[ExtractStream] What is most likely a FAQ...

[Stealth Dave]

First off, doing this without TivoNET is going to make the process VERY
SLOW!!! At best, you'll get a 115k connection over the serial port,
which is about 2x the speed of a 56k modem and 1/3 to 1/10th the speed
of TivoNET (TivoNET speeds generally fall into the 300k-1M transfer
range, depending on your specific network). Not only is this a rather
slow connection, but the video files you're dealing with are big.
Really big. For a basic quality program, you're looking at
approximately 700M file/hour of video and approximately 2.5G file for
best quality. At 115k/s serial speeds under best conditions you're
looking at ~20 hours for 1 hour of Basic or 3 DAYS for 1 hour of Best
Quality!

That's not to say it isn't possible. If you set up a PPP connection to
your Tivo (check out the Tivo Hacking FAQ at http://tivo.samba.org), you
can use the ExtractStream tools the same way that you use them over the
TivoNET, just a lot slower.

Unfortunately, to my knowledge no one has figured out how to transfer
programs directly from the Tivo hard drives, mainly because the
extraction tools use the Tivo itself to find the program information on
the drive.

Another extremely DANGEROUS option would be to create an additional
partition on one of the Tivo hard drives (if there is any unformatted
space, which there probably isn't), mount that partition on the Tivo
using the BASH prompt on your Tivo, and dump the program to that
partition. Then you can put that hard drive into a standard linux box,
mount that extra partition and copy the extracted file from there. You
could even transfer the file over the serial port using Zmodem, but then
you're back to 1-3 days of transfer time per hour of video. Again, this
option is EXTREMELY DANGERSOUS (you're formatting part of your Tivo's
hard drive), UNTESTED (it would take a lot of tinkering to get it to
work), and definitely NOT RECOMMENDED. But it's an option, and an
interesting one at that. :)

I hope that answers your question. If you want to transfer video, the
TivoNET is just about your only option. As you can see, there are
others, but they're not particularly good options. Good luck to you,
and report back if you have any success.

- Stealth Dave

On Thu, 2001-12-13 at 23:04, Michael Patterson wrote:
> 
> I apologize, but I couldn't find the answer to my question in the
archives.
> If there is a place to point me to, feel free to do that offlist
instead of
> answering a question on-list that's been answered before.
> 
> With that said, I have a two drive upgraded TIVO with a show that I
would
> like to get transferred to my computer.
> 
> The computer is nearby, with a free serial port.
> 
> I do NOT have any hardware or software modifications to the TIVO yet,
other
> than making it a 2 drive system. (So no TIVONET, etc.)
> 
> What is the easiest way to go about doing this without buying extra
> hardware? (I want to do this over the course of the day saturday,
which
> means I can't get a TIVONET here in time.)
> 
> I am willing to put the drives in a PC to solve this problem, or get
PPP
> working, if it can be done without erasing the programs currently on
the
> TIVO.
> 
> Thanks for any and all information,
> Mike