Using DirecTivo in Mexico?

[Fishfood]

A friend just went to work in Mexico, 15 minutes from San Diego, CA. Is there a way to make Tivo work there?

Thanks.

[Doorgunner]

I am not sure you can do Mexico legally, but the signal does go there! You are going to have some issues making that daily call too! If you had tivonet, I guess you would be golden if you set up a mailing address in the US.:confused:

[BubbleLamp]

If he has a Direct Tivo he can run Extreme on it. If he wants to subscribe, he'd have to give a US address, and have it call home from that phone number!

Stand Alone Tivo's need to dial in to get the guide data. This can be done via PPP over serial or using TurboNet card, instead of via modem. But I don't know if an unsubbed box can D/L the guide info, I suspect not.

[sendero]

just out of curiosity, is there a map showing the full coverage of the DTV sats?

Is there some similar technology available in the southern hemisphere. Brazil, for example, is there a DirecTV-like tv there?

[mrblack51]

DTV covers all of the continental US, most of canada to a lesser degree (the signal starts to get weaker), and I'm pretty sure most of Mexico as well with the same issues as canada. There is no DTV service in South America, but there may be an operator using Galaxavision or whatever it is stuff, which are similar cards to DTV stuff.

[AlphaWolf]

Picture it like shining a floodlight on a map. For all of the subscribers to get a good signal, the brighter center of the beam has to be covering them, whilst the darker portion of the light still bleeds to regions where there are no subscribers. If you are in the "dark" area, you might just need a bigger dish (Though in the areas south of the beam the dark portion isn't as large. Remember, our light source is over the equator pointing at a northly angle).

Based on how DTVs spotbeams work (I was able to recieve an acceptable transponder signal from a city over 800 miles to the north), it wouldn't surprise me if the signal extends at least 500 miles south of the southernmost part of the florida keys.

[bato]

There is DTV in South America but is not the same programing as in the USA. Almost all shows in Spanish and some in English with subtitles in Spanish. I beleive is called DTV Latin America.

I beleive to do a daily call from Mexico you can change the information as what to dial prior the phone number, or to get the line, most of the time you don't put anything or put 9, or something like that, just change it to 001 (area code in USA) and this way it will call your local TiVo number in the city you registered it. If you have the 800 number then you are out of luck to call from Mexico.

Of course you can plug your unit only once every couple of weeks to force the call instead of paying 30 international long distance calls, that maybe will get expensive.

For DTivo install extreme and don't call.