Slashdot Mirror
Excellent Hacks to the ReplayTV 4000
Hit the link below to find links to assorted hacks done to the extremely
cool ReplayTV 4000 PVR. Thanks to jptsetme for submitting links to hacks
like hard drive upgrades, software to download mpegs, edit the guide,
and systems under development to automate create of VCDs and DVDs
from Replay's. It's exciting seeing so much headway being made
so fast, and evidence that this is one heck of a machine.
"The Replay hackers at AVS forum have done an amazing job on the new ReplayTV 4000's. You can now do some very cool things with this new PVR.
You can increase recording space (by either replacing the existing drive, or adding an additional one.) This has, of course, been done with Tivos and older Replays in the past. Not only has this hack been adapted for the Replay4000 model (including custom sized photo partitions and preserving existing shows), but Replay has also recently released new software that removes the previous 137G per drive limitation, so you can now turn any ReplayTV4000 into a 320G model with a couple of 160G drives and a PC (Linux, Win2k, XP, or with a Linux boot disk on an x86 box with a good enough BIOS to recognize the drive size.)
http://rtvpatch.sourceforge.net/
But, you might decide you don't need to open the box at all, since you can now offload your shows to your PC and then serve them back to the ReplayTV4000 with your PC masquerading as another ReplayTV4000 on your local network, giving you nearly limitless storage capacity. [Note: this does not use the internet sharing feature, which is so slow over typical broadband as to be practically unusable. This is streaming the show in realtime from your PC back to your Replay4000, using the same mechanism two Replays use to stream shows back and forth over your local network.]
ReplayPC (C/C++, Windows, Linux, Mac. A simple text mode utility for extracting mpg files from ReplayTV4000 PVRs via TCP/IP)
http://replaypc.sourceforge.net/
Replayer (Pure Java. Java GUI utility allows you to extract mpg files from your ReplayTV 4000 to your PC)
http://www.forbesfield.com/replayer.html
Replay Server (built on PHP for Apache. Allows you to serve downloaded shows to a ReplayTV (on your LAN only) from your PC as if your PC was a ReplayTV)
http://206.124.140.12/rtv/
SwapDV (J++, windoze only. Allows you to download shows from your ReplayTV 4000, serve downloaded shows as if your box was a ReplayTV 4000, and edit the "guide" provided by your PC. i.e. capabilities of both Replayer and Replay Server, but only for Windows.)
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?s=&a mp;threadid=116035
A number of users are also working on burning shows to VCD, SVCD, XSVCD and DVD, with moderate success.
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?s=&a mp;threadid=115338
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?s=&a mp;threadid=106437
Lastly, there has also been a hack developed to remove macrovision from the old Panasonic Showstoppers (effectively transforming them into ReplayTV3xxx machines.)
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?s=&a mp;threadid=118170."
You can increase recording space (by either replacing the existing drive, or adding an additional one.) This has, of course, been done with Tivos and older Replays in the past. Not only has this hack been adapted for the Replay4000 model (including custom sized photo partitions and preserving existing shows), but Replay has also recently released new software that removes the previous 137G per drive limitation, so you can now turn any ReplayTV4000 into a 320G model with a couple of 160G drives and a PC (Linux, Win2k, XP, or with a Linux boot disk on an x86 box with a good enough BIOS to recognize the drive size.)
http://rtvpatch.sourceforge.net/
But, you might decide you don't need to open the box at all, since you can now offload your shows to your PC and then serve them back to the ReplayTV4000 with your PC masquerading as another ReplayTV4000 on your local network, giving you nearly limitless storage capacity. [Note: this does not use the internet sharing feature, which is so slow over typical broadband as to be practically unusable. This is streaming the show in realtime from your PC back to your Replay4000, using the same mechanism two Replays use to stream shows back and forth over your local network.]
ReplayPC (C/C++, Windows, Linux, Mac. A simple text mode utility for extracting mpg files from ReplayTV4000 PVRs via TCP/IP)
http://replaypc.sourceforge.net/
Replayer (Pure Java. Java GUI utility allows you to extract mpg files from your ReplayTV 4000 to your PC)
http://www.forbesfield.com/replayer.html
Replay Server (built on PHP for Apache. Allows you to serve downloaded shows to a ReplayTV (on your LAN only) from your PC as if your PC was a ReplayTV)
http://206.124.140.12/rtv/
SwapDV (J++, windoze only. Allows you to download shows from your ReplayTV 4000, serve downloaded shows as if your box was a ReplayTV 4000, and edit the "guide" provided by your PC. i.e. capabilities of both Replayer and Replay Server, but only for Windows.)
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?s=&a mp;threadid=116035
A number of users are also working on burning shows to VCD, SVCD, XSVCD and DVD, with moderate success.
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?s=&a mp;threadid=115338
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?s=&a mp;threadid=106437
Lastly, there has also been a hack developed to remove macrovision from the old Panasonic Showstoppers (effectively transforming them into ReplayTV3xxx machines.)
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?s=&a mp;threadid=118170."
a beo-... Ehhhh. Too easy.
Can you imagine a Beowulf cluster of MPAA Nazis descending upon this?
After looking in on Rob's journal this morning, this comes up. Is there a coincidence how things get broken at Rob's? Kathleen are you reading this? ;)
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Perhaps having a fiance has encouraged Taco to use correct punctuation to set a better example for the forthcoming little burritos.
Exclusive footage of how Cmdr Taco will create these "little burritos".
[Slight Correction]
The Future:
Me: "Dude, I missed Futurama last night!"
Friend: "You're on drugs. Futurama was cancled remember!"
Sure you can with a anemic little computer (Pentium MMX 266) and a crappy ol' bttv tuner card.
Go and download Nupple-video and follow his tips on there to heppily converth the Nupplevideo output to mpeg2 files then buy yourself a nice Hollywood+ mpeg playback card. Now add crontab, mplayer, and spice it with the at daemon to make it easier, bake at 350 with your favorite Linux distro (I choose Slackware 8.0 for it's low fat high quality ingredients) and you have a basic PVR that will gladly play it's video onto your Television without any silly content viewing protection, statistic collection and selling, or government spyware... that eye on the Tivo... I know it's watching me!
it's nothing like a tivo, no FF rewind, pause, or all theo other fluff, but you can make a nice web control panel , point, click, watch Invader Zim!
no it's not easy, no it wont be pretty, no it's not DVD quality with 6.1 surround.. but who cares. it's free, open, and cooler than a Tivo.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
That's exactly my point. The current system does skew things. Who actually watches Americas Funniest Home Videos? I don't know a single person who watches it and I know like hundreds of people. Yet under the Neilson system it wins it's time slot.