Tivo Hacks

TiVo Hacks helps you get the most out of your TiVo personal video recorder. Armed with just a screwdriver and basic understanding of PC hardware (or willingness to learn), preeminent hackability awaits. This book includes hacks for changing the order of recorded programs, activating the 30-second skip to blaze through commercials, upgrading TiVo's hard drive for more hours of recording, use of TiVo's Home Media Option to remotely schedule a recording via the Web, log in to the serial port for command-line access to programming data, log files, closed-captioning data, display graphics on the TiVo screen, and even play MP3s.

Readers who use advanced hacks to put TiVo on their home network via the serial port, Ethernet, USB, or wireless (with 802.11b WiFi) will watch a whole new world open up. By installing various open source software packages, you can use TiVo for mail, instant messaging, caller-ID, and more. It's also easy to run a web server on TiVo to schedule recordings, access lists of recorded shows, and even display them on a web site. While TiVo gives viewers personalized control of their TVs, TiVo Hacks gives users personalized control of TiVo.

Note: Not all TiVos are the same. The original TiVo, the Series 1, is the most hackable TiVo out there; it's a box thrown together with commodity parts and the TiVo code is running on open hardware. The Series 2 TiVo, the most commonly sold TiVo today, is not open. You won't see hacks in this book that involve modifying Series 2 software.

Table of Contents

Credits   

Preface   

Chapter 1. TiVo Remote Control Hacks  

       1. Swinging TiVo   

       2. Must-Skim TV   

       3. Navigation Shortcuts   

       4. The 30-Second Skip   

       5. An Onscreen Clock   

       6. Making the Play Bar Disappear Faster   

       7. What's Your TiVo Doing?   

       8. Opening the Backdoor   

       9. Italicizing Everything   

       10. Sorting the Now Playing List   

       11. Turning Off Overshoot Protection   

       12. Controlling Overshoot Protection   

       13. Pushing Fast Forward to Eleven   

       14. Viewing Suggestions in the To Do List   

       15. Viewing "Hidden" Recordings   

       16. Activating the Node Navigator   

       17. Enabling Advanced WishLists   

       18. Turning Off the TiVo Software   

       19. Applaud the TiVo Team   

Chapter 2. Adding More Hours  

       20. Opening the Box   

       21. Removing TiVo's Hard Drive or Drives   

       22. Installing TiVo's Hard Drive in Your PC   

       23. Using MFS Tools for Backup and Restore   

       24. Backing Up Your TiVo Software   

       25. Restoring from Backup   

       26. Adding a Second Drive the Quick-n-Dirty Way   

       27. Putting TiVo's Drives Back   

       28. Testing Your TiVo's New Capacity   

Chapter 3. The TiVo Shell  

       29. Mounting and Working with TiVo's Drive Partitions

       30. Enabling Bash over the Serial Port   

       31. Copying Unix Binaries to TiVo   

       32. Clean Up and Shut Down   

       33. Connecting to TiVo Serially   

       34. Installing Unix Binaries on TiVo   

       35. Poking Around   

       36. Moving Stuff to and from Your TiVo   

       37. Installing the less Pager on Your TiVo   

       38. Text Editing with vi on Your TiVo   

       39. Text Editing with Emacs on Your TiVo   

       40. Displaying Images on Your TV   

       41. Putting Text on the Screen   

       42. Capturing Closed Captioning   

       43. Caller ID on Your TV   

       44. Running the Same Thing Over and Over-   

       45. Save Multiple Shows at a Time to Your VCR   

       46. Playing MP3s on your TiVo   

Chapter 4. Bring the Internet to TiVo  

       47. Running PPP over TiVo's Serial Port   

       48. Accept a PPP Connection from TiVo on Your PC   

       49. Getting Your TiVo Series 1 Online   

       50. Getting Your TiVo Series 2 Online   

       51. Figuring Out Your TiVo's IP Address   

       52. Getting Telnet to Your Ethernet-Enabled TiVo   

       53. Fetching Files from the Web   

       54. wget Things from the Web   

       55. Setting Up an FTP server   

       56. Using the Same Filesystem   

       57. Reading Email on Your TiVo   

       58. Using the TiVo Control Station   

       59. Turning Your TV into a Virtual Window   

       60. Streaming Internet Audio Broadcasts to TiVo   

       61. Watching Your Email   

       62. Listen to Your Email   

Chapter 5. TiVo and the Web  

       63. Signing Up for the Home Media Option   

       64. Remotely Scheduling a Recording Through the HMO  

       65. TiVoWeb, a Web Interface to Your TiVo   

       66. Scheduling a Recording with TiVoWeb   

       67. What's on and beyond the To Do List?   

       68. Deleting Scheduled Recordings   

       69. Undeleting Recordings   

       70. Renaming Recordings   

       71. Editing Season Passes   

       72. Emulating the TiVo Remote   

       73. Emulating TiVo's Screens   

       74. Using TiVo Mail   

       75. Changing Channel Logos   

       76. Automatically Assigning All Logos   

       77. Creating Your Own Custom Logos   

       78. Dropping New Extensions into TiVoWeb   

       79. Starting TiVoWeb with TiVo   

       80. Putting Your TiVo on the Web   

Chapter 6. Working with Videos  

       81.  Pulling Video from Your TiVo over FTP   

       82. Pulling Video from Your TiVo via Web Interface   

       83. Playing Extracted Video   

       84. Streaming Video Directly from TiVo   

       85. Converting Extracted Video   

       86.  Putting Videos Back into TiVo   

       87. Moving Shows Between TiVo Units   

Chapter 7. Writing Code  

       88. Navigating the Media Filesystem   

       89. Inspecting MFS Objects   

       90. Extracting Your Now Showing List   

       91. Discovering Your Favorite Actors   

       92. Discovering Your Favorite Writers, Producers, and Directors   

       93. Turning Favorites Lists into JavaScript   

       94. How Do You Watch TV?   

       95. Browsing Through TiVo's Resources   

       96. Making Recordings Start Late and End Early   

       97. Editing Resources with a Point and a Click   

       98. Catching TiVo Events   

       99. Disabling the Live TV button   

       100. Cross-Compiling C Code for TiVo   

Index