Anyone got Ooma & TiVo?

[marklib]

This is from the Ooma customer portal:

TiVo® or another satellite/cable box that needs to be hooked up to a phone line? You've got it! Just connect these devices to a standard phone jack without routing through the ooma system, and they’ll work, same as ever (although you may incur monthly charges from your local phone company).

I never got the gist from this that DVR service would absolutely require a land line, so I bought Ooma and ported my number because I did not want to keep any land line service and wanted zero monthly charges. AT&T where I live does not have a "per call" service that I could have kept just for the DVR, it was basic service or nothing. So now it seems I am up the river without a paddle, my satellite box wont update and I cant order PPV via remote control without a land line. I think the ooma people should have made it abundantly clear that if you have DVR service you MUST KEEP A LAND LINE. If that was clear, I never would have bought the Ooma system.

Has anyone had any luck with their DVR's hooked up to a Scout?

[Soundjudgment]

I used to since the back of a DVR dials out like any normal phone. But I didn't like the idea of the ReplayTV box using the Scout's telephone jack. So I abandoned that idea and now run a Cat6 wire from the back of the ReplayTV box (it has both telephone and Ethernet ports on the back of it). Now the DVR simply gets all its update instructions each night over the Internet through the Internet Cable-Hub Switch.

[rcacace]

Why bother hooking up TiVo to a phone line? You can purchase a wireless NIC that connects to the USB on the back of TiVo and have it use that instead. I've had that setup for quite a while and it's much nicer than running a phone line.

[marklib]

Confessions of a gadget-phreak:

My TiVo, which is now 4 years old is considered ancient and does not have an ethernet jack. I called DirecTV and they said much of the info that the box dialed out for is now actually transmitted via satellite, and the new boxes do not require a phone line at all.

So I did what any red blooded American male would do.......I gave away my 42" 5 year old Plasma TV, bought a new Samsung 52" HD TV and upgraded to HD service from DirecTV with the new no phone required box. An easy, elegant solution; problem solved for $2600.00.

Somebody please shoot me.

[rcacace]

lol. Great excuse. I have to try that sometime.

Sounds like you had a Series 1 TiVo and I'm not sure those had USB either, though I'm pretty sure they had a third party network card. The nice thing about TiVo is that you can easily hack it and I was able to throw in a big hard drive into mine instead of that dinky one they give you.

The sad thing is that all the new TiVo stuff is for their Series 3 systems and you can't put HD on Series 2, so I may soon be giving mine to my kids and getting a DVR from Directv like you did. I think I may have a hard sell getting rid of my 57" rear projection TV in exchange for a plasma.

[marklib]

The new HD DVR boxes from DirecTV are not even TiVo software equipped, although I did hear that an agreement was made and TiVo funtionality will show up in the next gen DirecTV DVR's. I miss certain TiVo features like the "wishlist".

[JSwan95]

Why bother hooking up TiVo to a phone line? You can purchase a wireless NIC that connects to the USB on the back of TiVo and have it use that instead. I've had that setup for quite a while and it's much nicer than running a phone line.

I've had that configuration for a while to access the on demand features. Did you have to change something on the DVR settings to make it go through the ethernet for updates & to connect with the service provider instead of looking for the landline? Thanks.

[hwgang]

marklib, my sympathies.

We have 2 series 2 directv Tivos and I'd love HD, but I'm NOT giving up Tivo to get there. True Tivo trumps HD. I'll wait another year based on unconfirmed rumor that Directv and Tivo are "in discussion" (each DTV employee I speak with has a different version....and these are the American-based techs...I have to go through "retention" to get them, but I can't have any more confusing/maddening/ridiculous conversations with folks who can only address questions from their scripts) ....and then I'll look for another provider.

DTV disabled the USB ports on older units. They're there. But they're worthless.

[rcacace]

Why bother hooking up TiVo to a phone line? You can purchase a wireless NIC that connects to the USB on the back of TiVo and have it use that instead. I've had that setup for quite a while and it's much nicer than running a phone line.

I've had that configuration for a while to access the on demand features. Did you have to change something on the DVR settings to make it go through the ethernet for updates & to connect with the service provider instead of looking for the landline? Thanks.

Yes! You go to Messages & Settings -> Settings -> Phone & Network. You should see an option to use your wireless instead of phone.

[footballref]

Why bother hooking up TiVo to a phone line? You can purchase a wireless NIC that connects to the USB on the back of TiVo and have it use that instead. I've had that setup for quite a while and it's much nicer than running a phone line.

This is the same thing I have. I have the wireless network adapter for Tivo.