Petition for a new project: Remove TMS and TVGuide nags from 4.01b

[AlphaWolf]

This one would require some disassembly skills and probably some experience with hacking tivoapp. The tvguide branding and the "Copyright: Tribune Media Services" nags are quite annoying. It would be good to have these removed entirely. Any takers?

[SledgeHammer]

Didn't you release a script a while ago that replaces two images in the database with a one pixel transparent image to get rid of the TV guide logo?

In any event... here.

As for the copyright notice at the bottom of the guide, that is not an image or in tivoapp. I believe its in one of the string tables in the database. I started looking for it, but gave up when my friend wanted his S2 back. I suspect if you set that sucker to be empty you'll have your solution since this text is transparent.

[rpl]

The tvguide branding quite annoying. It would be good to have these removed entirely. Any takers?

Its in the 4.0 sticky thread.
remove
I think I used a bit of code you gave us a while back.

[JJBliss]

As for the copyright notice at the bottom of the guide, that is not an image or in tivoapp. I believe its in one of the string tables in the database. I started looking for it, but gave up when my friend wanted his S2 back. I suspect if you set that sucker to be empty you'll have your solution since this text is transparent.

Indeed. The "Tribune..." is in ResourceGroup 1 ResourceID 706 and 34/41 Use textchange.tcl to make it whatever you want.I can't seem to find the copyright symbol though...

[AlphaWolf]

Well, while these solutions can work, I would prefer a patch solution. Hell I could have done that myself :P

[AhoyMatey]

Indeed. The "Tribune..." is in ResourceGroup 1 ResourceID 706 and 34/41 Use textchange.tcl to make it whatever you want.I can't seem to find the copyright symbol though...

I know this is off-topic for what AW wants, but making 34/40 and 34/41 empty strings removes the entire display, even the copyright symbol.

BTW there is another string set at 14/702 and 14/703. Don't know where this one is displayed.

[chrised]

Indeed. The "Tribune..." is in ResourceGroup 1 ResourceID 706 and 34/41 Use textchange.tcl to make it whatever you want.I can't seem to find the copyright symbol though...

I know this is off-topic for what AW wants, but making 34/40 and 34/41 empty strings removes the entire display, even the copyright symbol.

BTW there is another string set at 14/702 and 14/703. Don't know where this one is displayed.

1/706 removes it from the "info" screen which is the one that bugs me the most. The copyright symbol disappears too, even though not part of the string (tivoapp must have that hardcoded to show when needed).

34/40 & 41 remove the line from the bottom of the guide screen which might not be visible on some screens (from being so low).

14/703 is on the system information screen copyright area (nobody reads that, right?) so, who cares.


So, it seems modifying textchange.tcl to do these patches should be easy. However, do these locations vary in other 4.0 versions? (I'm on 4.0.1b-02)

[chrised]

There already is a functional TVGuide logo removal tool in a patch form.

http://www.dealdatabase.com/forum/sh...&postcount=162

On my first attempt at using this, I was concerned about the second half of the patch script where it removes "CompressedFile" from several resources.

I removed that part of the code and used it. It was fatal. On reboot, I got this error and the only way I could find around it was to restore.

Creating ApgReader
Tmk Assertion Failure:
    GetImage, line 327 ()
Tmk Fatal Error: Thread myworld <169> died due to signal -2
<reboot loop>

On my second attempt, I used the code in its original form and it worked fine.

From what I gather from this and other experiences, the "CompressedFile" is built at startup if missing. Changes to string resources are simply ignored if the CompressedFile isn't removed. For images, it must contain some critical references to the image files, which is why I had my bad experience. It would be nice if authors of these various scripts could take a few moments and add some comments to the less than intuitive steps they are taking.

[woracan]

I have started work on a tivoapp patch to remove the "Tribune Media Services" nags and the TVGuide branding. I'm working on 7.2.0a, but once I get a working patch it should not be too hard to port to older and newer versions.

So far I've managed to get rid of the "Tribune Media Services" that appears after the description in the info banner. Unfortunately I nuked the entire description there as well. I also made a (not quite useful) patch that causes only a single line to be printed for the truncated description with ellipsis at the end. This patch even truncates the "Tribune Media Services" nag if it falls in the right place.

Interestingly enough, when applying the "baby and bathwater" patch, it kills only the description in the info banner and leaves the description in the guide screen intact. Of course the guide screen places the nag at the bottom of the screen and not immediately following the description anyway. Now if I can find the difference between the drawing of the description in the two places. First I've got to locate the code that draws the guide description.

I know about other methods of getting rid of the TVGuide logos, but like AlphaWolf, I'd like a tivoapp patch to do the job.

[woracan]

Here are the patches for 7.2.0a

VMA        previous   new          Patch function
0x00480584 0c12895b 00001021 -remove TVGuide logo from info screen
0x004becc8 0c12895b 00001021 -remove TVGuide logo from guide screen
0x004d1688 0c12895b 00001021 -remove Tribune nag from bottom of guide screen
0x004d8abc 0c12895b 00001021 -remove Tribune nag from info screen

In the process of finding these, I stumbled upon a possibly useful patch for someone:

VMA        previous   new          Patch function
0x0047fd08 0c12895b 00001021 -makes info screen go tiny during channel change

I'll be happy to attempt to port to other versions if you can provide me with a link to download the tivoapp and contents of /lib for the version you want it ported to.

[woracan]

Here are the patches for 7.2.2b

VMA        previous   new          Patch function
0x00483428 0c1294c7 00001021 -remove TVGuide logo from info screen
0x004C221C 0c1294c7 00001021 -remove TVGuide logo from guide screen
0x004D4034 0c1294c7 00001021 -remove Tribune nag from bottom of guide screen
0x004D9810 0c1294c7 00001021 -remove Tribune nag from info screen

And, in case anyone is interested, the possibly useful patch:

VMA        previous   new          Patch function
0x00482BBC 0c1294c7 00001021 -makes info screen go tiny during channel change

[woracan]

Here are the patches for 5.3

VMA        previous   new          Patch function
0x007caf04 0320f809 00001021 -remove TVGuide logo from guide screen
0x007cb004 0320f809 00001021 -remove Tribune nag from bottom of guide screen
0x009e0660 0320f809 00001021 -remove TVGuide logo from info screen
0x00b2b930 0320f809 00001021 -remove Tribune nag from info screen

[tivo4mevo]

Neat patches.

Here they are for 7.2.2-oth

VMA        previous   new          Patch function
0x00483408 0c1294bf 00001021 -remove TVGuide logo from guide screen
0x004c21fc 0c1294bf 00001021 -remove Tribune nag from bottom of guide screen
0x004d4014 0c1294bf 00001021 -remove TVGuide logo from info screen
0x004d97f0 0c1294bf 00001021 -remove Tribune nag from info screen

0x00482b9c 0c1294bf 00001021 -makes info screen go tiny during channel change