Tivo 3.0 'Firebolt' Hits the Wild

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.

Comments

Unwitting Testers?

[pussycat]

A small random group of subscribers will transparently receive the update followed by a slightly larger group.

Suggesting the users won't know they're beta testing, performing a service for Tivo? Can I get beta testers like that? They'd be much less uppity.

Re:Unwitting Testers?

[amuro98]

I don't know where they got that from...

The last time Tivo rolled an update out, they took volunteers for an external beta program. I was a beta volunteer for one of the previous updates.

When the beta program ended, Tivo rolled the update to the rest of their customers.

Regardless of whether you were a volunteer or not, whenever you get an update, your Tivo gets a message for you with information about what's changed, etc.

Re:Whats the general opinion on tivo?

[amuro98]

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.

Re:I'm a bit confused by this...

[Bogatyr]

It probably simply means that the ethernet support will be unused for first and second gen hardware, and that TiVo didn't feel a need to branch the OS development tree. That's a pure guess on my part, but it's a plausible (to me at least) one.

Re:What else can we use this for?

[amuro98]

There have been a few hacks developed in the past for Tivo that involved ethernet. Your best bet is to read the Tivo AV Forums:

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/

In particular, check out the tivo-underground board there.

Re:I'm a bit confused by this...

[rogueuk]

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.

Re:anyone know ware i can get a tivo

[kevdog]

Yea, tivo is moving over to the Series II platform. The new boxes are at some best buys right now, and I think all of them should have it within a week or so. You can also buy the series II tivos (the 40 hour at&t one, or the 60 hour one) from http://www.tivo.com

Re:receiving data

[furiousgeorge]

>>So what exactly am I paying $9.95 a month for? >>I could understand the charge before because >>they had to pay for their 800 number, but now >>why should I pay for service when the box can
>>do everything itself?

were you operating under the belief that cable services are free? Whoever the cable operator is will sure as hell charge TIVO for the bandwidth they use. Plus you're paying for the program guide information.

well that explains

[Lumpy]

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.

There goes my uptime

[JeffL]

I am at 180 days uptime on my Tivo. I guess that is how long it has been since the 2.5.1 update.

Tivo Beta preview results

[twfry]

I was lucky enough to get on the tivo 3.0 beta program and received the update about a week ago. Here is what I noticed.

1) For the most part the user interface is the same. The update seems to have focused on improvements to the core app. For example the now playing list draws much faster.

2) It records many more shows from the suggestions list which is good. I bumped my tivo up to 100+ hours a while back and it used to record only 3-4 unscheduled shows a day. Now it graps something like 10 and really makes use of all that space.

3) TivoNet warning: it will overwrite all of your setup files if you installed a network card. Looks like its time to open the box again. :(

Here is what Tivo has to say about the update.

Improvements to TiVo's Suggestions

TiVo's Suggestions has gotten even better at finding programs you might enjoy. If your TiVo automatically records TiVo's Suggestions, you may notice improvements soon.

If you have chosen not to automatically record TiVo's Suggestions, this is a good time to try them again. You can automatically record TiVo's Suggestions again by going to TiVo Central > My Preferences > TiVo's Suggestions.

Even if you don't automatically record TiVo's Suggestions, you can always browse through them (and set up your own recordings) by going to TiVo Central > Pick Programs to Record > TiVo's Suggestions

Improved Data Downloads

Your TiVo can now record TiVo Service data from specially broadcast programs. It receives these programs automatically and will never cancel or delete your shows to get them. This means shorter Daily Calls. If you do not have cable as your program source, TiVo will use the phone line as always.

The special programs will be recorded about once a week, usually between 2am and 5am. If you watch TV at these times, the TiVo Service may ask to change the channel to receive a special program. While the TiVo Service will work if the special programs do not record, it's a good idea to allow such channel changes whenever you can.

Record All Episodes with Duplicates

Season Passes will not record a program if the program's description is long enough and matches the description of another program recorded within 28 days. This is called the "28 day rule" and is used to avoid duplicate recordings.

However, you may want to record shows with identical descriptions. You might want to do this if your child expects a certain program to be recorded every week, or if a program is pre-empted (e.g., for news or a ballgame in overtime) and the broadcaster airs the same program a week later.

You can now turn off the 28 day rule and record duplicate episodes by selecting a new recording option, "Show Type: All (with duplicates)." Just go to TiVo Central > Pick Programs to Record > Season Pass Manager. Select the Season Pass, then select "Change Recording Options." Change "Show Type" to "All (with duplicates)."

Re:Tivo Beta preview results

[Sorklin]

What's changed is that the suggestions now are getting information through the call. It indexes the suggestions sort of like Amazon's suggestions. It looks for other user's likes and dislikes. So if you like show X, tivo knows that 100 other people who liked show X like show Y but not show Z, and acts accordingly.

Look for this to get better and better with time.

But it does leave the option of trying to social engineer the suggestions. It also may leave a wide open gap for Tivo to make a suggestion of their own (which I think already happens).

Re:receiving data

[Skirwan]

So what exactly am I paying $9.95 a month for? I could understand the charge before because they had to pay for their 800 number, but now why should I pay for service when the box can do everything itself?

Well, the issue primarily revolves around small green pieces of paper that most people use to gauge their relative happiness. TiVo, like most companies, is attempting to increase the number of small green pieces of paper that they own. Part of their plan for gathering the little green paper-bits is to convince people to give them said tiny green sheets in exchange for this service.

Of course, I'm simplifying things a little - there's quite a bit about the relationship between the green confetti and a yellow metal, and with the transmission of 'virtual' paper bits through thin metal wires based on symbols on a plastic chip, but that's an advanced lesson.

I hope this helps.

--
Damn the Emperor!

Re:I'm a bit confused by this...

[tube013]

The deal is they are unofficially supporting both the tivonet and turbonet boards in gen 1 boxes, and including support for various usb-ethernet dongles.

They have actually worked with the developers of both the tivonet and turbonet to include specialized drivers for those devices-- ie jafa, creator of the turbonet as a pretty fine tuned driver for the board, and they are including that driver with 3.0 - unofficially supporting turbonet with no software hacking.

to sum it up get a gen 1 standalone box with 3.0 on it stick a turbonet or tivonet board in there, and it will work, not software tweaking involved (as long as you have a dhcp server there to hand out an ip address)

Re:Build your own

[Sc00ter]

Okay, where's my season passes that automatically record programs for me so I don't have to keep entering in times and channel numbers? where's the ability to only record new shows and not repeats, where's my thumbs up/down so it will automatically record shows it thinks I might like?

There's more to TiVo then just a ditital VCR.

hey! support OPENPVR instead!

[Anonymous Coward]

Instead of spending money on a tivo, go to http://sourceforge.net/projects/openpvr/
and get involved. when this is done, you'll be able to turn your linux box into something like a tivo for only the cost of a tv tuner card and possibly another hard drive.

Re:hey! support OPENPVR instead!

[hobbs]

Yeah, turn the $1000 Linux box + $300 accelerated video card with TV tuner into a $400 TiVo. Rock on!

Can anybody read the schedule data?

[Animats]

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.

Re:Can anybody read the schedule data?

[pmcneill]

The data is indeed encrypted. Tivos will still have to dial-in to get the decryption keys, which presumably will expire to keep people from stealing subscriptions. More info here.

Re:Can anybody read the schedule data?

[Jerf]

The guide data probably isn't copyrightable.

Actually, it probably is, if it contains all the data the current guide data does. The program summaries, ratings, and categorizations are definately copyrightable. You'd have to ask a copyright lawyer if you could extract the raw titles and times, which are what most people care about. You'd be extracting non-copyrightable material from a copyrighted feed, and I don't know if that counts as a "derivative product". (Note I wouldn't put any stock in wild Slashdot theories on this point; I study IP as much as any non-lawyer, and I don't think a non-lawyer can answer this question. It may not even have an answer.)

And of course if it's encrypted at all, the DMCA will completely protect it, regardless.

Re:I'm a bit confused by this...

[pmcneill]

It actually goes beyond Tivo being nice to the hacker community -- it's saving them money. When Tivo dials up each night, it uses a UUNet internet connection, so each call costs Tivo money. By allowing hackers to use their broadband connections, Tivo no longer has to support UUNet for that customer. Support costs don't increase, since I'm sure Tivo won't support a hacked unit. So all in all, its a win-win situation.

Re:I Still Refuse to Bye One

[Croaker]

They offer just the hardware without requiring subscription (or huge up front fee) and the unit is mostly functional without it.

Um, last time I checked, you are not obligated to buy the service. Without the service, your TiVo will just let you pause live TV or record at sepcific times. This only makes sense. Why should they provide ongoing services to you (the programming guide) if you're not going to pay them?

It becomes a general purpose multimedia machine which I can do what ever the heck I want to with.

Uh... see, there are these things called PCs... you might have heard of them... get yourself a video capture card with PVR software, a big honkin' hard disk, and a good sound system, and you are good to go.

Asking for this is like saying "I won't buy a car until they can fly through the air." In reality, what you're really looking for is an airplane...

Re:I'm a bit confused by this...

[aligas]

For those who didn't read the article and have Series2 units, this is from the article/thread.

List of supported USB adapters:
3Com USB Ethernet 3C460B
USB 10/100 Fast Ethernet
USB HPNA/Ethernet
Accton USB 10/100 Ethernet Adapter
SpeedStream USB 10/100 Ethernet
ADMtek ADM8511 Pegasus II USB Ethernet
ADMtek AN986 Pegasus USB Ethernet (eval. board)
Allied Telesyn Int. AT-USB100
Belkin F5D5050 USB Ethernet
Billionton USB-100
Billionton USBE-100
Billionton USBEL-100
Billionton USBLP-100
iPAQ Networking 10/100 USB
Corega FEter USB-TX
D-Link DSB-650
D-Link DSB-650TX
D-Link DSB-650TX(PNA)
Elsa Micolink USB2Ethernet
Hawking UF100 10/100 Ethernet
IO DATA USB ET/TX
IO DATA USB ET/TX-S
Kingston KNU101TX Ethernet
LANEED USB Ethernet LD-USB/T
LANEED USB Ethernet LD-USB/TX
Linksys USB100TX
Linksys USB10TX
Linksys USB Ethernet Adapter
Linksys USB USB10TX
MELCO/BUFFALO LUA2-TX
MELCO/BUFFALO LUA-TX
SpeedStream USB 10/100 Ethernet
SmartNIC 2 PnP Adapter
SMC 202 USB Ethernet
SOHOware NUB100 Ethernet

The Real Details and Current Discussion

[aligas]

You can find the the best information on this subject on the TiVo Community forums thread called "3.0 will (UN-)Support Broadband Connections. Its linked below.

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread. ph p?s=&threadid=54620

Re:Life, or Tivo?

[gasp]

Bah. Not a problem for me. I've been using my Tivo almost 2 years. Yes, it records more than I can ever watch. So most of it goes unwatched.

I find Tivo indespensible now for 2 reasons:

1. The ability to pause or replay anything I watch. I can't even tell you how often I replay the last 10 seconds to catch something I missed, or pausing while I got check the meat on the BBQ. And my wife calls me in often to replay something for me that she found interesting or funny.

2. Efficient use of viewing time. I don't care enough about TV to go out of my way to watch something when it airs, and I sure don't care to watch everything Tivo records. (My hacked unit is only 52 hours.) What is important is that for the few hours a week that I _do_ want to watch TV, I am able to select the best of the best. That is, I tell Tivo to record only things I like, and then I watch only what I want, when I want. The ability to FF through commercials means it only takes about 42 minutes to watch an hour show, so the time I spend watching TV is maximized.

Re:Onboard ethernet controller - who cares. . .

[rudedog]

My 9th tee controller works with 2.5. I'm running 2.5.1-01-1-000 and haven't had my tivo plugged into the phone jack for months. Plus, I can telnet to it and copy mpegs from it, so it's obviously working.

Re:I'm a bit confused by this...

[Hallow]

Actually, it is meant to support the hacker community. Tivo/TurboNet cards will work without additional software installations, no pulling out your hdd. See this post by a TiVo employee.

They won't support it if you call them, but that's why there's http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/

Re:Life, or Tivo?

[gad_zuki!]

Well, I seem to be watching the same amount of TV. I was never an addict to begin with and when I switched to directv I had a choice: buy a reciever box for $50 or a Hughes DirecTivo for $120. Guess what I went for.

Right now I have it set to record a few shows (7-8) in season pass mode. I shut off the auto-record suggestions mode because it really just recorded crap. Just because I like the Simpsons doesn't mean I like everything thats animated, especially stuff for the 4-7 year old demographic. I spent some time just rating movies and TV shows and it still was pretty lousy. Plus, I really don't want to watch lots of TV unless its interesting. The programs I choose are good enough and if I'm channel surfing I'll check whats on the various discovery-type channels and movie channels.

The real fun part is that I never look at the clock and think "Hey the Daily Show is on" or whatever. Even if I know something good is on I prefer to catch it 10 minutes or so late so I can skip the commercials, boring parts, bad guests, etc. Its weird how clock oriented I was toward TV. If I cancel I'll probably be using the hell out of my VCR.

The real problem is I can't stand live TV with its ads. Its bad when you haven't seen a commercial break in months and now you have to find ways to entertain yourself for 3 minutes 4 times a show. So I just hit record and walk away. Come back and skip commercials as usual.

Its great at catching every showing of something. So if you like the Power Puff Girls you're going to get four per day, unless otherwise programmed. Great, one of those is probably one I haven't seen. The interface is sweet compared the directv boxes and because its a DirecTivo I'm always recording at MPEG-2. It doesn't compress anything, it just records everything raw - highest quality from directv.

The pitfalls for most people is that they load up on the suggestions and veg away. Avoid that. Make TV your bitch. I did.

Re:Build your own

[CMiYC]

I agree with you.

I'd also like to add that its cost effective for me to spend $12/mo to let TiVo get the guide and take care of itself. Sure someone might say the data is free (from some easily obtainable resource which I have yet to see someone mention) and that you could write/download the software to handle it all. Of course, $12 equals about 15 minutes of my time. So I can either spend $12 or 2-4 hours a month dicking around with a computer sitting in my living room that lets me watch TV.

I'd rather just spend the $12 and know there is a 1-800 number I can call when something goes wrong.

The real skinny on ethernet support!

[Anonymous Coward]

From the 3.0 software itself, in the TClient-lib.itcl file (where the dialing code used to be).

Stupid slashdot lameness filter! A # was in front of every line of the following...

If you're looking for the TClient scripts which were used in the
1.x and 2.x releases of the TiVo software - they no longer exist.

In 3.0, the TClient process was entirely rewritten in C++, and the
old TCL implementation was retired. The primary reason for doing
this was memory usage - the tivosh shell was rather memory-hungry,
and this caused some system problems during daily-call processing.
The new C++ implemention of TClient is smaller, faster, and more
efficient.

The bad news is that if you came to this file to (re)install the
"PPP over the serial port" modification which has been floating around
on the Net, you can't do so by editing anything in this directory.
The call management just isn't done that way any more.

Because this appears to have been a popular mod among many of our
most avid users, I was able to get permission to add PPP-over-the-
serial-port support to the C++ implementation of TClient. You can
enable this feature from the user interface via a back-door code.

To do so, go to Setup and Messages -> Recorder & Phone Setup ->
Phone Connection -> Change Dialing Options -> Set Dial Prefix.

Enter a dialing prefix of "Pause Enter X N N" (displays as ",#XNN")
where "X" is the backdoor code ("2" or "3") and "NN" is the first two
numeric digits of the serial port speed you wish to use. Use a
backdoor code of "2" if your PPP server simply starts negotiation
with no preamble. Use a backdoor code of "3" if your PPP server
includes a modem emulation and expects to go through a dial / connect /
prompt / login sequence prior to beginning PPP negotiation.

For example, ",#219" selects a speed of 19200 bits/second and begins
PPP negotiation immediately. ",#357" selects a speed of 57600
bits/second and performs modem-dialing emulation and login prior
to starting PPP negotiation.

Speeds that the software will recognize include 96[00], 19[200], 38[400],
57[600], 11[5200], and 23[0400] bits/second.

High speeds may or may not work properly - success will depend on
the type of PC you're using, the length of the serial-port cable,
and probably on the phase of the moon. The TiVo external serial port
does not support flow control - configure your peer equipment
accordingly. Specifying speeds which are either too high, or too
low may result in loss of data and poor throughput.

PLEASE NOTE: THIS IS AN UNSUPPORTED FEATURE. It is "officially
undocumented". TiVo does not promise that it will work for you,
either now or in the future, and doesn't promise that it'll always
be available. TiVo does not recommend that you use this un-
feature, does not encourage you to do so, and disclaims any
responsibility for any problems which may occur, directly or
indirectly, should you choose to make use of this un-feature.
As the preacher said in Blazing Saddles: "Son, you're on your own!"

Please do NOT call TiVo Customer Care with bug reports, or for assistance
with this un-feature, or to ask how to set up a PPP server - they
either won't know what you're talking about, or will tell you that
they can't help you. There's a good deal of information available
out on the Web (especially via the TiVo forum at AV Science) concerning
TiVo and home-grown PPP servers, network address translation (NAT'ing,
IP masquerading, IP proxying), etc. - please refer to these sources rather
than calling TiVo. If a bunch of people start calling Customer Care
demanding help and support for this un-feature, I may be told to pull
it out of future software releases.

OK? OK, I hope.

That being said - one Linux configuration I tested this with,
quite successfully, used the following command to configure the PPP
server:

/usr/sbin/pppd /dev/ttyS1 115200 $MYADDR:$HISADDR passive \
persist local proxyarp nocrtscts noauth holdoff 10 nodetach nodeflate

In most cases, home-broadband users would probably want to use
NAT / IP masquerade, rather than (or in addition to) proxy ARP.

We've been given the OK to add a similar level of non-support for
another popular non-feature - TiVo daily calls via a broadband
network adapter.

To use this non-feature, you'll need a network adapter of a variety
that your particular TiVo system (un)supports. For the Series 2
systems, the adapters in question are various USB models based on the
Pegasus and RTL8150 chips. We've tested several such Ethernet
adapters (there are some HomePNA adapters also but we haven't tested
these) but can't recommend specific models - manufacturers change
their designs fairly frequently. For the original "standalone" TiVo system,
you probably know what you need, hardware-wise (*cough*tivonet*cough*)
and you've read and understood and accepted all of the dire warnings
about the risks of opening up the cabinet and installing unsupported
and untested hardware.

You'll also need a local area network, on which is running a device
which acts as a DHCP server capable of "leasing out" an IP address
to your TiVo system and providing network/netmask/default-gateway
information. Most of the popular "home gateway / router / firewall"
products are capable of acting as DHCP servers, as are Linux- and
other Unix-type systems. TiVo can't help you select, purchase,
configure, or troubleshoot any such devices or software. It's a
*very* good idea to have some such device acting as a firewall between
your home LAN and the Internet, no matter what sorts of PCs and
Internet-enabled devices you have installed in your home.

In order to use a broadband connection, the network adapter must
be suitably configured (if it needs configuration) before you
plug it in. It must be connected to the TiVo recorder when the
system is powered up - "hot plugging" of a USB network adapter is
not currently supported, "hot unplugging" of an adapter while in
use might crash the system, and of course any sort of "hot
[un]plugging" of an ISA network adapter would be an incredibly
bad idea.

If a suitable network adapter is found at boot time, the TiVo device
will start up a DHCP client and will configure the adapter for use.

In order to actually cause daily (or other) TiVo service calls to
use your broadband connection, you must enable this feature via
another dial-prefix "back door" code - use ",#401". Once this
feature is enabled, the system will attempt to use your network
adapter (if present) for all daily and service calls. The system
will not, at this time, "fall back" gracefully and revert to the
modem if your broadband connection is down - it's broadband or
nothing. To switch back to the modem, clear the back-door dial
prefix string.

If you make a modem-based call, the PPP daemon will deliberately remove
any "default" network route(s) specified by your DHCP server, in order to
ensure that the call traffic actually travels via the modem. If you
then wish to start "making calls" via your broadband adapter, you must
enter the dial-prefix backdoor code, and then arrange to have the
DHCP software re-install a default route to your local network gateway.
You can do this by waiting until your DHCP lease is renewed (the lease and
renewal times are specified by whatever DHCP server you're running), or
more quickly by restarting your TiVo recorder.

There's no non-support yet for 802.11b wireless networking. For
one thing, the Linux drivers for the adapters available on the
market today are not stable enough for us to want to ship them. For
another, proper use of 802.11b requires some form of user interface
to set the network ESSID and the network encryption keys, and we
haven't had time to write this yet.

All of the things I said about PPP support being Really and Honestly
Unsupported So Please Don't Call Us, apply just as much to
this Ethernet support.

Where to buy a ethernet card for your TiVo..

[xTK-421x]

Surprised no one posted this yet...

TurboNet Adapter $69.25

Works with Series 1 and DirectTiVos, slips right in, then the new 3.0 will autodetect it and install the right drivers. After installation, put ",#401" as your phone number and it will use the net connection from now on.