[vox] Tivo question

[Peter Jay Salzman]

hi dave,

peter's conjecture:

   with every issue in cryptography, it's never "if", but "when".


this seems to suggest that there are currently active work arounds to
the encryption:

   http://www.onlamp.com/pub/a/onlamp/2003/10/02/TiVoHacks.html


here are people discussing (jul 2003) another method around the
encryption, along a different route:

   http://minnie.tuhs.org/pipermail/oztivo/2003-July/004460.html


i was able to find a forum on extracting video from tivo at
http://www.dealdatabase.com/forum.


after reading your email, i really got a strong urge to get a tivo.  i'm
not really a TV freak; give me star trek and i'm happy.  throw in BBC
stuff and i'm ecstatic.  but tivo sounds like a blast to hack on.

pete



On Mon 08 Dec 03, 10:25 AM, Dave Margolis <margolid@ecs.csus.edu> said:
> Hello all,
> 
> My apologies if anybody thinks this is off topic, but since
> there are some Tivo enthusiasts on this list and the guts of the thing is
> a Linux box, I figured it would be OK...
> 
> I didn't think I cared enough about TV to ever want one of these beasts,
> but I bought my brother-in-law _Hacking the Tivo_ (O'Reilly) for X-mas and
> after flipping through the first couple of chapters I decided I really
> wanted to get my hands on one.
> 
> Here's my question.  The author claims you can't extract the video files
> from a series 2 Tivo (currenlty available direct from Tivo for $199)
> because of some kind of not-yet-cracked encryption.  He tells us, however,
> that the saved video files are readily aviable for watching by some
> regular means after a quick trip through mencoder, if you have a series 1
> Tivo that is.
> 
> On the other hand, series 2 Tivos have a USB port on the back, ready for
> a compatible USB wired or wirless network adapter.  Series 1
> Tivos have to be physically hacked with a third party add-on.
> 
> It looks like new hard-drives and most of the other hacks listed will work
> on both.
> 
> I'm not stating these as facts, but just impressions I've gotten from the
> book.  I'm not afraid of the nic upgrade on the series 1, but the USB
> thing sounds easy and I don't want to miss any of the other benefits of a
> series 2 Tivo if there are any.
> 
> I'd really like to be able to extract the video for editing and/or burning
> to DVD.  Having the video files stuck on the Tivo seems like a
> waste.
> 
> The question is: new series 2 or series 1 purchase from eBay (or
> somewhere else)?  Has somebody already figured out the video
> extraction on series 2 Tivos since the book was published?  Am I just as
> well off with a series 1?  Will the software upgrades from Tivo continue to
> support the series 1 for the forseeable future?
> 
> If I do go the series 1 route, any recommendations on a specific model?
> 
> Thanks for your time,
> Dave
> 
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