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TiVo and Rendezvous
An anonymous reader writes "Just found this press release on the Apple web site. Time to upgrade the TiVo?" Looks way excellent. Right now I have an old iBook sitting on top of the TV, and it streams MP3s via AirPort from the server. But it would be so much better to just listen to the MP3s through the TiVo instead ... and have access to my iPhoto albums too? Sweet. But I would still want it to be wireless: Josuah writes "Alex King has set up his TiVo 2 to download its meta information over his 802.11b network, instead of the landline. He's got step-by-step instructions up." I'd probably want to use 802.11g though ... lots of data, this is.
You can do all this today (and more) with a Replay TV, a wireless lan, and a handful of free (and excellent) tools from Sourceforge. Plus archiving video to your PC and burning to DVD, if you have the hardware.
Having done a bit of consulting work for Apple over the past few months, I can provide just a bit of insider info...
For starters: 802.11g enabled iPods. A video compression format tight enough to let you put a whole goddamn star trek movie marathon on said iPod. How? Easily, and the video quality is *almost* up to dvd standards.
It's going to be cool. Collaboration with TiVO, too...
I'd probably want to use 802.11g though ... lots of data, this is.
If you could actually buy consumer grade 802.11g I would agree. At least at the prices currently listed on Amazon. $133.99 for the WAP54G is one helluva deal considering I didn't pay much less than that for each of my WAP11s about a month ago. Problem is that it isn't shipping yet.
Thing is, I don't even use all the bandwidth on the WAP11s. I'm using them as a bridge to get from the cable modem on one side of the residence to the LAN on the other side. Since I only get 1.5 down from the cable modem, it doesn't really matter that much. Even if I went all wireless, it still wouldn't matter. The limiting factor will always be the cable modem.
Still, anything that drives the prices down on 802.11b gear is a good thing. I'll go completely wireless as soon as I can PCI cards at something I consider to be a reasonable price.
How to set up a Series 2 TiVo with an Apple AirPort (802.11b) Wireless Network
Last Modified: January 9, 2003 @ 3:06 am
Background
When my DSL provider went out of business, I decided to go with cable modem instead of getting DSL with a different provider with the goal of getting rid of my landline phone altogether. With that change, the TiVo was the only thing I had that still needed a landline phone for. I use my cell phone (Treo 300, recommended) for just about everything anyway so if I could get the TiVo to get data over the internet via our home network, I could cancel my landline phone and save about $20 a month which more than justifies the cost of the TiVo, right? One problem - our network connections are all upstairs and the TiVo is downstairs. We do have a wireless network though... so I figured I'd give it a shot. I read up a bit on the tivocommunity.com message boards - basically, you connect a USB-to-Ethernet Adapter to the USB port on the TiVo, then connect a Wireless Ethernet Bridge to the USB-to_Ethernet Adapter. It took too many hours of tweaking and trial and error, but it finally works. I am quite pleased. I decided to write up the steps I took in hopes that it will help someone else who is trying to set up a similar configuration.
I have gotten a lot of mail asking why I didn't just get the Linksys WUSB11 USB-to-Wireless adapter or a similar product. Unfortunately, you cannot currently use a USB-to-Wireless adapter with a TiVo as there is no way to properly configure the adapter. You can read more on this at tivocommunity.com. Although to be honest - I did not try myself, I took other people's word for it. If you somehow make it work, please let me know - it would be a lot cheaper and more convenient.
My Network Configuration
I have a DSL/Cable modem attached to the uplink port of a hub. I have an AirPort Base Station (which is acting as my router/DHCP server) attached to the hub, along with my desktop computer. I have several laptops connected to the network wirelessly. Desktop Computer (TiVo with USB->Ethernet->Wireless)//DSL/cable modem -- hub -- AirPort Base Station -- Laptop A\Laptop B
Router: Apple AirPort Base Station serving DHCP
AirPort Network Name (SSID): Alex's AirPort (for this example)
WEP Security: none (for the sake of this example, however running a wireless network without encryption is not a good idea).
Required Hardware
Configuring the WET11 to be a DHCP client
- select the WET11 and click Yes
- enter the password (default is admin) and click OK
- choose Infastructure mode (not Ad-Hoc) and click Next
- enter the name of your AirPort network into the SSID field (Alex's AirPort), all other settings can be left as is, and click Next
- choose Automatically obtain an IP address (DHCP)
- enter your security settings, in our example we leave it disabled
- review your new settings, click Yes to save the changes
Let's test the WET11 to make sure it is working on the network.
Connecting the TiVo
Now we need to connect everything to the TiVo.
If you still can't get it working, unplug the WET11 from the TiVo and again verify that it is working when attached to a computer. To start over from scratch, you can hit the reset button on the back of the WET11 and go back through the WET11 setup steps.
I hope that this helps someone. If you know of another way to do this or have some related information, please let me know.
td colspan="2" valign="top
FYI this hack DOES NOT WORK with the DirecTiVo (Series 2s), as they have (stupidly) disabled the USB ports on the back of the device.
There used to be a hack to get the USB ports working again and the DirecTiVo using a USB-to-Ethernet converter, but the newest version of the DTiVo operating system ( 3.1.0-01-2-151 ) wipes this hack out.
When I got my HDVR2 last week and found this out, it really pissed me off because like many geeks, I have a cell phone ONLY, no land lines, just a Net connection. Had to drag my DTiVo over to a friends so that it could initialize properly.
Anyways, be forwarned!!!
There is hope in the future that Directv will stop being assholes and allow the USB ports to be used in the future, but that's all it is.... Hope.
--Remove chicken to e-mail
I know it's been said before but I do all of that plus playing divx with the Qcast tuner (www.broadq.com) for my playstation2. All that you need is a ps2, nic, and a pc to push the content. The bonus is that you don't have to pay a monthly fee, the down side is that you loose the easy interface for recording that the tivo has.
There's a discussion about this press release at the tivo forums - http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.ph p?s=84c11bddf1300f950b6c97ad19d4e465&threadid=9446 9
It seems the consensus is that since this is an apple press release, it doesn't preclude PC support, but means that mac's will be supported, probably in addition to PCs.
You can get your TiVO wireless if u so desire. fairly cheap, too:
:) thanks apple!
http://www.dlink.com/products/wireless/dwl810+/
I'm liking this. This is the kind of integration that TiVo and the like needed to really grab average consumers. and since Rendevouz is open source, anyone can join the party
But I would still want it to be wireless.
I noticed this press release a few days ago, as well. Been doing some research since then.
You'll need a TiVo Series 2 to make this work. No word on whether 3rd party TiVo 2s will be supported (like the Sony unit).
Most everything below is an educated guess, so take with a grain of salt.
I'm assuming after looking at the unit's connectivity that you'll need to get a TiVo USB->Ethernet adapter. No word as to whether other parties' USB->Ethernet or USB->802.11x adapters will work as of yet.
I've already got a Linksys WET11 hooked up to my Playstation 2 network adapter, bridging to my wireless LAN (iMac with connection sharing on via Airport card), so adding a cheap hub at my receiver isn't a big deal on my end.
If you go this route, you'll need a Wintel box, or at the very least Virtual PC to properly configure the bridge (for the first time -- its http admin works on the Mac after initial setup) -- even though Linksys claims otherwise. Also, if you turn on encryption, keep in mind that you need to set up the Mac side to use the long-ass hex version of the password you pick (ie $AA2E43323B2300000) or the WET11 won't be able to get on. At the very least, lock your access point down to specific hardware addresses.
As far as bandwidth concerns -- let's see -- MP3s ripped at 192k -- vs the 11 megabit bandwidth on 802.11b. I'm not seeing a problem here. Hell, a direct uncompressed dump to AIFF or WAV from a CD will only come in at 150k/second (ie 1x CD-ROM). That's 1.5 megabits of bandwidth -- for uncompressed audio.
Back to the info -- this functionality seems to be part of a forthcoming firware upgrade for the series 2 models (which are currently shipping and on sale -- $199 for a 40 meg unit, $399 for an 80 with rebate).
It also seems that they're hinting that LAN functionality is going to be part of a new 'tiered' pricing structure -- the veiled hint being "part of our premium service".
At any rate, I'm in on this the moment it's available. I bought a Sony 200-CD jukebox about 5 years ago, and it's skipping horribly now and cleaning hasn't helped. I'm giddy at the thought of dropping it and just getting a 120-gig drive to take its place.
Here's to hoping that TiVo's media center (or whatever they call it) UI is decent, and it supports iTunes playlists and iTunes browsing by artist, album and genre.
I'd pay an extra $5 or so a month for that.
One last hint:
When ripping to iTunes, make sure your prefs are set to add track numbers to the filenames, otherwise your albums will play back in alpha order.
--dr00gy
For easy info on doing this chec:
,#401. That's it. I'm dropping my land line now thanks to this.
http://www.stevejenkins.com/tivo/newbie.html
If all you want is to switch it from using a land line just put in the NIC (or connect a USB one for Series 2) and change the dial prefix to
You know, you're right. I'm surprised Google hasn't picked it up yet. Clicky-clicky:
_ rendezvous/
http://homepage.mac.com/macdomeeu/dev/current/mod
(The eds, in their infinite wisdom, rejected my story about this yesterday. Oh, well.)
I write in my journal
Proprietary? What were the Columbia Appletalk Project and Netatalk putting out?
Here ya go.
Works as advertised. Way, way, way cool stuff.
The only person at home who uses my home phone line is Tivo, everything else goes through the network connection or cell. So when a friend told me about some easy hardware mods, one of them is plug 'n go, I had to buy one. Check out 9th tee . They have a whole bunch of hardware upgrades for the Tivo including a wireless 802.11b ethernet card based on the prism chipset.
The ISA ethernet card is plug 'n go if you're using Tivo software 3.0.x or later and have a first gen Tivo. The 802.11b wireless card is not quite as easy to install, but 9th tee has links to instructions.
-Runz
Look it up.
tivo has so many advantages over a vcr that it's not even in the same class. I don't have to rewind through a tape looking for a show, I don't have to swap tapes, I don't have to pick up a tv guide to see when something will be on and then program my vcr, I don't even have to delete old shows to make room for new ones. When I want to watch something, i turn on the tv and watch it, there's absolutely 0 hassle. If I get home 10 minutes after something I want to watch starts, I can rewind and watch it, I don't need to wait for it to finish recording to rewind the tape. I can watch a previously recorded show while something my roommate wants to see is being recorded. etc. The list goes on and on.
I've always thought that the way PVRs will simply delete old shows is not right. What they should do is re-encode old recordings to a lower quality, thereby taking up less space and making room for new recordings. The change could be gradual, e.g. go from "best" to "high" to "normal" to "low", and then finally delete the recording. The advantage would be that a recording could still be watched after many weeks, even if at a lower quality. Of course, none of these PVRs have the horsepower to do this, but if you have a desktop computer available somewhere, the recoding could be offloaded to it.