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Prior to reading the book,
I had just gotten my TiVo set top box within a few months. I had already
learned to love the box but after reading the book, I realized there is so
much more I could do with it. I mistakenly thought that it was a simple
self-contained box that does not need any attention. Tivo without TiVo
Hacks is just a neat toy. TiVo with TiVo Hacks is a time saving, reliable
work horse! The book is well written and understandable to a very
non-technical person. The book starts off with some very simple “hacks”
that allow you to scream through shows (like boring ball games) and use
instant replay to catch the action. In this case you could watch a 3 hour
game in about 30 minutes or so without missing any of the “action”. The book
goes into detail on navigation short cuts. Some examples are TiVo-TiVo or
TiVo-1=Now Playing, TiVo-2=To Do List, TiVo-3=Wish List, TiVo-4=Browse By
Name, etc. You can reprogram buttons on your remote. One great example of
doing this is setting a button to do a 30 sec skip to blow by commercials.
You can turn on an on-screen clock, Change the time the Play Bar displays,
and find out what your TiVo is doing when it says it is recording but you do
not remember setting anything to record. All this and we are net even
through the first 10 pages of the book. At this point the book really has
your attention! It now sucks you into the new found world of freedom with
TiVo.
Hack #8 is “Opening the
Backdoor” this opens the door to reveal some configuration settings and
features the untouched TiVo does not normally allow access to. Unlocking
the backdoor is different depending on your version of TiVo the book goes
into great detail on how to do this for each different model / version. You
have to read the book to get all the great details but I will say, if you do
not like the “overshoot protection” (when you fast forward TiVo
automatically backtracks for you when you push play) you need to look at
Hack 12 which shows you how to adjust it to work better for you. If you are
on a pre-version 4 TiVo you will love “Sorting the Now Playing List”.
Well, We are now up to
Chapter 2 and we begin to realize we could not imagine how good it could
actually get. It starts to set in that we have just begun as the book
explains in great detail how to upgrade the hard drive (and even add a
second hard drive) to your TiVo box. But hey, before we can do that, we
should backup the TiVo box (just in case something goes wrong) and as you
would guess, detailed instructions for this are included. If you are a Linux
guru, you will be right at home. If not, you will learn a bit. If you are
not a tech-head, you have already gotten your money’s worth and will
probably gloss over much of the rest of the book. However, if you are a
tech-head or a tech-head want to be, you will be exhilarated by the upcoming
possibilities. The book takes you into the operating system, commands, the
file structure and beyond. You learn things like how to display Caller ID
on your TV, Record multiple shows to the VCR (back to back), Play MP3’s
(even on Series 1 TiVo), and bring the Internet to your Tivo. Turn your TiVo
into an FTP server where you can now download and upload files at will. You
learn how to Web Enable your TiVo box, setup NFS, setup email, check the
weather, check sports scores, check stock tickers, view web cams, photo
slide shows, and much, much more. By the way, TiVoWeb pre-dates TiVo’s Home
Media Option (HMO) and does so much more! (Hack #65). TiVo hacks dedicates
a sizeable amount of text (and hacks) to using the TiVoWeb interface. As if
this were not enough for you, Hacks 88-100 get into coding. You get a crash
course in Tcl. Then we get instructions and code to actually execute on
TiVo for additional capabilities.
A few of the MANY
resources referred to in the text:
TiVo’s default shell
“Bash” (Bourne-Again Shell)
www.gnu.org/software/bash/bash.html
Simple terminal program to
serial communicate with TiVo - SecureCRT
www.vandyke.com
TiVo FTP - TiVo Utilities
Project tivoutils.sourceforge.net
TiVoWeb –
http://tivo.lightn.org/ (This is a must visit site) |
