My TiVo experience began a year ago, when I dropped Dish Network in favor of DirecTV (let's just say that Dish pissed me off). Along with two regular DTV receivers, I got a Samsung SIR-S4080R TiVo. Not long after receiving it, I did a little research, and found that there were lots of things that could be done with it....

In my "newbness," the first thing I pursued was how to make the TiVo make its Daily Call without a phone line (I had Vonage, so it was very hit-and-miss). I read that hacking the TiVo could accomplish that, but I didn't want to mess with mine yet (it was still under warranty). I found some of the information I needed at the Tivo Community Forums. Between that and a bit of "Googling," I made my own serial cable and got it working with my home theater PC. My first posts at TCF were about the serial hack.

Not long after I got the serial hack working, DirecTV pushed out version 6.2. I liked the faster menus and the groups (folders). I got the urge again to hack my TiVo to get it on my network. I saw that PTVupgrade was a good place to start with TiVo hacking....

I went and bought a Linksys USB200M (version 1, but there was no version 2 at the time). I downloaded PTVnet for my unit (it was actually an alpha version at the time). I pulled the hard disk out of my old Dish DVR and tried to use that to back up my TiVo's hard disk. After at least three attempts at using the Hinsdale instructions, I finally realized that the hard disk from the Dish DVR was bad. Discouraged by this, the project was put on hold for several months.

Just before Christmas last year, I was at Best Buy. As I was leaving, I noticed they had 120 GB Seagate drives on sale for $40, so I bought two of them, even though I really had no use for them, or so I thought. After a few days, I realized that I did have a use for them.

I went to PTVupgrade and downloaded InstantCake for my TiVo. I had no trouble getting the drive arrangements correct, but I had other troubles, for sure. The first time I installed PTVnet + InstantCake, I installed InstantCake, reboot my computer, and immediately installed PTVnet. I was greeted with a nice "green screen" after trying that. Next I tried loading InstantCake and doing a "Clear and Delete Everything" (I actually read some of the instructions). After waiting for over an hour for the Clear and Delete, I decided to do some more reading. I finally got it right by booting from PTVnet first. Yeah, a working hacked TiVo! Lesson learned: RTFM (read the f!@#$ manual).

After a time with some experimenting, I was having problems with TiVoWebPlus. I did some research and found that a newer version was available. I managed to install it over the old one, and it fixed my problems. I posted that in the old PTVupgrade forums (in a reply to someone else's thread). Lou replied and said that 1.2.1 was included with the latest PTVnet. I replied that I had the alpha version, so he sent me a link to get the latest one. I just installed it over the old one, and it worked fine.

Not long after that, I was reading about using vserver on the PTVupgrade forum here. Using the information in that thread, and some I found in other places, I not only figured out how to get vserver working, but also how to get tserver working (for extraction). After doing more reading, I learned the SuperPatch enabled HMO. I replied to a thread by "mdtv" about it, as he seemed a bit frustrated. I shared with him what I did to get extraction working, and how to get HMO working with a PC.

I began to get curious about MRV, so I decided to order another Samsung off eBay. After I received it, I immediately open the case and installed PTVnet and InstantCake. It worked fine from the start. I actually got it working with a Hawking WU250 wireless ethernet adapter (using rbautch's script), but I wasn't happy with the speed of the MRV transfers. I went with the USB-ethernet adapter + hacked WRT54G route (read my article about that).

Not long after getting that TiVo, I was tired of having to let my kid watch his shows on the main TV downstairs. I got his TiVo using the "DVR4ME" deal DirecTV had at the time (a refurbished TiVo for only the price of shipping). Now he had his own TiVo, and we could MRV his shows onto the others if we needed to.

After I had a 10x12 Tuff Shed built as a workout room, the electrician and DirecTV installer came on the same day. The DirecTV installer brought an R15 with him, even though I had already gotten my refurbished TiVo via FedEx. He said to take it anyway, so I did. At that point, I had four DVRs, three networked TiVos and one R15.

Soon after that, I received an e-mail from Lou Jacob about the upcoming board move to DVRplayground. I registered and checked it out. After everything was finally moved, I received another e-mail from Lou, this time asking me if I would be a Moderator at DVRplayground (I was pretty active on the forums at the time). So here I am....

I have since gotten another DSR704 (replacement for the R15) and an HR10-250 (finally some HD programming for my HDTV). I can now almost hack [Series 2] DirecTiVos "in my sleep"; I didn't even turn on the HR10-250 to see if it worked before I opened its case. If you notice, all of my TiVos are Series 2 units, so I usually only respond to posts asking about those, in addition to writing articles about them. I also respond to questions about general networking, as I have dealt with networks (home and work) for a few years. If you visit the TCF forums, you'll probably notice I'll pretty active there, too. For whatever reasons, links to dvrplayground.com are blocked there, but if you happen to click on my signature there, you'll notice that there are workarounds. :D