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Television Media

802.11b on your Tivo 120

Posted by michael from the look-ma-no-wires dept.
Otto writes: "Those who don't regularly read the Tivo Community Forums may not know that a 802.11b wireless adapter for the Tivo, called AirNet, is in the works. It's being made by jafa, who also created the TurboNet card, a similar device to the TivoNet adapters available at 9thTee but faster. Long story short, he's auctioning off 4 beta boards of the AirNet adapter for the Tivo and giving the proceeds to the Elf Foundation, a group which brings Home Theater to ill children by setting up mini-theaters in children's hospitals nationwide. Good fun techie geek stuff, and for charity too! You can't beat that. The auction is here on ebay." Looks like the guy's home page is silicondust.com.
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802.11b on your Tivo More

802.11b on your Tivo

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  • Oh great, (Score:1, Funny)

    by dotderf ( 548723 )
    Now someone will crack the security and buy Battlefield Earth, pay-per-view!
    • I was at the movies the night battlefield earth had opened and behind someone buying tickets for it and I mean like a lot of them for a showtime happening in like 10 minutes. I smoked a cigarette before going in and watched him gather up all these tickets walk to the parking lot and drive off. Scientologists are kooky that way. They do the same thing with dianetics I understand.

  • MPAA (Score:1)

    by GigsVT ( 208848 )
    How long before the MPAA cracks down on the Elf Foundation for unauthorized public viewing of their copyrighted works?
    • they took a couple of small day care centers to court for "public viewing" of the little mermaid. not to mention i have quite a few cds that around the edge of it specifically prohibits "loaning of cds"

    • Re:MPAA (Score:3, Funny)

      by curunir ( 98273 )
      Not that they ever come off looking good anyways, but it'd be fun to see them try to villainize terminally-ill children.

      "Your honor...don't let their ventilators, bald heads and palid complexions fool you...those children represent a huge menace to society."

      I'm not sure even a lawyer could say that with a straight face.
  • Flogging 4 items may not take long, so perhaps donate direct to http://www.elfsystems.org instead?

  • Does this mean.. (Score:4, Funny)

    by Sarlok ( 144969 ) on Wednesday March 06, 2002 @07:23PM (#3121845)
    .. that I can connect my Tivo to my neighbor's network and force him to watch Pauly Shore movies?

  • Okay, so maybe I'm being stupid but... (Score:3, Informative)

    by darien ( 180561 ) <darien @ g m a i l . com> on Wednesday March 06, 2002 @07:27PM (#3121866)
    Err, why is this such a great thing? I mean, obviously it is - there are people on the forum mentioned above saying that the guy who did this is a "deity" and so forth. But none of them actually seems to have said what they intend to do with wireless, and I have to say it's not obvious to me what a Tivo and a PC could usefully have to say to each other.

    Can anyone who knows a bit more about the Tivo enlighten me?
    • I'd rather use ethernet, but if you're trying to keep a cord free house I guess this could be useful. The networking additions for the TiVos allow you to access the mpeg video from your PC -- which makes it easy to share or archive them.
    • For starters, a LAN Internet connection would seem adequate enough for the programming updates it normally does via dialup. If you don't have a land line, I can see this as being a big deal. Second, if you don't want to run Cat5 from your home theater to your wiring closet/office/whatever, you don't have to anymore.
    • Yup, it's not that useful. About all you can do is watch recorded TV from any computer in your house. You could have multiple people on multiple PCs watching, but they would all be viewing the same thing, so why not just all get together in the living room??

      The only good use for this that I can think of is porn. Just put a computer with an 802.11 reciever in the bathroom and you're set.
    • For one, it offers limitless storage capacity since you can now copy files to your hard drive. (and burn them to cd/dvd/etc.) A lot of Tivos, especially earlier ones, had smaller hard drives and weren't useful for long-term storage. Now, that problem is solved.

      Two, it allows you to access data stored on your tivo from other PCs in your house.

      Three, it's just plain cool. :)
    • well i don't know about you, but I don't have a phone jack right next to my TV. And my wife frowns on my stringing phone cord throughout the house.

      So I have two choices... use one of those horrible "add an extention" plugs that plugs into a power socket, or use 802.11b capabilities.

    • Re:Okay, so maybe I'm being stupid but... (Score:1, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      You can do a number of this with ethernet on tivo...



      First, the programming updates can be done over a broadband (or dialup I guess) internet connection rather than phone lines. Good for folks who don't have phones, have a broken modem in the tivo, or have to dial long distance to get the data.



      Second, you can put a web server on the tivo and schedule recordings, see what you have recorded, etc. Good for geeks who want to show off.



      Third, you can extract video from the tivo in an mpeg-2-like format, convert it to mpeg-2, and then do what you want with it. Personally, I extract movies that I like, convert them to divx, and put them on cds. Good for folks who like to store lots of video.

    • Re:Okay, so maybe I'm being stupid but... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by onethumb ( 4479 ) on Wednesday March 06, 2002 @07:43PM (#3121963) Homepage
      Sure, here's a quick rundown:

      #1 - No more phone line needed. The TiVo can get it's next 14 days worth of programming via the 802.11b card and PPP.

      #2 - You can install a web server on your TiVo and browse through the TiVo's menus over the web. This includes scheduling show recordings while you're at work, for example.

      #3 - You can backup shows on your TiVo to your computer rather than to VHS. You can also stream the shows to your PC to watch them there, rather than on your TV.

      I'm sure there are plenty more, but those are the biggies.

      Great stuff!

      Don
      • I have more stupid questions:

        The things you talk about doing with this, has the software already been written for these tasks? I already have cat5 behind my tv for an MP3 player, and eventualy my XBox, so I really wouldn't need to wait for the 802.11b solution. Is there somewhere I can go to read up on this stuff (other than digging through that message board for weeks)?
        • Yes. The software for everything he mentioned already exists.
          Personally, I want one because there's no easy way to get CAT5 to where my TiVo sits. I've been dreading cable-snaking through the walls. This solves my problem nicely.
        • Yep, this stuff exists in one form or another already. There's been an ethernet adapter out for TiVo for awhile (TiVoNet), using a 10Mbps NE2000 clone. TiVoNet stuff [9thtee.com]

          A new one, made by the same guy who makes this new AirTivo, is now shipping called TurboNet that's a 100Mbps card. TurboNet stuff [attbi.com]

          The software to support web services and everything all exist as well. ExtractStream [9thtee.com], a video extraction piece.

          Your best bet to keep up on all this stuff is at the Underground Playground section of AVS/TiVo Community's [tivocommunity.com] message forums.

          Hope that helps!

          Don
    • I don't have a phone line anywhere near my TiVo. The four ethernet jacks in that room are full, and the only serial port near it is collection telemetry data. When my TiVo needs to dial up (like it does now), I run a phone cord halfway across my house and tell it to dial. If it could hop on the 802.11b LAN, my life would be a lot easier.

    • This guy is considered a deity over there because not only has he managed to produce an 802.11b (good grief, I hate the WiFi brand name) card adapter for the TiVo, he's also managed to produce a 10/100-base-T ethernet card (not just an adapter, an original card from scratch) for the TiVo - all within the span of a few months.

      Adapters for the TiVo existed to allow one to plug an ISA NE-2000 NIC into one's TiVo, but they were only OK because they were a 2 piece unit (adapter and card) which adds an additional point of failure, not to mention they were only 10-base-T and used an NE-2000 driver for that card that only worked so-so.

      I'm pretty sure if you come up with an idea card that can plug into the diagnostic slot on the Series 1 TiVos, and can seriously explain how it could be useful, this guy could make it.

  • Now this is handy, use a tivo anywhere in the house.. I must go buy one now.

  • Cable Relay, Perhaps? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Mithrandur ( 69023 ) on Wednesday March 06, 2002 @07:34PM (#3121906)
    Even not knowing the video format, how hard could it be to hack two tivos such that one broadcasts the data it's storing over the wireless link, and the other stores said data. Combine that with a good antenna, and one guy on the block could provide cable for everyone.

    • ...and one guy on the block could provide cable for everyone.

      Look out your window, bud. Do you see the black car? That's the FBI. They'd like to speak to you.

      Soko
    • Interesting? No offense but this guy makes an off the cuff remark that isn't at all well informed on a subject he doesn't know anything about and that's interesting? Five minutes on google, guy, that's all it would take. i'm sorry if this seems harsh it's just that this is supposed to be a forum for people who have a thirst for knowledge, who want to find out how things work and yet we are faced with post after post that starts "I' don''t know much bout the subject being discussed but I'll throw in my half-assed opinion anyway" (I'm paraphrasing, obviously).

      It's Mpeg2 video by the way. And how exactly would he provide cable for everyone? He could give them access to the shows on the Tivo's drive but I don't thing the 50Mhz PPC in the Tivo is going to be up to streaming more than one at a time.

        • He could give them access to the shows on the Tivo's drive but I don't thing the 50Mhz PPC in the Tivo is going to be up to streaming more than one at a time.
        Plus it's only got one tv tuner. That really keeps it from seeing more than one live channel at a time.

  • Home theatres for ill children? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by iReflect ( 215501 ) on Wednesday March 06, 2002 @07:36PM (#3121913) Homepage
    I might get modded down as a troll for this, but...
    Isn't this charity kind of frivolous?

    <sarcasm>Forget homeless/starving/victims of war, we need to make sure sick american kids can watch "dude, where's my car?" in surround sound.</sarcasm>
    • <sarcasm>Forget homeless/starving/victims of war, we need to make sure sick american kids can watch "dude, where's my car?" in surround sound.</sarcasm>

      You're right...we definitely need charities to help homeless/starving/victims of war watch "dude, where's my car?" in surround sound too.
    • Well, since it's a charity, people can give money to whatever purpose they wish. Frivolous would be this money coming out of your taxes.

      Also, being happy and enjoying yourself can help in the fight against disease.

    • Isn't your question kind of frivolous? Does everybody have to work on the most pressing social problems (and who gets to say what is most pressing)?

      That EFF charity thing seems kinda frivolous to me too, in light of war, hunger, suffering... much more important stuff than YRO.

    • I might get modded down as a troll for this, but...Isn't this charity kind of frivolous?

      Forget homeless/starving/victims of war, we need to make sure sick american kids can watch "dude, where's my car?" in surround sound.

      Yeah, who cares if terminally ill children have fun before they die, anyway?

      But that drunken bum who's starving because he spent his last 50 cents on a bottle of Schlitz -- yeah, I think I'm gonna help him out.

      P.S. I give money to bums if they are physically or mentally challenged.
      • I don't. We have shelters for these people. In the majority of cities, people aren't on the streets because they have to be, it's because they want to be. Part of wanting to be there is because they can make money (crappy money, but money still) and bum cigarettes on the street (one street kid who was a friend of mine would actually only bum cigarettes. Smokers are very used to giving a cig away free. He would then sell the cigs to other street peeps for 25c/cig. He was actually making a better-than-welfare salary off this).
    • If you've ever spent a lot of time in a hospital bed, anything to get your mind off the pain and boredom is a godsend. If this brings some happiness to some sick kids and lets them escape from their misery, I don't see anything frivolous about it.

  • Elf Foundation (Score:4, Informative)

    by Chris Pimlott ( 16212 ) on Wednesday March 06, 2002 @07:38PM (#3121928)
    From the Elf Foundation homepage [elfsystems.org]:
    Elf Foundation, a newly-formed non-profit charity organization comprised of consumer and professional electronic dealers, manufacturers, manufacturer's representatives, media and industry organizations, working together for the express purpose of designing and installing entertainment and Internet-based educational systems in Children's Hospitals and ancillary facilities around the country.

    They accept donations here [avsforum.com].

    (Because I had no idea what is was either.

  • Ethernet-802.11b (Score:3, Interesting)

    by dtfarmer ( 548183 ) on Wednesday March 06, 2002 @07:46PM (#3121978) Homepage
    When will someone get on the ball and just develop an Ethernet->802.11b adapter that can be pugged in to any device that has standard 10/100 Ethernet jack so it could be put on a Wireless network?

    Is this just an impossibility? Am I the only one who thinks this would be a hot seller? I want to buy a new ReplayTV 4000, but I have no desire to run Cat5 to it. I want to eliminate extra wiring hassle from my home theater.

    Ah, well - probably just a pipe dream.
    • Um, couldn't you just use a base station (airport or the like) to do that?
      • Um, couldn't you just use a base station (airport or the like) to do that?

        Okay - I have a base station, but it is hooked up to my internet connection - in another room. I guess I just never thought about using an entire base station to give a single device access to my internet access base station.

        So I could buy another bridge and make it use the Airport network as the internet connection instead of using the WAN port? I stand corrected, but it seems a bit much to buy a full featured bridge for every device that needs an internet connection.....

    • Re:Ethernet-802.11b (Score:3, Informative)

      by zaf ( 5944 )
      That's called an 802.11 bridge, and they've been available since the beginning. They're just a bit expensive, and if you think about it, if you've got a wire and all anyway, why not just run it to the hub?
      • That's called an 802.11 bridge, and they've been available since the beginning. They're just a bit expensive, and if you think about it, if you've got a wire and all anyway, why not just run it to the hub?

        Well, if my home is not wired, and it would mean running a wire from one room to the other where my Airport Base Station is located, I would prefer not to run a wire. I'm not trying to hook up a physical network to a wireless network. I am trying to hook-up a single device to a wireless network.

        So, the correct answer is I need a bridge to connect the 1 ethernet device to my already existing 802.11b wireless network. Right now they are all expensive and targeted at hooking up a whole network of wired computers to a wireless network. I will probably have to wait until they a)come down in price and b)they are some models more targeted at getting single old, legacy, wired devices on more prevalent wireless networks.
      • The WAP11 (Linksys Wireless Bridge) will do this no problem (plus its an Access Point). Lowest price off CNet is $138. =)
        • To be sure, you can configure quite a lot of access point devices as bridges (including the WAP11), but not as both bridges and access points at the same time. Just clarifying.
      • That's called an 802.11 bridge, and they've been available since the beginning. They're just a bit expensive

        Not much more than good WiFi card. Look at the linksys WAP11.

        and if you think about it, if you've got a wire and all anyway, why not just run it to the hub?

        There's a difference between a wire that's 1' long, and a wire that's 80' long to reach my hub across the house!

    • Re:Ethernet-802.11b (Score:5, Informative)

      by seanadams.com ( 463190 ) on Wednesday March 06, 2002 @08:09PM (#3122104) Homepage
      It used to be the only one was Lucent's Orinoco/EC [hyperlinktech.com] - very expensive and not in stores.

      There is now a product from Buffalo Technology which does this, call the Airstation Bridge [buffalotech.com]

      A lot of people are using these with our ethernet MP3 player [slimdevices.com]. Everybody says the Airstation works great, and it's only about $160. I can't say I've used one yet, myself.
      • A lot of people are using these with our ethernet MP3 player

        Sounds like some people are doing exactly what I want to do - hooking a single device up to a wireless network with a bridge. Maybe as more people do this, a more elegant (and spacesaving) solution might become available. At least I am now, on the right track....

        thanks
    • Lucent already does, its called oddly enough a 802.11b to ethernet converter :)
      http://www.orinocowireless.com/template.html?s ecti on=m57&envelope=93&page=125
      ftp://ftp.orinocowire less.com/pub/docs/ORINOCO/PHO TOS/PRODUCTS/Oecs.jpg

    • If they could make an adapter that would do that it would be awsome.
  • I realize that this is a somewhat offtopic question, but does anyone know why 802.11a, or 802.11anything-but-b equipment is not out yet? If I remember correctly, 802.11a goes 54mbps full duplex, as opposed to the current 11mbps on 802.11b.
    I don't know about you guys, but the idea that something faster exists and should be accessible is what's keeping me from buying anything wireless right now.

    -kwishot
    • 802.11b is more commercial, because of the lower prices. 802.11a, even though it provides up to 54mbps transfer and has a greater range, costs 3-5 times what 802.11a does. Add that to the fact that a and b are not compatible.

      Just wait until 802.11g is commercially available. It will be backward compatible with a and b, and will provide the throughput and distance of a, with a cost more akin to b.
    • If I remember correctly, 802.11a goes 54mbps full duplex, as opposed to the current 11mbps on 802.11b. I don't know about you guys, but the idea that something faster exists and should be accessible is what's keeping me from buying anything wireless right now.

      Well, 802.11a fills me with horror, as it is not backward compatible with 802.11b - now 802.11g (IIRC - maybe f) will be great - and will be backwards compatible. That's why it's not off the ground yet - g is not yet available, and while I think a is could be available, it has many problems (scaling back speed, reception distance, and backward compatibility) which will hopefully keep it grounded.
  • Ugh, a D-Link card? I have the exact card they are using in my PC at home. The DWL-650 PCI wireless ethernet card. It is absolutely horrible. Looses its connection all the time for no apparent reason (the USB unit in the other room will continue to work fine). I'm getting rid of it as soon as my Netgear USB wireless comes in.

    Carl

    • Just to add another opinion here. I have this Dlink card as well. Works just fine for me. I've never had the card lose the connection. Of course it may just be that the signal strength is good enough in my house to not expose this limitation of the card. I think the limiting factor on most of these wireless devices is the antenna. Since the PCMCIA cards are mostly meant for laptops, I really don't want a 3' whip antenna on a hat, although I'm sure it would get great reception!

      Mike
  • jafa's quote on the forum page: It will need an external aerial if you put the cover on - you can buy cards with a socket, cable, and external aerial, or, if you don't mind a little soldering most cards have the pads to add an external aerial socket.

    Hmmmm... My audiotron arrived today and I've been thinking of how best to get network to it. We're also thinking about a TiVo. Altho 802.11b is a neat idea, I think the future is having a 4 to 8 port hub/switch at the home entertainment center tied back with 100BaseT.

    These products will need decent bandwidth and I just can't quite seeing juryrigging aerials and pringles cans looking something like tin foil on rabbit ears...

  • 802.11whatever (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 06, 2002 @08:12PM (#3122122)
    The card itself is just a tivo->PCMCIA(cardbus?) bridge. It should support any flavor wireless you want to stick in it. The enabling factor here is the Prism2 driver software. What would kick some serious ass is if he'd slap on a nic too. That way you could have your tivo and AP in the same box... hack on an antenna and an amp and you'd have a seriously cool broadcasting rig. Keep your power below 1w and nobody's gonna bug you.
  • For those that already purchased TivoNet or TurboNet... I read that you can buy the WAP11 from linksys, run the ethernet from your TivoNet/TurboNet into the WAP11, and set it up so that it acts like a client instead of a normal wireless hub... connecting to your real hub. Since I have a couple items in my living room that can be internet connected, I was looking into this. I wonder if you can connect a regular ethernet hub into the WAP11, and then run all your devices into the hub. Or is the WAP11 limited to one IP address negotiation...

    WAP11 [linksys.com]
  • Just getting rid of the damned phone line would be great. My wife trips over it, my cats chew it, I forget about it. Big pain.
    • It's your own fault anyway. Tivo's should be rackmounted, where you don't have to worry about such things. Personally, I'm getting at least 3 DirecTivo's and turbonets, and rackmounting them. Don't have to have big hard drives either, just enough to do 10 hours or so. When it's full, archive them to my fibre channel raid, and switch over to #2 or #3 for the 15 minutes it will take to empty the hard drive. Then it's ready again. As far as watching, I've already got plenty of rg6 out to the living room, I'll just move the signal to the TV with that, and have IR repeaters for the remote control. If I need to record more shows concurrently, add another to the rack. If I need more storage, add more FC drives to the raid. Never worry about blessing drives and all that nonsense. Now if we could just manage to get pitou source hosted somewhere again, without the sharks mauling it...

      Oh, and Jafa, if you ever read this, I like your design skills, but why the rj45 on the card itself? A 10 pin male header, so that you could move the jack off the board via ribbon cable would have been ideal. Snaking cat5 into the chassis is just tacky.
      • I'm going out on a limb here, but...

        I think you might watch too much TV.

      • Extending the RJ45 jack (Score:1, Informative)

        by Anonymous Coward
        No need to introduce yet-another-interface. Install your favorite RJ45 jack on the back of the tivo. Punch a short length of cat 5 to it and crimp a modular connector to the other end. Plug the modular connector into the one on the Turbonet board. This will maintain the twist. Ribbon cable would not.
        • I hardly consider a 8 or 10 pin male header "yet another interface". Especially when it would still be easy for people like us to make the internal ribbon cable. A second rj45 works, but that's just one more in what could be a long line of them. For me, this is gonna be in the computer room, so it's a straight cable to the switch, but for other's the thing is in the living room. That's 1 internal rj45, 1 external, 1 living room wall, 1 more on the far side, and finally one on the switch. I count 6. It's probably a small or even non-existent difference between 5 and 6, but one less is still good, and it would have cost him nothing design-wise. All we really need, is a decent way to mod the back panel... short of pressing a new one. I hesitate to butcher stuff with my dremel, you know.
      • I don't think this comment was meant to be classified as "funny". It's what I want to do: rackmount 3 DirectTivos (some with HD upgrades, others not), capture video there, and extract the video to my 500 GB IDE RAID using the TurboNet card (or taking out the HD and mounting it on the PC using an ext2 partition). Now, I only have to wait for robust video extracting solution to become available, but that is in the works over at DealDatabase [dealdatabase.com], just don't tell anybody :)...

        I'd love to avoid all this work, and get the TV programs I want on DVD, but they're mostly old series that will never come out on DVD anyway...

  • Until the TiVo ripping software is a little more advanced and doesn't desync the audio quite as frequently as I have seemed to experianced for the most part (or is it cause I only record in Basic?) a wireless card will be of little value.

    My other concern is the TiVo's total lack of security, with my wired network card in my TiVo I can have it behind a firewall or direct linked to my system, wireless TiVo would let anyone and their brother into it.
  • With this device and what we already know [slashdot.org] about the Tivo network, how long will it be until somebody figures out how get in and find out what their boss/mayor/Senator/etc. is really watching when he's up at 1am.

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