Raiders of the Lost Blog

So a good news bad news thing. I just got my new tivo, a series 2 unit from TiVo. They had a deal where refurbs for 60 hour units for $149. Cheap!

It arrived yesterday, and turns out the modem is failing on it. Ugh! I tried all kinds of cables and jacks, but the only way to get it to dial successfully every time was to actually pick up the phone and listen to it call in and leave the phone off the hook during the call. Crazy, but it worked.

So I was ready to call up tivo and send this one back, wait a few weeks for a new one, when I found out that the new series 2 already works with USB Ethernet! If you have an approved USB Ethernet adapter (there’s a list here) you can connect up to an existing LAN. The TiVo will then use my DSL connection to update instead of dialing up. If that works, I won’t have to bother sending the TiVo back. Then my sister Corinne will get my old TiVo that much faster…
Oh, TiVo has a FAQ up for the new features coming in their home network software.

Update 6/14/2004: TiVo now offers the Home Media Option for free! Check out details here. All you need now is a supported wireless or wired adapter . They also have instructions for connecting to an existing network.