Tag Archives: box

What’s in a TiVo?

wpid6174-IMG_1483.jpgNot so long ago, my TiVo packed up. This was part of a string of technology failures I suffered in a short space of time and about which I have previously posted. I was getting ready to dump the old box but, the engineer in me can’t just throw something like that away before having a poke around inside it to see what was there. Consequently, I fished out a selection of Torx fittings for my screwdriver and opened up the case to see what was inside. Not a huge amount really. It is no wonder that the replacement box is considerably more slimline!

wpid6176-IMG_1484.jpgThe hard drive was the most obvious element. It was a “massive” 250Gb unit. No wonder too many HD recordings meant it started to fill up. I removed that since I figured it was probably worth trying to find out what files were on it later. After that, the board is in two parts. One of them is a very simple looking board and the other is something far more old school with a selection of more traditional components. I don’t know how TiVo design their system but it looked like the first board could deal with the digital signal processing while the other board was an analog tuner since this TiVo had the capability to manage old analog signals. (The new unit is digital only which is fine since we don’t have analog broadcasts anymore.)

wpid6178-IMG_1485.jpgThe connection between the two halves seemed to have a lot of cables but I have no idea what they all achieve. My assumptions about the functionality may be completely wrong. I am not an electronics guy so I have an excuse and a blog is a perfect place for making guesses about stuff with nothing to back you up. That is what the Internet is based on! However, if you do know about this stuff, do comment below and let me know what the various bits are for. Now, to see what is on that hard drive…