DirecTivo 3.1, MPEG Extract, Q?

[AbMagFab]

Okay, I have TurboNet, TivoWeb, etc. on my DirecTivo and it seems to work okay. I'm using the commercial 3.1 software, but have flashed the PROM.

Next thing is video extraction.

I'm gathering that basically, anything already recorded is perma scrambled, but I can tell my DirecTivo to stop scrambling for new recordings.

I appear to have two options:
- Kernal hack using dd - pros, perma; cons, all existing scrambled recordings would be useless
- Autoscramble - pros, allows me to see both types of recordings; cons, errors when switching and potential reboot on LiveTV switch

Questions:
- Do I need to do the kernal hack if I use autoscramble? (Or is autoscramble just doing the hack for me)
- How can I be absolutely, positively sure the kernal hack will work properly?
- TyStudio or TyTools, and what's really the diff?

I like simple as possible, and I'm willing to do things a little more manually if it means fewer DirecTivo tweaks (e.g. I can just pull an entire file down and edit/clip it on my PC, no need to do so before pulling it down).

Thanks.

Edit: I capture and edit regular videos on my PC and burn DVD's already, so I've got and am familiar with the PC side of this, which is why I just need to get the MPEG file to my PC, with as little disruption to my DirecTivo as possible.

[AbMagFab]

Update -

I downloaded TyTool, and got the server side running, and the client side. I got the NowShowing list in the client (I assume the numbers on the far right are the "segments" the show is recorded on).

I clicked Get, the server-side was chugging for a while, and at the end I got a 3KB MPG file that was junk, and a .TXT file.

I'm assuming this is due to the scrambled nature of the video, so I'm still looking for some help on this.

(BTW, I also did a search on "autoscramble directivo" and got 1 thread that didn't help much.)

[SynAck]

search NOSCRAMBLE

[AbMagFab]

Did that too, but after roughly 1000+ messages, there appear to be two options:

1) the DD kernel hack
2) the autoscrable option

And they are strewn across about 30 threads, so there's no consistent information. Also, the newest actual data is from December 2002, which is pretty old, and much of it is vague around a "stock" 3.1 kernel, or an Xtreme one.

Rather than use old information and trash my DirecTivo, I was hoping someone who has done this recently could provide some better information.

Specifically:
- Recent autoscramble files that work with a stock DirecTivo 3.1 (there's a 2.0 version from December, and comments of a newer one being created somewhere)
- Information on undoing autoscramble if needed
- Any recent experience with autoscramble

That's it.

[SynAck]

The autoscramble is kind of a PITA, but it does server a useful purpose when you have a mix of scrambled and unscrambled.

The 2.0 autoscramble does work fine on a 3.1 DTivo... although it has an annoying error/reset issue that cannot be circumvented.

I would think you would want a patched system since you will most likely want to mod the rc.sysinit to get the insmod and .tcl files to load automatically at boot.

Autoscramble loads and patches the system dynamically... it works as soon as you load the two files. Reboot without loading the files and it will be gone... I suppose you can also unload/kill them somehow too.

[AbMagFab]

I assume the annoying issue you mention is when you go to Live TV after being in "scramble" mode?

[AbMagFab]

Okay, I downloaded noscramble 2.0, which only includes 2 files, and seems to imply I need TivoLater. Isn't TivoLater like Xtreme? I have flashed the PROM (from TurboNet nic_install), but I'm using a regular 3.1 kernel (with rc.sysinit edited to load ftpd, telnetd, and TivoWeb).

Is there something I'm missing, or do I need to use an entirely new kernel (TivoLater) to use autoscramble?

[SynAck]

Yes, I was talking about the reset that happens if u watch live TV after watching a scrambled show w/o watching a recorded nonscrambled show.

If you have the patched prom, then you should be all set.

copy the noscramble_mbm.o file to /lib/modules
put the autoscramble.tcl somewhere like /var/hack
do a chmod +x on the tcl file

edit rc.sysinit and add the following two lines at the end with the appropriate paths:

insmod /lib/modules/noscramble_mbm.o
tivosh /var/hack/autoscramble.tcl &

make sure you have NOSCRAMBLE turned OFF if it was set.

if you want to start them immediately w/o rebooting to get the rc.sysinit to execute, then just enter them manually at the prompt.

[AbMagFab]

Perfect! Thanks so much. This worked like a charm.

Part of my problem was I had a noscramble_130.zip somehow, and it didn't have the files mentioned above. I got the 20 version and it worked like a charm.

Thanks again!!!

[HowardS]

AbMagFab,
I am exactly in the predicament you were at the beggining of this thread. I have expanded the recording capcity of my all my Tivos and have quite a few recorded prgrams that I would still like to keep for a while, so the "Autoscramble" option seems to be a suitable solution that I am willing to attempt. So, far all of my upgrades, incuding the Turbonet card, and TivoWeb gone through smooth and without any problems... and finally, in attempting the video extraction, looks like I finally hit a wall! I have looked every for a link or post with to the noscramble 2.0, but can't seem to find one (noscramble_0130.zip is all I seem to be able to find). Can you please reply with an attached copy of the files you used in your upgrade (or link to a site)?

I would like to try and do the same wit my setup... also, if you have any suggestions that you might have regading this hack, would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Howard

[AbMagFab]

Here's the link:
http://www.dealdatabase.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=19918&perpage=15&highlight=noscramble&pagenumber=3

Page 3 should be in the link, it's at the top.

The instructions above worked fine.

However, TyTool is buggy. I gather that most of the Tivo recordings have various minor issues in them that we don't notice when played through the Tivo. However, TyTool seems to choke on them. I have only been able to download a 5-minute recording successfully. Anything else I've downloaded comes down, but doesn't play correctly all the way through. And I've tried through WMP as well as multiple software DVD players.

Hopefully the Ty folks will get this fixed.

[HowardS]

Thanks AbMagFab,
Got Link from DTivo User Saturday, and was able to succesfully install this hack! Works great!

Have you tried using TyStudio? With TyStudio, so far I seem to have been able to download complete movies and successfully convert them to a DVD compliant format.... but unfortunately crashed my Windows 2000 system before I had a chance to actually burn them to DVD to see how well the final product turned out. However, I did have a chance to view the video files on Windows Media Player and was plesently impressed with both the video and audio quality!

You may want to check this Post (http://www.dealdatabase.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=25616) by DTivo User, he also was having problems using TyTools.

Good Luck!
HowardS

[BIG Delo]

Hey guys. Its nice to see others going through the same trouble as I am! I've read most of the same posts as you did, but I'm still a little confused. I'm also kind of hesitant, seeing that most of the posts related to this topic seem kind of out dated. Do I need to do anything special after doing the following, or do you just make these changes & thats the end of it?

copy the noscramble_mbm.o file to /lib/modules
put the autoscramble.tcl somewhere like /var/hack
do a chmod +x on the tcl file

edit rc.sysinit and add the following two lines at the end with the appropriate paths:

insmod /lib/modules/noscramble_mbm.o
tivosh /var/hack/autoscramble.tcl &

***Do I use the "&" symbol at the end of these instructions when editing the rc.sysinit, or was that just an error on the post I copied them from? I was also wondering if I would still get the annoying reset error if I deleted all my old scrambled programs & only had newly recorded unscrambled shows? Thanks for any help! I'd be lost with out these great forums!

[AbMagFab]

- You need the & on the second one, since you want to put the tivosh into the background (the & runs it as a background process).

- Just make those changes, and that's it! If you only change the rc.sysinit, you'll need to reboot. Or you can change the rc.sysinit, and also enter the two commands at the telnet prompt so they're running without rebooting.

I have a DirecTivo SAT-T60 (Sony) with 3.1 regular software.

I've been using it for a while now, and it's reliable. The main thing is to make sure you play an unscambled show before you leave the Tivo for the night (otherwise it'll likely crash when it flips to Live TV). I recorded 5 minutes of "Wild On..." on E! when I added this, so I have a "marker" between my scrambled and unscrambled shows.

Once you get rid of all your scrambled shows, it still works fine and you don't need to change anything. I likely won't change anything, but it will be a while before all my old stuff is deleted.

No matter what you're watching, all new recordings are unscrambled. This just allows you to toggle between watching scrambled and unscrambled shows.

Let me know if this helps, or if you have any other questions.

[BIG Delo]

Thanks AbMagFab! I'm going to give it a try tonight.

[HowardS]

BIG Delo,
You will be surprised on how easy this mod is... just follow AbMagFab's steps and you are done! Have to admit, at first I was a bit nervous in attempting this last hack after reading posts on this subject that spanned about 6-7 months.

AbMagFab,
Did you ever solve your problem in using TyTool? Did you ever get a chance try and use TyStudio and see if you had the same problem? I had to completely reload my Windows 2000 system and applications and should be attempting a few DVD burns this weekend... let you you know if I run into same type problem you mentioned earlier.

Howard

[AbMagFab]

TyTool released a new version that seems a lot better. Either that, or coincidentally my recordings are cleaner.

I tested with two 30 minute and one 60 minute recording, and they all came down cleanly. I'll try a couple of 2 hour movies and see.

The version I have now is 7r6, and it's stickied to the top of this section I think. The previous seemingly buggy version was 7r4.

I took a look at TyStudio, but I don't like how intrusive it is. You need to install stuff in the main Tivo directory, it does some indices, etc. TyTool can be run only when you want it (telnet in and start the server), or permanently by sticking a line in the rc.sysinit. And it's a single process you can stick in your hack directory.

Unless TyTool turns out to still be very buggy, I think I'm going to stay with TyTool, and away from TyStudio, since I prefer the least "hacky" solutions.

[BIG Delo]

Thanks Howard & AbMagFab. I actually did the hack last night & everything went smooth. I extracted a 1/2 hour show (used TyTool 7R6), edited out all the commercials, multiplexed it & it works great! I also converted it to MPEG 1 format using TMPGEnc & burned it to a vcd that plays in my dvd player. All this work finally paid off! Thanks again guys.

[symm]

I am also running a mostly vanilla 3.1 (lifetime sub) Hughes Series 1 DTivo that I installed Turbonet on. I've read all the faqs and threads I've found and thought I understood the process fairly well.

I am currently running the autoscramble commands from the bash shell via telnet. The switch process to scrambled content works as expected. I select do not delete recording, acknowledge the error and scrambled files play fine. But when I attempt to play a unscrambled show (partial recording -- deleted and tried again partial recording 5-10 mins) it seems to work the same (do not delete, acknowledge error and play again) but reboots when the unscrambled recording starts. This is not the live buffer (unscrambled) but rather unscrambled recorded content. I've tried 3 times now with the same result each time.

I checked that chmod +x did not help. Not that I expected it to since the tcl script was obviously working to switch to scramble recordings. The only difference between the directions and my setup is the tcl file is /bin as I do not have a hack directory.

Sidenote: What's the best way to get joe (or vi), ls, ps and other useful tools without using Extreme? Again since I have a mostly vanilla lifetime subbed 3.1 DTivo I was hesitant to use Extreme or other hack compilations like xplusz.

Any assistance would be greatly appreciated.

Mike

[symm]

UPDATE: I believe the problem is solved. For the benefit of anyone who runs into the same problem here's my theory on what fixed things for me.

It occurred to me that since I was manually running the noscramble module code from the bash shell, the live TV buffer was a mixture of encrypted and non-encrypted video. By manually recording a program that the DTivo was already tuned to the entire buffer was saved including the encrypted (scrambled) portion at the beginning. The combination caused Tivo to crash/reboot.

I changed the channel and recorded a few minutes of a program with a cleared buffer and the autoscramble now works as expected. I successfully changed between scrambled and unscrambled recordings several times and could watch the live buffer as long as I had previously watched an unscrambled recording last. :D

[BIG Delo]

Hey Simm. Here's a link to a web site that will walk you through installing the Joe Editor & the rest of your linux functions: ls, rm, ps, mkdir, etc., just in case you were still interested. It's probably easiest to just create a hack directory, just because most of the "How To's" have you install the programs there (you must already be using some directory if you already installed autoscramble). Did you already create a rc.sysinit.author file for Starting Programs (like autoscramble) Automatically When Your TiVo Boots? If not this link will walk you through that as well. It's fairly easy. Good luck.

Dave

http://tivo.stevejenkins.com/network.html#_Toc43127458

[symm]

Thanks for the info Dave. I actually had run across that FAQ/How To earlier, but I have read so much in the last week it's leaking out my ears.

I setup up the /var/hack and /var/hack/bin with tivo-bin, joe (ps, top and tar were missing in my tarball but I added them from another site) and and setup the .profile to add the additional path dirs automatically. I also added the scramble_mbm.o insertion in rc.sysinit (after backing it up). I added it as the last line before the blank line but I am undecided whether to move it up to load earlier (as indicated in some threads here) or to just use the kernal hack once I've cleared the old encrypted programs.

I hadn't done any Tivo hacking since the early days before the first mfstools came out and that was with my SA Phillips 312 (added a 30GB drive and still have the ~30 CDs around here somewhere that I used for the v1.3 backup). I vaguely remember adding a 80GB drive to the Hughes DTivo with mfstools-1.1 in early '02 right after I bought the unit. Then I just used the thing and put up with the quirks. I've had the turbonet card laying around since at least early '02 and just installed it yesterday.

Video archiving (mostly for old movies not available on DVD -- like Charlie Chan) has been on my wish list since I started Tivoing so I plunged back in this week and am "drinking from the firehose" right now. I'm impressed with how far the contributors have come in reverse engineering the Tivo file format, etc. The tools are much more impressive and allow you to customize your Tivo exactly as you want.

For now I've decided to leave the unit as vanilla as possible as far as running additional processes. For that reason I'm leaning toward tytool based on what I've read in the forums here. I plan on manually running the tytool mfs server when I need to extract and if I understand correctly tystudio adds more auto run processes to the Tivo.

Right now I'm banging my head against the wall trying to figure out why NowShowing.tcl is complaining about "invalid attribute: RecordQuality" even though I'm running the 6-30-03 script from jdiner. The "3.0" vs "3." (for 3.1) reference that messed people up earlier doesn't seem to be the issue. I've read numerous threads for RecordQuality (most just seem to say "STFU noob and use the search" :( ) but I believe based on what I'm reading that the 6-30-03 script should not have the same issue. I can see the 3.1 vs 3.0 detection procedure in the script.

I guess i just need to keep reading. :)

Thanks again for the link.

Mike

[hackerdude23]

I have a DTiVo running 3.1 (it was running 2.5.2 and was upgraded via TurboNET connection to 3.1). Besides having the TurboNET card installed and drivers loaded, I dont have any hacks/mods. I got a copy of newscrable_20.zip (see other threads) and loaded the noscramble_mbm.o in my /lib/modules directory on hd_7 (hd_7 seems to have the new 3.1 code where hd_4 has the old 2.5.2 code - strange :( !) So I modified the /etc/rc.d/rc.sysinit to add the line:

insmod /lib/modules/noscramble_mbm.o

save the disk (doing all mods via a PC booting off the TuboNET install CD). Then I reinsert the HD in the DTiVo and boot it up. I get teh "Welcome Powering Up.." for a few very long seconds, then it reboots (yellow screen), gets the "Welcome Powering Up..." then proceeds to the next screen in the boot process. It continues to boot and works. But my mods to the rc.sysinit are gone. I dont remember if the .o is gone or not. I know everything I put in the /var/hacks directory is still there (/dev/hd_9/hacks).

What the hell am I doing wrong? :confused:

Eventually i want to get noscrable working and ftp/telnet working also. I want to be able to achrive certain things from the TiVo. :D

Any and all advice would be greatly appreciated!
dude

[freak]

I just started working with video extraction, but have worked with some black-box reverse engineering in the past...

Someone referenced the much anticipated "run from the bathtub naked screaming eureka" moment when a extract_mfs_decode() gets what we're all after, andI had a thought that may help in getting there...
Would it be possible to rename tivo binaries (i.e. myworld to myworld.orig), then replace myworld with a shell script that just calls "strace myworld.orig"? The output could be redirected to a file on the /var/ partition. If space becomes an issue, you could even use the cross-compiled version of netcat that I've seen floating around somewhere to send the STDOUT and STDERR to a port on a different machine on the network.

I might be approaching this from a far-too-uneducated perspective, but DTiVos have to be using some sort of software call to descramble the stored streams, so wouldn't strace give some insight to that magic?

I haven't yet even tried this concept, but I'm intrigued by the possibilities. I might start toying with it later this week, but since I've only got one TiVo (a T60), with a legit lifetime sub, there will certainly be a limit to how much monkeying I'm willing to do with it.