DirecTv and Tivo

[Paul Simmel]

Hi,

I am considering taking up DirecTv's recent $99 offer for a Receiver/Tivo combo. The unit only holds 35 hours of video, however. Therefore, I was wondering if any of you Tivo owners know if the viveo can be off-loaded for DVD burning. Is there a DV Out (or some othere way to get the video off the Tivo units?)

Thanks,

Paul

[loughary]

I recall reading something about a way to transfer the video to your PC, do a forum search. You can upgrade the harddrive in the Tivo your self to increase the storage space. I added a second harddrive and now I have a total of 150 hours of storage. It really wasn’t that difficult to do.

Check out these sites for additional information about upgrading www.weaknees.com or www.9thtee.com

[Paul Simmel]

Any and all advice on how to get Tivo video into the pc would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks loughary,

Only thing I could find searching this site was a thread where someone mentioned that a DVD recorder or VCR could be hooked to the Tivo unit, and the stored programs recorded that way. If that's true, then I could use my camcorder as a passthrough interface via firewire, and capture DV straight to the pc. I am assuming that the Tivo video files are some sort of MPEG-2 - don't know if they are DVD compliant or not, so they might need to be converted anyway -- but still it would be a pain to have to play back the files in realtime in order to get them into the pc.

On your recommended 9thtee.com link they sell ethernet cards for Tivo standalone units, but even if that was an option for transferring files, it apparently wont work for me in that I'm considering the DirecTv unit (not a standalone).

[andkiich]

You have to be careful when discussing "taking video" from a TIVO. I know that there have been "issues" between TIVO and people who have modified(improperly) their machines.

I use my TIVO like a VCR. There are video and audio outs on the machine, and it has a "Save to VCR" function. I use this all the time to capture my favorite shows to PC for DVD authoring.

[bbllc]

I have a Sony RDR-GX7 DVD burner connected to my DirecTV Tivo. I just record what I am watching to the burner. I edit the files on my pc using DVD Decryptor, Womble MPeg-VCR, and Nero 6. I have had no problems with burning any of the programs to my DVD burner. The files are save as Mpeg-2.

Click here http://www.dvdguideuk.dsl.pipex.com/dvdguide/editing1/editing1.htm for a nice tutorial on editing the files.

[Paul Simmel]

Thanks to you both, bbllc, and andkiich.

I don't have a standalone dvd burner, nor do I have a VCR (which I wouldn't use anyway). But I do have a camcorder with passthrough. I have recorded to that before. The infeed was directly off DirecTv receiver. I then sent the DV to the pc via firewire from the cam.

I suppose I could just record to the camcorder, and transfer to the pc, same as above. In this way I wouldn't have to rip anything, as the firewire capture would result in DV .AVI file/s. Another thought would be to use the passthrough option, and "record" DV .AVI directly to my harddrive?

BTW, what sort of connection is used for the Save To VRC option. Is there an S-Video jack?

What are your thoughts on this? Any one else done the above?

Paul

[tedhowe]

Paul,

What you are thinking of can be done.

Check out www.dealdatabase.com for info

It's not the easiest thing in the world, but it is great once you have it set up.

Ted

[bbllc]

Your method appears to be very sound. I am thinking of trying it just to see how it works for me.

[Paul Simmel]

Thanks guys.

tedhowe, I checked your link but couldn't find anything relating to the topic. Was there someplace I should look specifically?

bbllc, It seems to me that it should work. I wont know till after the 15th as that is when my Tivo unit is supposed to be delivered.

I guess the only question I have right now is whether the Tivo Mpeg-2 files will suffer any significant quality loss after "capturing" them to DV and then re-encoding the DV .AVI files back to Mpeg-2 for burning. My feeling is (a hunch only) is that there would be no significant loss in quality due to the fact that the original Tivo Mpeg files will be "captured" as .AVIs. My experience is that there is virtually no noticeable loss from the source when doing a digital transfer/encode (Mpeg-2). But unless I am missing something, it will be a re-encode of one mpeg to another, and there has to be a hit somewhere in that mix. I just hope it is not too significant a hit.

As a final note, the only editing I'd do would probably be cutting comercials. Anyway, we'll see. Any others will experience in this?????

[tedhowe]

Paul,

At Deal Database, click on the "Message Board" link in the upper right hand corner of the main page.

From there, you would need to read DirecTivo series 2 hacking to get info about the basics of hacking the DTivo - enabling an ethernet port, allowing hack programs to be installed.

After that, specifically go to the "Extraction, Insertion & Streaming Support" forum. The main tool in there is a program called TyTool which provides soup-to-nuts tools for downloading, editing and putting the edited files on a DVD.

Before hacking the Tivo, I did several things. 1. I captured with a DV camcorder and then encoded to MPEG2 using TMPEGEnc. 2. I also captured with a Hauppauge PVR-250 - real-time MPEG2 encoding card.

Both of these gave very good results - not far different than the quality of the extracted video. Certainly acceptable to my eyes.

There are two major differences between the extraction and capture methods:

1. Extraction will not produce DVD compliant MPEGs - DirecTV broadcasts in 480x480 and the GOP internal structure is not DVD compliant. I've not found this to be a significant problem, since very many DVD players will play the non-standard MPEG2 DVDs without problems. 4 of my 5 DVD players (including the mobile one in our mini-van) play them with no problems.

2. In order to capture and retain nearly the same quality as the extracted video, you will get much less video per DVD. DirecTV streams typically run about 1 to 1.2 GB per hour (i.e. up to 4.5 hours per DVD). This is because of the non-standard GOPs - which can reduce the size of a stream significanly, and because of the VERY expensive MPEG encoders that DirecTV uses - even the best software on a PC will not be able to produce equivalent results in any realistic time.

Ted

[andkiich]

I have the Hughes DirecTivo machine(receiver and TIVO in one box) and it has an S-video, RCA video and audio outs as well as an optical out.

I use the S-video and RCA audio outs with my ATI AIW 7500 card. Works great for me.

[Paul Simmel]

Again, thank you!

Will do, tedhowe, and thanks for the specifics on that website.

>>and because of the VERY expensive MPEG encoders that DirecTV uses - even the best software on a PC will not be able to produce equivalent results in any realistic time.

Ted, this is actually good news from my point of view, as this means the source video is going to be especially good.

andkiich, cool!

Will read the specifics and get back....

[Michelle]

I use a DataVideo DAC-100 with S-video and firewire to get video from my Tivo to the PC. I get excellent results. In your case, using a camcorder with passthrough should provide even better results since you would be using DirecTivo.

[Paul Simmel]

Ted,

I have been attempting to glean what I can at the dealdatabase website. Wow, what a lot to take in. Since you have successfully done this, I was wondering (hoping) if you might have a few newbie links/sources for me and my RCA DVR40. If you do, and if you don’t mind, you can either post them here or email me as you see fit. I know time is precious. I’m spoiled as this website is so well organized with specific, up to date how-tos. For a newbie like me, dealdatabase is way over my head. Thanks in advance!!!!!

Paul

[DVWannaB]

One word for ya:

REPLAY_TV

Easy, no headaches, pure butter baby.

[disturbed1]

a few newbie links/sources for me and my RCA DVR40. Paul

A word of advice for you, unless you are comfortable with linux, don't even attempt to hack your Direct TiVo.

If you hook the HD up to a system running windows, and boot windows up, your HD is hosed. Windows assigns a system tag to every HD connected to the computer. You may be able to recover the TiVo HD IF you have the original image from a backup, which is hard to find.

The DVDR40's are series 2 TiVo's and are different from regular TiVo's. The USB ports are not active, nor is there a place for an Ethernet port.

The easiest way to snag the streams off the Direct TiVo is to hook the HD upto a Linux System, and pull the streams off to a Fat32 Partition on another disc. Then work with the files from the Fat32 partition. All of this information is in the links posted above. The Dealdatabase has guides for how to do anything to a TiVo, read them, print them, memorize them

Direct TiVo records the exact digital stream from the Satalite, including AC3 audio if you have the recording options set to do so. It does not encode, it's the exact digital stream as Direct TV delivers it.

Capturing at 352x480 will yield almost the same results with less of a headache, no fear of breaking your TiVo. Once you open the box, your warranty is gone.

Replay TV has ethernet ports, and is much easier to back upto DVD. They even encode to 720x480 if you tell it to.

[tedhowe]

Paul,

It is a LOT to take in. I would recommend that you take your time and go slowly. That's what I did.

First of all... disturbed1 is absolutely correct... be VERY careful with attaching your hard drive to a Windows PC in order to do the initial hacks. His warning is absolutely correct.

Having laid out that caveat, here are a few recommendations that i will make.

1. Do NOT try to hack your current DirecTivo Hard Drive. Buy a new Hard Drive and clone the current one onto it. Then put the current one away in a drawer so you can fall back to it if need be. I did this, and haven't needed it, but I always feel comfortable when attempting new hacks that I can get my box running again quickly if I have to.

2. Look for specific information on the DVR40. My DTivo is a Hughes model and I know there are some specifics to hacking the DVR40, but I have no experience myself.

3. Search in DealDatabase for "Sleepers ISO". This is a set of scripts/commands that package up the initial hacking about as well as it can be from what I have read. I did my hacking before Sleeper's ISO came along, so I don't have any personal experience, but lots of people seem to have a lot of success with it.

Finally, again, heed disturbed1's advice. Search DealDatabase, find the guids, PRINT the guides, read the guides. Make backups of data, be very careful and then follow the printed guides. You can do it, but it takes the effort to learn how.

As to Disturbed1 and DVWannaB's points about ReplayTV vs. modding a DirecTivo, I can agree that there are valid reasons to do it that way.

Here are my pro/con of the whole thing:

DirecTivo Modding PRO:

1. Dual tuners.
2. Best possible picture when coming from DirecTV source (there is no way that capturing - whether in the PC or on the Replay can IMPROVE the source that the DirecTivo is just recording to the hard drive).
3. All-in-one tool. TyTool has now gotten to the point that it is an acceptable all-in-one solution for getting Tivoed content onto DVD. It can do the download, transcode audio (if necessary), edit commercials, create (basic) menus, and create the DVD image. The only thing left is to burn it with the recording app of your choice.

The CONs of DirecTivo modding are that the video is non-standard. If your DVD players cannot play the 480x480 video, you are out of luck. To date there is no reliable way to re-encode the DirecTivo streams to another resolution without horrible audio sync problems.


Ted

[Paul Simmel]

Thanks, you guys are absolutely great. I really appreciate your advice and take all as it is intended -- help for me. I went with the Tivo over RealPlay because of price, plus I had/have no idea how the RealPlay units work with DirecTv. The DVR40 was $99.00 + $4.99 per month for the service, with dual channel recording.

I will take things slow as hell.

>>The DVDR40's are series 2 TiVo's and are different from regular TiVo's. The USB ports are not active, nor is there a place for an Ethernet port.

If this is true, then I can't get the files in the way others have been talking about on the dealdatabase website. But I think the USB port is active because there is supposed to be a service I can subscribe to which will allow me to interface with the Tivo unit and the pc so pc content can be played on the tv/stereo (jpegs/mp3's, etc.) This service requires I network the Tivo. Maybe this isn't true for the DVR40s. I don't know. All is so hush-hush!

All-in-all I am happy with what I have so far. I CAN get the video if I want to -- just a real-time playback via firewire to the pc. RealPlay may be in order down the road a bit. One things for sure, I'm never going back to tv the way it was.

Thanks again!

Paul

[disturbed1]

>>The DVDR40's are series 2 TiVo's and are different from regular TiVo's. The USB ports are not active, nor is there a place for an Ethernet port.

If this is true, then I can't get the files in the way others have been talking about on the dealdatabase website. But I think the USB port is active because there is supposed to be a service I can subscribe to which will allow me to interface with the Tivo unit and the pc so pc content can be played on the tv/stereo (jpegs/mp3's, etc.) This service requires I network the Tivo. Maybe this isn't true for the DVR40s. I don't know. All is so hush-hush!

That's for a regular TiVo, not a Direct TiVo. The software is even different on the Direct TiVo. There could be a hack available for the Direct TiVo to enable the USB ports by now. But Direct TV has no intention of activating the Home Media Option with their TiVo unit.

A TiVo, and a Direct TiVo are 2 different animals. Make sure you're looking at information for a Direct TiVo.

Trust me, I've screwed 2 DVR40's up already by following guides for TiVo units, and not Direct TiVo units.

[GbMedusa]

I have been hemming and hawing about getting the DirecTIVO and hope someone can answer a couple of questions for me.

1) I keep reading about being able to active a "30 sec. skip" ability but have seen nothing regarding editing actual content. Is it possible to cut out commercials, trim beginning/ending of shows, etc.?

2) I currently have a Panasonic E30 recorder. Can I record directly from the unit or will I need some sort of "descrambler"?

3) I know the DirecTIVO units only record at one quality setting but are there units with greater capacity than 35 hours? This is all I have seen advertised. Is a hard drive upgrade the only option for more storage?

I've been to the TIVO forum but have not registered yet. If you guys think I would have better luck there, just let me know.

Thanks for any information you can provide.

[tedhowe]

disturbed1 - Series 2 DirecTivos can definitely be hacked to enable the USB port - that is what I have done. My Hughes HDVR2 is running with a USB2 100mb ethernet adapter.

Medusa,

You can hook the outputs of the DirecTivo directly to the E30 - there is no Macrovision enabled on the outputs of the DirecTivo (currently).

[Paul Simmel]

Thanks, Ted, you answered the question I was going to log on to ask. In short, there are three steps, each with software issues:

1) Networking the DirecTivo series 2 (my RCA DVR40). I will take this one step at a time, and read as I can for a good guide on how to take the first step.

2) Installing and configuring software for file extraction from Tivo to PC.

3) HDD upgrade for additional hours of recording.

Ted, do you know anything about the service I was referring to about sending music/etc. to the tv from the pc? Or is this something I will be able to do once networked with the workarounds discussed here....

GbMedusa,

>>Is a hard drive upgrade the only option for more storage?

I'm pretty sure this is the case, unless you buy a DirecTivo unit initially with a larger HDD (more $$$). Right now I'm trying to backtrack to where I found a place on the web which will do these upgrades for a price, if you ship the unit to them. Can't find it right now.

Paul

[tedhowe]

Paul,

Those are the three streps as I took them.

The order though is:

3, 1, 2

The hard drive upgrade is most easily done. Search at either Dealdatabase.com or tivocommunity.com for "Hinsdale how-to". There is an EXCELLENT guide for how to upgrade the hard drive on a Tivo.

My recommendation is to upgrade to a larger harddrive to replace the current one in the Tivo... then you get both the larger HD out of the way and you can put aside the original drive for safe keeping.

I don't know anything about using the TIvo to stream music/photos/video from the PC to an entertainment center... it's just not something that I have ever looked into.

Ted

[GbMedusa]

Thanks for the info. I've seen the WeaKnees site that comes highly recommended in the Tivo forum. I was just hoping to find a system already set with a larger drive so I would not have to void the warranty so soon after getting it or possibly end up frying the device trying the upgrade it myself.

As for streaming pictures/audio/video, I think that is the Home Media Option (HMO) everyone is screaming for over at the forum. If I am not mistaken, it's networking your Tivo with the PC and a home entertainment system to send sight & sound flying through the joint. Seems the Tivo can do it but the DirecTivo can not...maybe because of the non-functioning USB ports.

ETA: any know if content can be edited on the unit?

[Paul Simmel]

Hey Ted,

I scanned through and saved into a folder the Hinsdale How-To. You are right; it is very well documented. This clarifies a confusion I had. From the dealdatabase site, after reading through some stuff, I was under the mistaken impression that in order to either add or upgrade a HDD, I had to do it though a network connection. I was obviously wrong. So thanks for that as well.

Here's what I was referring to:

http://www.tivo.com/4.9.asp

And GbMedusa, you are right, it appears, the Directivo units do not as of yet have this function -- but it isn't because the USB port is dead, it's a corporate issue of some sort. This really pisses me off, and I'll tell you why. I went for this Tivo unit thinking that I'd be able to use HMO to get my digital music over to the home entertainment units. Best Buy (for example) has a wireless unit to interface pc with sterio/tv, and it is $179.00! That plus the wireless router. Essentially, the HMO feature does the same thing, and it is built into the DVR40 already, but not funtional due to Direct TV itself.

ITMT I'm going to wait. There's talk of this feature being activated at some time in the future.

I'm going to focus on the HDD issue for now.

loughary, if you are still with us, you said you added an HDD to your DRV40. Do you have a backup?

Ted, you replaced the original HDD, saved the original as backup.

Could you guys explain to me in more detail the difference between an ISO Image, and a regular backup? The Image is what is recreated during a Restore (opposed to a copy of the files themselves)????

Thanks again -- when you have time....

Paul

[yamato72]

Extracting from a DirecTivo rocks. Not for the faint of heart, though. I opened mine up, put in a bigger hard drive and enabled the hacks to allow the extraction. It took a couple of tries, a lot of patience, and many hours over 2 nights to get it done right. The guides available on dealdatabase.com are great.

For a while all I did was record "We Are The 80's" on VH1 Classic, dump the show to my PC with TyTool, and then grab the music videos I wanted. Since then I've started extracting Jonny Quest episodes and quite a few movies. The latest DVD-Lab has no problem creating a non-compliant DVD that still plays on my lowly Toshiba player. The cool thing is no re-encoding (even the audio), and you can get 3 90-minute movies on a single DVD fairly quickly (extraction time + editing time + authoring time +burning time). I've found that for movies I like (but not enough to buy the DVD) it's a good compromise. TV shows can be problematic, though -anytime you crop out commercials the timing gets messed up. For example, I put parts 1 and 2 of the Battlestar Galactica miniseries on a single DVD, but my player kept thinking the show was over with about 3 chapters to go. I fixed the problem with Restream.

If you've got the know-how with PCs I highly recommend doing it to your Tivo. Just be aware that you are voiding your warranty.

[bbllc]

The TIVO skip works, and is a blessing.

So how do I do this? It's easy.

Grab your TiVo remote.
Bring up any recorded program. (You have to be watching a recorded program rather than "Live TV" in order to enable the feature.)
On your TiVo remote, key in the following sequence:
SELECT PLAY SELECT 30 SELECT
If you've successfully entered the code, you should hear three "bings" in succession to inform you that you've successfully enabled the 30 second skip.
Note that any time your TiVo is rebooted (such as after a power outage or a software update) you'll have to re-enable this feature.

Thanks to: http://www.bigmarv.net/how/tivo30secondskip.html

[Paul Simmel]

yamato72, very nice to hear that! For me, this is another learning-curve in a big way. Pieces are falling into place little by little. I can only sit hear and imagine how great the setup is that you and Ted have. This is coming for me in time.

bbllc,

I'm really interested in your post. Do all Tivo units have this remote cabablity?

>>On your TiVo remote, key in the following sequence:
SELECT PLAY SELECT 30 SELECT

How exactly do you enter "SELECT PLAY SELECT 30 SELECT " with the remote? Do you push the 'Select' Key for "SELECT", 'Play' Key for "PLAY", push '3' and '0' for "30", etc.? I'll try it that way...

Paul

[Paul Simmel]

bbllc,

Wow, how cool is that! I answered my own question.... Great tip!!

[GbMedusa]

TV shows can be problematic, though -anytime you crop out commercials the timing gets messed up. For example, I put parts 1 and 2 of the Battlestar Galactica miniseries on a single DVD, but my player kept thinking the show was over with about 3 chapters to go.

Is that cropping in the recorder or on the pc?