TV Woes, Part 2

An additional issue we were having with our entertainment center was that our Series 2 Dual-Tuner TiVo was not receiving the remote signal consistently. Sometimes it would work okay, but most of the time it was taking multiple presses to get the signal to the TiVo and, sometimes, it would go through long stretches where it wouldn't accept the signal at all.

This came to a head recently as well. It got to the point where we could barely control our TiVo at all. Once again, I turned to the Interwebs for information to see if others were having this issue.

It turns out that modern LCD/LED TVs have a function called "backlighting." This feature can send out a strong enough signal that it can override your remote's IR signal, effectively blocking it from reaching the IR sensor on the TiVo (or, perhaps, other devices). The backlighting feature is used to make the screen brighter and the colors sharper. It has different settings depending on the way you are using it (for example, on our TV, the "Sports" selection has high backlighting, the "Movie" one has low backlighting, and the "Standard" is a medium amount of backlighting).

I played around with this feature and discovered if we turned it all the way off, our TiVo remote started functioning again. But even one tick up on the scale for backlighting and the TiVo remote stopped working reliably.

I then starting thinking about when this trouble started, because we have owned that TV for a few years and the issue only cropped up in the last few months. I then realized that when we had some work done in the front room, we had changed the setup of the devices within the cabinet, placing the TiVo closer to the TV than it had been before, and I suspected that the problems started about that same time.

After dealing with the issues in TV Woes, Part 1, my wife and I decided to act on my hunch and move the TiVo down in the cabinet, farther away from the TV. This only shifted its position by about 3.5", but I recalled not having the remote issues prior to moving it up and we were definitely having them after moving it up. So, it was worth a shot and didn't cost us anything.

Low and behold, since moving the TiVo down under the other (used much less often) device, the TiVo is working like a champ again.

The moral of the story is, if you find your remotes are not working as well or consistently as they were or you think they should, try finding and turning off the "Backlight" feature on your LCD/LED TV (the feature is also on some plasma TVs). If your remote suddenly seems to work much better and more consistently, then you need to get your device farther away from your TV so the backlight feature doesn't cause interference with the IR reception from the remote. Or, of course, if you don't mind the much duller look of your picture, you can simply turn off the Backlight feature and leave it off.

TiVo and Network Troubles

For a few months now, we have been struggling with an odd issue with our home network and Tivo setup. We have a total of five TiVos, but only four are installed and running on the network. Around the beginning of the year, we started noticing that the bedroom TiVo would drop all connections to the other TiVos (but usually not lose the connection to the TiVo emulator on my desktop PC). The other TiVos, meanwhile, could usually still see and get data from that TiVo. It would usually be alright for around 48 hours, then drop to this state, and then sometimes would drop to a state where it couldn't see out and the other networked devices couldn't see in.

What made this very odd is that we have an official TiVo wireless dongle. When plugging this in, the exact same thing would happen: for approximately 48 hours it would be fine, then it would drop the outside looking connections to the other devices but they could still see (and transfer from) this device, with sometimes it dropping completely and no connectivity is allowed.

Over the last month or so, we have been steadily testing every possibility that we could conceive. First, I contacted TiVo; the support rep confirmed what I was saying by logging into the machine and looking at its error logs -- the TiVo would connect for about 48 hours and then drop. All the testing he could do from his end indicated the TiVo was working properly internally. His suggestion was either send it in for testing and fixing or buy a new one. Since buying a new one was actually cheaper, we opted to do that.

We plugged in the new TiVo and, after a few days, it started doing the exact same thing as described above. The "bad" TiVo was moved to another room, plugged in, and has worked steadily ever since without issue. So, it must be the home network, right?

My wife is in IT and she brought home some testing equipment and we tested the wires between the fiber op modem and that TiVo -- everything tested fine (no shorts, nothing to indicate bad wires). We then thought maybe it was a bad switch at our network hub; using different ports and switching with "known good" ports resulted in the same issue after about 48 hours. We have used a total of three different switches, all with the same result. Wireless still had issues.

Finally, we had our entire internet go down. Turns out we had a bad fiber op modem, and the repair guy switched it out. I noted that when he was talking to his helper by phone (the guy who was pinging and testing from the company's side), one of the first things he asked me and something he reiterated later was 'how many devices do you have connected?' Since these devices can, standard, work with upwards of 255 devices, I found this odd and worth remembering. Maybe the company in question (Bell Aliant) manually sets a device limit in the modem?

Since the new modem was installed, things have been faster and more secure online. However, our network issue with that one TiVo has remained. We had a knowledgeable friend come over and fix the downstairs jack for us. Everything tested as working, but when we plugged everything in ... nothing. The light didn't come on in the switch at our network hub and the TiVo didn't even get a DNS or IP from the network. It was not connected.

Another friend had a good idea; bypass the jacks and wires in the network and run an ethernet cable directly from the TiVo in question to the switch downstairs and see if that works. Sure enough, this morning, I did just that. The light on the switch came on very steady and the TiVo grabbed a DNS and IP and is working. It can see all three other TiVos plus my PC without issue. This seems to indicate that it is an issue with the cables or jacks between the switch and the TiVo; the cables continue to test as fine and one jack has been replaced. We may have to replace the other jack to solve this problem (it is in an awkward spot and will not be easy to get at).

So, we wait. If, after about 48 hours, this is still working, then we know somewhat what the problem is and can try fixing it via the jack replacement. Hopefully that solves the problem.

But I'm still left with the question: why does the wireless connection have the exact same issue?

And Happiness Ensued

The final piece of our Tivo-DirecTV puzzle was the fact we had to use an IR blaster in order for the Tivos to change the channels on the DirecTV receivers. IR blasters are notoriously unreliable and we found this truism to be doubly true. Occasionally we would record an hour of black screen, sometimes we would record the wrong channel-- it all depended on how the IR blaster was working, if there was interference, and/or if there were two copies of the channel.

M and I looked high and low for a solution, but were unable to come up with anything. However, about two weeks ago, I was on the boards for one or the other of these systems and, about 20 posts down, saw a link someone had posted to an article about channel changing and Tivo/DirecTV. I read the article, which was about 2 years old and about a company on that was creating a device that would allow users to take advantage of the USB port on the back of the DirecTV tuner and the serial port connection on the Tivo and have it change channels.

I followed the link there and found a company called Paterson Technology , in WA. When I searched the site, I discovered the product in question was available for purchase, read some reviews of it by happy customers, and then perused the online documentation for it. It sure seemed like exactly what we needed to solve our problem. Our Tivo units and the two different types of DirecTV tuners were both listed on the list of supported hardware. Even better, they had put a chip into the device with some firmware that would allow you to program a "pass through" code that would take the Tivo channel request and change it to something else so that the DirecTV would go to the correct channel. This was, apparently, because they found their customers were annoyed by having two copies of the same channel, one in SD and one in HD, and the DirecTV tuner never seemed to default to the correct one. Gee, that sounded familiar!

I excitedly forwarded the information to M to review (she was out of town at a conference at the time) and she agreed it sounded like a good purchase and exactly what we needed. We agreed to just bite the bullet and order two, one for the bedroom and one for the living room, assuming we could return them if they didn't work.

The devices arrived yesterday and today I installed them.

*queue heavenly choir voices and ray of light shining down on the two entertainment systems*

The bedroom was the simpler install. I simply found the serial cable for the Tivo, plugged it in, plugged the serial connector side into the serial connector side of the new device, and then the USB side of the new device into the DirecTV receiver, uninstalled the IR blaster, and reset the Tivo to use the serial connection instead of the IR blaster, and we had instant success. Not only does it change channels faster, but there should be virtually zero chance of it changing to the wrong satellite channel because it is now all "hardwired."

The living room setup was trickier. On this setup, we have the HD/SD channel issue , which required me to use the firmware on the device to tell it how to change channels in order for us to receive the correct, SD version of each of the satellite channels. When I was finished going through it and programming it, we only had six channels not functioning correctly, but I was able to read the help files and figure out a secondary way to update those six and, when I last tested it, all of our dual channels were changing to the SD version we require.

This product is simple, does only and exactly what it says it should, was easy to install and update, and appears, as of right now, to work beautifully. I am very impressed with Paterson Technology's product and feel it was well-worth the $42 (each) the cable device costs. If you are having a similar issue with your Tivo and DirecTV system (either the IR blaster not working all the time or with HD/SD channel issues), I am highly recommending this device.