TIVO is a company which sells digital video recorders, also called TIVO, and the programming schedules needed to record your selections.
The TIVO device is a computer with built-in hard drive, connected to your TV, which records your TV shows for you. When the TIVO video recorders first arrived they were stand-alone units. You hooked them up to your TV and antenna or cable box
and enjoyed TV on your schedule instead of the TV networks schedule. These were the original Series 1 models. Later,
some manufacturers started offering the TIVO integrated into their
satellite receiver. Still later, the satellite TV companies sold their own
integrated DVR/receiver units. The Series 1 and the newer Series 2 stand-alone TIVO models are
basically the same size as a typical VCR but contain a hard disk drive to
store your video content in digital form. The latest TIVO is the Series 3 model which has High Definition video capability.
Hooking up your
stand-alone TIVO video recorder (DVR) with your TV is relatively easy.
However, if you add a cable box or separate satellite receiver and a VCR,
it starts to get involved. Your cable box or satellite receiver must be
compatible with the TIVO DVR if you require the TIVO to issue channel
changing commands to the cable/satellite tuner/receiver. |
If you have a digital cable TV box, your TIVO has to change the channels on the cable box in order to automatically record your selections. One method is to connect an infrared emitter to act as a remote control for the cable box. Setting up the proper codes in the TIVO and placing the IR emitter over the cable box's infrared receiver, allows automatic channel changes. |
IR cable - TIVO hookup to cable/satellite receiver box see
image
below |
Digital Video Recorder Hookup
Diagram
With TiVo, you can pause, rewind,
slow-motion and even instant replay live TV, anytime. Your digital video
recorder with TiVo connects easily between your TV set and cable
box (digital or analog), VCR, and/or
antenna.
Here?s what you will need:
To view TV programs and access TiVo?s
programming ability, you?ll need four RF/coaxial cables, one signal splitter, and two phone
cables, plus three Audio/Video sets of cables (composite video and stereo
audio). Run one RF/coax cable from your Cable TV/ Antenna wall outlet to
the signal splitter. Run a second RF/coax cable
from the splitter to the VCR RF input, so you can watch TV using the tuner
in either your cable box or VCR. Run a third RF/coax cable from the splitter to your cable box, and a
fourth RF/coax cable from the cable box output to your Digital Video
Recorder RF input. Only the cable box can de-scramble digital channels and
then pass them to the TIVO. Regular unscrambled analog channels, if any,
can be handled by the tuner in the cable-ready VCR.
Next, run a phone cable from the phone
wall outlet to your cable box, and a second phone cable to your DVR. (TIVO
needs this phone access to update the program guide data and download
other updates from time to time)
For playback from your TiVo (to your
TV), you?ll need an audio/video 3 cable hookup (RCA); one video cable and
an audio pair (left/right).
To record from your TiVo to your VCR,
for archival purposes etc., you?ll need another audio/video 3 cable
hookup; one video cable and an audio pair (left/right).
To play back from your VCR, you?ll need
another audio/video 3 cable hookup as shown in the diagram
below. |
RCA video and stereo audio cables 3 cable
hookup
coaxial cable (RF) |