Connecting to your Tivo

You’ll need to connect to your Tivo by a terminal (if your using a Serial cable)or telnet (when using a Networking card) session. If you connect by a network card, you connect to the Tivo’s IP Address that it has been allocated, or to the static address that it has been set with. See Tivo IP for how to find out your IP address of the Tivo.

Hack Directories

Some of the scripts referred in documentation are ones located in the hack directories.
These directories are in the Path, and scripts should run directly from any prompt.
Directory Locations:
/hack – Hack Parent Dir /hack/etc – Location for Crontab (for scheduled running of scripts)
/hack/bin – Location for scripts relating to OS fixes and Time adjusting
/hack/guide – Location for scripts relating to Channels and Guide Data
/var/hack… – A symbolic link (shortcut) to /hack/bin, goes to the same dir
The /hack directory is mounted in Read/Write, so you can ftp to here without running the rw command.

FTP Info

File Transfer Protocol is the only way to copy new files/scripts to the Tivo Operating System. Get an ftp client for Windows, point it to your Tivo’s IP Address. Enter past the login, as there is no username or password needed
Type in the FTP client’s command box: bin to go into binary mode cd /hack/guide/ (or browse to whatever dir you want to put the files into, remember only /hack is writeable, unless you’ve typed rw prior to ftp’ing).
You can then select files on the local directory (after browsing to it) and put them into the folder.

If you are FTP’ing from a command line, change to the directory that you are going to transfer from, run ftp.
bin
put /path/filename
Multiple File Transfer:
prompt Turns question prompt off
mput * puts all files in the current dir
prompt turns prompt on again

Problems with FTP from Windows
You may find that your files sent from windows to the Tivo have ^M in blue appended to each line, or you don’t know why the new script files won’t run. Make sure you put your FTP client in binary mode (above) to prevent this.
If you find these ^M appended you can remove them by running this from a Tivo prompt:
dos2unix filename

Setting up Motorola or Zenith Sky STBs (decoders)

You’ll need to load InfraRed codes to be able to control the STBs that aren’t included in the ozTivo image.
See STB IRcodes

Keeping Time

Having installed the 1.6.2 image in Nov2006, I found the things in this section unnecessary. Following the setup calls to the emulator and the subsequent reboot, time/DST etc was all fine. (Note: during GS, I used postcode 02113 for SkyDigital/Auckland). MartyN.

Download postcodezones and NZ Timezone. Rename the files to remove off the .txt extension.

FTP to Tivo in binary mode (bin) as per instructions above. cd /hack and put the files. Quit FTP and telnet to Tivo.
rw change filesystem to read/write
cp /etc/postcodezones /etc/postcodezones.bak
cp /hack/postcodezones /etc/postcodezones
cd /hack/zoneinfo
mkdir Pacific
cp /hack/Auckland /hack/zoneinfo/Pacific/
fixtivotime

That should find the postcode for Auckland, synchronize time with an internet time server and correct your time. You should now reboot. (You can just type reboot at the prompt after you’ve finished copying etc).
Make sure there isn’t any trailing spaces/characters on the Auckland file by typing in the /hack/zoneinfo/Pacific directory:
cp Auck<tab> Auckland The <tab> key should fill in the rest of the Auckland filename, including any trailing rubbish, and the second Auckland filename makes sure it’s the correct name.
If you have problems with any text file you’ve transfered, run them through dos2unix on tivo: dos2unix filename

If you are having problems using postcodes etc you can set the clock with this, and it should stay good until the next Daylight Savings shift, at which point you’ll need to set it correctly:br> settime yyyymmddhhmmss
eg. settime 20041231235900
settime -rtc

Forcing a Daily Call

Normally your Tivo will phone home each day to see if there is any new program guide data. You can force your TiVo to make a daily call early, but you can’t do this using the on-screen TV menus, as the “Phone” menu doesn’t work in PAL mode. Instead, you can use your web browser to connect to the TiVoWeb server on your TiVo, and then use the Phone menu there.
You can also force this very quickly by creating a shortcut to

http://192.168.1.254/Dcall

Where 192.168.1.254 is replaced with your Tivo’s IP address. If you have a PC running full time on the network, you might use Windows XP’s Scheduled Tasks (in the contol panel) to open this short cut at a specific time each day.

Finding your AV Source

You should write down somewhere your AV Source code, which is used in some of the post-configuration steps.
Run in a telnet/terminal session
tivosh
mls /

Look for a line with the Setup object, look at it’s ID number. A Typical number is something like 636950. Now type:

dumpobj objectID

eg dumpobj 636950
Now you’ll see your AV source ID, it’ll be something like 636950/11 for example. You should only have one A/V Source ID unless you are using the TV tuner.

Type exit at the prompt to get out of tivosh and back to the bash prompt.
Alternatively if you have access to Tivoweb, click on MFS then Click on Setup. The Source (which is also a link) is your A/V Source.

Changing the input Source

If you later (ie after you’re all set up) want to switch Svideo/Composite input run in a telnet/terminal session: dbset <AV Source #> <setting> <value>, ie setting = Connector, value = 3/5

Increasing Tuner Digit Delay
Just as a precaution it’s good to increase the unattended IR blasting time. Sometimes the time (in ms) between digits eg 0….3 for channel 3 is too fast for the STB to pick up, the delay needs to be increased:

dbsetx avsource set TunerDigitDelay 350
dbsetx avsource set UnattendedTunerDigitDelay 800

Note to DSR600 users (and others), if you use scart->svideo and your colours are wacky there is a setting on the Decoders onscreen menu that lets you switch between svideo/composite.

Manual Commands – Not required if you’ve run Guided Setup with the NZ Emulator settings
Note: See below for the LOADGUIDE script and Force Index script to manually load a guide data slice if it ever fails.

Manually Adding Channels

If you want to add a new channel manually (you should not need to do this if you’ve run the emulator setup), a new channel object needs to be created for each channel that you want. We do this using the ‘add-whole-channel.tcl’ script with the command:

add-whole-channel.tcl <Channel ID> <Channel Num> <ShortName> <LongName> <A/V ID>

eg

add-whole-channel.tcl 7998001 1 TV1 “TV1″ 637957/11

To Add All Channels Manually

The add-whole-channel.tcl script is in the /var/hack/guide directory. This file here add-all-Sky-Channels is a very basic script that contains the add-whole-channel command for every current Sky channel. All you need to do is run this and your all set… Here is the one for Saturn, add-all-Saturn-Channels.

First FTP the file to /var/hack/guide.

chmod 777 add-all-Sky-Channels

Now using the A/V Source ID you created earlier run

./add-all-Sky-Channels <A/V Source ID>

eg

./add-all-Sky-Channels 637957/11

Ok now that should run and not give you any errors. When its done it’s probably a good idea to reboot your Tivo and confirm onscreen that your channels exist and that the IR blaster is working by changing channels.

Loading the ‘No Nag’ slice Manually

If the Tivo ever runs low on guide data you get these very annoying onscreen messages telling you to make a daily call. Can get very annoying…

Fortunately you can get around this by loading up a fake slice ga.slice which has data until year 2050 or something silly like that…

FTP it to the usual place, /var/hack/guide

/bin/dbload30.tcl ga.slice Setting the guide data source

Ok, now we need to set up loadguide, the script that does the downloading and loading of the guide data. Loadguide has been left out of the new OzTivo image as they have moved to using the emulator for getting slices.

Download LOADGUIDE and upload it to /hack/bin, chmod 777 it.

Also download loadguide.conf and upload it to /var/hack/guide

Now try running LOADGUIDE:

LOADGUIDE

It’ll take a while to download the slice and load it….

Once this has completed go to “live tv” and confirm that you have guide data on you channels.

Not Required if Emulator was setup:
Note that because this new OzTivo image didn’t have LOADGUIDE in it you’ll need to manually set up a cron job (repeating task) for loadguide so that it will run on a regular basis and keep your Tivo upto date with the latest guide data slices. See the page customizing for info on how to do this.

Final Notes

Note for Serial cable users that don’t have a Turbonet card or Modem set up, or have PPP for Serial setup. You will need to manually load your slices.

Download the slice and serial upload (type rz, then use the menu command to send file in ZModem format) to /var/hack/guide

run

/hack/bin/dbload30.tcl nztivo.slice

when thats done run

/hack/bin/fixup30.tcl

and optionally

force_index30.tcl