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Linux Software

Thoughts On An Open TiVo 138

Posted by CmdrTaco from the stuff-to-read dept.
Shiraz Kanga writes: "I think this article on suggested hacks for TiVo needs to be reviewed on Slashdot (especially the last section)" A humorous and intelligently written article on the problem with tivo, and why it comes so close to perfect. But also why it is flawed. Great article on the future of television, and digital VCRs.
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Thoughts on an Open TiVo More

Thoughts on an Open TiVo

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  • You can use you're windows pc as a tivo, but it's not open software
    check out snapstream [snapstream.com]
  • 4) Skip all ads. ReplayTV took the approach of "screw the networks, we don't need 'em" and added a 30 second skip button. Since then, they've hired a former CBS exec and have realized that they will have to work with the networks in the future. The skip button is still there, but it is never advertised. TiVo decided early on that they would try to work with the networks and feature 3 levels of fast-forward, with auto correction (it backs up a bit when you hit play). Is it realistic for TiVo and ReplayTV to basically tell the networks "we don't care if no one sees the ads that make up your revenue stream"? NBC has invested in both companies BTW.

    Actually, I've been wondering how long it will be until the networks start showing 37 and 23 and 49 second ads, or other weird lengths, to foil all of the "30 second skip" functions that the TiVo's and VCR's have. Or, better yet, how about banner ads at the top or bottom of the screen, during the actual shows?
  • I felt the article was insightful, especially the point about no NIC, but one thing I want ( and I think others will too) is to be able to move things I record from my TiVo (easily and digitally) for archival. I'm a bit of a video pack rat. I like to keep entire seasons of the shows I enjoy for later viewing. Tapes are very messy for this (especially if you record in SP).

    As DVD authoring advances, it will become easier and easier for the home user to add his / her own video to a DVD. Two or three years from now, I'm sure it will be about as easy as making a CD.

    Now lets suppose I like Friends (I'm not saying that I do. Don't accuse me of it. I might though, but I'll never admit to it :-). I set up my TiVo to record every episode of Friends. Eventually, I will have very little room left to record other programmig. But, if I could connect to my TiVo from my PC or iMac (don't have one, I'm just saying) and copy all the episodes of Friends, I could burn my own DVD's of Friends.

    I realize that the people that frequent the AVS TiVo Hack [avsforum.com] forum are working on this, but without an ethernet (or USB or Firewire) connection, this still seems like a lot of trouble. Anyone else interested?

  • You mentioned HBO. They proved that it can be done.

    Yes, there are some channels that I would pay $10/month for if they didn't have ads. (Not many, but there are some. SciFi comes to mind, and maybe Comedy Central if they edit the trash out of BattleBots (e.g. fire the "commentators".) I used to not pay anything at all for TV, but in January 1998 I put my money where my mouth was, and switched from paying $0/month to $35/month just so I could watch B5 (with ads!) on TNT. That was the only reason I shelled out the money. (Though, I admit, I didn't bother to cancel my cable when the show ended.)


    ---

  • A Modest proposal for an "open TiVO" (Score:3)

    by WebCowboy ( 196209 ) on Friday September 15, 2000 @07:29AM (#778242)

    Given the power and availability of off-the-shelf PC hardware technology, I'm surprised that PC assemblers haven't thought of such an idea. You don't need much in the way of proprietary technology to make the ultimate video recorder. Here is my modest proposal:

    First of all, to get a compact form factor use a case and motherboard that employ the NLX form factor. Unlike ATX, this standard employs a 3-slot PCI riser card to allow a slimline design. It is also very serviceable--the motherboard could be removed and replaced without removing any cards, and many cases are built for such home-entertainment features as front infra-red ports and designs that compliment stereo systems. There are some very nice NLX cases out there that are the same size as most VCR's and would fit in your TV cabinet nicely.

    Use video display/capture cards with TV in/out like ATI's all-in-wonder, and hardware DVD/MPEG decoders like Netstream 2000. Hardware DVD and MPEG decoders reduce the CPU requirements and have the added benefit of being "MPAA-approved" if you care about such things. This is a video recorder, so you don't need a screaming high-end machine or hugh 3D acceleration--money saved there can go towards a massive 40GB drive if you wish.

    At this point you can go beyond TiVO: Add a DVD player and you can watch rented videos. Add a CD-RW, IOmega JAZZ or Castlewood ORB drive and you have removable media so you can tape the Olympic opening ceremonies and keep them and record over the copy on your hard drive. Alternatively, add FireWire and you could digitally transfer video to and from your miniDV camcorder

    As for software: if Linux is good enough for TiVO it's good enough for me. Either GNOME or KDE-based environments could be used, with a window manager optimised for TV screens (the GNOME desktops look particularly nice). Someone could start an Open Source project at develop a standard XML application for TV Listings. The TV Listings could be made available via freenet or GNUtella. The advantage to such an open system, besides being free in all senses of the word, is that it doesn't rely on a corporation being around to provide the service. You risk your privacy since they can monitor your viewing habits, and if they lost out to a competitor and go out of business you could end up with the next Betamax VCR--unless someone deems their market share is large enough to take over the service or is generous enough to open the system up.

    So get out there and build the ultimate video appliance!

    --

    No sig for you!!

  • You want HAVi [havi.org].

    So do I.
  • What would give you that idea? They released there mods to the kernal, but their program is proprietory.
  • See the OpenCable [opencable.com] Initiative and this article [cabletoday.com] in Cable Today. There is a July 1st, 2000 deadline but many cable operators have applied to the FCC for waivers due to deployment delays.
    • I don't pay money to usa a VCR...
    No, you pay several orders of magnitude more for the device than it costs to make it and then pay for each tape on which you record. And the VCR records exactly what you tell it to record.

    • Sell it for whatever it costs to make... why does suddenly everyone want users to *subscribe* to things[?]
    Because people wouldn't buy it otherwise. ReplayTV units are far more expensive than TiVo units. As a result, they aren't selling as well. If they sold it to you "at cost", you'd be paying in the range of 600$ for a TiVo -- there's over 100$ in RAM chips alone.

    • ... but it's not perfect
    No, it isn't perfect. Having used one of the original Sony DSS units, I hate the TiVo UI -- it contantly wastes half the screen realestate. I would like to have more control over what it records -- a "User Suggestions" to guide the "Tivo Suggestions" (my TiVo was recording every Senfeild episode it could find and then one day it stopped -- I didn't do anything; the scheduler just stopped selecting it.) You cannot add a season pass if there's an overlap, but passes can overlap without warning if the lineup changes -- FOX and WB have moved shows around for the fall. (I've got hundreds of tweaks..)

    I'd like to see a "TiVo Cluster" where several TiVo's use a cooperative scheduler to deal with overlaps. This isn't going to happen with the existing hardware -- you'd need a networkable MFS to this properly :-)

  • If you've already got a Linux box with a network connection, why not add a some of hardware/software that will allow it to function as a TiVo?

    Add a TV tuner card and a video card with NTSC/PAL out (unless, like me, you have a large enough monitor that you're happy to use it for watching video).

    Write a few scripts that go to http://tv.yahoo.com, load the pages with listings for your area/cable system, and build up a database of what shows will be on.

    From there it's a matter of building a relatively straightforward program to allow you to browse and play currently running shows, program it to record specific things, and that will learn your preferences and record things for you. The only really hard part I see is building your system so that the disk contention involved in simultaneously reading/writing to one drive when recording and playing back at the same time doesn't cause things to break down.

    All this isn't exactly trivial to do, but from the hardware perspective, it's not so unreasonable: Mostly all you're doing is gluing together off-the-shelf stuff. And the marginal cost (if you already have a PC) isn't too big. You might end up paying as much as you would for a TiVo, but you'll end up with a more capable system, and have far more control over how it works. For example, you can ensure that it doesn't upload data your viewing habits back to anyone, if that sort of thing bothers you.

    If I had any interest in watching TV, I'd be working on this. I'm half tempted to get cable connection and the necessary card and make a project of it for fun, anyways.

  • Well, TiVo could market the crippled one in the Democratic Republic of America, and in the non-DMCA'd world they could sell one with an ethernet connection. What US companies should try and remember is that there are 5.8 billion people living outside America and some of them have plenty of money for geek toys (like me).
  • As one of the Tivo "hackers", this guy annoys me. Where is he going to get these TV listings? Pull them out of his ass? TV listings aren't free, period. The newspaper isn't free. Detailed TV listings in downloadable format aren't free. If some enterprising young idiot decided to create a "free" Tivo service by typing the data in each week's TV guide into a format the Tivo could import, it still wouldn't work. There's not enough detail there for the Tivo, and it doesn't list them far enough in advance to make the gee-whiz aspects of the Tivo work.

    If someone hacks the Tivos to download service elsewhere (and I hope they don't), the lack of a network jack won't be a factor. The serial port runs ppp, that's all that would be needed.

    It bugs me that this guy freely admits he doesn't own a Tivo, obviously isn't very familiar with the hack efforts, yet feels free to rant and rave like he has a clue.

    cc
  • Sure - they could display banner ads on the top or bottom of the screen. But who would stand for that? I'd tape a piece of black paper onto my set before watching them. But the first thing someone with an OpenTivo would do is just chop the bottom and display black ---- or better yet with a letterbox tv just tell the tv to throw that bottom 15% of that 4:3 image away when expanding the image... Wouldnt' that be nice of those network execs to start airing tv shows in letterbox just to display ads.
  • > A guy a work with wrote 100 words and got one.

    I guess it couldn't have been you, though.
  • Why not replace the TVio software completely? Load up a real-time version of Linux with an MPEG4 codec and record TV. Put in enough of a web client that it can go to some Internet site over its phone modem and get schedule info. No need for a special "service".

    More radical ideas:

    • Make the recording process smarter, so it recognizes and skips ads. (Share "it's an ad" info over the Internet, so once a few users have skipped an ad, everybody skips the ad.) Marketing point: "Watch three programs in the time others watch two."
    • Store thumbnails, so you can bring up a thumbnail page for a show and go directly to the parts you want. Useful for sports; skip all the talking-head junk.
    • Use Gnutella to share stored content over your cable modem. (ok, bad idea...)
    Get this going, and there will be generic set-top boxes.
  • Quoth the poster:
    4) Skip all ads. ReplayTV took the approach of "screw the networks, we don't need 'em" and added a 30 second skip button. Since then, they've hired a former CBS exec and have realized that they will have to work with the networks in the future. [snip] Is it realistic for TiVo and ReplayTV to basically tell the networks "we don't care if no one sees the ads that make up your revenue stream"? NBC has invested in both companies BTW.
    Why do they have to work with the networks? How dare they indeed! How dare they even think about giving their customers what they want!

    But then the question was raised is it realistic for them to be indifferent to the networks' advertisers. I think it's a sad day when companies ignore what their customers want and lay down because it would piss off advertisers (indirectly, of course). I, for one, think that advertising is evil [arachnoid.com].

    I'd love to see something like Adnix (from Carl Sagan's Contact) come out so I'd never have to see another commercial again! In the meantime, I guess I'll have to be content with muting the sound and making up my own dialog for 'em...

    -- Shamus

    I said 'Preview', not 'Submit' dammit!
  • I think if a system was in place akin to this, it would work. People would vote on issues that concerned them. The other majority would not. There would be to many items up for vote to make in a single day. At first people would vote and would not make informed decisions, but I think time and clear unbiased presentations of the facts would solve this. While I have never personally looked into this, I think a decent example would be California's prop. system would work. I don't have link for anything in particular but I think something similiar would work. I don't know about you but I am sick and tired of politicains making choices for me, when they vote on issues concerning the Internet and they don't even use a computer. Note: I am not a scientist. And these are just my opinions.

  • That's not a new concept at all (not that you claimed that it was.) Back in the early days of TV, and even into the 1960's this is how a lot of shows were sponsored. Shows were called things like "The Colgate Comedy Hour". Announcers and talent for game shows and variety shows would take a time out to sing a jingle or read an endorsement. Actors in sitcoms would perform commercials for the sponsor's product(s), and the commercials would be aired right along with the show. Modern reruns of the shows excise these commercials, but they were there back when the shows first ran.

    -Bryan

  • I don't even own a VCR right now... A TiVo would be nice for recording stuff, but a VCR would be good to rent stuff I can't get on DVD. Choices, choices...

    Or I could just go down to Fry's and drool in their home theater section for a couple hours...

  • You're forgetting that people with more time on their hands will have a unequal voice under such a system. Do we really want the retired, the unemployed, and the idle rich running the country? Not to mention the fact that access to the Internet is not anywhere near universal.

    I'd also be interested as to how you propose to present the facts in a clear and unbiased nature. Under the current system, we have "official" news sources, which are just corporate shills, and "underground" news sources, which the "official" sources have marginalized quite effectively. Given that the American and European governments seem complicit in the handing over of the Internet to corporate interests, we may even lose what "underground" sources we have.

    I, too, am sick and tired of corrupt politicians making choices for me, but I believe direct democracy would lead to the corporations using the mainstream media to make those same decisions even more directly than they do now.
  • Maybe there is something you can look for in the black bar - isn't there normally SMTP time codes and other ID info (besides Close Captioning) in there?

  • What you have to realize is that while TivO is an excellent product, the economic indicators perceived by the companies producing products which could be effected by this product will not accept the fact that this product can be used to undermine their own products. Therefore, they will argue against the use of hacks which could further stimulate the need for such devices.

  • Why on earth would you set up a new remote. Buy / beg / borrow / steal someone else's, and work out with the PC's IR receiver what codes it's sending you. Use those. Universal remotes are only $20 or so ...

  • If you're looking for a TiVo (Score:4)

    by PD ( 9577 ) <slashdotlinux@pdrap.org> on Friday September 15, 2000 @01:09AM (#778262) Homepage Journal
    They are running a contest right now. Write an essay and win a TiVo (14 hour model). A guy a work with wrote 100 words and got one. They pick 10 winners a day.
    Click here [tivo.com]

    So, if you've wanted one, but are too cheap to get one, here's your chance.

  • This is, well, an interesting piece, but the idea that hacking ther TiVo is something to aim at for the mass market is one that going to start a world of trouble. Sure, it should be alright if you want to hack around with your own box if you want to, but the idea that you could then market this as an "Open TiVo" solution is begging for DeCSS Mk II.

    TiVo came to the market with an excellent product that people were obviously prepared to pay money for. They're not forcing their service on anyone - that much should be obvious from the large numbers of boxes they're selling every day. And yet this person wants to take their product and route around it. Do you think TiVo will let people get away with this?

    It's one thing to bring out a competing product. It's another entirely to try and market a "hacked" version of a product for the sole purpose of ripping a company off. This is just the sort of thing that will give organisations like the MPAA and RIAA further ammunition for their claims that geeks are all pirates and thieves.

  • Someone needs to Nuke this now! (Score:3)

    by twitter ( 104583 ) on Friday September 15, 2000 @02:38AM (#778264) Homepage Journal
    From the article:

    I'll derive further satisfaction from the fact that I'm screwing all my cable modem neighbors our of their fair share of the bandwith while I hog down 25 gigs a day to set me up with another evenings entertainment.

    Does this make anyone else want to smash a 36 inch tube over Alan Blount's pointy head? "Me Me Me, and my all consuming need for mindless entertainment at your expense." What a rotten thing to advocate as Open. The superhighway analogies get beter all the time: SUV on the cable. Fortunately, cable modems will twart people like this, and they get the same bandwith anyone else has. Still, I'd like so see these boxes spewing chunks for their intentions. Anyone got a official crackTIVO site?

    For you media addicts, just use a $40 VCR and $1.50 tapes to save all of those golden sitcom, reality, whatever, moments. It's cheaper, it lasts longer, it's easier than hacking the spy box. The net is just not up to this yet.

  • Your cover is blown. You can come out now...
  • 3) Network connection. I agree, this would be great, but again, is it realistic for a company trying to put a set-top box in every household? Remember, they aren't just trying to appeal to the geek market.
    I dunno, I think it's kinda stupid to have a box dialing up with a modem when I have a broadband connection set up. They could use the Internet to serve up the listings and save some money on those TotalControl racks. I figure in a year or two there will be enough people with cable modems, DSL and wireless access to consider it.
  • I read the page about hacking the tivo that is linked to in the article. Mostly what that page talked about was adding another harddrive, or upgrading the current drive. Anyway, I don't see why anyone would want to add another drive. Why not just spend the extra money and buy the large capacity tivo. If you wanted to hack the unit, you would have to pay extra money for the second hd anyway.
  • Ouch! You got me! You are right. I had to buy my own.
  • I think the money-making solution the networks will eventually have to settle on is along the lines of the "product placement" already all-too-common in films. The advertisements (what people don't want to see) will need to be so well integrated with the content (what people do want to see) that it becomes so inconvenient to screen it out, that no one will bother. And, personally, I'm mostly okay with that - let James Bond drive his BMW's, Tom Cruise hack with his Macintosh (!) all day long, whatever. It's a way for programs to get made and studios to make a profit without (mostly) interrupting my mind-numbing entertainment.
  • So you obviously haven't watched much TV lately. There have been numerous occasions that I've seen where the transition break was missing. Or even worse, they insert fake ones in between commercials. Local stations in particular usually insert their own advert for the evening news etc as the last "commercial" before going back to the show, and they very often insert a transition break before their ad. I don't think that's an accident, they probably do it deliberately to foil VCRs with commercial break detectors.
  • You're missing a major point here -- MPEG encoding is an order of magnitude more CPU intensive than MPEG playback (try the video encoder that comes with the Voodoo 3500 and see how badly it sucks). You pretty much need custom hardware to do your MPEG encoding in real time.
  • If currently true, that may not always be the case. Their privacy policy allows them to take your personal viewing information, disassociate it from your name, and use it however they wish. What they have is the basis for a rating system not unlike Neilsen's, and that kind of research is worth far more than the high price they charge us for subscriptions to get TV listings that are available at no cost from any number of sites on the net (and if they'd open up their listings format, I'd happily write a converter).

    And yet you're saying people should be happy to pay them? "Sir, if you have a few minutes and $5, we'd love to have you fill out this survey for us." I hope that sounds as foolish to you as it does to me. If not, maybe you need to work for the TiVo business division; which clearly doesn't have it's head as firmly attached as the technology division does. The box rocks, but the service blows.

  • There was a very interesting article about this sort of problem - well, funding commercial TV in general - in a post-TiVO world in the Guardian (UK) a while back. Sorry, no URL :(

    The ultimate conclusion - massive product placement was about all that's viable. When the advert can be so easily bypassed, the only real way to pay for it all is to make the ad and the program inseparable.

    Makes me queasy too, but the logic does seem inescapable.
  • Don't know if this has been posted yet or not, but TiVo Linux nuggets can be found at http://www.tivo.com/linux [tivo.com]. Quite sparse if you ask me, but hey, what's not to love about getting gcc for your TiVo box???
  • Attention Slashdotters:

    Read the rules:

    CONTEST VOID IN ARIZONA, FLORIDA, MARYLAND, NORTH DAKOTA AND VERMONT AND TO THE RESIDENTS OF THESE STATES.

    No free TiVo for me.
    ==
    This post sponsored by the American Obstetrics Society:

  • see: www.tvtv.de

    There exists a DigitalVideoRecorder machine with all Mr. Blount's goals (except firewire) to go along with this website.

    The problem is that not many geeks want to put out the $12K USD - DM for the box.
  • Here's something I hacked together to record video and compress to mpeg using bttvgrab.

    useage: /bin/recordtv 60m
    or /bin/recordtv 3600

    #!/bin/sh
    PATH=/usr/local/bin/:$PATH

    i=`echo $1 |sed 's/m//g'`
    echo $1 |grep m > /dev/null
    if [ $? == 0 ]
    then
    frames=`expr $i \* 30 \* 60`
    else
    frames=`expr $i \* 30 `

    fi
    echo Recording $frames.
    sleep 1
    bttvgrab -o pmm-best -N NTSC -w 640 -l ${frames} -S 1 -O wav -F grab.wav
    bttvconvert -p quality=100 -i pmm -N NTSC -o mpeg-1 -r -l ${frames}
  • If the parent post was true, then I could see calling it "Insightful", since it's not. It's FUD.

    First, a 90-days manufacturer's warentee does NOT mean that it won't last past 90-days. It's current life expectancy is in excess of 5 years, which is plenty.

    Since, if your machine craps out, and you have to get it replaced, you can transfer your lifetime to the new unit. That's one big advantage that TiVo has over Replay.

    However, if you want to replace your unit with something different, then your lifetime service is still with the original unit. However, unless your just going to toss your old unit in the trash, the subscription still has value and will continue to service that machine.

    The idea of selling your service subscription independant of the box is just silly. The service is for the box. The box can be used without the service, but the service does nothing without the box.

    As far as the service being worth it, it sure is. For the luxury of never having to care about what time anything is on, for always having my favorite shows at my fingertips, for everything else TiVo gives me, I'll gladly pay a one-time cost of $200. I've spent more for less.

    Now, about the "article". This person seems to suffer from a common problem. If it has a screen, he wants it to download porn from the internet. Sorry, if people really want web on their TV, that's great for them. For me, my TV is my movie theater, I have a computer for downloading porn. ;)

    Two of his "goals" are already met. He want's a one-time cost. TiVo has that. You don't have to go monthly or annually if you don't want to.

    As far as privacy, no one knows what _you_ watch, only what people, in general, are watching. This is a Good Thing. I want people to know what I watch so the Networks can stop cancling my shows.

    His comments about such things as "TiVo Inc. can't put a network connection.... [because] ....some smart ass hax0r will kode up a better...." Um hello? There are plenty of smart ass hackers coding up plenty. Obviously some people don't realise that you can hack code without an internet connection. Mind you, people have also hacked an internet connection, but you still won't be able to turn it into an MP3 player, or download anything from your favorite porn site.

    He gripes about paying for listings. It's not about listings, it's about a service. It's what it does with the listings that your paying for. TiVo is a huge time-saving device. I don't know what his time's worth, but my TiVo has paid for itself months ago.

    His fun TiVo hacks are also a joke. The first, providing an alternate service is laughable. I doubt he knows the first thing about it. It's not as if you can _legally_ rip that data from the web and do what you want with it. He speaks of "venture kapital", I hope he realizes it should all be saved for lawyer's fees.

    The second "suggestion" was using VBI for the TV listings. Great idea, if someone didn't already patent the process. It's being done already, but unless you want to get back to the topic of monthly fees, you can forget about it.

    Besides, using VBI will, at most, tell me what's on now or maybe what's on next on the channel your tuned to. TiVo stores at least 10 days of data for all of your channels and needs it's data enough in advance to plan out all of it's upcomming recordings. Part of what TiVo does is it takes all the shows you want it to record and records them each time they are on. You can't do that by relying on VBI, which would require TiVo to channel surf to find show. It's laughable.

    The third, "MP3 and Napster support". Would someone explain why I would be using my TV for MP3! If I want to _listen_ to music, I wouldn't be using my TV!

    I really can't continue about how silly the whole article was. TiVo is about making the most of TV, and all he could think of was wanting to download porn and MP3s. (Not that that's a bad thing. ;) )

    Now, if you will excuse me, I have 76 shows on my 108 hour TiVo and, unlike people forced to channel surf, each one is something I like.
  • Some guy already hacked his Tivo to connect via the satellite box serial port instead of the modem, which he then fed into a linux box and out onto the net to the tivo service site.

    Tivo have already stated that an ethernet port will be added in a future version.
  • You can use TiVo without the service. However, you will encounter a regular 'nag screen' telling you that TiVo hasn't been able to connect to the service for x days to get new program data. You cannot disable this warning.

    You're really missing out on all the great TiVo features by not getting the service though. Pay the $9.95 for 1 month of service, and see how you like it.

  • All this is already available. Most of it can be found at Markertek [markertek.com] right now. What your asking for is stock equipment at a big video post production house. The reason it is in big post houses and not in yours is that it'll cost you $500K. People would love to sell you this rig, now someone just needs to find a way for mere mortals to afford it. -Ma'at
  • Why is everyone ganging up on the television industry? Complaing about commericals and the *gasp* cost of TV listings. I do belive you are the same people that pay to see movies in the theater, pay to purchase and rent videos, pay to buy the latest DVD boxed set. What do you have against the current television system? None of the money you've spent on your home theater goes towards content, just as the car you drive to the theater doesn't make a difference on the ticket price. If you want passive entertainment, it's going to cost you. How about you try to make a hit TV series on no budget and with no promise of ever being paid? The opensource idea does not work when you're talking about months of work, months of lodging and feeding, months of pre and post production work. Television and movies do indeed come at a cost which has to paid somewhere, and I don't think product placement alone will ever foot the entire bill.
  • I want a TiVo like unit that would have modular tv tuners, so I could plug in more than one and record what's going on on a couple of channels at once. I hate having to choose between two equally good programs to watch at some times, and other times there is nothing good on.
    --
  • You are right, my RCA vcr can't detect the ad in NBC anymore. Fox is okay, it still have that pause between ad so my vcr can tell. I hope they don't do that in SciFi channel.

    The thing is ad marking vcr is never a big sell, so most network don't bother to defeat it.

    CY

    -
    -
    -
    -
  • No, I do not have one yet.

    Tivo rebroadcasts the show over a particular chanel like 3 or 4 so why not just hook a cable modem to it and do a "direct data dump" over that chanel. Sure it would take some serious coding but I think that it could work.

    Cons
    Only network when not watching a program
    Lots of work
    Pros
    A real hack
    A tivo with a NIC

  • Re:How dare they! (Score:4)

    by LocalH ( 28506 ) on Friday September 15, 2000 @03:08AM (#778286) Homepage
    • Local stations in particular usually insert their own advert for the evening news etc as the last "commercial" before going back to the show, and they very often insert a transition break before their ad. I don't think that's an accident, they probably do it deliberately to foil VCRs with commercial break detectors.
    Not necessarily. This might be true if the station is automated, but if it's like the station I work for, where we have bonafide human operators, it simply takes a small amount of time to roll a break which translates on-air to an extra bit of black. Even with video servers like we use, the operator still has to fire the break and take it on-air. Heaven forbid the station is using a cart machine, or worse manually rolling each spot (believe it or not, some smaller stations still do this).

    I say this from experience switching our LPTV station, UPN30 WAPK-LP. I can also say with authority that we don't deliberately insert black in-between spots at any time. Now maybe the op is asleep at the board, or off taking a shit or something, but that's an entirely different story, one which I won't get into (do you wanna hear me rant? :).

    You usually have five different types of breaks:

    1. National only - the show tape just rolls, the spots are already in the show
    2. National/local split - generally 1:30-2:30 of national spots, maybe a :05 bumper (<show> will be right back), and 1:30-2:30 of local spots
    3. National/local combined - generally 1:00-1:30 of national spots immediately followed by :30-1:30 of local spots, no bumper
    4. Local only - 2:00-2:30 of local spots
    5. Endbreak - :30-1:30 of local spots and :05 legal ID (this also allows last-second tape cueing or switching tapes if you have to use the same VTR)

    _______
    Scott Jones
    Newscast Director / ABC19 WKPT
  • Binary-only modules are allowed in Linux (i.e. OKed by Linus) which is presumably how they've done this and still stayed GPL-compliant. Although the license weenies are probably fuelling their flamethrowers right now...
  • You are paying not only for the EPG, but also paying for the TiVolution guide (reviews, what's hot, what's not, etc.) You
    are also paying for the ability to use features like TiVomatic -- upcoming show previews that are TiVomatic-friendly have
    information encoded in vertical blanking allowing you to use the Thumbs system to say "yeah, that looks like a cool
    program, record it when it comes on" (instead of trying to remember the time, date, and channel to set your recording).
    If you don't want to sound too much like a undercover TiVo salesdroid, please don't use so many buzzword bubbling. My point is that selling a pack of cigerette for 1 buck and the match for 2 dollars is stupid, even though the eventually cost is the same. look at what you told me, that's exactly what my crappy cable system provides, without the ability to press the record button on the spot. That's what the build-in ViTo MIPS chip does it for me, how is that ViTo dare to charge me for that. "Hey look, I can press the record button on the spot. Cool dude here is 10 bucks." I got news for you, I can code that in 5 minutes, if my vcr has access to tv list.

    Don't you think it's hilarious that people who hate commercial some much as to go out and buy a TiVo are willing to eat up brainwash crap from TiVo known as "What's Hot"?

    As for judging the program by the "preview" they gave you, as in the quality of the cable channel description, you are not even close to being a decent TV fan. Real man check out new shows from Variety. (Does that make a point to you? I don't need no stinking reviews. You check out news from your MSN start page too right?)

    CY
  • Early Post? Was he related to Emily Post or was it Wiley Post?
  • Can't use no more TiVo's with no HDTV. Copying anything digital for any reason now is illegal. Really. Look at it. Read the later article on the FAA. I'm sick of having my rights be those of a consumer to large companies.

    Where will it (if it does) end? It's our fucking country.

  • i'm sure this has been discussed before but i'm more than willing to pay for the service that tivo provides. if it were only downloading a tv guide sure it would be a waste of money, but it's more than that! it's an up-to-date tv schedule selected geographically! remember, not everyone has the same channels on their cable systems. when times change (i.e. showing at a special time) tivo knows. i love the suggestion thing. i come home and see suggestions that i might otherwise would not have ever seen. all in all it's a great service and i love it.

    --
    And Justice for None [geocities.com]
  • Thanks for the tip! I just won a TiVo.
  • Haha... me too. Thanks for the link, found my confirmation email today. *big assed grin*
  • For me only a PAL based box is going to do any good as I live in Europe.

    As for an NTSC version, it doesn't look like they're planning one yet. There's not even a release date for the TV server yet but given the fact that they created a separate company for it (Fast TV Server A.G.) they might consider building one.

    Of course I can only speculate here. Best is probably to ask them at: kontakt@tv-server.de

    Greetings
  • So basicly the only viable revenue model is the saturday morning cartoon model?

    And I thought TV couldn't get any worse.

  • You don't understand, it's no the monthly fee, it's how much they charge you. It would be fair to charge me 2 bucks a month, like an electronic TV Guide.

    Yahoo TV list provide the same information with revenue of mersy little banner ad, how dare they charge so much with a straight face. And Yahoo don't even get to sell Neilson information. Yeah right paying 200 lifetime subscription. The intesrest is already higher than the cost of the information they buy.

    CY
    -
    -
    -
    -
  • it's an improved version. if they can't handle being outclassed then that is their problem.

  • So you obviously haven't watched much TV lately.

    Good guess.

    There have been numerous occasions that I've seen where the transition break was missing. Or even worse, they insert fake ones in between commercials. Local stations in particular usually insert their own advert for the evening news etc as the last "commercial" before going back to the show, and they very often insert a transition break before their ad. I don't think that's an accident, they probably do it deliberately to foil VCRs with commercial break detectors.

    Okay, so blank screen detection won't always work. But the fact remains: If for any given channel there are programmatically-distinguishable characteristics that identify the beginnings and ends of commercials, they can be clipped.

    How about a TiVo-like system that you "train" to recognize the beginnings and ends of commercials? Whenever a commercial break begins or ends, you click "commercial starting"/"commercial ending". Over time, by looking for common features shared by the short video segments surrounding your clicks, it works out a set of characteristics that it can use to mark the start and end of commercials for you, on a channel-by-channel basis.

  • Well, I admit I might be thinking too much conspiracy into the whole thing. Your explanations make perfect sense, so I won't contest. Besides, like another poster noted, the number of break-detecting VCRs must be pretty small, so the stations probably wouldn't bother.
  • Next month, according to TiVo's website.
  • Now lets suppose I like Friends (I'm not saying that I do. Don't accuse me of it. I might though, but I'll never admit to it :-). I set up my TiVo to record every episode of Friends. Eventually, I will have very little room left to record other programmig. But, if I could connect to my TiVo from my PC or iMac (don't have one, I'm just saying) and copy all the episodes of Friends, I could burn my own DVD's of Friends.

    Ah, but making your own archives of TV shows is evil and wrong. You are supposed to use your VCR to record stuff when you are out only and then wipe the tape with an EMF emitter when you are done.

    You should then save up to by the collectors boxed sets of all your favourite shows.

    Then, in a few years when your obsolete VCR has flashed it's last 00:00 you can throw them all away and buy the whole lot again on whatever vogueish media is then current, like a good little consumer.

  • Re:is hacking the tivo worth while? (Score:3)

    by Erasmus Darwin ( 183180 ) on Friday September 15, 2000 @04:28AM (#778302)
    Why not just spend the extra money and buy the large capacity tivo.

    For a little over $300 ($500 when you include the programming), I wound up with a 91-hour capacity TiVo. In comparison, the largest commercial available TiVo is a 30-hour unit, with a 60-hour coming out Real Soon Now. The 30-hour unit also costs about $300 post rebate (checking the price on Amazon).

    The breakdown:
    14-hour Philips TiVo from Circuit City: $300
    Circuit City rebate on 14-hour Tivo: -$100
    Rebate from TiVo: -$100
    60 gig Maxtor [123cdc.com] from 123cdc.com [123cdc.com]: $214

    So for the "cost" of a voided warranty and a little extra shipping, I wound up with three times the capacity. And I had fun in the process. Furthermore, some of the people in the TiVo Underground [avsforum.com] managed to get Circuit City to pricematch Sears, resulting in a $200 TiVo with $200 in rebates (i.e. free). They also got staples.com (physical locations only -- their online site doesn't carry the 60 gig Maxtor) to pricematch 123cdc.com and then used a coupon code to knock another $50 off the price.

  • TiVo makes most of their revenue from their subscriptions. They make NO money on hardware sales, and in fact actually give Philips and Sony a portion of each subscription fee because they sell the hardware at a loss.
  • A company trying to make money! The nerve! Seriously, of Mr. Blount's goals, how many are realistic for a company trying to make a profit? 1) Not paying for the service. Buy the box, nothing more.

    how they make money is their problem, not mine. I don't pay money to use a VCR once I've bought it, and the TiVo is not much more than a glorified digital VCR. Sell it for whatever it costs to make it plus a reasonable margin, and be done with it! It's worked for all products up to now, why does suddenly everyone want users to *subscribe* to things, and why would we users buy into that?

    2) Privacy. TiVo's privacy policy is pretty well defined on their web page ( http://www.tivo.com/care/privacy.html ). Yes, they sell info about what TiVo users are watching, but only at the zip code level. I'm comfortable with their privacy policy.

    are you comfortable with them changing it at any time, like Amazon just did?

    4) Skip all ads. ReplayTV took the approach of "screw the networks, we don't need 'em" and added a 30 second skip button. Since then, they've hired a former CBS exec and have realized that they will have to work with the networks in the future. The skip button is still there, but it is never advertised.

    hey, at least it *is* there; I couldn't care less it's advertised or not, but if I'm going to buy a digital vcr (which i'm not, but that's another story), I sure as shit want the one with the "skip ad" button.

    I don't understand all of the criticism towards TiVo. Yes there are features we would like to see but this is still a fairly new market. For a product that has only been available for less than two years or so, I think it's a very impressive device. Plus, you can upgrade 'em to 100 hours plus with relative ease. :)

    the original article makes exactly this point. TiVo is nice, and a huge step up from what was available before. but it's not perfect, and not only in features but also in the model of interaction between the user and the manufacturer. I don't think it's reasonable to criticize TiVo much; they've done a good hack and sold it. If we don't like the conditions, it's up to us to work towards being able to run our own personal TiVo-like services from a regular computer using open source software. It may be a year or maybe three, but I'm pretty sure it'll come.

  • Here's my math based on prices from CDW:

    [Note: Gigabit switch...$1400? Woof...okay, let's wait for the new Apples to push Gigabit prices down a bit...let me drop my standards to 100Base-T]

    1) 8-port 100Mb hub ($100)

    2) Dazzle MPEG-1 capture card ($200) plus 100Mb NIC ($20) plus lets say another $20 for the interface from one to the other.

    3) 6GB Hard drive ($100) plus 100Mb NIC ($20) plus another $20 for the interface from one to the other.

    4) Cheapo video card with TV-out ($50) plus 100Mb NIC ($20) plus $20 for the interface from one to the other.

    5) Palm/Visor ($150) plus 100Mb NIC ($20) plus again $20 for the interface.

    By my calculations, this "uber pimp" system (as CmdrTaco would call it) should cost a total of $600-700 bucks...which is pretty much what a Replay or high-end TiVo would cost you!

    I have seen hard drives with ethernet connections to use a quick and easy file servers, and I can't imagine it would be hard to get data from a video card onto a network like some VNC or X server thing...so even if those interfaces cost $100 the whole system should still clock in under $1000.

    I'd buy it.

    There's also an important part...if the system is built around standard tech and using open design, I already have most of a JoeShmoe Digital VCR system!

    I have plenty of hard drive space, so I can skip the storage units. I have a capture card, so I can skip at least one input unit (tho I have many sources so I would want more than one). I already have the 100Mb hub. Really all I'm lacking is a cheap video terminal so that I can have MPG file at point A show up on TV-out at point B.

    Now MPEG-2...thanks to the premium associated with DVD production...is going to cost an arm and a leg. But I don't see a system like this costing $5000. Purchasing a computer to do each task would still only cost me $2000.

    - JoeShmoe

    -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= -=-=-=-=-=-=-
  • I have been toying 'making' with a digital VCR for my AV system for some time. It is actually much more painful then it looks. Problems encountered:
    • Setting up a remote is expensive. Best bet seems to be a Handspring with IR booster with IR detector on the PC.
    • Lots of software work to be done to make a decent interface.
    • Getting broadcast (cable that is) quality or even good VHS quality in a reasonably priced video capture card is very difficult. I have reviewed the specs of the cheaper ones and they suck. They often get good reviews but it seems more like 'its good for a computer'. Not good for the 36" TV :).
    • PC's are big, ugly and above all, noisy. That Mac cube running Linux looks promising on this note...
    On the whole, the tech isn't there yet for sensible prices or in a pretty package. OTOH, the possibilities are incredible especially when wired into my home 100T network.
  • TNT has some extremely annoying ads at the bottom of the screen, for whatever their new made-for-TNT movie is. I remember for their Tom Selleck movie there was this huge red, white, and blue explosion of stars that took up maybe 1/16th of the screen before resolving into the movie's logo. Witchblade had a similar ad, but it was slightly less distracting due to its darker colors. Also, I am slightly worried about what will happen with Babylon 5 in widescreen on the SciFi channel. I hope they can resist filling that extra screen real estate with ads. Though it will be nice that their 'bug' will not be covering any actual picture.
    ___
  • I hope JVC funded the entire Highlander-Endgame movie, for the placement they got.
    ___
  • Yeah, I had that idea about creating an "open source" version of Tivo too. Unforutnately, i do not know nearly the amount I should about video compression. I was going to make a very mickey mouse versoin using the Buzz drivers that are freely available on the 'net, but my job keeps me too busy. Sigh. Well, if someone out there DOES create one, I cna write a PHP front end for it I guess.
  • Detailed TV listings in downloadable format aren't free.

    Well, you could have an html parser that reads one of the several free TV listings web sites... They may not like it, though.
    ___

  • I recently bought a TiVo and, if you read the fine print, you'll find that the $199 is not for your lifetime, but the lifetime of the machine. A machine they don't think will last much longer than 90 days, based on their warranty. If your machine craps out after that or you you want to buy a second generation system if/when they come out, your initial $199 vanishes. This is a fatal flaw, in my opinion, because I would want to be able to buy and sell my service subscription independent of the box I initially got it with. On the whole, I like my TiVo hardware, but they won't get very far on a business plan that involves charging people to gather their personal viewing habits.
  • Of course Macrovision is easily stripped [smr-home-theatre.org] or defeated [slashdot.org] though sale of such tools can be illegal [stanford.edu] under the DMCA .
  • No, that's far from true. Anything where product placement is possible could work. Sitcoms, for example, are very easy to do that way. Sports can work, too - subscriptions there are well established, while getting sponsors to stick banner ads in the coverage - or pay either to replace or retain ad hoardings in the stadia in the coverage.

    Good documentaries would become difficult, to say the least though. Ditto good drama. If we want either, we may have to pay directly...
  • What I was getting at is that SMCs are generally just one 22 minute comercial for merchandising of the heros/villians of the show interspersed with comercials for breakfast cereal/other merchandising/toys. In other words the cynical only reason for say Pokemon to be on TV is to promote Pokemon lunch boxes; hats; boots; pencils; etc. etc.

    I was going to insert some witty comment about X-Files action figures or something but I think they have those already :(.

  • Your monthly subscription is NOT just for an EPG.

    What you are paying for is a full service (the only way TiVo actually makes money). Think of it as subscribing to a TV portal instead of subscribing to an EPG.

    You are paying not only for the EPG, but also paying for the TiVolution guide (reviews, what's hot, what's not, etc.) You are also paying for the ability to use features like TiVomatic -- upcoming show previews that are TiVomatic-friendly have information encoded in vertical blanking allowing you to use the Thumbs system to say "yeah, that looks like a cool program, record it when it comes on" (instead of trying to remember the time, date, and channel to set your recording).

    I am a lifetime subscriber -- I paid my $199, and I haven't looked back. If you don't like the idea of spending $199 to get the service, get Replay, but in the end you're paying exactly the same amount of money.

    If you don't want to pay at all, you can enjoy it as a glorified VCR. It's not nearly as much fun though.

    BTW, Yahoo may only have 1 banner on their TV listings, but that one page probably serves several million impressions per day. Even the most conservative CPM figure would yield enormous revenues for them.

  • With Tivo you tell it that you want to watch certain shows *regardless of when they are on*. Thats what the dialup is for.. to get the schedule to facilitate this. Every season it seems that there is a show that I want to watch that floats all over the time slots. Tivo knows what I want to see and finds it and records it. In addition, based on user input, it finds and records shows that it thinks I might be interested in. And does a surprisingly good job at it. If you don't want this service, don't pay! Tivo doesn't require the service fee to work. You can still use the box to watch and pause live TV. NB, plenty of people *do* pay money for TV listings... look at TV guide magazine. And unlike a magazine or a website, this is integrated into my TV.. at any point I can click and see a transparent window with the current guide. Awesome!
  • This has already been happening to some extent in TV for the past few years, but the most glaring example recently is Coca-Cola's sponsorship [financialexpress.com] of a WB show called Young Americans. For $6 million, Coke apparently gets to be a title sponsor, gets a mention everytime Young Americans is advertised (ie "Young Americans brought to you by Coke"), and gets very significant product placement. Survivor had some pretty obvious product-placements over the summer too (Target, Dr. Scholl's, Budweiser, Reebok).
  • This is exactly this kind of situations that are meant in the 2nd amendment and where we are encouraged to have the resolve to confront the MPAA, the RCAA and their corrupt puppets in Congress;

    A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.

    I guess the suggestion here is we should take our Uzis and gun down the MPAA? If not, I guess I'm missing the point altogether.

  • Here are a couple of challenges for you (not insurmountable but not obvious) 1. capture I havent seen any really good linux capture alternatives. bttvgrab is hard to get to work and xawtv's grab feature tends to crap out. Also even if you got something that worked you would soon run into the 2GB file size limit if 2.2. And dont even get me started on the issues related to getting audio that actually syncs with the video you capture. 2. encode You ideally want to do realtime mpeg encoding but I havent seen anything that does this well. Sure I've heard about mp1e but I have yet to find any real info on it. Without realtime mpeg, you need to rely on post capture encoding which means waiting around for 2-10 hours for your stuff to be ready. I'd be curious if anyone has solved these issues. After those, the tv listing crap is easy...
  • Really?!?

    Detritus>: "The FCC has ordered the CATV industry to use open standards for digital cable set-top boxes, electronics store and plug in a conditional access card provided by the CATV provider. This is currently being implemented but isn't available yet."

    Can someone post info on this? I would love to get confirmation on this! Really!

    (a happy cable modem/linux user ; )

    -ravage

  • Actually this is all possible to a certain extend. Consider the consumer savings as more digital video devices enter the market. If you have a DVR, DVD player, and say PVR, all with digital out, you are paying for 3 mpeg2 decoders. Especially in the case of the DVD player, this adds a lot of cost. A DVD player without the decoder is just a drive, some firmware, and IR. You could market that for $70 NOW.

    What interests me about this is that it give the consumer a choice: buy one $50 mpeg2 decoder, or get a really good $150 decoder. Also, when new technology comes out you can upgrade incrementally, instead of buying new *everything* to afford the advances.
  • "If this is allowed to go unchecked, the young men of our country will be reduced to nothing more than masturbating zombies. There is also a very real risk that many will go blind. How many more young lives must be ruined before we take action?"

    No, no, no. You won't go blind if you don't sit so close to the TV.

  • Okay, so blank screen detection won't always work. But the fact remains: If for any given channel there are programmatically-distinguishable characteristics that identify the beginnings and ends of commercials, they can be clipped.

    And if that doesn't work out, there's another possibility. Even if for some reason, commercial-blocking can never be completely automated, it can still be manually done. That might not sound very important at first, but consider this...

    Suppose I happen to be a fanatic about getting the commercials out of my Babylon 5 recordings. So I manually go to the trouble of identifying the commercials and deleting them from my recording. But then, instead of just saving my edited B5 to disk, I also publish a history of my editing operations. Think of it as something like a sed script for video.

    The next day, you still have yesterday's Babylon 5 episode on your "Now Showing" list, and you click it. Instantly, your box does a net search for edit scripts for the 9/14 4:00am TNT showing of Babylon 5, and it finds my script along with maybe some other peoples' scripts. It looks at the signatures on all these scripts, and compares their identities with your local trust database. Maybe the last time you watched B5 through my script, you liked my editing, so you gave me a thumbs up. Your box chooses my script automatically, and shows your recording of B5, piped through my manually-created filter.


    ---

  • PVR Integration (Score:4)

    by Detritus ( 11846 ) on Friday September 15, 2000 @01:14AM (#778332) Homepage
    It looks like PVR capabilities will soon be added to DBS receivers and CATV set-top boxes. This will eliminate one box and solve the current kludges used to interface the PVR with the DBS/CATV box. The FCC has ordered the CATV industry to use open standards for digital cable set-top boxes, allowing you to buy the box from a regular electronics store and plug in a conditional access card provided by the CATV provider. This is currently being implemented but isn't available yet.
  • Everyone complains about the monthly fee -- however, what they don't realize is that the TiVo has a lifetime subscription option ($199).

    Replay fans are quick to point out that they never have to pay to subscribe; however, the cost of Replay == TiVo + lifetime subscription.

  • How dare they! (Score:5)

    by larryj ( 84367 ) on Friday September 15, 2000 @01:21AM (#778335)
    A company trying to make money! The nerve!

    Seriously, of Mr. Blount's goals, how many are realistic for a company trying to make a profit?

    1) Not paying for the service. Buy the box, nothing more. ReplayTV likes to point out that they have no service fee. Their box is $200 more than a TiVo. A lifetime subscription to TiVo is $200. TiVo and ReplayTV aren't making money on the boxes, it's the service and the potential for advertising revenue.

    2) Privacy. TiVo's privacy policy is pretty well defined on their web page ( http://www.tivo.com/care/privacy.html ). Yes, they sell info about what TiVo users are watching, but only at the zip code level. I'm comfortable with their privacy policy.

    3) Network connection. I agree, this would be great, but again, is it realistic for a company trying to put a set-top box in every household? Remember, they aren't just trying to appeal to the geek market.

    4) Skip all ads. ReplayTV took the approach of "screw the networks, we don't need 'em" and added a 30 second skip button. Since then, they've hired a former CBS exec and have realized that they will have to work with the networks in the future. The skip button is still there, but it is never advertised. TiVo decided early on that they would try to work with the networks and feature 3 levels of fast-forward, with auto correction (it backs up a bit when you hit play). Is it realistic for TiVo and ReplayTV to basically tell the networks "we don't care if no one sees the ads that make up your revenue stream"? NBC has invested in both companies BTW.

    While there is still room for improvement, I don't understand all of the criticism towards TiVo. Yes there are features we would like to see but this is still a fairly new market. For a product that has only been available for less than two years or so, I think it's a very impressive device. Plus, you can upgrade 'em to 100 hours plus with relative ease. :)

  • Fast has the Ethernet 100Mbit/s Interface, USB, .. (Score:4)

    by Lev_Arris ( 60782 ) on Friday September 15, 2000 @01:25AM (#778336) Homepage
    Fast are currently working on their TV Server which has some of these features. Among others it has connectivity [tvserver.de] like 100Mbit/s UTP, Firewire, USB, free 'EPG'. (Electronic Program Guide) Their page at http://www.tvserver.de is in German so you might need to use the Babelfish.

    I can't wait for these to come out!

    Greetings

  • Getting TiVo to talk over Ethernet (Score:3)

    by alee ( 64786 ) on Friday September 15, 2000 @01:25AM (#778337)
    If you're interesting in hacking your TiVo to do interesting things, visit the AVS Forum, and go to the TiVo Underground.

    Here is an excerpt from one of the posters regarding getting his TiVo to use the DSS port to communicate over Ethernet:

    T u r b o writes on 08-17-2000 09:19 PM:

    I got updates working over the DSS port. I currently have it setup like this:

    TiVoPCLANROUTERINTERNET

    Obviously, PPP is used between the TiVo and the workstation. I have IP Forwarding turned on on the PC, and the router is doing NAT and IP Masquerading. The connection to the internet is a wireless T-1, but could just as easily be a cable modem or DSL...

    I copied /sbin/pppd to /tmp/custpppd. I start /tmp/custpppd in rc.sysinit instead of ppp, because when the TiVo tries to call out it, if it fails it kills pppd. Renaming it prevents it from being killed, so the TiVo can think that the call is succeeding while PPP continues to run over the DSS port...

    The default route is setup through the DSS port. Currently, the TiVo still tries to dial and connect to the TiVo service, but once the connection script returns 'OK' the TiVo actually uses the DSS PPP connection for the traffic, since a default route is already set.

    I still have to replace the dialing script (tcphonehome.tcl, I think) with something that will always return 'OK' and not try to dial, but it's working well so far...

    - Mike

  • Well, I don't think so... (Score:3)

    by s390 ( 33540 ) on Friday September 15, 2000 @01:26AM (#778338) Homepage
    As long as you don't _rebroadcast_ (redistribute on a mass basis) any TV show you recieve, the Audio Home Recording Act (extended to cover TV) covers you. Tivo is just a fancy VCR, and... though the MPAA fought those tooth and nail - they lost... VCR's are legal to use, and Videotape sales have been _highly_ profitable for the movie studios (i.e., MPAA members).

    Digital TV recording _for private use_ will likely fall under the AHRA, just like VCRs. But... the crucial difference is that digital media are just... data. TV programs in digital form face the same grassroots distribution threat as music. So, the Napster case is real important and we'll see more rearguard lawsuits - this time from the broadcast media - regarding TV recording....

  • You might be right if people were just capturing radio waves for free. But many of us pay for TV every month, after the cable company sends a bill.

    I'm already funding those TV shows, so what's the justification for the ads? None. They show the ads because people are used to it (after 50 years of having ads in over-the-air TV) and they get away with it.

    I'm not asking for free TV, but I think I should only pay for it once, not twice.


    ---

  • I want a *modular* digital VCR solution (Score:5)

    by JoeShmoe ( 90109 ) <askjoeshmoe@hotmail.com> on Friday September 15, 2000 @01:29AM (#778358)
    Why, oh, why did ReplayTV have to bend over for the TV stations and disable/remove the firewire ports on the back of their competing device?

    Here's what I want...someone make this, dammit!

    JoeShmoe's Modular Digital TV system:

    1) The heart of the system would be a hub or switch. Gigabit ethernet or fiber.

    2) To this hub, connect "Input Units". These input units would come in a variety of flavors. They would each have one analog input (RCA or coaxial or SVHS or composite), the hardware to do real-time video compression (MPEG-1 or MPEG-2 or MPEG-4) and a gigabit or fiber NIC to broadcast the stream over the the hub or switch from #1.

    3) To this hub, connect "Storage Units". These storage units would come in a variety of flavors. Different size hard drives, removable media, etc. They would also have a gigabit or fiber NIC so that they could receive a stream from the input unit in #2 via the hub from #1

    4) To this hub, connect "Output Units". These output units would come in a variety of flavors. They would each have one analog output (RCA or coaxial or SVHS or composite), the hardware to do real-time video decompression (MPEG-1 or MPEG-2 or MPEG-4) and a gigabit or fiber NIC to receive the stream from the input unit in #2 or the storage unit in #3.

    5) Some kind of control unit that would allow you to route streams from one unit to another, either with an LCD interface or a connection to a computer via USB or serial.

    ~~~~~

    So...how would this work? I buy the starter kit with one hub, one input unit (coaxial/MPEG-1), one storage unit (6GB hard drive), one output unit (RCA/MPEG-1) and the control unit.

    I tell the control unit that at 5PM on Friday I want it to tune the input unit to channel 40 and send the stream for one hour to the storage unit. Repeat weekly.

    Then, when I come home at 7PM...I tell the control unit to send the stream from the storage unit to the output unit which is connected to my television.

    Oh! But what if there are two shows I want to watch and they are both at 5PM on Friday?

    No problem! I buy another input unit (coaxial/MPEG-1) and tell the control unit that at 5PM on Friday, tune the new input unit to channel 13 and send the stream for one hour to the storage unit.

    Oh! I'm running out of space! What do I do if I want to record a lot of shows?

    No problem! I buy another storage unit and tell the control unit to store streams on whichever has the most space available.

    Oh! My kid sister wants to watch Buffy while I watch Star Trek! How do I watch more than one show at a time?

    No problem! I buy another output unit (RCA/MPEG-1), run CAT-5 or fiber to kid sister's room and tell control unit to send stream from storage unit to new output unit.

    Now...do you get how absolutely wonderful a modular system like this would be? If you like to record lots of things, buy more input units. If you are a packrat who never wants to delete anything, buy more storage units or one with removable media. If you share a house with many roommates, give everyone their own control unit and output so you can all watch whatever you want at the same time.

    This is the system that puts the consumer first, and television companies second! This is the ultimate evolution in personal media management! Cheapos can stick to MPEG-1 quality, videophiles can move to MPEG-2 and power users can try MPEG-4. People can add more storage anytime as they find they need it. Fancier control units with GUIs running on Linux can take over for the simple LCD models, and maybe add more scheduling and TiVoish features.

    Now...please...please...please...can someone start a company before all the venture capital dries up and start pumping out high volumes of these specialized devices? Nothing I have said can't already be done with existing technology (except maybe realtime MPEG-4) if you are willing to spend a boatload of money and buy individual computers to act as "input", "storage", "output", and "control" units.

    I don't want to buy a dozen G4 cubes just to get this type of functionality. But as long as companies like TiVo and ReplayTV keep selling out the the television studios...that looks like the only way I'm going to be able too.

    - JoeShmoe

    -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= -=-=-=-=-=-=-

  • More of a business decision rather than 'flawed' (Score:3)

    by substrate ( 2628 ) on Friday September 15, 2000 @01:39AM (#778360)
    If TiVo had a network jack the MPAA and other bastions of capitalism would take them to court for building a piracy device. The sad part is that they'd win.

    If I were designing a device I expected to make money on, had a corporation relying on or even wouldn't be able to anonymize myself and isolate myself from legal problems my design would be much the same.

    No matter how strongly I feel that the MPAA should be carved up like the monopoly it is I can't afford to waste the time I'd spend in court or possibly even incarcerated, especially since it would most likely lead to me getting the boot from the U.S.

  • He spends a noticeable amount of time ranting about how the tv listings on Tivo cost money, when you can get them for free from the newspaper. He doesn't seem to account that when you pay for the listings with Tivo, you're not just getting a copy of TV guide. You get everything pre-loaded into your box, with most of the programming to record done for you. No more setting stop/start times, and whatnot. Also it gives an additional value add, by providing recommendations tailored to your tastes. Over time, as the system learns more about you and others, it will make targeted recommendations of shows that you might like.

    And above all, it's paying for convenience. And apparently plenty of people are willing to pay for that convenience. Just as apparently, he's not.

    Other than the fairly rabid anti-profit motive slant to the whole piece, I don't see how this is all that noteworthy.
  • Tivo + DVD = easy rental backup
    Tivo + Napster = a distributed archive of all the movies and TV anyone ever wanted to see. . .

    Mmmmm. . . tasty

  • 2nd Amendment (Score:3)

    by Boston99 ( 233149 ) on Friday September 15, 2000 @01:57AM (#778370)
    I don't mind companies like Tivo trying to control consumers' behaviour remotely and surreptitiously collect information from them.

    However, nothing gives them the *right* to do so. If you manage to circumvent their BS, bad luck for them.

    Now, some people will invoke the DMCA against circumvention.

    This is exactly this kind of situations that are meant in the 2nd amendment and where we are encouraged to have the resolve to confront the MPAA, the RCAA and their corrupt puppets in Congress;

    and to clarify that there is no need to abide by the law that was bought and paid for;

    but instead, that we should recover the institutions of government for the people by the people;

    by all means.

    I'm ready to burn the Bastille in yet another Boston tea party!
  • "It's an incredibly difficult task. It's one thing to record what you see onto the TiVo drive, but the format on that drive and how you get access to that drive is totally proprietary to us. It would be very difficult for somebody to actually hack into that. And as far as we know, no one is doing that today."


  • Someone, somewhere made a mistake. Not the people who used the word Free to describe un-encumbered software, but the guys who built the base of the english language. The French had Liberte and Gratuit. One of them means Free in a good way (free of hinderances, patents, ability to see source, etc.) The other (gratuit) means free in a way that turns most people into greedy, useless bums.

    The superhighway (God how I hate that word!) now has people begging on the offramps. Wonderful. What is it with people that makes them believe they have a right to everything they want without paying for it? Tell that same person he's not getting a paycheck this month and watch the brown stuff collide with the rotating airblowing thingy.

    I see people crying their eyes out on /. everyday, about how America should be Free. How the principles of fair competition should succeed. Then I see the same people sprouting communist crap about 'Why should I have to pay for this?' 'They owe it to me'.

    Give it a rest. No-one is buying it. Companies need to make money so they can pay you greedy gits to have the lifestyles you want. Don't keep trying to stop them. Especially ones that are doing innovative things. MS is not innovative. They rip you off, tie you into bad security and privacy, and are generally a nasty company. But Tivo are good. You are whinging about paying $10 a month for cool stuff. Yet there are people in countries who gladly spend a weeks salary every month JUST ON LOCAL PHONE CALLS, because they have no choice and value communication so much.

    If you don't like the way Tivo are doing it, get off your beer guzzling, tv drooling rear, and go and do something about it. Do it better. Then I'll listen. Until then, you're a whinging luser!

    HTML needs a rant tag - Alan Cox
    /* Wayne Pascoe

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