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."

Comments

The Replay units are nice, but...

[freebsd guy]

As a proud owner of a Philips DirecTivo unit with TivoNet and (most recently) a ReplayTV 4000, I have had a chance to evaluate both machines and see their relative strengths and weaknesses. The results have been interesting:

• Neither unit forces you to pay for service (with the Tivo, just load 2.5xtreme and turn on "SubTest"). However, the Replay units are sold at a significant markup and the Tivo units are sold below cost. I'm no market analysist, but three guesses which one is better for consumers?
• Tivo can't update the software without notice, unless you're dumb enough to plug the unit into your phone line. Replay requires that you maintain a connection to their servers so they can tamper with your property after purchase.
• The Tivo has a 30 second commercial skip feature too, contrary to popular opinion. SELECT-PLAY-SELECT-3-0-SELECT.
• The Tivo runs Linux, meaning that you can cross-compile anything to run on it, short of MS Office and IE. What can you run on the Replay? Next to nothing.
• The Tivo has a programmer-friendly interface. It has native tcl support and provides easy ways to access the system database, called MFS. Does Replay offer this? I think not.
• The Tivo gets its guide data off the air; the Replay needs to connect to a central server to get it. What happens when Replay goes bankrupt? You got it - no more guide data.

For these reasons and many usability reasons, I will be returning my Replay unit before the 30-day exchange period expires. It's just an overpriced piece of crap.

freebsd guy

Re:The Replay units are nice, but...

[Anonymous Coward]

Dish uses DVB, whereas DirecTV created their own format called APG.

APG provides the guide data to all DirecTV boxes, not just TiVo. UltimateTV is doing the same thing. This is one of the requirements for making a DirecTV box.

As for the TiVo service, guide data is just one of the pieces. Software updates and box cost are also included. Remember, they are selling the boxes below cost. You could always buy lifetime and be done with it.

Hope this helps

Re:The Replay units are nice, but...

[ncc74656]

The Tivo has a 30 second commercial skip feature too, contrary to popular opinion. SELECT-PLAY-SELECT-3-0-SELECT.

This also is deceptive. You are just fast forwarding for 30 secs.

Wrong. There is a backdoor code (given by the original poster) that enables 30-second skip. I've tried it; it works. I found high-speed scanning at medium speed works better for me, though...there's no correction for overshoot with 30-second skip.

Where the original poster was wrong was in saying that TiVo gets its guide info over-the-air. Since there's no TV station that provides this service, that's impossible. TiVo phones home for its guide info, just as ReplayTV presumably does.

Ah, then there is sharing of the shows (URL).

[Tide]

Lest us not forget the site that lets all of us ReplayTV 4000 users find new 'friends' to share shows with. With over 100 members and 1200 shows, its not a bad place to start to find that lost episode of The Tick.

Planet Replay

Re:Why use a PVR? - look at SnapStream PVS

[altair87]

There is a software based PVR for PC's called Snapstream PVS. The website is http://www.snapstream.com It works under WinXXXX.

Re:My Wishlist Hack - Canada

[jarodss]

Bell ExpressVu has a PVR

Does that help?

Re:Why not simply use your PC?

[tiedyejeremy]

I use my replay in one room and the computer in another. Radeon All-in-Wonder. It works ok. not great - and it doesn't decode the premium channels or handle changing the channels on my decoder. The panasonic unit does. Also - I implemented most of these hacks 3 months ago - so they're not that new...

Re:My Wishlist Hack - Canada

[evil_one]

Being a Canadian Satellite company employee, I can tell you that, no, it doesn't really help. Although the PVR (which is essentially a Dish Network 501) is a great unit, you can't do any of the cool hacks to it that you can do with the Tivo and Replay units. If you have a PC with a tv capture card, you can do everything with a 4500 or better ExpressVu that you can do with the PVR (though it's a lot messier and arguably more expensive) and then some. The PVR is just a nicely integrated package, giving you timered recordings and pause/play buttons.

don't forget about what ReplayTV did ..

[Hohlraum]

.. with the older models. I'm an owner of a 3030 and they have effectivly STOPPED improving this model. Atleast tivo people might still get improvements to their software from time to time.

My biggest gripe with my 3030 is that it doesn't keep track of shows its already recorded. If you setup a horror movie theme channel it will record the same damn movies over and over unless they are already recorded and on the harddrive. I mean how many freaking times does the thing need to record 'Boltneck'

Re:Phone Home

[Jekyll]

Actually, yes, there is. That is if what you are referring to is what TiVo said about its users. It's called opt-out. It takes one phone call to TiVo, and after that, your super-secret anonymous information isn't taken.

Re:Homemade PVR

[fons]

we're trying to do this

although far from finished you can download what we already have at:

http://davedina.apestaart.org

Re:Internet Sharing

[TeknoHog]

Dude, I missed Futurama last night! Can you capture it, encode it, and then put it on your server so I can grab it?

Lando already did that for you.

Re:We are trying to do this, wanna help?

[NumberSyx]

record from tv (works, but no automated TV-guide)

I know there is a perl script ruuning around that downloads TV listings from the TV guide website. Perhaps you could write another script which, once the listing is downloaded, it would grep for the shows you wanted, then setup an at job to record at the proper time. If you wanted to, I imagine it would not be too difficult to slap a Tk front end on it to make it easy to use.

Re:What's your point?

[Zaknafein500]

If you've ever used a DirecTV system, you would realize that DTV provides about two weeks of guide data no matter what receiver you use. Meaning that Tivo's "service" gives you ... surprise! nothing you're not already paying for.

TiVo takes the guide data and indexes it into a format that allows for you to find and record shows quickly and easily. It allows you to tell TiVo to record 24 on Fox every week, and it does it. The guide data comes from DirecTV, but the massive sorting and indexing is done by TiVo. This is what you pay for. To use TiVo, you are required to have a subcription, bar none. If you are using the service without paying for it, you are stealing.

It is true that xtreme does not, in and of itself, steal DirecTV. However, if someone where trying to steal DirecTV on a DirecTiVo, it is a component, since it allows the daily calls to be disabled.

Re:Fantastic

[KernelHappy]

If I recall, HDTV is 1.5 Gbps uncompressed</snip>

Uncompressed NTSC video (720x480) would use about 237mbit/second (720x480x24x29.97 (drop frame)), but we don't record that uncompressed. Instead we compress it before we transmit or store it digitally and in the case of DSS/Tivo combo boxes the units store the compressed stream exactly as it is received. IIRC most HDTV programs are broadcast using a 18Mbit/sec stream. This isn't exactly tiny but in a day of 160GB harddrives its manageable. In fact DV uses a M-JPEG like codec that consumes about 25Mbit/sec for standard NTSC video and current consumer PC technologies are up to the task of handling it. Storing an exact copy of a HDTV broadcast is quite acheivable given current consumer level equipment.

So the problem is political rather than technological. Media companies view the move to HDTV and digital video in general as their chance to correct the "mistakes" they made with previous copiable formats. These companies do not want their content to fall under the previous fair use controls and they are draging their feet while they frantically search for a way to control every aspect of their content even if it impinges on the consumers fair use ability. This is evident in the vast array of manuevers going on behind the scenes to get DRM in place before the consumer HDTV explosion happens.

Late in the game, hardware manufacturers jumped to using encrypted streams over IEEE1394 (Firewire/i.Link) to the display device. So if you purchased a HDTV decoder 1-2 years ago there is the possibility/probability you may not be able to use whatever the standard format of choice for recording content is without buying a new decoder or additional hardware.

The simple fact is that the powerhouses behind the scenes don't want us timeshifting their prescious HDTV content until they can control every aspect of how we use it.

Re:My Wishlist Hack - Canada

[jtl]

We know the hostname (rns.replaytv.net). We know most of the data formats, and it wouldn't take someone with interest long to fill in the missing details. This part of the conversation isn't encrypted, and even if it were, we know the encryption system At least one person knows the data formats from earlier models well enough to do exactly this already.

See http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?s=&t hreadid=116146

Re:We are trying to do this, wanna help?

[fons]

yes we have looked at this. The project, like may other similar projects is linked on our site.

http://www.media-box.org is pretty interesting project. If you are using windows.

At this point it's more stable, usable then our project.