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Pretty much any TiVo will be upgradable. I have a 5XXX TiVo, and I upgraded mine. You want to get a modern one (don't get an older or used one), because the later ones sport a later kernel that supports drives bigger than 120GB (or if you put a 140 in, it'll only see 137GB, or whatever that limit was). Mine has 160GB in it, and I can record 180ish hours at full quality. With compression, I can fit about 4x that, but the compression they use is pretty bad on anything other than "High". Especially if you already have grainy cable.

The Hindsdale How-To is the definitive faq, including tools, for the tivo hacker. Basically, you're just doing a dd if=/old/disk of=/new/big/disk && some-command-to-expand new file system to fill /new/big/disk.
http://www.newreleasesvideo.com/hinsdale-how-to/in dex9.html

Keep in mind: As far as I know, Tivo doesn't really care if you hack your tivo, but you instantly forego any possiblity of warranty or tech support.

Pulling programs off the tivo is easy. Most tivos support a wide variety of USB-Ethernet adapters via their USB ports. Hook your tivo up to your home network and get a copy of Tivo2Go from Tivo.com. It will allow you to pull files from the Tivo, but keep in mind, 1.) you're going to have to google for the tool which strips the TiVo DRM out, 2.) the files are HUGE, so you're going to want to divx for storage, and 3.) if you distribute the files, there's no way of knowing if they have any information which can be traced back to you, or your tivo subscription number, etc etc.

Hope that helps. I love my tivo. I messed with a Windows Media Center PC when I worked at a system builder / consultant shop, and I never got it to do what I wanted. The TiVo "Just Works(tm)". It's a breath of fresh air.

~Will

Isn't this basically how you go about 'resizing' your drive in Tivo? Take out the original, pop it into a Linux box, dd to another drive...and put back into the Tivo?

Yeah, that's how it used to be done. The current method uses Tiger's MFSTools 2.0 CD to copy the streams from the old drive(s) to new MFS partitions on the new drive(s). Which is like copying all the files from one drive to another with a tool that knows the filesystem.

dd doesn't care about filesystems or partition tables for that matter. It just copies from one file to another, except that it does it in chunks of a specified (or default) block size typically used in filesystems.

I bought a 120GB drive for by DirecTivo from Hinsdale. Now I have 146 hrs (approx). I didn't really have the time to play with it, nor the spare PC to mess with preping the drive, so I paid the premium. Instructions were excellent and it worked without a hitch. Check it out.

ATA and TiVo kernel confinements limit using at most 137GB (128GiB) of any drives installed in your TiVo. Larger drives may function but you are currently limited to a maximum of 2 drives x 137GB (128GiB) or 274GB (256GiB) of usable space.

Of course, the Tivo gives you a little bit of that hacking goodness. You can use the "Hinsdale How-To" to add an additional hard-drive. I added a 120G drive to my 30 hour unit and now have ~180 hours of capacity. That's more than I'll likely ever need, but it gives me the flexibility to rarely-if-ever have to erase something I haven't watched yet in order to make room for something else.

Because it's based on Linux, the Tivo is eminently hackable. Following some pretty straightforward directions, I was able to add a second hard-drive to my Tivo, turning my 30 hour Tivo into a 180 hour Tivo. Cost of upgrade: ~$200. Try finding a 180 hour Tivo at the store :-)

Adding that much capacity really changes how you use Tivo. I can go weeks without watching TV without worrying about shows being deleted before I get a chance to watch them. With the 30 hour version, you have to manage your capacity a bit. With 180 hours, you can really just forget about it for weeks at a time.

Granted, the article here doesn't go into that aspect, but the fact that the Tivo is based on Linux is definitely relevant to this audience.

See http://www.newreleasesvideo.com/hinsdale-how-to/ for more info.

Hard drives are physical devices and while they may test ok from a storage device perspective, that doesn't necessarily mean they can push data at a steady enough data rate for the DirecTiVO to record two data streams and play back a third.

If this was Wednesday night a couple weeks ago with a DirecTiVO, it wasn't your TiVO that flaked out, but DirecTV making a mess of the local channels again. They are getting so aggressive in their anti-piracy measures that it's starting to affect paying customers.

Also if you're on DirecTV, you may be seeing compression glitches that are the result of DirecTV's aggressive compression. With DirecTiVO, the unit just stores the data stream from the satellite and doesn't recompress the data. Those glitches are the result of signal errors (very rare) and severe bit rate compression (quite common.) Alas, the bit rate problem won't go away as long as DTV is trying to push so many channels without having a lot more bandwidth available.

A final possibility if you are getting periods of jerky/pausing playback is that the garbage collection/reindexing tasks are running. After a few weeks of comparing the logs to the periods when I have playback problems I've noticed that GC/reindex of large drives takes 10-20 minutes, during which playback is unreliable. The unit is smart enough to schedule these tasks to run when no recordings are scheduled, so your recordings are safe.

Uh, you're wrong. I upgraded my TiVo two weeks ago, when I scored an 80GB drive from OfficeMax for $80 after rebate. I burned a CD image of an .iso file from here, in my Dell computer, running Windows XP Pro. I booted from the CD, with the new hard drive attached, logged in as root, following the instructions, typed one command. Shutdown the system, and installed the drive in my TiVo, using the mounting bracket from here.

Total time from start to finish was less than half an hour, and anyone who'd feel comfortable building a machine from scratch could do it. I've even offered to upgrade several friends' machines for free, it was so easy.

Now, I have extremely basic Linux skills, so I did deviate from the directions, by running the program against /dev/hdc rather than /dev/hda, because I didn't feel like re-wiring my entire case to get the right drive at that IDE location. I've never even compiled a linux kernel, so it doesn't exactly take a rocket scientist.

There was also an article in the most recent issue of Maximum PC magazine, showing how to do this in 2 pages.

Upgrading your TiVo isn't like replacing a transmission, it's like installing a hard drive twice, and one of the systems needs a special bracket. The hardest part is making sure you have a T-10 torx bit to remove the cover...

The ability to add hard drive space just by buying a new IDE drive, installing it, and running a few Linux-based utilites was definitely a big selling point for me. Buy a 30 hour Tivo, add a 120G drive, and *poof* - 180 hours of recording time for a very reasonable price.

While the first-generation TiVO upgrade procedure was (apparently) somewhat painful, the current procedure is very easy. Using the Hinsdale How-to TiVO Upgrade guide, I was able to upgrade my TiVO in two hours, including a backup of my original drive.

My formerly 40-hour TiVO now has a 130-hour capacity. I love it!

The DirecTV Tivo (or DirecTiVo) is the highest quality picture I have seen of any of the direct bitstream DVR's. Zero pixelation. Smooth as silk or a baby's bottom. And no Microsoft involved.

Plus you can get them for $99 at Circuit City with a dual LNB dish for $.01 (in-store special only). So, the complete system is under $100 -- Tuner, PVR, Sat Dish -- TiVo itself is $10 per month or a single-time lifetime fee. Addtional DirecTiVo receivers can be added to your system at $5 per month for mirroring service.

These are dual tuner 35-hour units. More hours can be added in the form of addtional IDE hard drives as detailed here. Some people can record 250 hours in a single unit. These people are called nuts. (Just buy two units and use cheaper, smaller hard drives.)

Btw, if you are a new subscriber, you can get the whole DirecTiVo + Satellite dish package for even less.

it doesn't matter how many hours you get initially because you can easily upgrade the internal harddisk...a 120 Gig drive will store over 100 hours of recorded material.

follow the (idiot-proof) instructions outlined here

I've just bought a used TiVo for $100. New units go for between $100 (for a unit that's good only with DirecTV) to $500 or so. Hackable and new sub-$300 TiVos might include a 20-hour unit from Best Buy (IIRC) and a 30-hour unit from here.

Before going further, let me say just what a TiVo is. The one-sentence description is that it's a digital video recorder; it records TV shows to a hard disk much like a VCR records TV to a tape. This description doesn't do the device justice, though. To begin with, if you buffer your live TV through the TiVo, you can get VCR-like effects, such as pausing live TV, performing instant replays, rewinding, and running something in slow motion. You can then hit a button to catch up to the live broadcast during a boring stretch (like a commercial). The devices get even more interesting if you subscribe to the TiVo service, which is $10/month or $250 for a lifetime subscription. When you do this, the TiVo device calls in using a built-in modem once a day and downloads TV listings. You can then search them to find programs you want to watch (no more need for TV Guide or the like). You can tell the TiVo to record specific shows, or entire series. In the latter case, the TiVo will do so even if the show changes time slot (but not if it's rescheduled at the last minute, say because a sporting event runs over). You can tell it to search for shows or movies by title, actor name, and so on, so if you like, say, Sandra Bullock, you can feed that name into the unit and it'll record all her films that it finds in the listings. You can tell the TiVo to record "suggestions," which are programs that match your profile of likes and dislikes that it builds up if you give ratings to shows.

Anyhow, TiVos are very hackable. They run on Linux, and use a 50MHz PowerPC CPU. Among other things, you can add or replace a hard drive. You might therefore get a low-end TiVo and expand it to over 100 hours capacity for the cost of an 80GB hard disk. You can also add an Ethernet card to connect the thing permanently to your LAN. (Even without the Ethernet card, you can get a bash prompt or PPP connection over its serial port.) There's a TiVo hacking FAQ available. It's a bit outdated in some important ways, but it's a good way to get a feel for what you can do with the device.

FWIW, I've not yet hacked my TiVo in any way (I've had it for just a few days), but I plan to upgrade the hard disk and get a serial connection going within a week or so.

What's more, the service is emminently hackable so if they really did go down it wouldn't be hard to build a listings service that kept the unit functionality going in spite of a company closure. Several people have claimed to hack this already, though code is not readily available last I checked (for obvious reasons). Either way, I've got my daily calls going over my ethernet network, so it wouldn't be hard to sniff out the necessary bits or put some work into documenting the MFS partition formats and inserting it directly from a source like XMLTV.

So, for a fun project and damn useful toy, grab yourself a 20 hour Tivo cheap (see AVS TiVo Forums for pointers to cheap deals at Wal-Mart, Target, etc.), a big harddrive (most any 5400 rpm will do), and a hard drive bracket and ethernet adapter (here's a good tutorial). Then have fun with a device that's both well suited to the task (stable, nice tv based user interface, very sharp picture) and gives you a chance to sink your teeth into some fun hacks.

FWIW, I've been spending a lot of time hacking up my own media-box project of late and I really think that it isn't yet a viable option. Dual booting Debian/WinME with a AIW Radeon and SB Live Platinum 5.1 gives you the ability to do everything a TiVo can and more, but the interface, stability, and interoperability leave a lot to be desired. On the up side, its great to be able to play DivX, MP3, Emulators, etc. in the living room A/V system. Wonderful as a system oriented towards archived playback, music, and games, but don't buy one thinking its going to be nearly as useful in place of a TiVo.

... rjs

The lesson here is this: You get the smallest TiVo you can find (14 hour, 20 hour - Walmart supposedly had the 14 hours on sale for $109 or something), and then read this.

I had a 20 hour TiVo, and after a trip to pricewatch to grab a 5400rpm drive, and 9thtee.com to get the mounting bracket for the new drive, my cheapy TiVo unit now holds 130 hours.

You might want to check out the Hindsdale howto as well. The other Hack FAQ is a little out of date.