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802.11b on your Tivo
Otto writes: "Those who don't regularly read the Tivo Community Forums may not know that a 802.11b wireless adapter for the Tivo, called AirNet, is in the works. It's being made by jafa, who also created the TurboNet card, a similar device to the TivoNet adapters available at 9thTee but faster. Long story short, he's auctioning off 4 beta boards of the AirNet adapter for the Tivo and giving the proceeds to the Elf Foundation, a group which brings Home Theater to ill children by setting up mini-theaters in children's hospitals nationwide. Good fun techie geek stuff, and for charity too! You can't beat that. The auction is here on ebay." Looks like the guy's home page is silicondust.com.
I might get modded down as a troll for this, but...
Isn't this charity kind of frivolous?
<sarcasm>Forget homeless/starving/victims of war, we need to make sure sick american kids can watch "dude, where's my car?" in surround sound.</sarcasm>
well i don't know about you, but I don't have a phone jack right next to my TV. And my wife frowns on my stringing phone cord throughout the house.
So I have two choices... use one of those horrible "add an extention" plugs that plugs into a power socket, or use 802.11b capabilities.
First, the programming updates can be done over a broadband (or dialup I guess) internet connection rather than phone lines. Good for folks who don't have phones, have a broken modem in the tivo, or have to dial long distance to get the data.
Second, you can put a web server on the tivo and schedule recordings, see what you have recorded, etc. Good for geeks who want to show off.
Third, you can extract video from the tivo in an mpeg-2-like format, convert it to mpeg-2, and then do what you want with it. Personally, I extract movies that I like, convert them to divx, and put them on cds. Good for folks who like to store lots of video.
Until the TiVo ripping software is a little more advanced and doesn't desync the audio quite as frequently as I have seemed to experianced for the most part (or is it cause I only record in Basic?) a wireless card will be of little value.
My other concern is the TiVo's total lack of security, with my wired network card in my TiVo I can have it behind a firewall or direct linked to my system, wireless TiVo would let anyone and their brother into it.