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- Hacking the Tivo -


A popular project for somewhat technically savy Tivo owners is to modify or "hack" their Tivo. Tivo hacking is not about getting something for free, rather it is about modifying their Tivo and customizing it to their needs. A Tivo hard drive upgrade is just one example of tivo hacking.

There are a great abundance of hacking tools and utilities that you can use to add new functionality to your Tivo, including allowing it to download programming information via your high speed Internet connection instead of tying up your phone line and much more.

Setting aside all of its bells and whistles, a Tivo is essentially a computer running a modified Linux operating system. All programs and user options are stored on a standard computer hard drive. Some Tivo hacks can be done with just a little knowledge of the Linux operating system. some other modifications however require a better understanding.

Some of the more popular utilities are outlined as follows;


2.5Xtreme Hack

2.5Xtreme is one of the more popular hacks for the Directv with Tivo. It is a modified version of the original Directv with Tivo 2.5 software revision. 2.5Xtreme was developed by an individual known as Surgeon in 2001. It adds a number of features including enabling Directv with Tivo dual tuner support, upgrading the size of your Directv with Tivo hard drives, installation of bash utilities and more. Installation of 2.5Xtreme is fairly straight forward, it comes in an ISO image format which you burn to a CD as an image and then boot your computer from the CD and follow the prompts. You can use 2.5Xtreme on your existing hard drives or write it to a new larger hard drive with additional storage capacity. 2.5Xtreme will also allow you to add a second hard drive to your Directv with Tivo without the need to use seperate utilities.


Superzaps 2.5.2/3.1 Tivo Hack

One of the drawbacks of the original 2.5Xtreme software revision is that it no longer allows local channels to be viewed on the Directv with Tivo. However once you have 2.5Xtreme installed on your Directv with Tivo and have it working, you can then proceed to upgrade it to 2.5.2 or 3.1 which will enable your local channels in addition to installing an additional number of utilities to help you get the most out of your Directv with Tivo. Superzaps 2.5.2/3.1 upgrade is also an ISO image that is burned to a CD and then booted to. Unlike 2.5Xtreme, Superzaps upgrade is not a complete operating system, so you need to have Tivo version 2.0, 2.5 or 2.5Xtreme already installed before you can proceed to upgrade to either 2.5.2 or 3.1. The Superzap utility package built into the 2.5.2/3.1 upgrade is called XPlusz. It installs many of the more popular add-ons and utilities and allows your to turn the individual utilities on/off using your Directv with Tivo remote control.


Kraven 2.5 Upgrade/3.1 Tivolater Hack

The Kraven upgrade is another modified Directv with Tivo software revision with added utilities. It is similar to the Superzap upgrade, but it incorporates different utilities and uses a different method to activate them. There are two seperate releases, one will upgrade your 2.5Xtreme with the added Kraven utilities and the other will upgrade you to software revision 3.1.


Turbonet Hack

Turbonet is a special add-on Tivo Ethernet card that allows your Tivo to utilize a high speed Internet connection instead of a tying up your phone line for the calls to Tivo. Driver for the Turbonet card are included in Superzaps 2.5.2/3.1 upgrade or 3.1 Tivolater


Tivoweb Hack

Tivoweb is an add-on module for your Tivo that allows you to communicate with the via a Internet browser. With Tivoweb you can program and operate your Tivo remotely over the Internet and more.


Tytool & Tystudio Hack

Tytool and Tystudio are utilities designed to extract programs from your Tivo and save them to your computer.


Bash Prompt Hack

Bash Utilities are installed with 2.5Xtreme. A bash prompt allows you to communicate with your Tivo, it is a Linux prompt similar to a Windows DOS prompt. A bash prompt will allow you to transfer files and make internal changes to your Tivo.


TivoFTP Hack

The Tivo FTP utilities will allow you to easily transfer files to and from your Tivo. This is very handy when installing add-ons and various modules.







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