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Tivo 3.0 'Firebolt' Hits the Wild

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the good-luck-the-first-round dept.

James Evans writes "Tivo is rolling out version 3.0 of their software, including Ethernet drivers as well as the ability to download program data directly from a cable broadcast without using the phone line." My guess is it'll be awhile before everyone gets it since these things come in waves.

4 of 272 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Whats the general opinion on tivo? by amuro98 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Check out Tivo's privacy policy on their website. Tivo is very upfront about what sorts of information they collect from your Tivo unit - and also give instructions on how you can disable this if you wish.

    Tivo only collects aggregate data, meaning they can say 10 customers in an area (zip code) watched a TV show last night, but not WHICH 10.

  2. Re:I'm a bit confused by this... by rogueuk · · Score: 4, Interesting

    From the article:
    "For the hacker community, Firebolt includes ethernet drivers, allowing TiVo to download programming data from the Internet using a special backdoor key."

    So right now, the capability is being built in for ethernet but it's not offical yet.
    The FAQ on Tivo's site also talks about future broadband capabilities. Since the new series2 has USB ports, I wouldn't be surprised if they come out with official USB ethernet support.

  3. well that explains by Lumpy · · Score: 4, Interesting

    The TiVo broadcasts I have been seeing on local cable channels at 2 am
    a screen full of vertical blanking interval data with TIVO broadcast in the center of the screen and a "please excuse us this is a Tivo broadcast" voice over with corney music running in the background.

    Cool.

    --
    Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
  4. Can anybody read the schedule data? by Animats · · Score: 4, Interesting
    Can anyone read the broadcast TV schedule data? That would be a useful data source to have freely available. Open-source PVRs could use it, for example.

    Is it encrypted?

    The guide data probably isn't copyrightable. Phone directory data isn't copyrightable, nor are databases of facts. ("The standard of originality for copyright is low, but it exists." - U.S. Supreme Court)The formatted data may be copyrightable, but you probably want to get it out of TiVo's format into something more useful anyway.