Customizing « TiVo Central

Customizing

Additional Info, tips, tricks, etc.

This page will explain how to do some additional setup stuff that was a little too longwinded to put into the first howto. Most of this information has been and will continue to be provided by new users, Ie NOT me!. Thankyou for everyone who has provided info so far! Grant especially for providing alot of this info.

Setting up a Cron job for LoadGuide

NOTE: Loadguide is not the recommended way of running your TiVo in NZ, we recommend using the emulator, which supports known configurations in NZ at this time (or we will look at making it support them). Using loadguide means your data will be less complete than on the new emulating system as the slice generation uses an old method. You’ll likely also miss out on other headend goodies.

Rather than having to manually run a loadguide to pick up new slices, let’s set up a task under crontab to do it for us.

I’ve set mine up to run every morning at 1:10am and check for new guide data. If there’s no new data it won’t do anything but if there is an updated slice it will download it and sort it into the TiVo.

Here’s how to do it.

Telnet into your TiVo

cd /hack/etc/

cp crontab crontab.bak (make a backup of your original file.. just in case )

nano crontab

This will open your crontab file in the nano editor. Scroll down to the bottom where you will see something like the following.

 # m h dom mon dow command
 #*/10 * * * * touch /hack/touch.test
 10 02 * * * fixtime.cron
 59 04 * * 1 backup_hack
 #0 8 * * 1-5 dailymail.tcl &

If you look at the above, you can see that the command fixtime.cron is set to run at 02:10am each day.

We want to add a line before that line to read the following.

 10 01 * * * LOADGUIDE

So, your crontab file will now read as follows…

 # m h dom mon dow command
 #*/10 * * * * touch /hack/touch.test
 10 01 * * * LOADGUIDE
 10 02 * * * fixtime.cron
 59 04 * * 1 backup_hack
 #0 8 * * 1-5 dailymail.tcl &

This will make the TiVo connect to the website and attempt to load the slice each morning at 01:10am. You can of course change the frequency of this to whatever you like. For full information on cron jobs, visit this website:

http://www.unixgeeks.org/security/newbie/unix/cron-1.html

Ok, we’ve edited the file. Now you need to save it, Ctrl-X, Y

Press Enter (to save as same filename)

Reboot

That’s it. Now your TiVo should automatically check for new data/load the data each morning at 1:10am (or whatever day/time you set it to).

Setting the TimeSync Up for New Zealand

cd /var/hack/bin

timezoneadj30.tcl

At the prompt enter ‘7′ and press enter.

cd /etc

Look for a file called postcodezones

cp postcodezones postcodezones.bak

(this will make a backup)

FTP this timezone file (postcodezones) to /etc with the Pacific/Auckland timezone in it

(this will overwrite the old version)

chmod 777 postcodezones

cd /var/hack/zoneinfo/

mkdir Pacific

FTP this file (Auckland) to the /var/hack/zoneinfo/Pacific directory

chmod 777 Auckland

fixtivotime

Adjusting EndPad

A script is running on the OzTivo image as standard which makes the TiVo record earlier and longer than the time specified (providing another show isn’t back-to-back). It’s actually a very useful feature although you might want to adjust the default times a little bit.

For example:

Time Set for 8pm start and 8:30pm finish will start recording at 7:55pm and finish at 8:40pm. (5 mins early and 10 mins longer). This is to avoid cutting off the beginning or end if the programme is running early or late.

To adjust this do the following…

cd /etc/rc.d/

cp rc.sysinit.author rc.sysinit.author.bak

nano rc.sysinit.author

Scroll down and edit the line which will read something like /var/hack/endpadplus.tcl 5 10 –auto

To disable endpad (not really recommended) put a # in front of the line.

If you want to adjust it, change the 5 and the 10

Ie: 5 = 5 mins early and 10 = 10 mins late end time

So if you want to change it to be 1 min early and 5 mins late, adjust it to read

/var/hack/endpadplus.tcl 1 5 –auto

ctrl-x

select yes to save

press enter to save under the same name

reboot

Your changes should be effective once TiVo has rebooted.

Ghosting/Oversaturation

Your first impressions may be the quality is very poor, but its just the colour is grossly oversaturated by the Tivo. Either drastically lower your tv’s colour setting from what you’re used to, or better you can change the Tivo’s settings. Create “/etc/palmod.conf”. In this I have:

avsaturation=55 avbrightness=80 avcontrast=140

Values range from 1-255, try values to see what suits you. BE VERY CAREFUL WITH THIS FILE!! Any typos will likely stop your tivo from booting, forcing you to copy the image onto the hdd again. But just copy the above and you’ll be fine. Reboot for change to take effect.

Note if your having trouble creating the file you might need to type “rw” in order to put the file system into read/write mode.

Securing TivoWeb

The Tivo comes with its own web server. You can use this to control your tivo from anywhere on the planet, though securing it is obviously a good idea.

Edit /hack/tivoweb.cfg to add a username/pass, or change the port it uses. Ideally add more security on your firewall like only allowing access from certain ips etc. The web site is mostly self-explanitory, but can click the link to the tivoweb homepage for more info.

Note: the default web interface for nzTiVo images is TivoWebPlus, which has been extended to support free access on the localnet and security for requests beyond the localnet.

Setting IR channel numbers for Saturn Decoders

The Saturn decoders only need the minimum digits.

This will adjust the TiVo for this so it doesn’t send any unecessary leading zeros.

cd /var/hack/guide

Then issue the command

./lssources

You’ll see something like the following….

Listing source 2274/12 SignalSource 2274/12 { CableBoxCodeNum = 10006 Channel = 2274/13 2274/14 2274/15 2274/16 2274/17 2274/18 2274/19 2274/ 20 2274/21 2274/22 2274/23 2274/24 2274/25 2274/26 2274/27 2274/28 2274/29 2274/ 30 2274/31 2274/32 2274/33 2274/34 2274/35 2274/36 2274/37 2274/38 2274/39 2274/ 40 2274/41 2274/42 2274/43 2274/44 2274/45 2274/46 2274/47 2274/48 2274/49 2274/ 50 2274/51 2274/52

Connector = 3 DBSRemoteMethod = 2 ProviderName = {TiVo A/V In} RecieverNumDigits = 3 SignalType = 5 TunerDigitDelay = 350 UnattendedTunerDigitDelay = 700 VariableBitrate = 1 }

What we need is the SignalSource number, which is this case is 2274/12

Issue the following command:

dbsetx 2274/12 RecieverNumDigits 2

(where 2274/12 is replaced by whatever your SignalSource is listed as in the ‘lssources’ listing). You’ll then get the following message.

2274/12 RecieverNumDigits val was: 3 2274/12 RecieverNumDigits set to : 2

Once back at the prompt, type the following

reboot