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."
Yeah, but my Commodore 64 has been able to do all this stuff for years. (Just ask my friends in Afghanistan!) - Junis ;-)
This is a typical response to a person without a PVR. The biggest advantage of the TiVo is downloading the channel lineups. Unless you can somehow get a program to d/l the yahoo channel listings, along with all programs in the future, I think it'll be a difficult transition...
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
Right, you got me. :-) I haven't laid out the cash for one yet. But why couldn't I use a modem to do the channel/guide d/l's? That's what the PVR does anyway.
I never considered the guides to be the biggest attractor, anyway, b/c the downside (i.e., having all my viewing habits broadcast back to the company) goes hand-in-hand with it. But I would love to have the pause and rewind features, even if it means I don't have the guide...
Wow, imagine a ReplayTV cluster of, er... Beowulf nodes...
Sorry, I appear to have wandered into the wrong joke.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
You're right about channel lineups, and I think that the Yahoo channel listings wouldn't be that hard.
I have Watson for OS X (an awesome, awsome program) that, among other things, does just that. Enter your Zip code and cable system and Watson will spit out nicely formatted TV channel guides.
If the Watson guys can do it I assume it shouldn't be all that hard to parse it into a format you could use in conjunction with a PC based PVR.
Hey, did you get your Navy back yet??