Thoughts on the Best Option?

[rickytv]

I own a Tivo Series 2 (DVR 4C70) which I expanded to two drives a few months ago. Since those were 200 Gig drives, and all I did was the drive expansion, I know I'm wasting some space.

Add in the fact that while the TiVO is attached to my living room TV and digital cable box, it would be nice to watch programs in other rooms in the house.

My "temporary" solution has been to plug a Leapfrog transmitter into my TiVO, and then attach a TiVO receiver on the family computer, put the output of that into a Canopus ADVC-100 Firewire capture device, and then use Kino (Linux 2.6.7 kernel machine) to capture the signal and ffmpeg to translate that to an MPEG-4 AVI that I can play back with MPlayer or use to burn DVDs. The biggest advantage of this setup is that it allows me to "back up" my programs on a RAID-5 array of USB2 drives (4 250 Gig drives which means 750 Gig of storage).

Needless to say, this is getting to be a bit tedious

Part of me thinks that the "solution" is to get another TiVO upstairs and look forward to "TiVO to Go" for sharing programs. But I still have a capacity problem, and I'm willing to bet that while "TiVO to Go" will let you store your programs on a Windows computer, it won't let you do that on a Linux box.

So then I think I should go with something like MythTV - but then I'm looking at buying a lot more hardware, and not having quite the same level of support and ease of use - particularly if XMLTV feeds continue to drop off.

I'm looking for some help trying to decide how to create a decent home media setup with enough space to keep our music, photos, home videos, and recorded TV programs around, without breaking the bank, and without trying to turn the rest of my family into geeks.

Would be interested in strategies or suggestions from the group.

Thanks,
Ricky

[rickytv]

Dumb question? Wrong Forum? Etiquette Breach?

I'm not trying to avoid paying for service (already have a lifetime subscription) - just trying to find an answer that lets me use all my disk space and has a fairly simple interface. If there's going to be something like JavaHMO for the "to go" service, then buying another TiVO is probably the best solution with continued "archive" to the computer.

Just would like to spend less time worrying about what stuff I have to move around when something like Lawrence of Arabia is scheduled (4 hours - good, but rather large...)

TIA,
Ricky

[gsxrpilot]

So is the question "how do I watch recorded shows on other TV's and/or my computer? If so, here are some possiblilities:

1. Other TIVOs with HMO and MRV enabled. This is the most practical solution as well as the easiest. You just browse other TIVO's and select "Watch on this TIVO"
2. Video Distribution. This will put the output of your tivo over all cables in the house. Hardware cost could be high.
2. Extraction - this would be primarily for your computer, although if you could hook a laptop to other TV's it would be usefull.
3. Other video devices on the other TV's (ie chipped Xbox with Xbox media center) These would allow you to put shows stored on the main TIVO onto another ethernet device and watch on the TV on which they are attached.

I'm sure there are other methods, these are off the top of my head.

[rickytv]

That's sort of the question. I guess my real question is whether there's any reason to think "Tivo to Go" will support a Linux desktop rather than just a Windows desktop - and if not if there's any likelihood of an open source version that will run on Linux being made available. IOW, if I buy the USB dongle that I gather will be required for authenticating a computer, is it going to require an ACK that only a Windows computer will be able to provide?

My preference IS to buy a couple more TiVOs and just use my array as an archive that feeds them/backs them up. However, I don't want to buy a couple more TiVOs only to find out that I still need to buy some more computers to supplement them because I can only use part of their functionality. It's much easier to look at setting up another RAID array as I need space than to setup a farm of TiVOs just to make sure I can hold onto an old show that is rarely shown anymore and not available on DVD.

Again, if there's some fundamental issue I'm missing here, please feel free to let me know

Thanks,
Ricky

[archibael]

What's wrong with:

1) Network TiVo
2) Disable encryption
3) Install vserver on the TiVo box
4) Install the mplayer "hacked for tivo" on the Linux box, along with MythTV as a front end (you don't need all the capture card stuff to run MythTV front end)

This last is a big plus. I've just set up myself this weekend, and it's pretty damned cool. Click of a button gives me the list of TiVo programs, and then scroll down, select one, and it streams to my Linux box over Ethernet. Is that the sort of thing you're looking for?

[eastwind]

My preference IS to buy a couple more TiVOs and just use my array as an archive that feeds them/backs them up. However, I don't want to buy a couple more TiVOs only to find out that I still need to buy some more computers to supplement them because I can only use part of their functionality. It's much easier to look at setting up another RAID array as I need space than to setup a farm of TiVOs just to make sure I can hold onto an old show that is rarely shown anymore and not available on DVD.

Again, if there's some fundamental issue I'm missing here, please feel free to let me know

Thanks,
Ricky

Or you could look at the extraction forum. Burn the copies to DVD for archive, and play them with any DVD player that will work for you. I don't know S2 model numbers, but if you have a Stand Alone you can adjust the resolution of the recordings (before they're made) to something DVD compliant. Requires hacking the box so that the recordings aren't scrambled, and one of three servers that allow extraction (TyTool, TyStudio, or mfs_ftp). You could even store the show offline in the original format (.TY) if you wanted to only view them on the TiVo. Mfs_ftp allows you to put the shows back on the TiVo for viewing, although I imagine you're compression method would save space.

ew

[CySurflex]

4) Install the mplayer "hacked for tivo" on the Linux box, along with MythTV as a front end (you don't need all the capture card stuff to run MythTV front end)

This last is a big plus. I've just set up myself this weekend, and it's pretty damned cool. Click of a button gives me the list of TiVo programs, and then scroll down, select one, and it streams to my Linux box over Ethernet. Is that the sort of thing you're looking for?

will WinMyth work for that as the front-end?

[archibael]

will WinMyth work for that as the front-end?

Perhaps, but the only one I am aware of that works for TiVo is

http://tivo-mplayer.sourceforge.net/

[CySurflex]

I just found this thread which is really about doing something similar:

http://www.meedio.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=49183

the EXE download link is broken though, so I can't try it out.

[TivoWare]

What's wrong with:

1) Network TiVo
2) Disable encryption
3) Install vserver on the TiVo box
4) Install the mplayer "hacked for tivo" on the Linux box, along with MythTV as a front end (you don't need all the capture card stuff to run MythTV front end)

This last is a big plus. I've just set up myself this weekend, and it's pretty damned cool. Click of a button gives me the list of TiVo programs, and then scroll down, select one, and it streams to my Linux box over Ethernet. Is that the sort of thing you're looking for?

Does this support live streams?

[rickytv]

What's wrong with:

1) Network TiVo
2) Disable encryption
3) Install vserver on the TiVo box
4) Install the mplayer "hacked for tivo" on the Linux box, along with MythTV as a front end (you don't need all the capture card stuff to run MythTV front end)

The fact that steps 2, 3, and 4 require me to find a kernel to hack to accomplish them?

Don't suppose any of the vendors sell a "pre-hacked" TiVO with TiVOWebPlus or vserver already installed?

I know the idea of hacking my TiVO "shouldn't" bother me. But while the Hinsdale walk through allowed me to add a second hard drive without any problems, when I read through the various guides for how to get a TiVO Series 2 to let you put things like vserver or TyTool on them, I just get this spinning sensation in my head. Whereas reading through Hinsdale left me with the feeling that "yes I can do this" - and then I actually did, I have yet to find a guide to doing the more substantial hacks that doesn't leave me more confused.

And I'm not exactly an ***** - I run a custom distribution of Linux at home (even customized my kernel) - but somehow I always feel like I am when I try to plan out how to get more out of my TiVO than just more space.

Guess that's more than you wanted to know, but felt that maybe it was worth saying anyway

Thanks,
Ricky

[NutKase]

The fact that steps 2, 3, and 4 require me to find a kernel to hack to accomplish them?

Don't suppose any of the vendors sell a "pre-hacked" TiVO with TiVOWebPlus or vserver already installed?

I know the idea of hacking my TiVO "shouldn't" bother me. But while the Hinsdale walk through allowed me to add a second hard drive without any problems, when I read through the various guides for how to get a TiVO Series 2 to let you put things like vserver or TyTool on them, I just get this spinning sensation in my head. Whereas reading through Hinsdale left me with the feeling that "yes I can do this" - and then I actually did, I have yet to find a guide to doing the more substantial hacks that doesn't leave me more confused.

And I'm not exactly an ***** - I run a custom distribution of Linux at home (even customized my kernel) - but somehow I always feel like I am when I try to plan out how to get more out of my TiVO than just more space.

Guess that's more than you wanted to know, but felt that maybe it was worth saying anyway

Thanks,
Ricky

Dude,
You run video all around your house using hd arrays to archive/backup. You run a linux box as your primary computer which you're so unwilling to give up and switch to windows just to get tivo-to-go. You've recompiled a linux kernel... Now, at the end of this interesting thread, you say your head 'spins' at the thought of:

1. Asking your tivo which parition it boots from with bootpage
2. Mounting a couple of partitions with mount
3. Moving a couple of files around with cp and dd
4. Applying a couple of patches with killhdinitrd, Superpatch-4all, etc

?

That's almost funny.

Here I was thinking that I needed to quit playing with all this tivo stuff and finish getting my AV home theater built (I don't even have surround even with 2 wide-screens) and that I was behind the video times...


Anyway,

1. Take one of those 250gb's out of the array
2. Tell the family to standby for a weekend and that they'll like the result
3. Apply the tivo OS you backed up during hinsdale using mfsrestore
4. Hack your tivo - everythings here
5. Next week buy a second one and do it again (you don't even have to subscribe if you just want to watch things you've HMO'd to it)

and using this you can burn anything you want, and take it where ever you want, and watch it on whatever you want to watch it on, as many times as you want to watch it...


dongleless,

permissionfromtivoless,

tivotogoless!


It's a BEAUTIFUL thing. Good luck.


NutKase