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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.
From: billg@microsoft.com
To: Research and Development
I don't pay the two of you in R&D to play Quake all day! Find out what this Rendezvous is and copy it! I'll prepare a hot press release announcing it today. Be ready to ship by 2006.
Thanks,
Bill
Trolling is a art,
>I'd probably want to use 802.11g though ... lots of data, this is.
Talk like Yoda Slashdot editors now do.
The government's moral compass is controlled by GPS.
In times of crises, they alter it to suit their needs.
Can I broadcast whatever I want to my neighbor's TiVO? Can my neighbor watch my slideshows w/out me knowing?
This may open the door for simple pirate TV stations using 802.11, TiVos, and Macs.
t'nera semordnilap
Two questions:
1 - Where do you live that 11Mb/s is the bottleneck between your Tivo and the backbone? I count myself lucky to have 640k down/128 up DSL.
2 - Just how much meta information do you need to download to this thing that you need 22Mb/s? Or do you really need to refresh all program info for all 400 DBS channels every second?
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.
No wonder your TiVo thinks you're gay. /me waves bye-bye to some karma.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
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
Throw some technology together and get some interesting integration. Surprisingly, there is no mention of iPod in the announcement. Wouldn't it be nice to have a wireless connection to your iPod and stream that way too? Walk around the house or apartment with an almost infinite selection of streamed songs from your desktop or laptop. Eliminates the need for larger and larger storage on the iPod, at least while you are in range of the transmitter.
;-) If this is already being done, post some references here. I'd be interested to learn more about it.
Speaking of this idea, how many people know about the Dr. Bott iPod Connection Kit w/ FM Wireles Transmitter? Not the same thing, of course, but it still should get you thinking about other ways to extend and expand your devices. And, while I am off on a tangent here, wouldn't it be interesting to get RSS feeds on our various wireless web devices?
How to Download YouTube Videos
I just did this the other night. I use a WAP11 in bridge mode to get wireless connectivity to my home theater. I just popped in a TurboNet card in the TiVo and I was set. Enabling telnet, FTP, and Web took 15 minutes.
The problem is, 802.11b is sloooooow for pulling off video. An hour of video on a TiVo may be 2.8GB. When pulling vid over wireless it takes a LONG time... I usually either do it over night or just plug in to the switch behind the HT and get it off directly.
For those wanting to do this check out TiVoApp. It's pretty much a one step vid extraction tool that'll dump anything in Now Showing to an mpeg file.
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.
This is for showing pictures and mp3s off your network, and if you think about the bandwidth of those things, 802.11b should be just fine. Program data doesn't usually exceed 5 MB (remember, TiVo was designed to do that over poor modem connections), and since it grabs 10 days ahead of Today and processes at 50 mhz (on series 1), an 802.11g connection isn't going to help.
The other big feature that nobody's talking much about is one I have been using for awhile now. Remote scheduling. I have full remote management via the TivoWeb project (tivo.lightn.org), and love it. When I had a job, it was nice to be able to schedule something a coworker might mention, or something I had forgotten to schedule but was going to miss, without having to be at home to do it.
I think this kind of interconnectivity can lead the way to seamless integration of set top boxes so that every TV in a home has one.
Actually, and in all seriousness, it's like AppleTalk for IP. AppleTalk was great, but had problems, not the least of which being that it was proprietary. Windows networking-- Network Neighborhood and all that-- was a horrible copy of AppleTalk. Now here comes Rendezvous, which combines the ease of use and convenience of AppleTalk with the goodness of IP without having to suck.
Gonna change the world, man.
Here's just one example of why Rendezvous is cool. Safari has Rendezvous support built-in. I have a friend who works for a company that builds web applications; their apps run on Apache, and they have dozens and dozens of development servers in their lab, all with names like SVR-LAB-01-A-342 and stuff like that. Keeping track of which server is running what, and on what ports, is a nightmare. So I set him up with mod_rendezvous yesterday. Now everybody who uses Safari (which is like half the damn company already) gets a nice list of all the currently running servers on his bookmarks screen. All you have to do is pick the one you want.
I'll say it again. Rendezvous is gonna change the world.
I write in my journal
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
No offense, but I think you're full of shit. An iPod holds 20 GB today, and presumably 40 GB real soon now. DVD's put about two hours into about 7 GB, at about 8 Mb/s. So you could store five DVD's without additional compression on a 40 GB iPod, and stream them over plain old AirPort, and still have room left over for some MP3's.
So everything you describe could be done right now, with last year's technology. If Apple were planning to do it, they would have been doing it already.
I'm not 100% sure, but I think you're full of shit.
I write in my journal
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
It won't change nothing if it's proprietary and doesn't play nice with other OS's (Windows included).
;)
Fortunately it ISN'T PROPRIETARY! It is an open standard that is also called zeroconf. Apple has also released source code.
Why isn't there an open source package that just makes it easy to share folders/files/printers across all platforms? Like Samba, but without being a cloned MS tech?
Grab Apple's code and get working
I love the irony of two slashdot articles in a row, where one talks about Apple's Rendezvous, and the next talks about Microsoft's new 'Spot' wristwatch thingy. Apple's product is useful, open-sourced, and can provide benefits beyond Mac owners, since devices can communicate without a Mac or any Apple products at all. Contrast this with the Microsoft announcement: a clunky, expensive watch that will cost at least $100 year in service fees.
Apple Press Release
Microsoft Watch Article
But there is something more going on here. Apple is returning to its roots, and to computing's roots, by giving away software in order to sell hardware. Microsoft sees the "free software" writing on the wall, and is desperately trying to sell hardware and services. Who's going to win?
Mike van Lammeren
It will challenge your head, your brain, and your mind.
Don't forget to say "And furthermore, who pulled my dick out of my pants??"
That's the toughest part to sell.
Oh hell, fuck tivo I want a free/open linux pvr with xml show listings available on the net.
Yeah, okay, whatever. Let us know when you get that working, okay? Meanwhile, the rest of us are going to stick with something that actually works, and that does not require an absurd amount of work to set up and maintain.
I write in my journal
Basically for $99 one can order a TiVo SW upgrade (secured with public/private keys) to allow your TiVo to stream mp3s, jpegs (incl. ones from Corbis), be remotely administered from a personal account on TiVo's website, and get some extra promo material. One can then get the upgrade for addt'l TiVos in the household at half-price and be able to stream shows between TiVos on the same account.
All of this due in April, software for enabling the local mp3 & jpeg streaming to be available then, you can sign up to be notified when avaliable. Presumably these apps and the TiVos will use Rendezvous to find eachother.
So: Extra cost paid upfront, secured software, able to share but only with other extra-package TiVos on the same account and not with the general 'net population. Oh yeah, and LinkSys is the preferred networking hw vendor.
I don't read ACs: If a post isn't worth so much as a nom de plume to its author then I wont bother either.