The Complete Guide to Tivo
Written: Mar 16 '01 (Updated Mar 16 '01)
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Pros: Gives complete control over your couch-potato experience
Cons: Unable to skip effeciently past those annoying commercials.
The Bottom Line: Buy it and upgrade it yourself -read the complete review on how.
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| nightfall's Full Review: Philips PTV100 Video Recorder |
Ah the new millenium, flying cars, moon colonies, underwater cities, personalized TV.
Ok well the flying cars didn't quite happen - damn the Detroit Automaking Conspiracy! After Challenger and Skylab, the Space program's more visionary ideas died from lack of funding. While I still hold out hope for underwater cities (Hey california COULD sink this year), we at least now have personalized TV. Even better still - we have Personalized TV running the Linux OS in the form of Tivo!
[Update:FYI This article was initially three different
articles which Epinions has 'forced' me into compressing into one. The first piece deals with the Tivo itself,
the second on how to hack the tivo, and finally a discussion of Tivo's privacy policy. Skip around depending on what interests you]
Background
At first glance, a Tivo unit is at heart a glorified VCR. Instead of casettes it uses a hard drive, but the ability to play and record television is essentially what it does. Unlike the VCR however, you won't have problems setting the time (look no more blinking 12:00)and still less effort involved in taping shows.
Learning Tivo
Tivo also comes with what I consider to be a killer-app, the ability to learn what you like and record shows that you might want to watch. Think of it as having a personalized assistant which scans all the shows playing and make sures to record those nifty Babylon 5 movies playing at 2am because you really liked watching Star Wars the night before. The more you interact with Tivo by 'rating' the shows you watch, the more accurate Tivo becomes in recording shows you will like. [Ed. Note For more discussion on how this works, review Macromedia's LikeMinds technology at www.macromedia.com].
Hits and misses
Unfortunately with any first generation product there are a few flaws.
First, while you do have the ability to pause, rewind, and fast-forward through shows - there is no '30-second skip-forward' button. Skipping past the commercials is not as easy as it could be. (Damn the Entertainment Industry Conspiracy). Second, the standard model shipped (through vendors Phillips or Sony) comes with 14hrs storage capability on the lowest picture quality setting. For the best quality viewing however, your storage capacity drops to around 4.5 hrs. This is due to the size of the hard drive shipped in the unit, and the level of compression used when recording each show. Newer more expensive units are now shipping with 30hr capacities. Third, configuring the unit on startup takes a very long time. Expect to wait at least 3hrs while Tivo connects through your phone line and downloads guide data for the first time. Broadband aware this machine is not.
Still, where this is a will there is a way. And the fine people who brought you Tux the Penguin have found a way to 'modify' the standard Tivo unit in order to release its maximum potential.
Using the machine is simplicity itself, although its taken me some time to get used to the presentation of the guide data - the Tivo interface is very intuitive. If you can use a web browser, you can use Tivo.
Unfortunately it takes an inordinate amount of time to switch between channels using Tivo. This is due to the relatively slow CPU (a PowerPC) that comes with the machine. Additionally for some reason I am unable to program the remote to recognize my Kenwood reciever; Hrm that ultimate universal remote still hasn't been invented yet either. Minor quibbles aside, the picture quality contrary to reviews on C-Net is stellar, but only when recorded on the 'best-quality' setting.
If looks could Kill
Slightly larger than a VCR, the machine looks like the precursor to Hal; the mad AI in '2001: A space odyssey'. Its IR port is shaped similar to an eye in the middle of the unit, with two lights on either side.
Green on the left shows the unit is on, Red on the right means its watching you..er I mean recording for you. The phillips unit comes in fashionable 'it never clashes' black metal, while Sony breaks the mold with a shiny silver number. I myself chose to buy the Phillips.
You want how much ?
Speaking of buying, the 14hr unit sells for $300 dollars. However there are rebates which will knock 200 dollars off the price,letting you have it for the low low price of $99. The 30hr unit sells for $699 and really as I'll explain in my follow up article, you are better off with the 14hr model.
In addition to the greenbacks you hand over at the store, the Tivo service itself has a monthly charge of $10 per month. For the price of saving 1 1/2 kids in sub-saharan Africa, the unit automatically dials Tivo's Servers to download new guide data, magazines, previews, recommendations as well as system updates. Updated menu selections include movie reviews as well as feature showcases such as MTV Video Awards. While it is possible to use the Tivo without signing up for service, the intelligent recording/recommendation feature will not be available. Different pricing programs of $99 per year, and $199 lifetime are also available. The $199 price however is limited to that particular reciever, buying a new one two years from now will require a new service contract. I've chosen to go with the $10 per mth deal.
So whats the scoop?
Overall the standard Tivo is a great product, if you are a huge 'couch-potato' type person you will quickly find the need for more storage space and the ability to change channels and skip past commercials more quickly. As far as fast-forwarding/rewinding goes however, the Tivo has an ingenious feature which shows pictures '1,2,or 3' seconds ahead/behind where you have moved, depending on how fast your are skipping. This allows your thumb to hit play just as the program actually gets to the point where you wish to watch. ReplayTv offers a 'better' option where you can skip past 30 seconds (avg commercial length) and in essence 'zap' commercials.
Overall I'm very pleased with my purchase, especially after I modified the unit to do most of the things I wished it did have. The hacking of my Tivo unit and my discussion
of Tivo's privacy policy is written about below (initially they were three epinions), but you can stop here if I've already bored you ;)
How I hacked my Tivo
Psst. Hey want to buy yourself some time? Hack your tivo!
Ok perhaps its not the greatest marketing campaign, but the people who made 'Got Milk' told me that I should see a psychiatrist and quit bothering them for a tag line.
[Warning: The epinion below gives a general summary on how to 'hack' your Tivo personal recorder, this procedure while NOT illegal does VOID your warranty.] If you simply wish to read about the Tivo, please read part 1 of this article at http://nightfall.epinions.com/elec-review-6186-79B28C8-39B92911-prod1
You will need a torx #10 screwdriver, a maxtor 60GB Hard Drive and some familiarity with computer hardware. For a detailed procedure please go to go to http://www.tivofaq.com/hack/. This epinion means to impart the why and how of the process. You will more than likely need to read the FAQ for specific details and commands on how to accomplish your hack successfully.
In my prior review on Tivo I described how the unit worked and a few drawbacks with what is an otherwise excellent first generation product. As I explained Tivo is a set-top box which uses the Linux OS as its operating system.
Linux : Release your inner geek!
Taking a page from IBM in the early 80's the Tivo corporation chose to use Linux, a free open source OS as its operating system of choice. For data storage they chose to use standard off the shelf IDE hard drives.
While this brought immediate advantages such as cheap cost, and reliability they also gave up the same thing which IBM did when choosing to use MS-DOS - control.
The linux OS is if not the OS of choice, very familiar to most serious hackers, as well as anyone with a fetish for technology. As a result, it did not take very long for a few enterprising individuals to find the urge to open up and poke around the insides of a Tivo box. For myself,
I didn't really care about exploring the Tivo and its capabilities I simply wanted one thing - more recording capacity
Transcending the Limitations of Tivo
Tivo comes in various models each differentiated primarily by its recording capacity. Recording capacity itself is affected by picture quality. For example a standard 14hr unit only stores 14 hrs if recording on the lowest quality setting. Here's a list of the various models currently and soon to be available [taken from tivofaq.com] .
The following is the breakdown of the Phillips units by model number.
HDR112 - 14 hour, with one hard drive $99 (after rebate)
HDR212 - 20 hour, Available August 2000 - $299
HDR312 - 30 hour, with two hard drives and 1.2.1 software
HDR31201 - 30 hour, with one hard drive and 1.2.1 software
HDR31202 - 30 hour, with one hard drive and 1.3 software
HDR612 - 60 hour, Available September 2000 - $699
Currently Sony only makes the SVR 2000 which is a 30 hour single drive unit with the 1.3 version software.
As you can see the pricepoint of a 60 hr unit is a far cry from the $99
of the 14hr model. For those of you who are thinking 'Nightfall why would I even want that much capacity anyway?', I can only say - go forth and buy yourself a Tivo. Only then can you understand the insidious addictiveness of the 'Black Eyed One'.
In any event the main difference between these units is that Phillips
added another hard drive. Therefore so can you .
One goal of hacking is to do things cheaper, better, faster. So, don't simply go out and buy the proper hard drive (Maxtor's DiamondMax 60 Series 61.4GB Ultra ATA/66 gets my nod) hack that process too. Staples will pricematch any price available on the web, in addition they usually have discount coupons floating around as well. Done properly you can obtain this drive (retails for $260 Sep/00 for $150).
Opening the Tivo
The Tivo unit (at least the phillips model) is secured by three torque screws at the rear of system. Using a phillips-head screwdriver will not work, and only serve to frustrate you. However once removing the screws, you should be able to slide the casing off the rear of the system. Stiffer casings might require some leverage, the claw on a hammer works rather well. Note Removing the casing automatically voids the warranty. There is a small sticker to the rear which is unavoidably broken
when removing the casing.
Inside the Tivo
Inside the Tivo is very similar to a standard PC. There are rack mounts which contain space for two hard drives. One of these mounts is already filled. Using your screwdriver you can remove the hard drive currently in the unit. Most people recommend removing the hard drive and making a backup of it before adding a new drive. This is a higly recommended procedure but will not affect whether the process works. Consult the FAQ in the url above on how to backup your drive.
Adding a 2nd Drive
Adding a 2nd drive to the Tivo is a moderately hard task. It requires some knowledge of unix and file partitioning. Essentially the process known as 'blessing' the drive requires you to mount both the original drive and the secondary drive then replicating partitions. In depth command instructions are available from the FAQ.
Once you have blessed your new drive, you connect both the original (A) and (B) to the systems rack mounts. Remember to remove the jumpers on the (B) drive making it a slave to the original (A). Additionally its a good idea to find some foam to place underneath the drives to reduce noise/vibrations. Close the case and start your Tivo, if all has worked well you should now see '90 hrs' available in the System Information menu setting. Your Tivo will function just the same as it did before, with more storage capacity available to it.
Other neat Hack ideas
Tivo uses a modem w/ phone line to dial out each night and download the
guide data. It might be possible to connect the Tivo to your broadband home network and download the guide data much faster. Whether or not you can use this to bypass using the Tivo service is questionable.
If you have questions or interest in doing this procedure, leave me a comment or write me an e-mail. While I take no responsibility if you damage your Tivo, I will answer any questions and provide reference urls for further information
Tivo's Privacy Policy
There's nothing free in a post-consumer society except perhaps personal privacy. Evidently the Tivo Corporation has decided to break from its prior admirable privacy policy and become a fine young capitalist corporation at the expense of its subscribers...
It seems that every store that I shop at both online and offline now wishes to know my phone number, my address, my DOB and what my cats like to eat for dinner. Most people are fairly passive about this sort of data collection, after all if the person you are doing business knows you, they can create a better customer experience for you.
This is the good side to personal data collection that is sold by the PR department of companies, and for the most part I agree with them. The dark side of things invariably occurs when the company you do business with, 'partners' with another company and sells your data for a price. The spin in this instance is that you might be interested in the new companies product and they want a chance to offer it to you.
I myself am of the opinion that the loss of my privacy, as well as the capitalization of my personal data, without any monetary profit for me is a 'bad' thing.
[Ed. Note I subscribe to Time Magazine, and use a 'fake' name on my subscription. It is simply amazing to me, based on the mails that arrive for this pseudonym, how many different businesses the fine people at Time-Warner sell this data to. Mortgage companies are another target
of my ire.]
Today however, I wish to be the Paul Revere for another more dare I say evil? approach to this cross-selling of marketing data. Welcome to the world of continuous agreggation of personal data for the purposes of cross-selling. Sounds confusing? Well it works like this - if you or I buy Time Magazine off the newstand with cash this is considered an anonymous purchase.
There is no way to tell whether you might like Ginseng Herbal Remedy, and even more important there is no way to offer you the opportunity to buy Ginseng Herbal Remedy.
Thus, because of this the fine people at Time will offer 50-70% off the newstand price if you become a subscriber (you didn't really believe it was because of the guaranteed revenue did you?). Now that you are no longer an anonymous purchaser, the people at Time can now sell the people at Ginseng Inc your address and they in turn can send you a free packet of tea and possibly sell your data to Big Roy's Auto World.
Now what if throughout your day, everything you bought, looked at, or even thought about buying was gathered for the purpose of marketing more products to you? And what if all this data was not just gathered and kept to one corporation but sold and shared to other corporations 'partnerships' so that they could market their products to you. Sounds good? Well in that case you'll love the Tivo corporations new privacy policy.
As of Oct/9/00 Tivo has made a change to its privacy policy for all users of the Tivo recorder. This change is still not mentioned in Tivo's privacy policy on www.tivo.com/care and prior to this message Tivo had always maintained that it did not share/sell its customers data.
In the past, your data viewing habits was collected and analyzed anonymously to suggest programs that you might like watching. It is now collected and sold/shared along with your name, email address, phone number and zip code to the AOL corporation and the DirecTV corporation. Additionally Tivo implies that the list of companies that it might choose to 'partner' with and share this data is not limited to these two corporations. I expect deals with cable companies to be forthcoming.
What this mean is that in a years time or so if you happen to watch the CNN channel on DirecTV (or even through normal cable) your area should expect to recieve in the mail an offer to subscribe for Time Magazine (remember AOL is going to buy Time-Warner). But this is not the end of it,
every Tivo user essentially becomes a Nielsen audience for the AOL-TimeWarner/DirecTV corporation.
Love to watch Dharma on ABC? How about CNNfn and CNN? Well now since Tivo knows - DirecTV and AOL-TimeWarners knows, and as a result ABC and CNN and CNNfn knows, and thereby the Advertizers who market commercials on these companies...they all know about you and what you like to watch.
The problem with all this (beyond the creepy) is that this is your most personal data, not simply your date of birth and name, but an on-going real-time catalogue of your likes and dislikes, your politics, your interests all being gathered from you without compensation to be used be
these media conglomerates.
What you can do about it
Well the most radical solution of course is simply not to become a Tivo customer. However for those of us who are, and have come to love the product, there is a solution. You will need to call Tivo customer
support 1-877-FOR-TIVO and request that Tivo stop collecting any 'anonymous' data on you. Also make sure to request that they send you in writing a confirmation of this request. In theory this will prevent your account data from being 'passed along' to AOL and DirecTV for marketing purposes. Additionally make sure to read the messages sent to you in the 'Messages and Setup' screen, this is Tivo's preferred method of sending you information.
In the larger scheme of things - write your congressman. (Seriously folks)
America is in serious need of personal privacy laws, and this will not take place without serious activism. The people at Tivo are not evil,
however as a corporate entity in search of profits (not necessarily a bad thing), certain lines which should not be crossed can be.
I hardly consider myself a luddite, but it does not take someone who is afraid of technology to recognize that there is something awry with the nature of privacy and the voracious appetite for consumer data by advertizers.
Update: I've recently found that you can get your name/address removed from most mailing lists by writing a letter (paper of course) to the Direct Marketing Association who will in turn have companies such
as Publishers Clearing House, Jenny Craig, Val Pak etc stop sending you instant-garbage filler. For more information on this relatively simple procedure go to http://www.the-dma.org/consumers/consumerassistance.html
It explains how to stop junk mail both online and offline
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 99
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Epinions.com ID:
nightfall
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Member: Knight Fall
Location: Totalitarian, Nirvana
Reviews written: 30
Trusted by: 38 members
About Me:
Hacker, Writer, Geek
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