Hacking TiVo - Jeff Keegan
In
Hacking TiVo, Jeff Keegan proves that the
TiVo
television-recording device is far more than an enhancement to the
passive lifestyle. By showing his readers how to use known tricks and
all-purpose resourcefulness (plus some online community resources),
Keegan shows how to make the TiVo perform far beyond its advertised
purpose. He provides a chef's tour of the versatile appliance, calling
attention to non-invasive tricks (like entering
Select-Play-Select-3-0-Select to skip exactly 30 seconds ahead in a
recording to bypass an ad) before moving on to more drastic kinds of
fun. By the time you're through with Keegan's guide to the TiVo, you'll
have it working as a more or less complete Unix workstation, accessible
over the Internet via the excellent TivoWeb interface, and showing home
videos, telephone caller ID information, and instant-messaging
communications on your television screen.
This book mostly is
concerned with software hacks, which will void your TiVo warranty as
surely as anything involving a soldering iron, but which have the
advantage of usually being reversible. Though he says the hacks in this
book will work on TiVo Series1 and Series2, he doesn't explain how to
defeat the systems' anti-intrusion mechanisms (which prevent the
installation of software, and thus preclude the performance of about
half the hacks in this book). This appears to be an exclusion for legal
reasons, and he points out that the information is easily found on the
Internet. --David Wall
Topics covered: How to
make your TiVo do more of what you want. Instructions show how to add a
bigger hard drive (for greater recording time), access the TiVo's bash
command line, use unsupported command sequences, and share files
between your TiVo and your networked personal computer. Particularly
neat sections deal with using TivoWeb and putting Caller ID information
on-screen.
Product Description
You love your TiVo. Make it love you back.
In
Hacking TiVo, TiVo Underground insider Jeff Keegan blows the lid off of
your TiVo, literally. Your TiVo does many wonderful things on its own;
Hacking TiVo shows you how to access TiVo enhancements that you've
never dreamed of.
The obvious hacks are all there, of course, including:
- vastly increasing the size of your TiVo's hard drive
- accessing the backdoor remote control codes
- full detail on how, when, and why to use over 35 backdoor codes
- adding on-screen sports scores, stock tickers and more
- starting and stopping installed hacks with your remote control
- hacking into the TiVo operating system.
Those hacks, while fun and interesting, just scratch the surface.
Advanced
hacks covered in the book will show you how to not only connect your
TiVo to the Internet, but also allow you to take control of your TiVo
remotely via the Web once that connection exists. Hook your TiVo into
online instant messaging services like ICQ or Instant Messenger; link
it to your Caller ID; display your own photos onscreen; or insert
footage from your camcorder into your TiVo.
At the heart of
this book is its unique CD-ROM, which makes hacking your TiVo fast and
fun. Simply insert the CD and reboot, and your PC becomes a Linux
machine, pre-configured and capable of reading and writing to your TiVo
hard drives. Simply follow along with the book to install the hacks one
at a time, or use the CD's install all feature to install all of the
hacks at once! This is simply the easiest CD-ROM available today for
TiVo hackers.
At over 500 pages, Hacking TiVo offers more
extensive, hands-on coverage of backdoor codes, video extraction, and
operating system hacks than any other TiVo book available. And with
more than a hundred pages of guidance on writing your own hacks, the
possibilities are limited only by your imagination.
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