Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments
Search

News for nerds, stuff that matters

Slashdot Log In

Log In

Create Account  |  Retrieve Password

Excellent Hacks to the ReplayTV 4000

Posted by CmdrTaco on Mon Feb 18, 2002 11:46 AM
from the hardware-I-lust-after dept.
Media Television
Hit the link below to find links to assorted hacks done to the extremely cool ReplayTV 4000 PVR. Thanks to jptsetme for submitting links to hacks like hard drive upgrades, software to download mpegs, edit the guide, and systems under development to automate create of VCDs and DVDs from Replay's. It's exciting seeing so much headway being made so fast, and evidence that this is one heck of a machine.
"The Replay hackers at AVS forum have done an amazing job on the new ReplayTV 4000's. You can now do some very cool things with this new PVR.

You can increase recording space (by either replacing the existing drive, or adding an additional one.) This has, of course, been done with Tivos and older Replays in the past. Not only has this hack been adapted for the Replay4000 model (including custom sized photo partitions and preserving existing shows), but Replay has also recently released new software that removes the previous 137G per drive limitation, so you can now turn any ReplayTV4000 into a 320G model with a couple of 160G drives and a PC (Linux, Win2k, XP, or with a Linux boot disk on an x86 box with a good enough BIOS to recognize the drive size.)
http://rtvpatch.sourceforge.net/

But, you might decide you don't need to open the box at all, since you can now offload your shows to your PC and then serve them back to the ReplayTV4000 with your PC masquerading as another ReplayTV4000 on your local network, giving you nearly limitless storage capacity. [Note: this does not use the internet sharing feature, which is so slow over typical broadband as to be practically unusable. This is streaming the show in realtime from your PC back to your Replay4000, using the same mechanism two Replays use to stream shows back and forth over your local network.]

ReplayPC (C/C++, Windows, Linux, Mac. A simple text mode utility for extracting mpg files from ReplayTV4000 PVRs via TCP/IP)
http://replaypc.sourceforge.net/

Replayer (Pure Java. Java GUI utility allows you to extract mpg files from your ReplayTV 4000 to your PC)
http://www.forbesfield.com/replayer.html

Replay Server (built on PHP for Apache. Allows you to serve downloaded shows to a ReplayTV (on your LAN only) from your PC as if your PC was a ReplayTV)
http://206.124.140.12/rtv/

SwapDV (J++, windoze only. Allows you to download shows from your ReplayTV 4000, serve downloaded shows as if your box was a ReplayTV 4000, and edit the "guide" provided by your PC. i.e. capabilities of both Replayer and Replay Server, but only for Windows.)
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?s=&a mp;threadid=116035

A number of users are also working on burning shows to VCD, SVCD, XSVCD and DVD, with moderate success.

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?s=&a mp;threadid=115338
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?s=&a mp;threadid=106437

Lastly, there has also been a hack developed to remove macrovision from the old Panasonic Showstoppers (effectively transforming them into ReplayTV3xxx machines.)
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?s=&a mp;threadid=118170."
+ -
story
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.

Excellent Hacks to the ReplayTV 4000 50 Comments More /

 Full
 Abbreviated
 Hidden
More
Loading... please wait.
  • Has anyone worked on an emulator yet to use a PC as a Tivo or ReplayTV? It seems with all the work done so far, they're using the TIVO's a lot to go to a PC for output/modification anyway, so why not just go straight to PC?
    • that's what I did , just bought a ATI All In Wonder Radeon 7500, let's you record shows in mpeg 1 or 2 or someother codec.

      And of course you can select wich shows to record from a TV Guide.

      It let's you encode in vcd compatible format.. so burning to cd is ez.

      It even has a RF Remote control :)

      No need for a PVR with this
    • There is a software based PVR for PC's called Snapstream PVS. The website is http://www.snapstream.com It works under WinXXXX.

      • I have found this program ShowShifter [showshifter.com] to work 10x better then SnapStream. With showshifter you can pause live TV, and pick up where you left off (No rewind though). And (A plus over SnapStream) you can watch as you record. It (like SnapStream) offers timed recordings, however can not currently download tv listings. The "trial" version ShowShifter is also less naggy, and more functional then the trial version of snapstream. Check it out. (Also only Windows).
    • Has tv inputs and software. Even has a guide service. I think the TV-Wonder does also.

    • We are trying to do this, wanna help? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by fons (190526) on Monday February 18 2002, @12:31PM (#3027223) Homepage


      http://davedina.apestaart.org [apestaart.org]

      With a couple of friends we are trying to make a linux based home entertainment system. Eventually we want te be able to:
      - play mp3's and serve them on our lan. (works)
      - have a nifty audio database with webinterface (almost works)
      - serve a webcam (works)
      - play dvd's (works)
      - rip dvd's (kinda works)
      - play divx-cd's (works)
      - watch tv (works) and decode pay-tv :-) (almost works)
      - record from tv (works, but no automated TV-guide)
      - serve recorded DVD's and TV-shows on lan (works)
      - burn recorded stuff onto cd's
      - play games (works)
      - create a nice interface so we can control it with a normal and simpel remote.

      We can still use some help. If you're interested go to our site, read the faq and download what we already have.

      • record from tv (works, but no automated TV-guide)

        I know there is a perl script ruuning around that downloads TV listings from the TV guide website. Perhaps you could write another script which, once the listing is downloaded, it would grep for the shows you wanted, then setup an at job to record at the proper time. If you wanted to, I imagine it would not be too difficult to slap a Tk front end on it to make it easy to use.

      • You're right about channel lineups, and I think that the Yahoo channel listings wouldn't be that hard.

        I have Watson for OS X (an awesome, awsome program) that, among other things, does just that. Enter your Zip code and cable system and Watson will spit out nicely formatted TV channel guides.

        If the Watson guys can do it I assume it shouldn't be all that hard to parse it into a format you could use in conjunction with a PC based PVR.
      • This is a typical response to a person without a PVR. The biggest advantage of the TiVo is downloading the channel lineups.

        It's more than just that. I have a TiVo and an All-In-Wonder Radeon. Both will download program information, but only the TiVo will scan the listings for stuff that it thinks you'll like and then record it. The software for the AIW Radeon lets you pick stuff to record from the listing, but that's as far as it goes. (Gemstar also has had trouble keeping the server running that provides the listings...with the download speeds I've gotten sometimes, you'd think they were using a VIC-20 and an acoustic coupler. AFAIK, TiVo has never had these problems.)

        • only the TiVo will scan the listings for stuff that it thinks you'll like and then record it



          I don't know, that's why the tv guide is in the toilet. What I'm waiting for is something that will truly replace my vhs vcr. I want to be able to record shows and then put the medium somewhere.

          The hacks to hook the pvr to my pc make the pvr a much more attractive buy. All I'd have to do is run some cabling to the computer when I wanted to store something permanently. But from the looks of the links, it's not quite there yet. Especially considering my vcr is working just fine. Now if I were to need to replace my vcr, it would be a different situation. The times I actually tape and archive stuff is rare. With cable, everything is always on again sometime, except for shows I know are doomed before they even air, viz. The Tick, Lonegunmen.


          • the TiVo will scan the listings for stuff that it thinks you'll like and then record it.

            This is really simple to emulate. Every movie has like 100 topics. Each movie falls under certain topics with certain weights. From there, its a simple neural net.

            The hard part? The person that has to put the "topic wieghts" on each movie + show.

            ...and that is why TiVo got my $200. I used to pore over the TV listings in the Sunday paper, but finding stuff you might like by that method is a mind-numbing task. (Some might say TV itself is mind-numbing, but that depends on how much your viewing preferences lean toward drek such as pro wrestling, Jerry Springer-type talk, or so-called "reality" shows like Survivor.) You also tend to not catch everything. TiVo fixes both of those problems for a reasonable (IMHO) fee.

  • When will we have an HDTV-capable PVR? The Bell ExpressVu boxes up here are either PVRs or HDTV decoders. Looks like at this point you can't have your cake and eat it too.

    • AccessDTV [accessdtv.com] makes a PCI HDTV card that can record the 20Mbps HDTV datastream to your hard drive. I have one. Very, very nice with my Sony G500 21" FD Trinitron monitor (wish I could justify one of those 24" widescreen models). Windows only, and a GHz-class PC is recommended (excellent on my WinXP Athlon XP 1800+ machine).

      It's lousy for analog TV, won't record analog at all and I never did get audio working for analog, but it's the card to get for digital TV.

      • Re:Fantastic (Score:5, Informative)

        by KernelHappy (517524) on Monday February 18 2002, @02:14PM (#3027839) Homepage
        <snip>If I recall, HDTV is 1.5 Gbps uncompressed</snip>

        Uncompressed NTSC video (720x480) would use about 237mbit/second (720x480x24x29.97 (drop frame)), but we don't record that uncompressed. Instead we compress it before we transmit or store it digitally and in the case of DSS/Tivo combo boxes the units store the compressed stream exactly as it is received. IIRC most HDTV programs are broadcast using a 18Mbit/sec stream. This isn't exactly tiny but in a day of 160GB harddrives its manageable. In fact DV uses a M-JPEG like codec that consumes about 25Mbit/sec for standard NTSC video and current consumer PC technologies are up to the task of handling it. Storing an exact copy of a HDTV broadcast is quite acheivable given current consumer level equipment.

        So the problem is political rather than technological. Media companies view the move to HDTV and digital video in general as their chance to correct the "mistakes" they made with previous copiable formats. These companies do not want their content to fall under the previous fair use controls and they are draging their feet while they frantically search for a way to control every aspect of their content even if it impinges on the consumers fair use ability. This is evident in the vast array of manuevers going on behind the scenes to get DRM in place before the consumer HDTV explosion happens.

        Late in the game, hardware manufacturers jumped to using encrypted streams over IEEE1394 (Firewire/i.Link) to the display device. So if you purchased a HDTV decoder 1-2 years ago there is the possibility/probability you may not be able to use whatever the standard format of choice for recording content is without buying a new decoder or additional hardware.

        The simple fact is that the powerhouses behind the scenes don't want us timeshifting their prescious HDTV content until they can control every aspect of how we use it.

  • Can you imagine.... (Score:3, Funny)

    by Aexia (517457) on Monday February 18 2002, @11:58AM (#3027048)
    a beo-... Ehhhh. Too easy.

    Can you imagine a Beowulf cluster of MPAA Nazis descending upon this?

  • Phone Home (Score:3, Insightful)

    by loydcc (325726) on Monday February 18 2002, @12:01PM (#3027060) Journal
    Is there a hack to keep it from ratting out my preferences to replay Brittney Spears commercials. That would be a truly useful hack. Until then I think I'll stick with my 1/2 inch tape VCR. Upgrading the storage capacity is easy with it's modular cartridge accaptance port. And programming what I want to watch costs me nothing.
    • Why would you want to do that? Replay TV could be a better neilson box than the peice of trash they use now. This would give the advertising companies an incentive to show even MORE of Brittney (though you might need an MRI to do that by now ;>) Wouldn't it be nice to have a button on the remote which could give a thumbs up or down to the commercial as well, skipping any recording of it if you disliked it, as well as sending the approriate signal to the polyester person (PP) who thought it up?
      • Replay TV could be a better neilson box than the peice of trash they use now.

        Who buys the PVR's? Geeks and early adopters ie the people with money or desire to get the coolest gadgets. But then the average household is left out of ratings system. So instead of Americas Funniest Home Videos taking the ratings Cowboy Bebop takes the ratings. (I know they don't run opposite each other it's just an example of the two different kinds of viewers.) Eithor way the outcome is skewed.

        When the average viewer can afford a PVR or has no choice but get one cause the video cassette makers went the way of the Vinyl Recordplayer, then maybe Replay TV or Tivo could be a better Neilson Box.

        Until then TV is pretty much going to suck 90% no matter what they put on it. The scam is that the ratings system today only pleases those who volunteer to be watched. And those sheep enjoy 'Touched by an Angel'

          • That's exactly my point. The current system does skew things. Who actually watches Americas Funniest Home Videos? I don't know a single person who watches it and I know like hundreds of people. Yet under the Neilson system it wins it's time slot.
    • Actually, yes, there is. That is if what you are referring to is what TiVo said about its users. It's called opt-out. It takes one phone call to TiVo, and after that, your super-secret anonymous information isn't taken.

  • Why not simply use your PC? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Graabein (96715) on Monday February 18 2002, @12:02PM (#3027063) Homepage Journal
    Why buy another box, why not just use your PC?

    There are several products out there which allow you to use your PC as a TVR and record directly to VCD. Just one example: Hauppauge WinTV-PVR [hauppauge.com] (no affiliation, yadda, yadda).

    Anyone tried this product or others like it? Experiences: Good, bad, indifferent?

    • I use my replay in one room and the computer in another. Radeon All-in-Wonder. It works ok. not great - and it doesn't decode the premium channels or handle changing the channels on my decoder. The panasonic unit does. Also - I implemented most of these hacks 3 months ago - so they're not that new...

    • Re:Why not simply use your PC? (Score:5, Funny)

      by Lumpy (12016) on Monday February 18 2002, @12:46PM (#3027321) Homepage
      Sure you can with a anemic little computer (Pentium MMX 266) and a crappy ol' bttv tuner card.

      Go and download Nupple-video [tuwien.ac.at] and follow his tips on there to heppily converth the Nupplevideo output to mpeg2 files then buy yourself a nice Hollywood+ mpeg playback card. Now add crontab, mplayer, and spice it with the at daemon to make it easier, bake at 350 with your favorite Linux distro (I choose Slackware 8.0 for it's low fat high quality ingredients) and you have a basic PVR that will gladly play it's video onto your Television without any silly content viewing protection, statistic collection and selling, or government spyware... that eye on the Tivo... I know it's watching me!

      it's nothing like a tivo, no FF rewind, pause, or all theo other fluff, but you can make a nice web control panel , point, click, watch Invader Zim!

      no it's not easy, no it wont be pretty, no it's not DVD quality with 6.1 surround.. but who cares. it's free, open, and cooler than a Tivo.
      • As somone who has putzed with this a few times (on a slack box no less!) you should be able to get fast-forward, rewind et all pretty easily, provided you don't mind some playing around...and if anyone has some suggestions I'd appreciate it :)

        I use my setup soley as a recorder, and don't playback on the device itself.

        A) record to a drive that is NFS exported, and use a video player that you can trick into playing incompleete files on disk. Try this with gtv aviplay plaympeg or the other simple players, and you'll see as much video as was recorded when you started the player process, but no more. I havn't played with this in awhile since B worked off the bat.

        B) start recording to an mpeg file on the tv server. On the client: mkfifo file.mpg;wget --quiet --output-document=file.mpg ftp://name.of.server/name.of.mpg & plaympeg file.mpg

        Choice B is what I'm currently using since how I'm trying A isn't working out... Also B seems to be less cpu intensive on the poor little tv server. This leaves a few things lacking like watching tv while I'm not recording it, and channel switching involves scripts I was too lazy to make into cgis...

        dumpster dived cyrix: $0.00
        ati aiw 128: $70.00 (two years old)
        salvaged nic: $0.00
        salvaged simms: $0.00
        8 gig "BigFoot" HD: $65.00 (3-4 years old)

        considering I only paid for two peices, and those many years ago, I'd say this is a FAR cheaper PVR and more fun ;)
        maybe I should get it a k6 300 though...
        • yes you can and quite easily.

          download the Linux Ir remote software package and bind keys to make mplayer do it's functions.

          The parent post was marked funny.. but it's real, works great. and I use it instead of the tivo I am currently hacking to allow non tivo company guide updates.

          it is quite nice to have a completely open PVR platform to work from.

  • My Wishlist Hack - Canada (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Outlyer (1767) on Monday February 18 2002, @12:02PM (#3027064) Homepage
    Ok, I have just one request. Someone hack these things to support Canada. It still boggles the mind that while TIVO supports the UK, they ignore Canada. I mean, it's more than just igloos and hockey up here, eh?

    In all seriousness, this is the machine (more so than the TIVO) that seems to be the perfect machine to "fake" guide support on. Unlike the TIVO which dials up and grabs guides from TIVO, the ReplayTV can use your broadband connection. If someone could figure out the host (ideally the hostname) that it connects to, we could trick it into going to a substitute host, grabbing the listing there.

    Yeah, I'm simplifying it slightly. For one, who knows what format the data is in. And whether it uses some sort of encryption. However, unlike TIVO, ReplayTV doesn't sell subscriptions, so they'd have no financial interest in protecting the guide format.

    (By the way, if anyone can confirm this, my theory about the lack of TIVO and ReplayTV support in Canada is that it's due to the rather strict Canadian privacy laws, and rules around Canadian Content.)

    • Bell ExpressVu has a PVR [www.bell.ca]

      Does that help?
      • Being a Canadian Satellite company employee, I can tell you that, no, it doesn't really help. Although the PVR (which is essentially a Dish Network 501) is a great unit, you can't do any of the cool hacks to it that you can do with the Tivo and Replay units. If you have a PC with a tv capture card, you can do everything with a 4500 or better ExpressVu that you can do with the PVR (though it's a lot messier and arguably more expensive) and then some. The PVR is just a nicely integrated package, giving you timered recordings and pause/play buttons.
    • We know the hostname (rns.replaytv.net). We know most of the data formats, and it wouldn't take someone with interest long to fill in the missing details. This part of the conversation isn't encrypted, and even if it were, we know the encryption system At least one person knows the data formats from earlier models well enough to do exactly this already.

      See http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?s=&t hreadid=116146

  • The Replay units are nice, but... (Score:5, Informative)

    by freebsd guy (543937) on Monday February 18 2002, @12:02PM (#3027067)
    As a proud owner of a Philips DirecTivo unit with TivoNet and (most recently) a ReplayTV 4000, I have had a chance to evaluate both machines and see their relative strengths and weaknesses. The results have been interesting:
    • Neither unit forces you to pay for service (with the Tivo, just load 2.5xtreme and turn on "SubTest"). However, the Replay units are sold at a significant markup and the Tivo units are sold below cost. I'm no market analysist, but three guesses which one is better for consumers?
    • Tivo can't update the software without notice, unless you're dumb enough to plug the unit into your phone line. Replay requires that you maintain a connection to their servers so they can tamper with your property after purchase.
    • The Tivo has a 30 second commercial skip feature too, contrary to popular opinion. SELECT-PLAY-SELECT-3-0-SELECT.
    • The Tivo runs Linux, meaning that you can cross-compile anything to run on it, short of MS Office and IE. What can you run on the Replay? Next to nothing.
    • The Tivo has a programmer-friendly interface. It has native tcl support and provides easy ways to access the system database, called MFS. Does Replay offer this? I think not.
    • The Tivo gets its guide data off the air; the Replay needs to connect to a central server to get it. What happens when Replay goes bankrupt? You got it - no more guide data.
    For these reasons and many usability reasons, I will be returning my Replay unit before the 30-day exchange period expires. It's just an overpriced piece of crap.

    freebsd guy

    • Re:The Replay units are nice, but... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Zaknafein500 (303608) on Monday February 18 2002, @12:27PM (#3027211) Homepage
      Neither unit forces you to pay for service (with the Tivo, just load 2.5xtreme and turn on "SubTest"). However, the Replay units are sold at a significant markup and the Tivo units are sold below cost. I'm no market analysist, but three guesses which one is better for consumers?

      This is innaccurate. In fact, if you follow the instructions above, you are stealing TiVo service. TiVo requires a subscription, either 9.95/monthly or 249/product lifetime. The sole purpose of 2.5xtreme (this has been debated, but no one is going to change my mine) is to facilitate the theft of TiVo service and of DirecTV.
        • can u give a link to 2.5xtreme? I have friends in Canada that subscribe to DTV (using a US address) and would LOVE to use a Tivo.

          (for the record i'm currently a DTV and TIVO customer and pay for all my service, even though the $10/month i pay tivo is bullshit. Like the points given above, i'm paying $10/month just to keep the box functioning)
        • If you've ever used a DirecTV system, you would realize that DTV provides about two weeks of guide data no matter what receiver you use. Meaning that Tivo's "service" gives you ... surprise! nothing you're not already paying for.

          TiVo takes the guide data and indexes it into a format that allows for you to find and record shows quickly and easily. It allows you to tell TiVo to record 24 on Fox every week, and it does it. The guide data comes from DirecTV, but the massive sorting and indexing is done by TiVo. This is what you pay for. To use TiVo, you are required to have a subcription, bar none. If you are using the service without paying for it, you are stealing.

          It is true that xtreme does not, in and of itself, steal DirecTV. However, if someone where trying to steal DirecTV on a DirecTiVo, it is a component, since it allows the daily calls to be disabled.
          • If there's no login and password, and it's sitting on a publically available system, reachable from any phone, I'm not stealing shit.
            • Oh, I see... so if something might have an illegal use, it should be banned [slashdot.org], right?

              That's an extreme case. I should have worded my first post differently. 2.5xtreme is used almost exclusively to steal service. I don't think it should be banned, but there's no denying it has very few uses that are legitimate.
    • Yeah if you can get your hands on it.

      every site that had that 170meg ISO is now gone, kaput, erased by Tivo.

      and there's the question to if it ever really worked. so few had it that there isn't a good consensus that it ever really worked.

      • Re:The Replay units are nice, but... (Score:4, Informative)

        by ncc74656 (45571) <slashdot.alfter@us> on Monday February 18 2002, @01:07PM (#3027438) Homepage Journal
        The Tivo has a 30 second commercial skip feature too, contrary to popular opinion. SELECT-PLAY-SELECT-3-0-SELECT.

        This also is deceptive. You are just fast forwarding for 30 secs.

        Wrong. There is a backdoor code (given by the original poster) that enables 30-second skip. I've tried it; it works. I found high-speed scanning at medium speed works better for me, though...there's no correction for overshoot with 30-second skip.

        Where the original poster was wrong was in saying that TiVo gets its guide info over-the-air. Since there's no TV station that provides this service, that's impossible. TiVo phones home for its guide info, just as ReplayTV presumably does.


  • Did anyone else notice?

    It's exciting seeing so much headway being made so fast, and evidence that this is one heck of a machine.

    Perhaps having a fiance has encouraged Taco to use correct punctuation to set a better example for the forthcoming little burritos.


  • Lest us not forget the site that lets all of us ReplayTV 4000 users find new 'friends' to share shows with. With over 100 members and 1200 shows, its not a bad place to start to find that lost episode of The Tick.

    Planet Replay [planetreplay.com]

  • Internet Sharing (Score:4, Interesting)

    by imuffin (196159) on Monday February 18 2002, @12:09PM (#3027108) Homepage
    I really like the internet sharing feature of this box. I understand that a lot of people have capped upstream bandwidth from home, and that because of this it would take forever to send a show to someone... But hopefully these draconian restrictions will be lifted... When we all have decent broadband, which might happen in the not-so-distant future, this will be a really cool feature.

    Now:
    Me: Dude, I missed Futurama last night! Can you capture it, encode it, and then put it on your server so I can grab it?
    Friend: "I guess..."

    The Future:
    Me: "Dude, I missed Futurama last night!"
    Friend: "No problem... " hits a couple of buttons.. "You'll have it in an hour."
  • After looking in on Rob's journal [slashdot.org] this morning, this comes up. Is there a coincidence how things get broken at Rob's? Kathleen are you reading this? ;)
  • .. with the older models. I'm an owner of a 3030 and they have effectivly STOPPED improving this model. Atleast tivo people might still get improvements to their software from time to time.

    My biggest gripe with my 3030 is that it doesn't keep track of shows its already recorded. If you setup a horror movie theme channel it will record the same damn movies over and over unless they are already recorded and on the harddrive. I mean how many freaking times does the thing need to record 'Boltneck'
    • PVR, n.: Personal Video Recorder. A device capable of recording video programs that meet one's personal preferences, almost always using a local hard disk.

All trademarks and copyrights on this page are owned by their respective owners. Comments are owned by the Poster. The Rest © 1997-2009 Geeknet, Inc.