[ExtractStream] tivonet, is it worth it?

[Roger Merchberger]

--- ThePith1@a... wrote:
> Hi,
> My DIRECTV tivo unit should arrive next week and I am trying to
> decide if 
> this whole tivonet (or turbo net) is worth it. 

The long answer: Most Definately!
The short answer: He|| Yes! ;-)

> My reason for wanting tivonet in the first place is video
> extraction to 
> video CD archive. I am very familiar with video CD and conversion
> so that 
> isn't an issue.

Then you're better off than me when I started... I'm a longtime geek,
but was *very* new to video in general. You'll do fine with this
hobby.

> I have a fast PC running windows XP with lots of harddrive
> space, and I 
> consider myself pretty confident with poking around the inside of
> my 
> computer.

Good. Personally, I'd recommend a 1Ghz P3 or better - tho I'm
impatient & my 1Ghz P3 still wasn't fast enough for me, so now I have
dual Athlon 1600+ MP's... ;-)

> I do not know LINUX and hear that video extraction isn't very
> reliable. 
> i.e.- most video extraction end up with artifacts, or messed up
> audio and 
> only after trying to sandwich two extracted streams from your tivo
> unit.
> I am looking for something that might be a little complicated at
> first but 
> once it is established I could just simply call up my tivo unit and
> pull some 
> videos. Is this realistic or not?
> And if it is, where do I find the most current, clear, and concise 
> information on how-to?

You've come to the right place. Getting set up is a little jiggery at
first, but it's pretty easy to work the bugs out & get settled in to
archiving to SVCD. Setting up TivoNet is pretty easy - go to
www.9thtee.com and they have TivoNet boot floppies & TivoNet boot
CD's with instructions on just how to set up your machine to install
the Net software. There's also a lot of good folks here that are
willing to help, altho setting up TivoNet is a little off-topic here.

As always, YMMV - but my video extraction is very reliable... 95%+ of
my extractions are successful - and some of that remaining 5% is due
to my satellite dish...

I wrote a webpage on how to do TivoNet extraction, with links to a
few other pages & most of the software you'll need - go here and have
a read-thru:

http://www.30below.com/~zmerch/tivo/index.cfm

A few points of advice:

1) If you're going to increase the size of your hard drive(s), check
out some of the tivo hacking sites first... sometimes going "too big"
on the HD's can cause weird things to happen due to weird partition
offsets. I upgraded my stand-alone Tivo from 20G to 40G and I've had
no problems with extraction using the software listed on my homepage.

2) if you are having problems, please list *all* information that you
can, even if you don't think it's relevant. This makes a huge
difference to those of us that can help you - instead of taking stabs
in the dark, we can usually point you in the right direction. This
includes: System Type/OS/RAM/HD sizes, Tivo Type/OS/HD sizes, how you
upgraded your Tivo (dd copy or TivoMad utility), *exactly* what
software you were using to do
extraction/splitting/converting/burning, if any, what error messages
you received, **verbatim**, and a good description of what went
wrong. Nothing is harder than trying to debug this statement:
"Something weird is going on with my tivo while extracting." or "I
tried to extract some video, and it didn't work... why?"

3) Whatever you do, whatever changes you make, (especially your first
time) document everything you do, and keep backups - just in case.
Triple-check your connection settings & be very careful when you make
your first Tivo hard drive backup - I know some guy that did his Tivo
backup at 0300 hours, and amazingly, the IDE cable (despite being
notched) on his original Tivo drive actually fit upside-down.
*Fortunately* this guy didn't power up his computer right away so he
didn't fry his hard drive... but unfortunately the HD cable was
"keyed" or had one hole plugged, which promptly broke Pin 21 of the
hard drive interface which is "normally" unused, but the Tivo uses it
for indicating DMA access to the drive, and the drive is now
unusable. The TivoNet boot floppy drivers don't use DMA so he was
able to still get a good backup, & having the drive tucked away makes
for the "ultimate" in backup (a *lot* of people do this & it's a good
idea), but it sucks that my Tivo only has 40G instead of 60G... Erm..
I mean "some guy's" tivo... ;-)

Depending on how much extracting you do (I do 3-4 shows per week) 40G
might be enough - that depends on your schedule & whatnot.
Anyway, must keep rollin', so I hope this helps...
Roger "Merch" Merchberger

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Sports - Coverage of the 2002 Olympic Games
http://sports.yahoo.com