PVR-blog

The Good News and Bad News about New TiVo Features

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 08:21:00 +0000

There's been a recent update to TiVo boxes, enabling two famous and long-rumored features: Netflix support and Ads displayed while pausing/fast-forwarding. Both were first discussed on this site four years ago and it wasn't until this week that both finally became available for TiVo users.

The Netflix support is really good, exactly like using a dedicated Roku box. You add things to your Instant Queue on the Netflix website, then walk over to your TiVo to play them. Unfortunately you can't search for new movies from your couch and have to use a computer to interact with the Netflix website, but the the syncing is nearly instant and easy enough to use. Video quality is quite good and I had some low-end HD video that looked a lot like the AppleTV's 720p HD movies. Movie selection is limited to studios that allow for Netflix streaming but one of my favorite genres (Documentary) is well represented.

The ads displayed during fast forwarding has been a long time coming and raised quite a ruckus when it first was announced. Gizmodo has a screenshot of what they look like and say it's only on the older Series 2 boxes for now. On first glance it doesn't seem as invasive as I envisioned, but it does seem like a distraction from the way a TiVo is typically used.

TiVo mobile launched

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 17:04:00 +0000

I caught the news on Crave that m.tivo.com was launching as a new mobile presence for adding shows to your TiVo. TiVo previously had a mobile interface for Verizon customers (and they charged for it), but thankfully the new approach seems to follow a much more open model: a simplified HTML site open to anyone.

It definitely seems to be programmed with the iPhone in mind as it's very easy to use on one. I'll definitely use the site when I'm out and about and suddenly wonder if I was recording a major sporting event or a new show set to debut.

Here are a couple screenshots from my iPhone viewing the site this morning:

Daily picks (nice to see updated content that would make me check the site out more often):

Potential new TiVo UI

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 08:27:00 +0000

The Infinite Abyss blog has some pretty amazing screenshots and video of a potential new TiVo interface with plenty of details about each. If this is true, it's certainly breaking loads of nondisclosure agreements that testers must abide, if false it's still a pretty interesting and convincing new direction that TiVo could someday take.

I love the preview of each top level menu's options (seems like a time-saver when you're hunting for a specific function) and aside from the standard TiVo screens it looks a lot like the functionality on AppleTV where buying and renting video is first and foremost. I like the idea of owner profiles (mom, dad, kids get different shows/options) and hope that becomes a reality someday. The overall visual design of it reminds me of Windows Media Center and I can't say I like the large images across the top -- they take up 1/3 of the screen without conveying any information. [thanks davezatz for the pointer]

The DIRECTV TiVo Guide

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 07:03:00 +0000

Looking for information on DIRECTV TiVo? Here's a guide that gives you the information you need to know about DIRECTV TiVo and DIRECTV DVRs.

DIRECTV TiVo

TiVo is an electronic recording device that allows you to digitally record, pause, rewind, and play TV shows. TiVo was the first commercial DVR (digital video recorder), and was once marketed and sold by DIRECTV.

In 2007, DIRECTV developed its own DVR and started its own DVR service.
Instead of offering TiVo DVRs and TiVo service, DIRECTV now offers it's own DVRs and it's own DVR service. DIRECTV's DVRs are now free when you sign up for their service.

DIRECTV DVRs

The DIRECTV Plus DVR - This DVR allows you to record and play DIRECTV satellite TV programs with the push of a button on your remote. You can also:

* Pause the show you're watching so your can get a snack, then resume watching when you're ready.

* Record up to 100 hours of satellite TV programs.

* Store your recordings on your DVRs hard drive - no more hassling with video tapes or DVDs.

* Record two shows while watching another show.

* Set your DVR to automatically record future broadcasts of your favorite shows with the push of a button.

* Restrict the TV shows your children watch with parental controls.

The DIRECTV Pus HD DVR - This DVR has all the features of the DIRECTV Plus DVR, and includes:

* The ability to record your shows in HD (high definition) format for a near-lifelike picture.

* Dolby digital audio for three-dimensional sound.

* Up to 200 hours of recording time.

The Bottom Line

The DIRECTV Plus DVR and HD DVR let you watch the shows you want, when you want. Unlike old-fashioned VCRs or newer DVD recorders, recording with a DVR is a piece of cake - push a button and you're done.

If you want to be able to store up to 200 hours of your favorite programs and watch those programs in crystal-clear digital or high def format, then a DVR from DIRECTV is just what the doctor ordered.

Direct TV Tivo Equals Compromise

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 06:49:00 +0000

Do you own your own satellite TV system and subscribe to Directv (aka Direct TV)? Then consider an upgrade to a Directv Tivo system. Tivo is a type of digital video recorder that allows you to record one thing while watching another. So ladies, if your man wants to watch the game at the same time that your favorite television show is on, you can have your show recorded while he watches the game. Or make him suffer by taping the game.

When you have a Direct satellite TV, you have a lot of options to choose from, including the Direct TV Tivo. Like mentioned above, the Directv Tivo records one show while you watch another. Well, other digital recording devices do that too and have for a while now. The Direct TV Tivo is a little special. You can actually record two different shows at the same time!

When a customer first gets their TV satellite dish through Directv, they turn down the Directv Tivo option. However, after a few months of realizing all of the cool shows they miss because of the plethora of programming choices through Direct TV, they decide to go the Tivo route after all. People tend to get attached to certain TV shows and when they start to conflict, agony pursues on deciding which show to watch!

Your Direct TV Tivo is also easy to set up and program. You just bring up your Directv programming guide on your TV screen and choose the TV shows you want to record. And voil ! You will soon have a digital recording of your favorite shows. The neat thing about this Tivo is that you can program your set to record an entire season of shows! There are no more worries about trying to remember to set your Direct TV Tivo each week.

Another advantage to the Tivo is that, unlike a VCR, you are not fumbling with the buttons trying to set the time and date. You also don't have to worry about recording gray static or whether the VCR tape gets stuck in the machine. Then there's that pesky double checking to make sure you have the television on the correct channel as well as the VCR being set properly too.

Direct TV's competitor the Dish network has digital video recorders available but they can only tape one show, unlike the Directv Tivo option. So if you do not have a TV satellite dish and satellite TV receiver yet, think about the Tivo option before deciding on the satellite TV service you want to go for. Directv Tivo may be just the ticket to make your decision.

Kids want to watch one thing while mom and dad also disagree on what to watch. Direct TV Tivo equals compromise in many households. You might say that it makes a great peacekeeper. Now all you have to do is decide on who gets to hold the remote control!

HD TiVo coming (back) to DirecTV

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 13:15:00 +0000

Dave Zatz has a post reporting what many DirecTV users have been wanting for years now: a (New) HD TiVo is coming to DirecTV!

This is great, great news. I was a former DirecTV customer that left for Comcast back in 2005 when their HD offerings were slim and the HD DirecTiVo was already being phased out. I've heard nothing but horror stories about DirecTV's replacement HD DVR (the one made by NDS) and several friends and family members have jumped ship to cable (either Comcast or FiOS) to get a deeper HD channel lineup that works with a real TiVo.

For the friends and family that don't have a cable option (those in rural locations), they'll definitely be happy to hear a new HD DirecTiVo may be out by early next year. This looks like good news for both DirecTV and TiVo, and though it may poach a few sales of TiVoHD units (and people leaving satellite for cable), I bet the licensing fees TiVo will charge DirecTV will make up for it.

I still get asked via email several times a week if it's possible to get a new Series 3 or TiVoHD to work on their satellite system, and now I can finally tell them to just wait for the new units to roll out.

Planning, Budgeting, Research, and Goals: Part 1 of Building Your Perfect Home Theater

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 31 Aug 2008 14:27:00 +0000

After I moved into a new house 18 months ago, I knew I wanted to take everything I'd learned over the past few years and set up my own personal dream home theater system. I spent several months thinking about the constraints on the space and my own goals. I then spent about six months doing research on various aspects while putting it together. About a year later, it was complete.

In this part, I want to cover the basics of how to define what would make your own perfect home theater. This is the earliest step in designing your own system for your own space, so it'll be just writing stuff down and doing research online.

Come up with a wishlist

The first thing you'll want to do is come up with a list of things you'd like to have in your own home theater. We'll talk about constraints later, so for now, think sky-is-the-limit on what you want. For me, my wishlist looked something like this:

For a screen, a large plasma or LCD wall-mounted
For a TV source, HD either from cable or satellite
For watching movies, I'd like HD as well, either blu-ray or HD-DVD
One or more video game systems
Some way to stream movies/music from computers in the house
I want all components hidden away or behind doors
I want any and all speakers to be as hidden as possible, no visible speaker wire
I'd like the room to be multi-functional and not solely for watching TV

Counter your wishlist with real-world constraints

A wishlist is a good start for your research, and you'll want to start using Google for a bit to see what sorts of costs and other limitations your wishes might include. Think about your space and whatever preliminary research you've done to hone your wishlist down to something a bit more realistic. It helps to break out the tape measure and talk to anyone else you're sharing the space with (spouse, kids, roommates).

For my own living room project, I listed my own following constraints for my living room:

Distance from top of fireplace to ceiling where I want to wall-mount a TV is about 34 inches
Bank of three windows along one wall will bring in lots of natural light
Hallway closet about 20 feet away if I wanted completely hidden components
House came with 5 speakers installed in the ceiling
A toddler in the house meant components needed to be in a kid-proof enclosure

Budget: let's talk about money

The biggest obvious constraint on anyone planning a new home theater system is likely to be money. For me, I was willing to spend several thousand over the course of a year getting the components, but not all at once. After looking at my wishlist and my constraints, I did a good bit of research on the various components I'd need and I made myself an estimated budget like so:

TV: about $3k limit
hi-def DVD: $500
video game systems: $500
Home Theater A/V unit: $500-$1,000
Component rack: $500-$1,000
Various other components (TiVo, streaming media server, etc): $1,500

I quickly realized by the end, I'd probably go over my mental $5,000 limit, but the estimated budget helped me get a handle on where I was spending money and what sort of things to look for when shopping.

Research absolutely everything before you buy

I'd say it only took me a couple weeks of living in my new house to write down lists of wishes, constraints, and a budget. I spent the next six months or so researching each and every component and purchase decision before buying anything. With your lists in hand, try these research tips:

Go to a local electronics retailer with a good selection of TVs to compare brands side-by-side. Try and watch a known source (your favorite movie or channel) on different screens. Don't base any judgments on demo reels optimized for each screen (they rarely show high-action)
Crutchfield is a great resource for shopping and comparing brands. They've got high-resolution photos of the back of every A/V unit, which comes in quite handy, as well as customer reviews.
The AVS Forums are a great starting point. While shopping for a TV, I would often venture into the LCD area to see what people were saying about the various models before going out to test them myself.
Amazon is a good way to check user reviews before considering some purchases. You'll learn a lot about the limitations of a device from owners.
Engadget HD is a decent source for new product information. If you're spending months researching things, you'll often find a new model may replace the one you were thinking of buying.

Conclusion

I would strongly suggest that you don't skimp on this planning and research stage. Spend at least a few months shopping around for the best model and best price before you plunk down your money. In my case, I was replacing an old TV, old A/V unit, and old DVD player, so after a couple months of research, I would upgrade each part until I was done a year later.

Also keep in mind the longer you wait to buy just about any piece of electronics, the bigger the chances are that it will be either hundreds of dollars cheaper a few months from now, or replaced altogether by a better unit (or both)

PTVUpgrade releases network hacks for Series 2 DirecTiVo

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 31 Aug 2008 14:14:00 +0000

PTVupgrade, a site that has been around for years selling pre-upgraded TiVo hard drive kits and upgrade services, has recently started work on a package for hacking DirecTV Series 2 TiVos, called PTVnet. The current Series 2 DirecTiVo hardware can run all the applications the standalone hardware can, but DirecTV never released the 4.0 OS to their customers. To let those users make the most of their crippled hardware, PTVnet will make upgrades and hacking easy by selling a pre-built hard drive ready to drop into a DirecTiVo box.

It sounds a lot like the Sleeper ISO method in this guide to hacking a Series 2 DirecTiVo I pointed to last month. My guess is that they have taken all the best and most useful tools out there in the hacking community, and baked them into these drives, ready to drop in with no muss and no fuss.

What's funny is that I just got back from a trip to Fry's to buy a new upgrade drive for my own Series 2 DirecTiVo, which I intend to upgrade tonight, but now I'm not so sure. The DirecTiVo hacking world doesn't have too many tools beyond the Sleeper ISO and it's not that easy to tweak out a drive for all the capabilities. I'm shooting for adding the TiVo 4.0 OS and TiVoWeb to my own drive, and will document it for later republishing on this site. Maybe the PTVUpgrade guys can get me a kit to test out here as well, which I can compare with the "doing it by hand" method. [thanks MegaZone]

Extracting HD video from a Motorola 6412 and playing it on a mac

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 31 Aug 2008 13:30:00 +0000

Thanks to a helpful comment in the Motorola DVR rolling out to Comcast thread, there's a great step-by-step guide to connecting a mac to the Motorola box via Firewire, extracting the video, playing it back, and even using iCal to schedule recordings. It's basically a complete home theater system for recording, saving, and editing video on a Mac. Another handy guide covers the software and hardware requirements of HDTV, from a mac perspective.

If you've got the new Comcast box and an old G4 laying around, this solution just might be perfect for you.

update: here are some instructions for doing the same process on a PC

Play AACs with TiVo Desktop 1.9

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 31 Aug 2008 13:29:00 +0000

Being a zealot for both TiVo and Apple can be tough at times. We can't watch TiVoToGo files yet, even though the CEO is a switcher. We have to listen to people constantly telling us about how the companies are about to die. At least now people who encode their music in Apple's AAC format have a way to play their music on their TiVos through TiVo Desktop 1.9.

According to Dennis Wilkinson on the TiVo Community forums, 1.9 includes a program called "SoundConvert" that will run AACs through LAME, if LAME is installed in /usr/local/bin/. All you need to do is install LAME and restart the TiVo Desktop. macosxhints has a guide to installing LAME, or you can get it from Vas the Man.

Unfortunately, you can't play songs you bought from the iTunes Music Store because they have DRM. If you thought you should actually be able to listen to music you bought on your TiVo, you'd need to strip out the DRM with something like jHymn.

PSP PVR Plz

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 31 Aug 2008 13:29:00 +0000

Sony's first handheld console, the PSP, is finally out in the US and people are doing whatever they can to cram whatever media they have on it. First up, Zatz Not Funny has updated their TiVo To Go guide with a guide to put .tivo files on a PSP. Short version: strip the DRM, convert it to MPEG4 and stuff it on a memory stick.

Then we have the case of PSP Video 9, which bills itself as "a free PSP video conversion and management application." Sort of like iTunes for PSP media. The cool thing is that when you combine it with Videora (previously mentioned on PVRblog) you can subscribe to BitTorrent feeds and automatically download videos to your PSP. Obviously the first priority for this amazing amalgam of technology is PSPr0n.

I don't have a Windows system or a PSP to test PSP Video 9 with (for some reason Sony forgot to send PVRblog a pre-release PSP to review) but since it handles all the transcoding for you, I wouldn't be surprised if it could also handle TiVoToGo files. Has anyone tried this out?

PSP Home Control 1.0

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 31 Aug 2008 13:28:00 +0000

liquidice recent wrote in describing a pretty crazy PSP hack, reportedly using it as a wireless controller for his entire entertainment system, including his TiVo. Without a PSP and his code, I can't verify that this is real and it's possible it may be a hoax, but I'll reproduce his post in full and let you decide, because it looks like a really cool hack:

I have not seen anyone else do something like this with the PSP, so I am posting it in hopes to inspire others to do something cool with their PSP. The closest thing I have seen is a controller page for XBMC, but it was just some text links, and did not impress me.

I've taken it a step further. I now have the ability to turn my lights on and off. Have full control (Play, Stop, Pause, Menu) of my DVD player, TIVO, and High Def TV, all wirelessly from my PSP. I did this in a few hours using Photoshop to make some graphics. I put an image map on the graphics and created some HTML pages which are hosted on my WACI NX server. The links are crafted so that when the PSP highlights and clicks on a spot on the image map, it instructs the WACI NX server to send an IR signal to my A/V equipment or triggers it's relays to cut power on the lights.

Apologies for the blurry pictures. The PSP is not very photogenic.

My next step is to add some temperature monitors, and more integration with my PC and some AV switching equipment to stream video signals around the house. Hopefully there's a way to embed a little video clip or live stream in the new browser.

I hope that Sony realizes the potential the PSP has. If firmware update on May 1st adds a browser that resides in flash that can be called from the 'start' menu, I will be able to quickly surf to my control page and start controlling things throughout my house. Currently, I just leave Wipeout in browser mode and put my PSP to sleep. Wipeout has so many menus and loading screens to get to the web browser.

Oh and before everyone goes around screaming that this is another hoax like the AIBO PSP controller. I can assure you this is real and it works, and I use it every day. I snagged the WACI NX web server left over from a home theater install job I did last month. It's great because it has an HTTP and FTP server and uses regular HTML to issue the commands making it the perfect match for my PSP, which does not support any fancy Javascripts or DHTML. For more info on the WACI NX you could check out waciworld.com

Also view the original post here:

http://psphacks.blogspot.com/2005/04/psp-home-control-10.html

Google Maps on TiVo

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 31 Aug 2008 13:27:00 +0000

Google Maps was released a few months ago and quickly took the online world by storm due to the ingenious way you can drag around inside the maps.

Recently, they added satellite map views which don't really help you get where you want to go as much as look really cool when you zoom around your own neighborhood.

But cooler than all that is a HME hack that puts Google Maps on your TiVo, complete with dragging, zooming, and both satellite and normal map views, just like in a web browser. Also worth noting is that it was created by none other than the founder and CTO of Strangeberry

TiVo Now Playing dashboard widget for OS X Tiger

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 31 Aug 2008 13:26:00 +0000

The new version of OS X from Apple includes Dashboard, a sort of API using simple web scripting to build widgets you can manipulate on your desktop. There are hundreds of them available already to do all sorts of things, but one noteworthy new dashboard widget is the TiVo Now Playing widget.

It works with standalone TiVos with the 7.1 OS and TiVo Desktop, showing you what's available on your TiVo in real-time. It also looks pretty cool.

TivoTool released for OS X

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 31 Aug 2008 13:25:00 +0000

TivoTool is a pretty cool new app for managing your TiVo video on the network through a nice OS X GUI application. There aren't a lot of TiVo tools for macs so this is a nice new development.

It's not for the faint of heart -- it does require some fairly sophisticated hacks to be running on your TiVo in order to download and stream video unencrypted, but if you've gone that far with your TiVo, this app gives you a nice TiVoToGo-like interface on a mac (there is also a command-line version that works with both mac and linux).

Check out the screenshots of it in action. The integration with iTunes is very impressive stuff and being able to transcode video or send it to iMovie is an added plus. Hopefully when TiVo releases an official TTG mac client, their app approaches the usefulness of this package, allowing users to save and view video directly in iTunes (and transfer video to future video ipods).

Flickr on XBox MC

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 31 Aug 2008 13:25:00 +0000

Jon at jonsthoughtsoneverything.com has a number of interesting plugins to allow Flickr on XBOX Media Center and Tivo Media Center as well. If anyone can get these to work, please post your impressions here or at Jon's site.

To me, it's clear that the companies building "media center" platforms need to enable their users to tie in data (in the case of flickr, it's photos) from other platforms that have open APIs in a simple and easy manner. This is a great way to extend the platform of whatever "media center" you might purchase and would be a clear differentiator.

Jon’s Thoughts On Everything � Tivo Xbox Media Center Plugin Updated
Jon’s Thoughts On Everything � Introducing Flickr For Your Xbox Media Center
Jon’s Thoughts On Everything � Flickr Plugin Updated

Slingbox recording on a mac

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 31 Aug 2008 13:24:00 +0000

Last night I had a dilemma: a friend in Germany missed a segment of the Oscars featuring a friend of ours (long story) winning an award. I had it on my Series 3 TiVo, but there was no way to get it off, thanks to TiVo not allowing show downloads.

That's when I remembered my Slingbox. In researching how to record a slingbox stream, I could only find this old product for the PC, but it only worked with the original Slingbox with the old firmware. Turns out the Slingmedia folks started encrypting the streams so people couldn't dump the video to their computers.

I knew there had to be a way though, given that the video was playing on my computer and a computer is a pretty flexible tool. And that's when it hit me: why not try a simple screen capture utility? On my mac, the excellent (but horribly named) Snapz Pro X offers motion capture of anything on your desktop, along with the audio. I launched my slingplayer, started a high bitrate Snapz Pro X capture, saved that to my drive (700Mb file!), converted to compressed quicktime (10Mb file), then uploaded to youtube.

Here's the result, which I sent to my friend in Germany, and he got to see the less than 2 minutes of the Oscar show that really mattered to him. This method isn't useful for long captures, since the filesize of the video capture get really big really fast, but for grabbing a minute or two here to demonstrate a point or share a moment, it works great.

Slingbox + exercise = no more couch potato

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 31 Aug 2008 13:23:00 +0000

A few months back, I got an elliptical trainer in order to get some exercise indoors during the cold winters. I found myself barely using it (it's quite boring) until a friend mentioned that he could balance a laptop on the top of his and surf the web. Once I heard that, I knew what I should try on my own elliptical trainer. I could kill two birds with one stone, getting 30-40 minute workouts while also catching up on the previous night's programs on my TiVo.

It's pretty easy to do. As you can see by the picture, I've got an elliptical trainer, a laptop perched on the vertical grips, and I'm running a full-screen slingplayer that's talking to my TiVo downstairs. It helps to enable the 30 second skip, so jumping through commercials only requires 5 or 6 clicks to jump back to the program.

I never seem to have time for late night comedy programs and I don't like taking time out of my workday to sit on the couch watching them, but with this setup, I can get through the previous night's Daily Show and Colbert Report shows in about 35-40 minutes together. It's the best of both worlds: I get my exercise out of the way (sweating) and I get to watch TV (laughing) doing it. When I'm finished, I'm amused and slightly exhausted, but it feels great for the rest of the day.

How To Run TivoToGo 2.4 on Windows Vista

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 31 Aug 2008 13:23:00 +0000

eader Shane wrote in with detailed instructions on how to get the newest TiVo Desktop running in Windows Vista (which is unsupported at this time):

As you know, 2.4 came out the other day without *official* support of Windows Vista and Windows Server 2003 (both of which I had 2.3a installed). Well, using Orca and a simple tweak of a setting in the TivoToGo 2.4 .MSI installer, I've got it running on Vista.

Here's how I went about it on Vista

Download and install Orca - http://www.pek.com/projects/msi/orca.zip

Download TivoToGo 2.4 - http://www.tivo.com/4.9.4.1-2_win.asp

Run the TivoToGo installer with administrator privileges

When the installer gets to the point where it says it can't continue due to an invalid operating system, DO NOT click ok.

Point Windows explorer at C:\Users\\AppData\Local\Temp

Sort the view by date so that the latest files appear at the top

Find the file with a .MSI extension with a random name consisting of alphanumerics with the time and date near when you launched the installer.

Right click on the file, copy.

Paste to your Desktop and rename to TivoToGo24.msi

Click OK on the Tivo installer.

Launch Orca.

Open TivoToGo24.msi with Orca.

Left click to select the LaunchCondition row in the left window pane.

Remove all entries from the right window pane.

Save the file, exit Orca.

Launch TivoToGo24.msi, install and enjoy.

Wii and PS3 Media Centers

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 31 Aug 2008 13:22:00 +0000

If you've got a Nintendo Wii, Wii Media Center X looks like a new way to stream various media to your console and onto your TV.

It's by Red Kawa, the same people that make popular iPod/PSP video converter Videora and they've also got a PS3 Media Center app to boot.

TiVo Network Remotes for iPhone, Ubuntu

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 31 Aug 2008 13:21:00 +0000

Thanks to last Fall's update to the TiVo OS, there was an undocumented way to telnet commands to your TiVo that Dave Zatz describes in this post. It was a bit of a hack and not much more than a proof of concept but it looks like a few enterprising developers have created TiVo remote control apps for linux and the iPhone.

While nothing compares to a real TiVo remote in terms of functionality and ease-of-use, having an iPhone backup might be nice in the off chance you lose your remote or it's in need of repair. Cooler still is the idea of automation applications that could take advantage of of the telnet port and do away with the buggy IR blasters. I could imagine a future version of the Slingbox that could issue command over the network and confirm with a TiVo OS directly that the action took place, rather than set up an IR blaster and hope it changed the channel correctly.

Seeing people build whole apps based on discovered hacky interfaces reminds me that there is still indeed a healthy hacker culture around TiVo boxes and that if TiVo wanted to make some bold moves and document this kind of thing and any other APIs developers could use to control/tweak their TiVo devices, we'd see a nice array of innovative applications and products spring up to further enhance the TiVo experience.

ReplayTV Hacking

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 31 Aug 2008 13:18:00 +0000

While TiVo hackers remember obscure linux directives, ReplayTV owners looking to add additional hard drive can enjoy a nice upgrade GUI for windows. The ReplayTV Hacking site is a great resource complete with FAQs and detailed instructions on using their upgrade applications. The ReplayTV hacking community looks pretty robust, with mpeg extraction programs, community forums, and community sites.

Roku, from founders of ReplayTV

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 31 Aug 2008 13:18:00 +0000

Serial entrepreneur Anthony Wood (founder of ReplayTV, Dreamweaver, and other products) has started a new company to focus on the HDTV market. An HD PVR must not be too far behind, although I wonder about the HD space needed for HDTV.

[Roku is] the first digital media player to be designed for high-definition televisions, which are gaining in popularity as prices drop.
The HD1000 can play slideshows, video or music files from its four built-in memory card slots, or play files streamed from a computer via an Ethernet network connection.

AP - ReplayTV Inventors Aim at Living Rooms

ReplayTV fraud allegation

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 31 Aug 2008 13:17:00 +0000

Slashdot links to a discussion on FatWallet, AVS Forum, and InfoWorld about a new discount on ReplayTV units that was rescinded by the company on December 17th. It seems as if many retailers and many customers were led to believe that the units were to be dropped to $150 and that 3 years of service was to be free. In fact, documentation concerning the 3 years of free service was even in the boxes with the hardware.

Whether this was an honest mistake or not, the corporate reaction by DNNA is a lesson in how NOT to treat your customers when one is a struggling manufacturer in a very competitive marketplace.

ReplayTV Sharing Server

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 31 Aug 2008 13:16:00 +0000

Poopli sounds like a long overdue service for owners of certain models of ReplayTV units. They used to allow the sharing of shows between friends, and Poopli helps turn strangers into friends by letting users request a program while the folks that have them can send their programs to others.

I always knew ReplayTV had the chance to become a great big TV version of Napster and Poopli looks to be the missing part.