum here, but here's a few things that I've found while browsing around that may help:

Try adding *99 to the prefix of the phone number for the Tivo to dial. This will temporarily disable any bandwidth saver options and enable full quality for that call only. (https://www.vonage.com/help_knowledgeBase_article.php?article=134&category=191) If your Vonage adapter has any QoS options, couldn't hurt to enable those and maybe play around with them a little.

You may also have to drop the modem rate on the Tivo modem down to 9600. Yes, this could mean that the daily calls could take 5 times as long to do, but if they work then you can finally get rid of the AT&T line. I believe for data services, Vonage was only designed to handle a FAX call which, if memory serves correctly, only speaks at a max of 14,400 and more typically at 9600.

A Vonage help article (http://www.vonage.com/help_knowledgeBase_article.php?article=389) suggests that putting a dialing prefix of ,#396 will drop the rate down to 9600 on Series 2 models. Don't konw if that works on series 1's or not. You may have to consult a Tivo site for that.

Let me know if that works.