If your TiVo is connected to your network and you are successfully making daily calls using your broadband connection, you should have no problem identifying and accessing your TiVo on your home network. If you have a Linksys router most of the links in the captions below will take you directly where you need to go. If you don't have a Linksys router, read onward and follow the examples; your router should behave similarly. Identifying the IP address of your TiVo is easy. All you need to do is access the DHCP clients list of your DHCP-enabled firewall/router. To access your Linksys Router's administrative page (Figure 1), you can enter the IP address in any browser window (note: you will most likely be prompted for a username and password). Most routers are similarly configured to be accessed at 192.168.1.1 or 192.168.0.1. You can then proceed to the DHCP Setup Menu (Figure 2) and retrieve the DHCP client list (Figure 3). The examples and links shown below are for the Linksys WRT54G; if you do not have this particular router, the links below may not work correctly, but they should not be very different from your own router's specifications.

Figure 1 - Linksys Router Administrative Page

Figure 2 - Linksys DHCP Setup Menu

The Active IP Table shows several clients in the list however, the TiVo is clearly labeled with a client host name of "DVRupgrade-TiVo". You can change this name if you wish, but it's not necessary. Even if you have multiple TiVo systems in your environment, each will be assigned its own unique IP address.

Figure 3 - DHCP Active IP Table

Now that you know your TiVo's IP address, if you've installed a TiVoWeb-enabled product, you can enter your IP address in any browser window to access your TiVo. To make things even easier (especially if you have multiple TiVo units), you can create host entries in the appropriate files of your desktop computer. For example, if you are using a Windows XP based system, you can edit the file

C:\WINDOWS\system32\drivers\etc\HOSTS

using Windows notepad or WordPad, and create the following entries:

# Living Room System

192.168.1.112 tivo

If you are using a unix or linux system, the file to edit is /etc/hosts.

You can use any descriptions you'd like after the # sign; that is simply a comment. Use the IP address from your DHCP Active IP table, and for the name following the IP address, you can use most anything; just don't use any spaces between characters.

Now, you can use the word "tivo" instead of the IP address when asked by a particular application.