Is the hacking worth it after Tivo-to-Go?

[TiVOBell]

I hacked my S2 because I wanted to archive my recordings digitally on DVD.

With the announcement of TiVo-to-go, I have decided that it is no longer worth staying on the hacking 'treadmill.' (I am a bit of a newbie and it took considerable time and effort to keep my precious TiVo up and hacked.) I will wait for TiVo-to-Go so that I have a supported, stable box.

I will miss TivoWeb, but TiVo's web scheduling will fill most of my need.

How do you feel? Will you stop the hacking when Tivo-to-Go becomes available?

[mrblack51]

esentially, you just stated that the tivo-to-go stuff provides everything you "need" at a price you are willing to pay. as such, of course hacking probably isnt a good deal for you. some people are into this stuff for the challenge, some are in it to get functionality that tivo didnt include, and some just for the fun of it. well, if you are only the middle of the three, it would be logical for you to have no reason to hack once the functionality which originally wasnt included became available.

[TiVOBell]

esentially, you just stated that the tivo-to-go stuff provides everything you "need" at a price you are willing to pay. as such, of course hacking probably isnt a good deal for you. some people are into this stuff for the challenge, some are in it to get functionality that tivo didnt include, and some just for the fun of it. well, if you are only the middle of the three, it would be logical for you to have no reason to hack once the functionality which originally wasnt included became available.

Agreed, and I am expecting that a high percentage of DDB folks fall into the last bucket. I thought it would be interesting to find out what sort of 'fallout' the new services would have here.

My subject may have been deceptive, I know it will probably no longer be worth it for me, I was wondering how the rest of the group felt.

[malfunct]

Agreed, and I am expecting that a high percentage of DDB folks fall into the last bucket. I thought it would be interesting to find out what sort of 'fallout' the new services would have here.


Extraction is the only thing I use my hacks for, though having a DTivo, TivoToGo will never matter to me as I don't expect that DirecTV will ever allow us to burn thier content. Anyways having access to the raw mpeg stream from DirecTV instead of a transcoded stream from the pc is way better, the compression and quality is much better than I can achieve with software available to me.

[TiVOBell]

Extraction is the only thing I use my hacks for, though having a DTivo, TivoToGo will never matter to me as I don't expect that DirecTV will ever allow us to burn thier content.

Why would they care if the stream can't be shared? :confused:

[mrblack51]

Why would they care if the stream can't be shared? :confused:

they seem to feel that the digital video pulled off the sat feed by the directivo is too good, and therefore consumers shouldnt be allowed to archive that digital feed. its largely for "piracy" concerns, but its always about money. this is evidenced by the fact that dtv wont allow HMO now, which only allows show sharing between units (which, if you think about it, its kinda dumb, because the tivos that would be allowed to share should, in most cases, be on the same dtv account as well, and therefore have the same content authorization)

[malfunct]

they seem to feel that the digital video pulled off the sat feed by the directivo is too good, and therefore consumers shouldnt be allowed to archive that digital feed. its largely for "piracy" concerns, but its always about money. this is evidenced by the fact that dtv wont allow HMO now, which only allows show sharing between units (which, if you think about it, its kinda dumb, because the tivos that would be allowed to share should, in most cases, be on the same dtv account as well, and therefore have the same content authorization)

I don't even really think its DirecTV that cares, its the people who provide content to DirecTV that are all in a hissy fit. Heck the are rather pissed that we have a way to save the content in the first place and have been since they got smacked around in court over VCR's. Broadcast TV and the advertising revenue that goes with it is going to die in about 10 years anyway as far as I can tell. We will be paying about 3x more to get the same amount of tv that we get now and be happy about it because it gets to us the way we want. It will take a major revolution in the TV industry but the building blocks are there for it to happen.

(What I'm speaking of is true interactive tv and tv on demand as facilitated by streaming over an IP network, a number of companies in great position to enter this field are working on the problem right now, and working on it in direct coordination with the content providers.)

[CableNOT]

For Series 2 Direct TiVos, HMO isn't an option anyway. If you want to burn DVDs from the DirecTV stream, prior to a digital-analog conversion in SA TiVos, then hacking your TiVo is the only way to go.

[AVD]

Why would I need DTV, if someone I know could burn the shows for me?

[AlphaWolf]

With all things considered, its likely that the tivotogo is going to be bombarded with so much DRM that it will only be a shadow of what can be gained here through hacking (plus, the better solution doesn't cost anything.)

[wkozun]

If they (TiVo and DirecTV) keep going further and futher with stuff like anti-hacking and DRM isn't that going to push people to other, more open options.

For example, you can use a PC with Beyond TV or Sage to record directly to MPEG files on your PC. Then you can copy the files to wherever you want, no DRM and no way of enforcing DRM unless there is a no-copy flag that the TV tuner card (ie. a Hauppauge PVR 250) will respect. Sure you have to encode yourself but with a high quality source signal is that much of an issue?

Then for the Unix inclined there are other options such as MythTV.

Sure this is not as user friendly as a TiVo, but it is getting there and the costs are becoming more equal as well.

[FredThompson]

TivoToGo requires a hardware FOB and an extra layer of decryption, doesn't it? That's hardly a VCR substitute.

Don't forget, the content providers and large networks didn't want VCRs to be legal. In a way, their role forces them to always strive to restrict the ability to record. One aspect of the American copyright system is copyright holders are required to practice due diligence to enforce their copyrights, i.e., they are required to actively seek to stop unauthorized/unlicensed reproduction of their copyrighted properties. The counter-side is supposed to be the government which is supposed to take the role of proponent of society's ultimate ownership. By definition, copyright is a temporary exclusive right given to an entity by society with the goal of economic reward for the creators of works to encourage continued development.

Having said that somwhat-academic stuff, don't think for a minute the American public will sit idly by and be forced to lug VHS recorders around or jump through huge hoops when they can shoot and distribute home movies through purely digital means. Nor will they allow the various networks to dictate all aspects of when and how programming may be viewed. OVerly restrictive distribution means low sales which means low/no income which means collapse of the "providers." Other than some tax-supported content creation (all of which is supposed to be public domain), we chose where we will spend money. One very important aspect of the American market is the influence and effect of paid advertising.

One very large proponent we have is Michael Powell, head of the FTC. I don't have the link anymore but you can probably Google around and find his quotes from a year or so ago where he calls TiVo "God's machine" and says he understands the need to limit large-scale digital reproduction but also thinks he should be able to view on his sister's TiVo a recording he made on his TiVo. He's certainly not going to think he must prohibit his sister from viewing the recording and I'd really doubt he's ready to tell people they can't share digital recordings they've made themselves. The land of the VCR isn't going to turn into the land of the studio-controlled digital peepshow.

If TiVo runs down the path of excessive or cumbersome DRM, their lunch will get eaten by competitors, and well it should be.

If you want to use TivoToGo, go right ahead. More than likely it won't go much of anywhere. Remember Liquid Audio? That was a real winner, too.

[BubbleLamp]

I'm no fan of DrecTV, but I caught the Best of CES show the other day (I was a judge for them a few years ago!). Their best of pick is an Awesome Denon box that will cost a ton, but is totally where this segment is going. Check it out here (http://www.techtv.com/freshgear/specialevents/story/0,23008,3591508,00.html).

[FredThompson]

That is cool. Looks like a hot-swapped drive bay. Hope it's metal and not plastic like most of the cheap PC shuttles.

Here' another cool A/V server: http://www.kaleidescape.com/flash.php and there's always VideoLAN if you want to roll your own.

The biggest complaint I have with DirecTV is the frequent inability of the MPEG encoders to hide themselves. Last night, during the NFC championship, I saw the screen go blocky at least once. That kind of thing just shouldn't happen, especially on high-viewership programs. If they had clean 480x480 encodes, it would be great.

I guess they've got one of two possible futures; lead the marketplace in quality and convenience or prove the ocncept for someone else to be the leader.

[FredThompson]

Why would I need DTV, if someone I know could burn the shows for me?You know someone who will dedicate their lives to obtaining recordings for you?...TANSTAAFL

[rc3105]

TANSTAAFL
Heinlein fan?

[FredThompson]

I was wondering how long it would take someone to recognize that ;)

[rc3105]

if Arthur C Clark is credited with inventing the communication satellite then Robert A Heinlein should be credited with inventing the tivo, it's just a video version of GayDeciever's radio...

(actually, gd's "radio" might have been video, don't think it was specified)

[captain_video]

I grok that! :D

[TheWickedPriest]

One aspect of the American copyright system is copyright holders are required to practice due diligence to enforce their copyrights,Not so. You're thinking of trademarks. There's no such requirement with respect to copyright; it's not a "use it or lose it" situation.


By definition, copyright is a temporary exclusive right given to an entity by society with the goal of economic reward for the creators of works to encourage continued development.Yeah. Unfortunately, the copyright cartels (MPAA, RIAA, et al.) are trying very hard to encourage the notion, instead, that copyright is a natural right, and that "intellectual property" is the same as real property. This is why they fight even such incredibly mild proposals as the Public Domain Enhancement Act (http://eldred.cc/) -- because it undermines the notion of perpetual copyright that they're trying to establish.


One very large proponent we have is Michael Powell, head of the FTC.FCC. Anyway, I don't see him as an ally; at best, he's a moderate -- he'll only give the cartels half of what they want. But we've already gone much too far in their direction -- they need to be rolled back, not further compromised with. And Powell's not the man for that job. He may think Tivo is "God's machine", but he's still looking at it from a consumerist perspective -- if it doesn't bother the average Joe, sure, bring on the DRM. Whether it's fundamentally right or wrong doesn't seem to be something he's considered.

[sanderton]

Seems that the DVD burning of TiVo to go will be limited to MyDVD, and that will re-encode the video to a DVD compilant resolution.

So still plenty of room for the quicker, higher quality hacks!

[wkozun]

The more stringent that TiVo (and similar companies) are with respect to DRM the more they are going to push people to HTPCs.

If TiVo makes it harder why not just switch to an HTPC?

For not much more $ you can get a PC, throw in a card with a hardware MPEG encoder and BeyondTV or SageTV and encode directly to an MPEG-2 file that is trivial to then burn to DVD or reencode to Divx or wmv. The UI is not quite up to TiVo standards but it is getting pretty close. You can also use the HTPC as a DVD player, picture viewer, web browser,etc. and there is no monthly fee.

How can they ever stop that with DRM? Perhaps on digital channels, but not on analog channels or channels that are available via the S-Video output of your satellite or digital cable STB.

[AVD]

The UI is not quite up to TiVo standards but it is getting pretty close.


My problem with HTPC is that the interface is very laggy, and that is on a 3.0ghz machine

I've heard good things about showstopper, but never tried it.

The beauty of the TiVo is that you plug it in and it works, my 3 year old has been using it for the last year, and my wife can use it too.