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Reusing Old TiVo Hardware?
buss_error writes "I have old TiVo hardware that I'd like to reuse — however, I find in searching that the most frequent reply is: 'Don't cheat TiVo!' I don't want to cheat TiVo — in fact, I'd like to nuke the drive with a completely open-source distro with no TiVo drivers at all. Some uses I think would be interesting: recording video for security cameras or a drive cam; a unit for weather reporting; fax/telephone; a power monitor for the home; or other home automation. I would prefer a completely TiVo-free install — this is because I have major issues with TiVo and don't want the slightest taint of their intellectual property. But, since I paid for the hardware, I'd like to wring some use out of it rather than simply putting it in the landfill."
I don't know. Most TiVos only have a few ports. I think the biggest is ethernet, but that's probably too small for most people.
Wow. I tried it, and the best answer I found was "don't bother". I figured that since the thing runs Linux, it'd be easy enough to repurpose. Boy was I wrong. I'd like to say that I enjoyed messing with it anyway, but the truth is, it was just a pain. All of the important drivers are wrapped up in a huge binary blob, and unusable without the TiVO software. A TiVO is worthless as pretty much anything but a TiVO, unfortunately. Maybe you're a lot smarter than me (a quite distinct possibility), but I didn't get anywhere. If you decide to go ahead anyway, I wish you luck, and a lot more success than I had.
Everyone knows that you can't do anything with a tivo. It may be using open-source software, but the hardware checks the software's checksum, and if it doesn't match, it simply doesn't run the software. If you remember, this is a major reason (if not the only reason) why Richard Stallman got all upset and created GPL v3.
A Tivo without service doesn't just up and die. Rather it loses its guide data but can still be programmed like an old VCR. Having it record from a security cam should be super easy to do, just program 24 different one hour recordings on whatever port the camera is on and let it go. The Tivo will even manage its disk space and everything, removing the oldest recordings as the disk fills up and replacing them with new ones.
I read the internet for the articles.
A lot like any old computer hardware you can prop open a shed door for airflow or hands free operation while you use both hands to carry in more obsolete crap.
Upon a bit of reflection, once you have collected enough obsolete crap, you could use some brick mortar and obsolete computers to build a new obsolete materials shed. This should free up your shop to refurbish obsolete crap that you keep planning on, but don't have the room on your bench with which to diddle.
If you load these old machines with old OpenMosix enabled kernels and ethernet you can crunch numbers and have a heated shop. The only drawback to this, besides blacking out your neighborhood and sending your electric meter dials spinning like a centerfuge is the need to then build another obsolete materials shed.
*Repent!Quit Your Job!Slack Off!The World Ends Tomorrow and You May Die!
Sorry, what you're asking for is too easy to abuse
Genuine question (I'm not being rhetorical): do you consider using hardware you own for personal, constructive purposes ever to be "abuse"?
* Knoppix MythTV
http://www.mysettopbox.tv/
As the creator of KnoppMyth (now LinHES), I can tell you that KnoppMyth doesn't work on a TiVO (neither does LinHES).
Warm regards,
Cecil
When the source is open, the possibilities are endless.
Okay, I admit right off that I am unfamiliar with TiVo aside from what I've heard mentioned on TV. I don't have a tivo, I don't plan on getting a tivo, I've never actually looked into it.
However, I was under the strong impression that TiVo was a DVR. How can one "crack" or "rip off" a DVR? What does a TiVo provide which would be something that, if one were able to re-flash a TiVo, "crackers" would be able to use to some disadvantage to TiVo? Is TiVo cracking something which is actually done? What benefits does it have? What makes it "bad" as opposed to just "bad for the company that wants you to keep using its software"?
-- 'The' Lord and Master Bitman On High, Master Of All
Typically it means buying the hardware at a discount and then modifying the software to use some sort of alternative TV Guide feed, instead of the TiVo paid subscription service.
You can argue the merits for or againt, but most Tivo fans with the necessary hardware and software experience want the TiVo company to succeed and will staunchly refuse to help you.
Don't "cheat" TIVO my arse. Aparently the defintion of cheat has become using something you own to do something you want to do. If they have a business model that subsides the hardware, why is that anyone else's problem?
Seriously, why do people buy a locked down piece of hardware, then wonder why they can't do anything that hasn't specifically been authorised with it? Your solution starts with not buying the damn product in the first place!!!
Stallman may be a crazy loon that I don't want representing me, but in this particular case he's absolutely right. You shouldn't be allowed to create an abomination like TIVO with open source.
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
The only way you would be stealing (theft of service) is if you were feeding off Tivo's TV guide listing service without paying for it. If you can find a way to use a free listing service on a TiVo there is NO moral/ethical conflict.
Good-bye
The abuse is in the percieved theft of service.
If you're using a TiVo, as a TiVo, without paying TiVo, you're 'stealing'.
This is a self-regulating phenomenon that popped up in the TiVo community.
I totally don't get it, unless people are talking about the guide data (which of course makes sense). I bought my TiVo when they first came out -- it was $400 and it belongs to ME. I didn't have to promise to buy their service to get the box at that price, and I never did -- I already know what channels all my shows are on, so I just use it as a plain DVR and program it by hand. How am I a criminal? Now I just wish the damn thing knew about the new daylight savings rules, or at least had a way to set the clock short of pulling out the hard drive and adding a command to the startup script (the RS232 port has never worked). Plus it would be nice to make it stop giving an error screen every time I go to the main menu, badgering me to buy the service. Why is it considered sacrilege to ask how to deal with that, on an expensive box that I already paid for?
If you're using a TiVo, as a TiVo, without paying TiVo, you're 'stealing'.
:CueCat for a preemptive rebuttal to any arguments to the contrary.
Absolutely, positively false.
I personally own a Toshiba-branded TiVo series 2 box, which came with free lifetime basic service (which essentially means the channel guide and nothing else, but that works for me just fine).
I have never paid a dime directly to TiVo (though no doubt Toshiba paid some form of licensing fee), and use one of their their products 100% legitimately. I do note, however, that they appear to no longer offer their "basic" service, nor any "lifetime" terms - Their loss, because I will never buy another box from them (and really, I would upgrade at this point, what with no digital or HD support in my box; but as TiVo clearly doesn't want to sell to me, I will probably end up screwing around with Myth again in a year or two instead, and have a lot more motivation this time to make it work as I want).
That said, if you remove the channel guide from that (and yeah, I know about the "advanced" features like remoting and such, but I've never found myself "needing" to watch a recorded show anywhere but home), what does TiVo really sell? If you turn their box into a time-based (rather than content-based via the channel guide) digital VCR, you've "stolen" absolutely nothing. They sold you hardware, you used it in a way they might not like but don't really have any right to complain about (again, key point, without using any of the features of their subscription). See
The idea that the 'channel guide' is some valuable thing is stupid anyway.
We need to get away from the entire model of having third parties provide guides.
Channels should provide their programming guide. Each channel should, somewhere, have that information in a standard format.
And a list of the links to those guides should be collected on the cable and sat providers websites, in some format computers and boxes can important them.(And I'm sure someone would provide broadcast lists for major metropolitan areas.)
Someone makes a damn standard XML format, and the channels would just dump their data straight into it. It's like 20 fucking hours of programming, one time, to publish their damn schedule, and from them on it just works.
The idea that anyone should ever pay for that data shows how retarded the media companies are in this country. You should want to tell us what's on your channel, you morons, so we can watch it. Because you are too flat-out bone stupid to do that, we have to pay other people to do it for us.
Can you imagine if other places worked this way? What if each bus had its own schedule that they didn't bother to make public, so we had 'bus guide' companies that would run around peacing the entire system together and changing us whenever it changed?
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?