RE: Tivo SCART control...

["Keith Doxey" <ukha@xxxxxxx>]

Hi Paul,

Late reply as usual due to not being able to read email until the
evening
:-(

As others have said, TiVo is doing what it should do. All TV that you
watch
should be through Tivo so that it learns what you watch. This means it
needs
to take Pin 8 of the SCART high so that it grabs the TV. When TiVo is
on
Standby it will still record and you can also start it recording
something
then switch it off and it will continue to record.

Your problems are specifically down to the TV and its implementation of
SCART switching. Below is an extract from a document I downloaded from
somewhere...

<QUOTE>
2.1.1.3 A TV must never prevent a channel/source change if pin 8 and/or
pin
16 on the currently viewed SCART input is asserted.

Reasoning: Some STBs, DVDs, etc. will leave pin 8 (and pin 16 if RGB
signals
are in use) asserted all the time that they are powered. If the user
wishes
to change to an internal TV preset or another SCART input without
powering
down the currently active peripheral, the TV must respond to this request
-
it must not "lock" the user to the currently viewed SCART
input.
</QUOTE>

SCART switching can be level triggered or edge triggered. Level
triggered
will activate any time the pin is high, edge triggered only takes
effect
when the pin rises from low to high.

Having said that, here are my experiences.

Philips TV circa 1987 - Single SCART - Active SCART stole the TV with no
way
to get back to the Tuner

Goldstar TV circa 1993 - Single SCART - Active SCART stole the TV and
also
disabled the internal tuner removing its signals from the "Out"
pins of the
SCART, unable to select internal sources.

Mitsubishi AV1 circa 1995 - Twin SCART - Active SCART grabs the TV but
you
can manually select a TV channel and that will be displayed. AV1 takes
priority over AV2 so if both SCARTS are active, AV1 will be displayed.
You
can manually select AV2 though. A real annoyance is that if you have an
active SCART on AV2 and choose to override it with a TV channel all is
well
unless you then get an active AV1 such as a VCR. Press play on the VCR
and
it grabs AV1 as you want, but when you stop the VCR and AV1 goes low,
instead of dropping back to the TV you were watching, it then senses
that
AV2 is still high and displays that despite the fact you had previously
overridden it.

The function of SCART switching is determined by the designer of the
equipment and sometimes they dont always make the best decisions. My
Pioneer
CD player in the car is a classic example. Some of the buttons are dual
function, short press does one thing, long press does another. The
"Source"
button cycles through "OFF/Tuner" or "OFF/CD/Tuner"
depending upon whether
there is a CD in the slot. If I have a CD playing and eject it, the
unit
goes OFF, however if I switch to Tuner first I can eject the CD and the
Tuner stays on. Inserting a CD at any time will go straight into play
mode.
The way I would have designed it would be for a short press to change
between CD/Tuner and a long press to turn it off. I would also make it
drop
back to Tuner when a CD was ejected just as all Radio/Cassette players
I
have ever had have done.

I think that more modern TV sets are probably better thought out as
people
now have more external equipment connected to TV's than they used to but
no
doubt the more demanding consumers such as inhabit UKHA will find more
shortcomings than Joe Public :-)

Keith

www.diyha.co.uk
www.kat5.tv


-----Original Message-----
From: Paul Gordon [mailto:paul_gordon@xxxxxxx]
Sent: 05 February 2003 13:14
To: UKHA_TiVo@xxxxxxx
Cc: ukha_d@xxxxxxx
Subject: [ukha_d] Tivo SCART control...


Anyone got any thoughts on adjusting the behaviour of Tivo's SCART
control,
- it's a little bit too "aggressive" for my liking...

On my TV, with Tivo's SCART control turned on, It completely siezes the
TV
and absolutely refuses to give it up no matter what.... The effect of
this
is that I can never change the TV's selected input to another SCART
input,
or to it's internal tuner - I can't even bring up the TV's menu system.
The
only way I can make the TV display *anything* other than what Tivo is
putting out, is to put Tivo into standby, when it finally relinquishes
control.

This is causing me a problem, as I have a need to switch the TV to its
internal tuner in the morning... - Tivo records DS9 from 6AM-7AM every
morning, but SWMBO wants to watch BBC1 at the same time. The Sky digibox
is
the ony programme source currently, so I thought I'd connect an aerial
to
the TV and let her watch BBC1 using the TV's tuner, thus not affecting
Tivo's recording... (better WAF).

Of course, I can't get the TV to switch to its own tuner, whilst Tivo is
on,
and SCART control is enabled....

If I turn Tivo's scart conrtol off, that has some other unwanted
effects,
such as the Tivo button on the remote can no longer be guaranteed to work
as
intended, - if the TV is switched to it's on tuner, it won't switch to
the
Tivo SCART socket automatically...

At the moment, it looks like I have 2 choices:...

Leave SCART control ON, and force SWMBO to turn Tivo to standby so as to
be
able to change channels...

Turn SCART control off, and force SWMVO to remember to manually select
the
Tivo SCART input before being able to use Tivo...

either option forces SWMBO to have to remember to press extra buttons,
and
to alter the way she is now used to making it work - neither will be
popular...

I plan to automate whichever option I go for, so the Ocelot will send the
IR
to each device, but that might take me a couple of days to go & learn
all
the commands etc.. I was hoping to sort something out today...

Is there any way to make Tivo's SCART control behave a bit more like a
VCR's?? - IE sieze the TV when it really needs to, - ie. when displaying
a
menu, or when playing back video, but not to actively sieze it at other
times, so I can manually change the TV channel away from Tivo, should I
need
to?....

Sorry for the long ramble!

Paul G.






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