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Book Review: Hacking TiVo 303

Posted by timothy from the boob-tube-renewed dept.
Jason Scott writes "TiVo: You love it or you haven't met it. For those who have it (or are thinking of getting one), a new book is out about all the different ways to modify, increase capacity, or even program TiVos. Whether you want to just add a little capacity to your TiVo's drives or turn it into a full-blown home entertainment center hooked into your home LAN, Jeff Keegan has written a massive and all-encompassing book on this rewarding art." Read on for the rest of Jason's review.
Hacking TiVo: The Expansion, Enhancement and Development Starter Kit
author Jeff Keegan
pages 500
publisher Wiley Publishing, Inc.
rating 10
reviewer Jason Scott
ISBN 0764543369
summary Everything from admining how cool TiVos are to turning them into your home entertainment server. Exhaustive, elaborate, and funny.

As a relatively early convert to the TiVo way of life, I always found it hard to describe to people who didn't have one why their lives could be changed by it. If I was lucky, I could get friends to visit and with a few short minutes of demonstration, I'd sold another one. If they were farther away, I just hoped they would stop by some day and I'd have another convert. Why was I so intent on this? Because if you watch TV, or even if you don't watch as much as you used to, TiVo can change your life completely. It frees you from the tyranny of watching shows when you're told to watch them, and then goes on to turn your entire television experience from one bombarded with ads and missing all the "good stuff" on scattered random channels, to a true symbiotic relationship where you sit down in front of the tube and every single moment is one filled with shows you want to watch about stuff you're interested in.

A lot of Slashdot readers know what I'm talking about, because they have a TiVo or other PVR in their home right now. So when I tell you that this book will take your TiVo to the next level, I hope you get as excited as I was after reading the dozens of tricks, programs, and hacks this book lists.

The opening chapter describes, in succinct but energetic fashion, why every person with a TV should have a TiVo. Keegan's description may fall towards the evangelical side of things, but he goes out of his way to explain why his feelings are so strong. In fact, this book has an interesting side-effect: converting those who don't own a TiVo. Just a quick browse through the first few chapters will have someone who's heard of TiVo but never used one chomping at the bit to get down to the store. To the TiVo army, this is a powerful munition indeed.

From there, it's a powerful spiral into chapter after chapter of modifications, starting with back doors in the code and moving into opening the TiVo's case (explained with lots of clear pictures), adding storage, and even working with the TiVo's OS (a variation of Linux) to turn it into a web-accessible site or to improve performance.

One inspiring chapter describes the author's experience at a baseball game, having his father go to get refreshments and missing some great plays, and the author pulling out his Palm Pilot with cellular modem to tell his TiVo over the web to record the game's highlights on the news. With that tantalizing trick presented, Keegan goes into the whole involved deal, everything from modifying the TiVo to creating the external server to feed the TiVo information.

As I said, the tricks come fast and furious: TiVo as a way to browse photo galleries. TiVo pulling down the current weather and presenting the radar maps. TiVo printing Caller ID information on the screen when someone calls. By the time you're done with the book, you'll be wondering what there is that you can't do with it. And that, to me, is the sign of a truly great instructional book.

A warning: If you want a neutral voice in the author, this isn't the book for you. Keegan's enthusiasm drips from many pages, written in the tone of the guy down the street with the new toy who simply has take you to the den and show you how cool it is, describing in greater and greater detail all the cool stuff he's discovered tinkering with it. The author's wife, newborn daughter, mother and father make appearances all throughout the book, including a particularly touching description of having his father design an assembly language program to manipulate an LED display. No, really, it's touching. I did a search for Jeff and information on him and I found a photo of him in this costume. Honestly, I'm speechless. The man has achieved what we call "full commitment."

By about halfway through the book it stops being an instruction manual and begins being a full-on reference book, giving you explicit instructions on programming in Tcl, mucking about in Linux, and generally being a hard-core warranty violator. One appendix is dedicated to being a Tcl reference list while another hits you up for some basic Linux training (to be able to work comfortably in the OS).

Keegan has also been kind enough to include a CD-ROM with pretty much all the programs and utilities needed to accomplish what's in his book. It's a telling personal trait that he apologizes for putting it all on a CD instead of enabling readers to go out and search for the programs themselves.

To say I learned things in this book is an amazing understatement. Just to know that some of these things are even possible with my TiVo guarantee how I'll be spending the next few hundred dollars, buying larger drives, getting a cache card, and wiring the machine for ethernet. And Yes, it tells you how to get the shows off of your TiVo onto your computer's hard drive.

When I ordered this book from Amazon, I found out it was an Amazon exclusive, so that's the only place to get it right now. On the other hand, I was able to get my copy in a very short time, so I'm fine with that ... but I hope that you can get it in other places in the future. Regardless, it was worth the money I paid for it, especially since Amazon had 30 percent off in some effort to push to product. Great for me; I'm glad this book came into my collection and I think any TiVo owner (or hopeful TiVo owner) will agree.

Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
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Book Review: Hacking TiVo More

Book Review: Hacking TiVo

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  • Series 2 (Score:4, Interesting)

    by krisp ( 59093 ) * on Wednesday October 15, 2003 @12:33PM (#7220784) Homepage
    Does it go into hacking the Series 2 TiVo? I'm sick of reading about all these obsolete series 1 hack methods.

    I'd just like to get bash working on my Series 2 stand-alone with minimal effort.
    • Does it go into hacking the Series 2 TiVo? I'm sick of reading about all these obsolete series 1 hack methods.

      Sorry man, Series 1 DirecTiVo is where its at!

      Honestly, The web is the best place for this stuff, and this book is just an organized, indexed reprinting of that information. But then, I've also order the book myself :)

    • Re:Series 2 (Score:2, Informative)

      by pegr__ ( 144172 )
      No, no Series 2 hacks are in the book (from what I can tell... I haven't read it.) Series 2 hacks are out there. They just haven't become routine just yet.

      As for BASH on a Series 2, the trick is to get a trusted kernel to boot, then have it run a hacked kernel. Yes, Tivo added some integrity checks on the Series 2. (Insert DMCA disclaimer.)

      The author probably doesn't want to get into Series 2 machines because they are still in a state of flux, and he would be trafficing in a circumvention devic
    • Yeah, obsolete...because everyone with a series 1 bought into TiVO's hype and bought a series 2 the second they became available...

      Oh, wait...not everyone did that. A lot of us kept our series 1 boxes specficially because the hacking potential on them was known and understood.

    • Does it go into hacking the Series 2 TiVo? I'm sick of reading about all these obsolete series 1 hack methods.

      Preach it, brotha. Anyone who owns a series 1 probably either

      1. knows how to hack it if they need to or
      2. would never read /.

      Get with the times, people! If this book has relevant and interesting information for what I can do with my Series2 (besides the known capacity expansion hacks), the reviewer should have noted it.

    • Maybe someone can explain the difference between series 1 and 2 for those of us who don't own one but are drooling over them.

      • Series 1 vs. Series 2 (Score:4, Informative)

        by McSpew ( 316871 ) on Wednesday October 15, 2003 @02:55PM (#7222317)

        Okay, because you asked for it, here are the major differences between Series 1 and Series 2 standalone devices:

        Series 1

        • PowerPC CPU (~43MHz), 16MB RAM
        • Analog modem, serial port, IR blaster port
        • Latest software revision: 3.0.xx
        • No USB ports
        • Disk space easily expandable to 240GB with TiVo-compiled kernel. Some users have compiled custom kernels to enable support of HDs larger than 127GB
        • No anti-hack code built into BIOS or kernel
        • To encourage people to upgrade to Series 2 TiVos, TiVo has apparently ceased development of software for Series 1 devices. It looks like 3.0.xx is the last version Series 1 owners will ever see.

        Series 2

        • MIPS CPU (~200MHz), 32MB RAM
        • Analog modem, serial port, IR blaster port
        • Latest software revision: 4.0.xx
        • 2 USB 1.1 ports included (some TiVos have USB 2.0-compatible hardware, but the kernel has not enabled USB 2.0 compatibility)
        • Disk space easily expandable to 240GB with TiVo-compiled kernel
        • BIOS has anti-hack code. Will only load kernel signed by TiVo. TiVo-signed kernel will only load code signed by TiVo, effectively eliminating hacks without replacing BIOS.
        • TiVo officially supports USB-ethernet dongles for features such as daily call and Home Media Option. Someday, TiVo may offer home network-based multi-TiVo conflict resolution, allowing you to use all tuners on all TiVos as if they belonged to a single monster TiVo.

        There are people who've successfully hacked the Series 2 TiVos by replacing the BIOS with one that has the signature-check edited out, but that requires soldering, which is more than most TiVophiles are comfortable with.

        In contrast, people with Series 1 devices have added ethernet cards, installed more RAM, installed Apache and a full web-based UI for programming TiVo, etc.

        I own a couple of Series 1 standalone TiVos, but don't own any Series 2 standalones. I do own an HDVR2, which is the second generation DirecTV-integrated model. I haven't done anything to it yet.

        • Excellent. Thanks for the summary. So if I'm looking at used boxes on eBay or elsewhere, the USB port is the key way to tell, regardless of the manufacturer?

        • There are also people who have hacked the Series 2 without changing the BIOS. Search tivocommunity and dealdatabase for "2 kernel monte". It's not for the faint of heart.
      • I'll second that. As someone who hasn't yet taken the plunge, and is considering getting a TiVo or whipping up something with MythTV, a good rundown of the differences in the SI and SII boxes would be nice.

    • Does it go into hacking the Series 2 TiVo? I'm sick of reading about all these obsolete series 1 hack methods.

      I'd just like to get bash working on my Series 2 stand-alone with minimal effort.

      Maybe you should take a hint by all the hoops they jump through to stop you from "hacking" a TiVo. Could it be they would prefer that you don't hack it? Why is slashdot condoning this hacking activity by pointing to a book on how to do it? If you want to hack a PVR then build a MythTV box.

  • This kind of info gets stale in days (Score:4, Funny)

    by mscalora ( 226843 ) on Wednesday October 15, 2003 @12:37PM (#7220821) Homepage
    As a hacker of many TiVos, I must say that when I saw this book the first thing I thought was how fast the info would be out of date. Every time TiVo pushes a new version of the software, you have to get new hacking info from the web sites. Does this book even code the new DVD-R TiVos? I bet there was old info in this book the first day it hit the shelves. This is not good subject matter for a paper book.

    -Mike
    • These -HACKs books are for Series 1, which is pretty stable these days. Currently it's a fair bit harder to hack the Series 2 because there are more legal implications (especially with the DMCA) and Tivo has gotten smarter about keeping people out of their box. It's kinda sad actually, the hacker community kept Tivo alive and running during the formative years, and now they're doing everything they can to lock them out. It's like the Tivo guys have started listening to the big Media guys.
  • Doesn't the break the DMCA.... what a shame if it does muhuhuhuhuhu

  • So is how much detail is the hardware hacking? Or are we limited to blinking LEDs or whatever is the basis for the dad story?

    Is the hareware hacking really educational like Hacking the XBox [hackingthexbox.com]?

    How does this book compare with the other hacking tivo titles?
  • TiVo has just marked down the early Series 2 DirecTiVo units (35 hour capacity) to 100 dollars. Best Buy is currently selling the Philips DSR7000 unit for 93 dollars. You obviously need to have DirecTV to use the unit, however.

    The Standalone 40 and 80 hours are still running between 200-300 dollars.

    • The purchase price is one thing, but I'm not buying any more monthly subscriptions to anything, period. There's no reason to pay anybody more than $12/year to update an Internet TV-Guide. In fact I think that's about how much the paper TV Guide costs.
      • Point of information: If you're using a DirecTivo, the subscription fee is $4.99 on top of your existing satellite service, with no fee if you subscribe to Total Choice Premeire.

        Otherwise, the $12/month fee is for standalone TiVos. I opted to pay for lifetime service back when the rates were 10/month and $200 lifetime, and my standalone unit has lasted for over three years, well over the 20-month break-even point.
    • The Standalone 40 and 80 hours are still running between 200-300 dollars.

      How does anyone get by with 40-80 hours of storage? That seems pretty paltry to me. I'm hitting huge issues with my 400GB MythTV setup. I'm seriously at the point where I need to consider setting up a fileserver with at least 1 or 2 TB of space to archive my shows. Don't even get me started on trying to find an affordable backup solution for that much data. I may have to just buy two 1 TB file servers to have the data mirrored.

  • All in Wonder (Score:5, Informative)

    by bigfatdonny ( 656344 ) on Wednesday October 15, 2003 @12:47PM (#7220909)
    I'm still not sure why more people haven't adopted ATI's All in Wonder cards. I use mine for everything that the TiVo can do, plus a lot of the stuff that you can hack the TiVo to do. I can login remotely and set it to record. I can burn VCD/SVCD/DVDs without hacking anything. And adding storage? I've got its cache and recording space set up on my NAS. And all for less than $150

    • Re:All in Wonder (Score:4, Interesting)

      by cat_jesus ( 525334 ) on Wednesday October 15, 2003 @01:17PM (#7221213)
      I don't even have to tell my Tivo to record. It already knows what to record. What a pain in the ass it would be to have to update a schedule manually if the show I wanted to watch switched time slots.

    • Re:All in Wonder (Score:5, Informative)

      by fahrvergnugen ( 228539 ) <fahrvNO@SPAMhotmail.com> on Wednesday October 15, 2003 @01:42PM (#7221457) Homepage

      Yes, but can your $150 videocard:

      • automatically record programs for you based on your past viewing habits?
      • contribute to aggregate ratings information that networks actually listen to?
      • grab video data straight from the satellite feed and dump it directly to disk, with no loss in quality from the original signal?
      • record two programs at once while watching a third pre-recorded program?
      • use an 8-second rewind feature, so you can see those "OH SHIT DID I JUST SEE THAT" moments again?
      • record obscure films starring your favorite actors that you didn't even know existed from channels you never watch, giving you a nice surprise when you get home?
      • calculate your TV schedule on the fly, and catch that oddball halloween episode of Simpsons run on a weekday instead of on a weekend without your intervention?
      • fast-forward through an entire block of commercials in less than 5 seconds, and somehow manage to get within 3 seconds of the beginning of your program every single time you stop it?
      • pause / rewind live TV, on those rare occasions you find yourself watching live TV?
      • almost be considered a member of the family, waiting with arms full of brainkilling, timewasting presents for you when you get home every night?

      People who haven't joined The Cult Of TiVO think that TiVO's just some kind of overglorified VCR that automates tasks they could do themselves anyway, were they so inclined. Nothing but experience, I've found, can change their minds. It takes real talent and engineering skill to design a system as rich and powerful as the one the people at TiVO has created.

      • You are so right. It's easy to build a digital VCR. But most of my TiVo use isn't a digital VCR. It's mainly in rewinding and pausing live TV.

        It's also so well integrated you forget it is even there. I have yet to see a home built PC solution get anywhere close to the integration.
    • I'm still not sure why more people haven't adopted ATI's All in Wonder cards.Uh, how 'bout 'cause their drivers suck? I've got one, and it would be a neat idea if it wasn't constantly crashing Win2K... oh, by the way, where do I get Linux TV software?

    • I use mine for everything that the TiVo can do, plus a lot of the stuff that you can hack the TiVo to do.

      Not really. Besides all the software capabilities the TiVo has that do no exist with the All-In-Wonder (the weak point is the quality of the guide data available). The main difference is in the quality of the MPEG encoding, especially in the case of the DirecTivo. When I record using DirecTivo, I'm getting the material already compressed by DirecTV, using their super high-end MPEG2 compressers at the

  • My main interest with a Tivo is whether or not it can be reliably modified to not record any commercials? I understand some models have a skip-ahead feature, but I could clearly see the quality of my television-viewing life dramatically improved if I had a device that would make commercials disappear. Can this be done with the Tivo, and if so, is this something that you have to fight over and fix every now and then to keep working?
    • As far as I know, you can't do this with TiVo, but you can fast-forward at speeds up to 60x the regular broadcast rate. Your usual commercial break takes less than a minute to run through, and you can optionally go back to check out the Victoria Secret commercial that they snuck in there.

      I think eliminating the recording of commercials is something that TiVo (the company) would be leery of doing especially since they want to stay in business.
      • I recently purchased a GE VCR (model VG4268) which has a feature called "Commercial Advance" which either doesn't record the commercials or skips over them automatically during playback. Since there seems to be units like this that are being sold, there must be some way to automatically stop recording or skip over the commercials in an automated manner. This is the one feature that would make the difference for me in getting a Tivo. Does anyone have more details on the feasibility of this (aside from havi

        • I recently purchased a GE VCR (model VG4268) which has a feature called "Commercial Advance" which either doesn't record the commercials or skips over them automatically during playback. Since there seems to be units like this that are being sold, there must be some way to automatically stop recording or skip over the commercials in an automated manner. This is the one feature that would make the difference for me in getting a Tivo. Does anyone have more details on the feasibility of this (aside from havin

    • No, commercial-skipping with a TiVO is manual (and you have to enter a code to enable the "30-second skip" button, otherwise you have to fast-forward an stop at the right time -- not hard to learn, and effective once you do, but not automatic).

      ReplayTV [replaytv.com], on the other hand, does have automatic commercial-skip on playback (it still records the commercials, but it will automatically skip over them when playing back, if you want it to).

      Of course, replay had some financial trouble, partly because of lawsuit
    • Personally I like the skip-ahead feature, probably mostly because I'm used to it. It does have one minor feature you may or may not appreciate: you actually get to see a frame or two of each commercial or promo. Yeah, most of them just verify why you use the skip-ahead in the first place, but occasionally they will have promos for shows you might be interested in, which you can then set up to record. Plus, you get to stop for the occasional clever commercial you actually like ("Hey, honey, come here, they'r
  • With my mythtv I get the following benefits:
    DVD player/ripper
    image gallery/slideshow
    game frontend (xmame, snes, nes, pc)
    music player
    generic video player
    my weather forcast
    and a web page to controll it by.

    Who wants to own a device that requires a monthly subscription to work to its maximum potiential. Does any one know the cons to the guide + service?

  • ..but I guess it is pretty convenient to have it all in one place. Serously, all of the above info is available at the following sites:

    Tivo Community Forum [tivocommunity.com]

    Deal Database Forums [dealdatabase.com]

    Tivo Web Project Home Page [lightn.org]

    I found it to be really enjoyable to sift through many different forums for instructions on how to mod my TiVo. I learned more by reading more than one persons account on how to do things, and was able to get help by posting questions.

    There's a ton of info out there if you're willing to searc

  • and it's hard to get a non-series 2 machine now. Furthermore, a series 2 tivo has some safeguards to make hacking it significantly more difficult, compared with how hard it is to hack the earlier TiVo's. Thus, The countless series 2 users I know will be very happy to have access to some series 2 hacks someday, whenever that comes out.
  • For one thing, I'd like to know how much space is devoted to series 1 vs. series 2. For that matter, any space devoted to the differences between TiVo software versions, and whether v.4 "improvements" have made them harder to hack. This seems to be a review of the author and his enthusiasm.

    I just got a series 2, and this book is supposedly on its way, but I'm still thirsty for more information. At this point, I'm this close to sending it back and getting two used series 1s.

    Somebody please correct me if I'
  • Is there any information available on the multi-room viewing protocol TiVo employs on their Series2 boxes. I know the developer docs are available for the Music & Photos feature, but I've never found anything about multi-room viewing.

    I know they have TiVoGuard, which is used to protect the signal as it moves across the network. Is there any information on this, specifically, is their a non-encrypted option to transport data.

    The reason I wonder is I have a bunch of DivX encoded movies that I'd like t

  • The TIVO website mentions that HDTV may be supported in the future. Is there any word out there (unofficially) for when?
  • Anyone out there hack The DISH network PVR's? I've got the cheaper of the two with one receiver, but it is still awesome. I'd love to add a 100G drive, but haven't seen anything about doing it.

  • I'm a tivo convert, whose converted away from tivo (Score:4, Interesting)

    by gatekeep ( 122108 ) on Wednesday October 15, 2003 @01:38PM (#7221408)
    I no longer use my old Series 1 tivo. The hacks are nice, but with something based on a PC, the sky's the limit.

    Currently, I'm using SageTV [www.sage.tv] It's a PC based DVR software package. With it, I can currently;

    - Record two standard def stations, and a high def station at the same time while watching a fourth video of any type. (Obviously, this requires having two tuners and an HDTV tuner.)
    - Record standard TV to MPEG-2, MPEG-1, or just about any other format. This makes it easier to make VCDs, DVDs, or just play the program back on a standard PC.
    - Playback using Dscalar to deinterlace the video.
    - Play DVDs
    - Play DivX
    - Record shows as favorites (just like season passes) or let SageTV record things based on my past viewing habits (much like tivo's suggestions only I don't have to bother with thumbs up and down buttons)
    - Do all of the above with an integrated schedule, which is free. No need to pay a monthly fee.
    - Play and manage my MP3 library (I think you can do ogg, ape, etc. with some tweaks to the config)
    - Stream video and audio to another PC over my LAN.

    I'm sure I'm missing much more. This thing does way more than any tivo, even a hacked tivo, and it's constantly being expanded. It surpasses TiVo and ReplyTV in every way. I've even found it to be more flexible than MythTV and Showstopper (though they do have a few benefits in some areas.)
    • Currently, I'm using SageTV It's a PC based DVR software package... this requires having two tuners and an HDTV tuner.

      Yowza. Sounds good. Out of curiosity, what was your cash outlay for the hardware and how long did it take you to get it running in it's current (assumedly perfect) state? Can you write up some documentation so my parents can set one up in an afternoon?

  • Can Tivo do stuff that the free PVRS can do, like be a front end for emulators and get shows from the web? If so, it might be worth buying a Tivo instead of building my own.

    Still, last I checked it it was $250 for a tivo and $250 to use it and $100 for the net card and $50 to use it, so it might be cheaper to build my own. But I'm lazy...

  • Tivo freed me from TV altogether (Score:5, Insightful)

    by sacrilicious ( 316896 ) <qbgfynfu.opt@recursor.net> on Wednesday October 15, 2003 @02:12PM (#7221792) Homepage
    TiVo: You love it or you haven't met it.

    I got tivo four years ago and instantly fell deeply in love with it. That love continues to this day, but has changed form. About a year ago, I realized that my giddy passion had given way to serenity, by which I mean that I realized that I just didn't want to watch tv any more, even on tivo. It was tivo that got me to this state of mind. It started by seeing how intrusive commercials were, and how much better tv was without it. The next phase for me was the realization of how manipulative the networks were with their program timing and scheduling; how wonderful to be free of that too! And then last summer I found I had dined at the table of paradise enough. I had actually watched enough episodes of The Simpsons, Futurama, Friends, Seinfeld, Frasier, and tons of other shows. To borrow an analogy from another slashdot writer, it was like the weekly trip to the hardware store after you've bought a new house, where one day you get there and you realize that you just don't need anything else, and you turn around and leave.

    This has been a profound experience for me. And I don't think I could have gotten here without Tivo. Maybe I would have and it would have taken longer, but I like to think it was tivo.

    Now I keep tivo around for the kid (Sesame St, etc).

    • Had something similar. Got the Tivo to work with my Dish satellite, then found that most of the good stuff was being recorded from over-the-air stations so dumped the satellite (which was mostly being used to channel surf when there was nothing better to watch. When it came down to it, we concluded that the only shows that were really "must see" and only on satellite were "The Daily Show" for me and "Eastenders" for her and that isn't worth $40/month).

      Now I am gradually finding that I have caught up with S

  • Whether you want to just add a little capacity to your TiVo's drives or turn it into a full-blown home entertainment center hooked into your home LAN, Jeff Keegan has written a massive and all-encompassing book on this rewarding art." Read on for the rest of Jason's review.

    So.. Buying a book, then following steps 1 through 10 is considered art nowadays? I guess putting a mod chip in an Xbox is art, too. How about installing a new hard drive in my PC? Does that count?

    Save your money and go to a site like
    • I withdraw the use of the word "art" and replace it with "project". I suspect there are other similar issues in the review, if you wish to take issue with them.

      The best feature of Keegan's book is that it functions both as an instruction manual and reference manual. While the first half generally has both excited-sounding paragraphs and stories, it quickly hunkers down into both step-by-step instructions (for those of us in the "get it done" mode) and reference lists (for those of us who want to get "arty"

  • When I ordered this book from Amazon, I found out it was an Amazon exclusive, so that's the only place to get it right now. On the other hand, I was able to get my copy in a very short time, so I'm fine with that ... but I hope that you can get it in other places in the future.

    Well, I saw it at a Borders last Friday (10-October), so perhaps other Borders have it, too?

    Milalwi
  • I've read through the comments looking for the most highly recommended PVR and here's what I come up with so far:

    Most Tivos are Series 2 instead of Series 1, which means a lot less flexibility

    There are DirecTivos for cheap but they require a DirecTV subscription

    You can build your own and install MythTV (free) or Sage ($$).

    There's also ReplayTV which last I heard is pretty good.

    What others are there that are good buys?
  • ...than SpAmazon. And Bookpool will never spam you like Amazon will, given half a chance.

    The book is still in pre-order state from Bookpool, but they'll ship it to you when it hits. You can check the details at this link. [bookpool.com]

  • Answers from the author to some FAQs (Score:3, Informative)

    by jkeegan ( 35099 ) on Wednesday October 15, 2003 @04:09PM (#7223092) Homepage Journal
    Hi, I'm the author of the book. Here's the answer to a few of the questions asked here and elsewhere about my book.

    Q: I'm confused.. Where can I buy it again?
    A: Only at amazon.com [amazon.com]. Anyone who's ever written or knows a writer knows how little writing pays, so if you'd like to give more at no cost to yourself, use that link. :)

    Q: Can't I get all of this for free elsewhere?
    A: Absolutely, the hacks talked about are all out there. What this book does is bring them together in one place, walk you through them with a consistent voice, and start you off on what's needed to write your own hacks (for example, with a description of the internal APIs TiVo has to access their proprietary MFS filesystem, etc). I've had many friends who are competent developers who wanted to try implementing a few ideas in their TiVo, but didn't want to play the catch-up game of reading through thousands of posts to try to gleam what collective knowledge we've all accumulated. Re-inventing the wheel might be fun, but it's not as fun as creating something of your own using the creations that have preceded you.

    Also, many of the sites that used to host various TiVo hacks have disappeared because the authors have moved on to other things. I wanted to make sure these hacks were collected in one permanent place (on the CD-ROM for the book).

    Q: Does your book cover Series2?
    A: Yes and no. Series2 users can use the book and accompanying CD-ROM to add larger hard drives to their TiVo, and to mount Series2 drives. As for describing how to get a bash prompt, that I don't describe, for various legal reasons (the exemptions granted under the DMCA aren't as nice as my publisher would like them to be). Once you've gone off to find out how to do that (via the BASH_ENV and 2-kernel-monte exploits described at places like dealdatabase.com), much of the book still applies.. (even though I don't ship series2 binaries for everything, my descriptions of the tools and the development talk still applies and makes for interesting reading).

    Q: Does your book cover Series1 DirecTiVos?
    A: Yes, although again for legal reasons there's one step where I tell you in the book that you need to look elsewhere first (obtaining a bash prompt by flashing your prom). If you purchase a TurboNET card (as I'd imagine you will if you have a Series1 DirecTiVo) then the software on the TurboNET site will flash the prom for you so you can move on. Once that step is done, the rest of the book applies to your DirecTiVo completely (with the exception of video extraction).

    Q: Hey, yeah, video extraction.. Do you cover video extraction?
    A: Yes, I cover video extraction (and insertion), for Series1 standalones only. Series1 DirecTiVos scramble video by default, and though there is a simple hack out there to disable this scrambling, I'm prohibited legally from talking about it in the book. I don't cover Series2 extraction either.

    Those are the main five I get asked most. I spent many months on this, and I'm glad that people finally have a chance to read it. I hope everyone enjoys the book! More than that, I hope this attracts new developers to this great platform.

  • I have a 20-hour Series 1 and have wanted to put in a larger disk for a while. The problem is that I'm afraid it will slow it to a crawl. As it stands, it takes a good 5-10 minutes to make any changes to my season passes or my wishlists. I have 100+ SPs and about 50 WLs and the processing gets slower and slower with each one. I'm thinking of upgrading to Series 2 just for the faster processor and increased memory.

    Anyway, can anyone tell me whether increasing the storage space would slow it down even fu

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