TiVo question?

[dvd_maniac]

I am interested in purchasing a Tivo series2 with 80gb, ethernet. I was wondering if this box records to a vcd format, and if so, can I transfer it to pc for editing?

[Fantasma]

Hello

I have never had a Tivo, in my country is not supported, so I can't really help you.

Try reading as much as you can, the following site is a good start:

http://www.tivofaq.com/hack/faq.html

As far as I know, you need to know Linux to proceed.

Good luck.

[dvd_maniac]

That site did in fact give me all the info I needed. Unfortunately it does not record to any format that a pc can recognize and therefore will not do what I need. I will have to wait til a product comes out that has a bridge to the pc. This really stinks, all I want is an interactive guide to record all my favorite shows on the pc through my digital cable or directv sat

[dar1us]

But you can network a TiVO to a PC, VIA a LAN.

It records in MPEG-2, same as DVD, so it can be recognised... It records at oversampled SVCD, 480x480 NTSC and 480x576, mighty PAL.


harrison

[dvd_maniac]

Hacking The TiVo FAQ Entry
Hacking The TiVo FAQ Entry

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4.2. Can I extract videos from the TiVo?
No. The format of the partitions that contain the video is not known at this time. Work is being done on this though so stay tuned.
Edit this entry / Log info / Last changed on Fri Sep 22 23:10:08 2000 by mhill

So is this an outdated statement?
I was told by TiVo when I called last night that it was not possible and that the ethernet and usb ports were only for input, to schedule recording through the internet and network.
Is this false? Do you in fact extract video from the TiVo yourself?

[sych0]

The tivo answer is no, you cannot extract video. The REAL answer is yes, it can in fact be done. Im not sure what the deal with series 2 is however. I believe its encrypted. But if you look on ebay you can find a used series 1 model. You need to do a few modifications first though.

First, youll need a turbonet card, which is basically an ethernet port for your tivo. Yes, series 2 already has this, but series 1 does not. Then youd install some software so that it is picked up on your home network. After that, youd use a program called TyStudio (its a windows app) to transfer the video over the network. I believe they are all standard mpeg2 but with an improper header to allow for fast forwarding and such. TyStudio, while transferring, will rewrite the header to a proper mpeg2 header so you can edit/burn/whatever you like.

Ive never actually done this, but have always wanted to. My biggest stumbling block is the linux stuff. You need to know your way around linux, to get the software on the tivo. I dont have one drop of knowledge in that area.

So i would suggest either shopping around ebay or whatever and try to find a series 1 tivo or do some reading on series 2 video extraction and see how they work. If you got a series 1, youd most likely get a tiny hard drive. With the money saved buying a used one though, you invest in a new hard drive.

Your other option is a replay tv. Those will not only let you download the video to you pc, but also stream it to other pc's.

And now for the links :)

http://www.tivocommunity.com - THE place for underground tivo information (except video extraction, since tivo seems to be opposed to it, with the encryption and all)
http://www.dealdatabase.com/forum/ - THE place for tivo video extraction and TyStudio
https://sourceforge.net/projects/dvd-create - TyStudio
http://www.9thtee.com - You can pick up a TurboNet card here.
http://www.weaknees.com - You can pick up a preconfigured tivo hard drive here, or even buy a new series 2 with expanded storage. They say you just drop the new drives in and youre good to go. I just ordered one today.
http://www.newreleasesvideo.com/hinsdale-how-to/index9.html - How to add a hard drive yourself.
http://www.replaytv.com - Replay's website

[dvd_maniac]

http://qtech.liveserver.com/
It's a cool program to extract and more, the video files from replytv to pc.

Thanx to sych0
I will be getting the replaytv unit tommorow...

[sych0]

Right. I forgot to mention that sonic blue (i dont believe) officially support downloading video to the pc, however, i know they demo'd it on techtv once using a third party application. The replay is basically more hacker friendly than the tivo.

[FredThompson]

Follow the link in my sig and look on the DirecTiVo page for discussion forums. Series 1 is cracked completely. DirecTV-integrated units store the satellite stream which is MPEG-2 but not compliant with standards so working with it is a little touchy. Series 2 has been partially cracked.

[BaronVlad]

maybe this could help also:

http://salfter.dyndns.org/tivo2svcd.shtml

sorry for the late reply :scared:

[John2002]

Besides being well cracked the other benefit of the series 1 (with initial OS 1.3 or earlier) is that you can skip the monthly fee and just set it to record like a VCR. The system clock will drift over time but it's easily set by logging into the Tivo using your PC through a serial cable. The Tivo reminder messages aren't very annoying at all.