[Chicago-talk] Very late Tivo Hacks review

Young, Aaron Aaron.Young at citadelgroup.com
Mon Dec 22 07:17:45 CST 2003


yes, they talk about what kind of card you have to order and give some
suggestions on what to do to make it look less like a "home" job

i don't have it handy this moment, so i'm going by memory, but it is
VERY thorough on the types of tivos out there and how to get them all
connected

Aaron F Young
Broker Reconciliation
Operations & Portfolio Finance
Citadel Investment Group LLC 

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Jay Strauss [mailto:me at heyjay.com] 
> Sent: Friday, December 19, 2003 9:14 PM
> To: Chicago.pm chatter
> Subject: Re: [Chicago-talk] Very late Tivo Hacks review
> 
> 
> Did the book mention installing a Ethernet card in a sonny 
> vivo 1 series?
> My modem is broke
> 
> Jay
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Young, Aaron" <Aaron.Young at citadelgroup.com>
> To: "Chicago.pm chatter" <chicago-talk at mail.pm.org>
> Sent: Friday, December 19, 2003 12:32 PM
> Subject: [Chicago-talk] Very late Tivo Hacks review
> 
> 
> my pithy offering
> 
> Tivo Hacks
> This is a book for the Tivo owner that loves their Tivo, 
> could not live
> without it, loves what it does, but surely...it can do a little more.
> And this book is for the person that wants the value of the published
> book.  There is definitely something convenient about holding step by
> step instructions in your hand while your equipment is in 
> pieces before
> you just waiting to have those two 200gig harddrives placed inside to
> eventually be filled with episodes of Home Movies and Space 
> Ghost.  And
> it is valuable to know that that information you hold was read by at
> least one other person before you.  While most of this information is
> scattered throughout the net on various websites, this book 
> attempts to
> consolidate and summarize all that information into an all in 
> one guide
> for Tivo upgrades, and it was written by people who have done what you
> are planning.  I can't imagine a handier guide.
> While there are some typos early in the book, which I HATE, they are
> easy to ignore, and do not lead you down the wrong path (I have read
> some programming books that decreased my knowledge in an area).
> Fortunately, this book only seems to suffer from it the first few
> chapters, and then, if there were any more, I missed them as 
> I was busy
> trying to learn how to put a webserver on my Tivo and expand its
> capacity by 2-300%.
> I've never considered myself a hardware guy, and so, the chapter on
> removing the drives and putting them into a desktop are rich 
> enough with
> detail to make even me feel confident enough to try it.  And I must
> note, the pictures are a tremendous help.  After reading that chapter,
> you will realize just how many Tivo are out there and appreciate the
> effort that went into putting such a guide together.  I am just glad I
> do not have one of the more difficult models to upgrade; at 
> least those
> unlucky souls out there will have a guide. They even document 
> where the
> "hard to get at" screws are and some that you can safely leave to the
> side as an "extra part."
> The first connection to the Tivo described in the book is via 
> the serial
> connection.  While reading about the serial connection, I almost found
> myself yelling at the book as if I were watching a horror movie (Come
> one, don't use the serial connection, I have a Tivo2!) (I own a Tivo2
> series model which comes with a network card preinstalled.) 
> But I knew I
> was only going to regret skipping this chapter if I ever hacked up my
> Tivo so bad that I couldn't use the ethernet.  Also, there is 
> something
> prideful in knowing how to connect to your Tivo any way it can.  He
> shows us how to transfer new software to the Tivo and how to configure
> it to run on boot up. We do this with some manual work made easy by
> using some freely available tools.  After reading that first 
> chapter, I
> was tempted to dig out a serial connection and prepare myself to OWN
> that Tivo, but there was a lot of book left to go, so I kept at it.
> Next, if you are fortunate enough to have a Tivo with a network
> interface card, then getting to Tivo via ethernet is trivial and
> thoroughly described.  If you are not that fortunate, or just have an
> older Tivo lying around and you do not want to leave it out of the lan
> parties, there are even instructions on how to connect a 
> network card to
> older Tivos.
> Now, that the connection was made and convenient, he shows us 
> that there
> are already a suite of advanced tools out there (with more being
> contributed).  Once you see the webserver, you may never use 
> your remote
> to schedule recordings again (you can even use it as the remote). You
> can even use it to read email and or have your email read to you.  It
> will play mp3s and show you caller ID.  Having Tivo connected to the
> network opens brand new doors.
> The only chapter I truly struggled with was the programming the Tivo
> chapter.  I know that Tivo is undocumented, and I appreciate 
> the effort
> it must have took to find out all those commands AND what options they
> take.  But TCL is NOT an easy language to just pick up, and I have had
> some training in it.  Then I remember, this isn't Learing TCL, so take
> note.  If you really want to hack Tivo, you will have to read source
> code and you will need a better guide for TCL than this book had space
> to give.  On the other hand, there are already so many programs out
> there, by the time you have grown bored with them, you will have had
> enough time to get a good TCL book.
> The book is organized well and each chapter builds on the 
> previous.  The
> book builds your knowledge fast enough to keep you from getting bored,
> but thorough enough that you can learn everything.  As you make the
> first fledgling connections to the Tivo, you are pretty 
> excited to just
> be connected to the thing and make your name appear on the television
> screen.  (It kind of reminds me of my first computer, an Atari 800XL.)
> As you go on through the book, you find yourself feeling more and more
> confident about what you can do with the Tivo and it is almost like
> getting a new Tivo.  A hacked Tivo is to Tivo what Tivo is to
> television.  Once you do it, you will wonder why you hadn't done it
> sooner.
> 
> Aaron F Young
> Broker Reconciliation
> Operations & Portfolio Finance
> Citadel Investment Group LLC
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