R10 Activation- Phone Line Needed?

TheHaps said:

I'm getting an Tivo R10 from someone for my SD tv in my bedroom.. and before you ask, yes it has been confirmed to be owned, without a balance, etc.

I just remembered that these old DVRs needed a phone line.

I dont have a phone. Will it be an issue for me to activate? I had one a while back and eventually just took the line out. It would always complain, but nothing happened. But will I be able to activate?

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You will have no problem activating that receiver without a phone line.

Depends on what the unit has in it's memory. If you "clear and delete everything", then yes, you will have to have a phone line attached to activate the DVR functions.

If the unit has a successful callback in it's memory then no, you do not have to attach a phone line. But the unit will continually complain that there is not one attached.

One final thing to remember, without a phone line the unit will not be able to download any software updates. If you want remote booking to work I would make sure that it makes a callback and downloads the software update.

I coudl live without the updates. The purpose of this DVR is to simply record something when there is a conflict during the upcoming hockey season as I may be out of tuners on my HR21.

If it doesn't have the updates, you're going to want them.

My R10 was freezing quite often, causing it to not record some shows during the day while I was at work. One day a large update went thru, no more problems after that.

I would at least run a phone line into it initially for the updates, then you'll be all set.

I don't know for sure, but I suspect the activation is like the HR10-250.

It requires a phone call to activate, but from what I have read, you could take the box to a friend's house who has a land-line phone, let it make it's first call from there, and then take it back to your house.

Everything should then work fine until you want to install a software update.

BruceS said:

I don't know for sure, but I suspect the activation is like the HR10-250.

It requires a phone call to activate, but from what I have read, you could take the box to a friend's house who has a land-line phone, let it make it's first call from there, and then take it back to your house.

Everything should then work fine until you want to install a software update.

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I don't know how I missed that he didn't have a phone line.

Yeah, this sounds like a good idea then. I didn't know you could do this, but if it works for him, great.

TheHaps, you will want the software updates. Like I said, mine was freezing quite often, after a big update one day, all was fine. So I have to assume it was the software update that fixed the problem.

TheHaps, I'm curious if this worked for you.