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- Hacking the Tivo
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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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