==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/

rw

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

Ie5 = 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 that 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 yet 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 different 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 changes to take effect.

NoteIf you are 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.

==Securing TivoWeb==

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.

==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

==Streaming==
You can stream video straight from the Tivo. The server for this is included in the OzTivo image, you only need the client software. Other tools like TyTools, msftp will let you extract video from the Tivo to your pc.

You can download the video streaming client from http://tivo-mplayer.sourceforge.net/

Noteif you are connecting to your Tivo via the AirNet card or a wireless bridge you won’t have sufficient bandwidth for smooth video playback.

”’From the O’Reilly Tivo Hacks Book”’

After you’ve downloaded and unpack the archive, inside, you’ll find a whole slew of files. Look for a binary called vserver-ppc-s1-exec. Move and rename the file to /var/hack/bin/vserver on your TiVo. Start it up:

bash-2.02# ./vserver
waiting for connections on port 8074
Launch MPlayer as in the previous hack, only this time passing it the URL tivo://tivo_ip_address/list, replacing tivo_ip_address with the IP address of your TiVo [Hack #51]. That magical tivo URL handler up front (the tivo:// bit) makes sure that MPlayer talks to the vserver on the right port with the right protocol. The list bit, as you might imagine, requests a list of available programming. Here, I’m asking my Tivo (at IP address 192.168.0.3) for its Now Showing list:

C:\Program Files\mplayer> mplayer -quiet -cache 8192[RETURN]
tivo:// 192.168.0.3/1662160
Playing tivo://tivo/list
Listing streams in /Recording/NowShowingByTitle
[1662160][3][24][Day 2: 7:00 - 8:00AM]
[1651148][3][24][Day 2: 6:00 - 7:00AM]
[1636997][3][24][Day 2: 5:00 - 6:00AM]
[1623225][3][24][Day 2: 4:00 - 5:00AM]
[1220239][13][9/11][(null)]
[1670974][2][ABC World News Tonig][(null)]
[700897][4][The Armenians: A Sto][(null)]
[1684169][2][Coming Attractions][(null)]
[1651146][5][Dawson's Creek][All Good Things ... Must Come to an End]
…
Those numbers in the first column are the filesystem IDs (FSIDs) for the recorded streams, TiVo’s way of indexing recorded videos. They’re also used by vserver to select a show to stream:

C:\Program Files\mplayer> mplayer tivo://192.168.0.3/1662160
And up comes the final episode of 24. To stop playback and quit MPlayer, press Control-C on the command line. mplayer is unfortunately quite computationally intensive, so the other flags on the command line are about lessing the load on your PC. -quiet supresses mplayer’s output on the command line, giving your PC more computational cycles for the video. The -cache line asks your PC to cache 8 MB of video data at all times while it is playing to protect your PC against the unpredictability of networks

With vserver running, you also can extract ty streams directly from TiVo using mplayer [Hack #85]. On the command line, invoke mplayer, specifying an output file and the FSID of the stream you want to extract:

$ mplayer -dumpfile out.ty -dumpstream tivo://192.168.0.3/1692481
When you’re done, don’t forget to also kill the vserver process on your TiVo with a Control-C.

==Using your Tivo remote to control your TV==
Your Tivo remote’s tv on, mute and volume buttons are programmable. See here:

http://minnie.tuhs.org/twiki/pub/Hintsortips/ProgramTiVoRemoteControl/tivotv.pdf

http://minnie.tuhs.org/twiki/pub/Hintsortips/ProgramTiVoRemoteControl/tivostereo.pdf

== Running a Ethernet connection to the Tivo ==

If you do not want to , or can not run a ethernet cable from you PC to your Tivo then using DSE HomePlug Ethernet Bridge is a great way of getting the connection you need. The speed is only 14mbps which is to slow for video streaming and downloading TY files , but fine for managment and Tivoweb.  The only trick is that i had to plug the Tivo cachecard ethernet into a hub first then the DSE HomePlug Ethernet Bridge, as for some reason the card will not talk to the DSE HomePlug Ethernet Bridge