TiVo Hacks: 100 Industrial-Strength Tips & Tools [Paperback]

Raffi Krikorian (Author)

Book Description

Series: Hacks | Publication Date: August 29, 2003

TiVo Hacks helps you get the most out of your TiVo personal video recorder. Armed with just a screwdriver and basic understanding of PC hardware (or willingness to learn), preeminent hackability awaits. This book includes hacks for changing the order of recorded programs, activating the 30-second skip to blaze through commercials, upgrading TiVo's hard drive for more hours of recording, use of TiVo's Home Media Option to remotely schedule a recording via the Web, log in to the serial port for command-line access to programming data, log files, closed-captioning data, display graphics on the TiVo screen, and even play MP3s.

Readers who use advanced hacks to put TiVo on their home network via the serial port, Ethernet, USB, or wireless (with 802.11b WiFi) will watch a whole new world open up. By installing various open source software packages, you can use TiVo for mail, instant messaging, caller-ID, and more. It's also easy to run a web server on TiVo to schedule recordings, access lists of recorded shows, and even display them on a web site. While TiVo gives viewers personalized control of their TVs, TiVo Hacks gives users personalized control of TiVo.

Note: Not all TiVos are the same. The original TiVo, the Series 1, is the most hackable TiVo out there; it's a box thrown together with commodity parts and the TiVo code is running on open hardware. The Series 2 TiVo, the most commonly sold TiVo today, is not open. You won't see hacks in this book that involve modifying Series 2 software.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Raffi Krikorian is an unapologetic TIVo lover and a digital plumber. If you look hard enough, you can usually find him putting together a hack for some random stray idea that got him sidetracked from his last project. He is currently a graduate student at the MIT Media Lab where he is both studying systems of "organic scale" and constructing very small IP-nodes that self organise into larger systems. He does freely admits, however, that his serious television addiction is probably getting between him and his goal to finally graduate MIT for the second time. When he's not studying or watching TV, you can find him wandering about or trying something new. And finally, in whatever time is left, he tends to his wasted bits on his weblog.

Product Details

• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: O'Reilly Media; 1 edition (August 29, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0596005539
• ISBN-13: 978-0596005535
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #483,342 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #98 in Books > Computers & Technology > Hardware > Internet & Networking

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

67 of 70 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars A bit misleading, September 16, 2003

By 

hang10web (Midwest, United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: TiVo Hacks: 100 Industrial-Strength Tips & Tools (Paperback)

I really enjoyed Google Hacks, and was really excited when I heard about this new Hacks book. I was, however disappointed when I actually got my hands on it.

This book touts 100 "hacks" but once you get into it, you will discover that many of these "hacks" are really just steps - instructions if you will, and that many of them rely on other "hacks." For instance, the steps involved in removing the cover from your TiVo (a few screws) counts as a "hack." There are several more like this.

The book seems to have been forced into the O'Reilly Hacks format, and probably would have been better were it freed up a bit.

The description says its 288 pages, but in fact it really only has 239 pages of what they are calling "hacks" and with 100 hacks in the book, you can see that there is on average less than 2.5 pages of coverage per "hack." I'm not saying that each "hack" is only 2.5 pages, many are larger, but I think you can see that the coverage is light. I was very disappointed that many of the "hacks" were no more than a single page telling me to download and install a piece of code from the web.

The writing style is fine, but I did get the feeling the author might not be extremely knowledgable in the TiVo space. There were several places where he had the opportunity to mention some of the real "gotchas" when working with TiVo drives and the like, but came up short. With all the contributors, I wonder if he acted a bit more as editor than author.

So, if you are looking for something with a little more meat to it, look elsewhere.

44 of 53 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars You can get all this online for free, October 4, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: TiVo Hacks: 100 Industrial-Strength Tips & Tools (Paperback)

There is very little to no new information in this book that is not available online. Check out http://www.tivocommunity.com. If you are good enough to do an upgrade/hack you are good enough to find the information on your own.

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Serious hackers only need apply, September 24, 2004

By 

Jack D. Herrington "engineer and author" (Silicon Valley, CA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: TiVo Hacks: 100 Industrial-Strength Tips & Tools (Paperback)

The majority of the book is working the TiVo at the operating system level to alter the software or to transfer movies. This is advanced stuff that requires a good deal of technical skill. The first chapter of the book does have some hacks that are done from the interface itself, like enabling the advanced season pass. The second chapter covers adding more disk space to your TiVo. Then beyond that you get into the advanced topics; putting your TiVo on your network, changing the software, transferring movies around, and then authoring code for the TiVo.

The book is very focused. The text is well written and the graphics are used effectively. The section on adding disk space is very well done and is better than anything I have read on the web for doing the same type of work.

I recommend this book for people who are familiar with Linux and hardware hacking and are interested in extending their TiVos. For just the average TiVo user you may want to review the table of contents to make sure that you are getting enough out of your purchase.