December 5, 2004 9:09 AM

ConalCernach said:

At the risk of sounding ungrateful, resentful and frustrated at the supercilious tone that one finds in most of the threads at TivoTechies, 9thtree, TivoCommunity and yes, even here at PTVupgrade, please let me say that I do not want to be a Tivo Technician, a Linux system administrator or a poster child for the EFF. I have much better things to do when I'm not at work (and I'm sure if you'd like to discuss the intricacies of S390, ZOS or Windows I can make you feel like an idiot too) I have better things to do than dismantle and decompile my Tivo. I want to use the damn thing, not invent the wheel. (*sigh*, sorry - had to get that off my chest.)

Unfortunately, DirecTV in their infinity wisdom has elected not to provide (relatively) aging, basic technologies (networking and file sharing) in their units. Can someone (anyone) tell me the easiest way to get what I want, which is...

I do not want to...
Become a Tivo expert
Steal DirecTV service
Steal Tivo service
Infringe on anyone's intellectual property, patents, copyrights, etc.
Reed 25,000 useless threads and download 200 (mostly useless) utilities.
Backdate my computers to FAT32 (I can be flexible on this one).

I do want to...
Network my DirecTV Hughes SD-DVR120's
Move content from one unit to another (HMO option?)
Enable HMO (view jpg's, etc.)
Archive content, encrypted or unencrypted, to (preferably) DVD on my PC (no, I don't intend to redistribute, sell, steal, etc., anyone's copyrighted material. I just don't want to use all the space on my DVR to store the wife's 8 seasons of "I Love Lucy" or her "classic" Christmas collection for the 364 days it is not in use, etc., - unless someone can tell my how to attach a multi-terabyte disk tower to my DRV so I'll have a few hours left for me when she's done).

*puts soap-box under desk - dries eyes - apologizes - gets to the question*

If I buy the PTVnet for my DRV, is there a SIMPLE way to enable HMO after I install it? (yes, I can deal with hardware installations with my red, puffy eyes closed).

Thanks.

The answer to your question, especially within this context, is "No." Some things are just not *that* simple. That doesn't mean it can't be done, but its just not that simple. If you want HMO, purchase a standalone unit and you are done! If you want a networked DirecTV unit, get PTVnet. You can do HMO with a PTVnet kit, but you will have to do some reading and learning, and hacking if you want to do it; it is not a product we offer, and we don't offer consulting services to do it. If you go that road, good luck to you. Its not necessarily a bad road, but its one you'll be on without our guidance.

Otherwise, stick with PTVnet and we'll make life easy in other ways. It all depends on how much work you want to do, how much risk you want to take, and how much TV you'd like to watch instead of messing with your unit.

For folks that are particulary interested in the HMO multi-room viewing feature -- here is an alternative -- get bigger drives for each of your TiVo units and record everything everywhere. It may sound old school, but you'll save a lot of time and energy, just by buying a little more disk space. AND, if either of your TiVo units or drives fails, you'll still have your content replicated somewhere. Down the road, DVRchive will give you the ability to watch/archive your videos on your PC, but that is a different product for a different day; right now, DVRchive is a Series1 product, only.

Full details of PTVnet are here.

For answers to commonly asked questions, please refer to the
InstantCake Instructions and Release Notes,
Official InstantCake Discussion Thread, and the
Official PTVnet Discussion Thread

December 5, 2004 9:43 AM

ConalCernach said:

OK, fair enough - and thanks (*sniffle*). But, in the various threads I've read that some kernel releases (and I'm assuming that "kernel" is used in the same reference as other OS's - the base Operating System) do not support HMO and that 3.1 is actually a newer release than 4. So the questions are...

What kernel is PTVnet?
Can HMO be enabled on it?
What should I have before I begin (e.g., InstantCake or other backup utility?) I don't want to destroy a shinny new PTVnet drive.

The kernel on PTVnet is a custom kernel (a derivative of 2.4.4) which supports LBA48 on the 3.1.1 OS; the one intended to be run on the DirecTV DVR. You will have to put a different kernel on the unit if you want to head down that road. That is all the advice I will give on the matter, as I said before, that is a road you would travel down, and not one we'd travel down with you.

For answers to commonly asked questions, please refer to the
InstantCake Instructions and Release Notes,
Official InstantCake Discussion Thread, and the
Official PTVnet Discussion Thread

December 5, 2004 1:56 PM

ConalCernach said:

I'm I safe to assume that 802.3 and USB 2.0 on DirecTV/Tivo are in fact non-proprietary 802.3 and USB?

I have Linksys "EtherFast 10/100 USB Network Adapter" (USB to Cat5). I have a D-Link Cable Router. Any issues here? Do I need an "approved" network adapter? Not really interested in wireless, I have Cat 5 everywhere.

If you are referring to our PTVnet drives, the USB drivers are all GPL; there is nothing on the drives that *shouldn't* be there. As for your Linksys... all we've tested is the USB200M and the Hawking USB 2.0 10/100M.

For answers to commonly asked questions, please refer to the
InstantCake Instructions and Release Notes,
Official InstantCake Discussion Thread, and the
Official PTVnet Discussion Thread

December 8, 2004 5:29 PM

ConalCernach said:

My DirectTivo (PTVnet) is not found on my network with the Linksys USB adapter I mentioned in my other post. The adapter works fine on a PC so I can olnly assume some sort of compatiblity issue. What specfic make and model of USB Ethernet adapter do you recommend? Anything else I should try?

Any of these will work (or any others that use the same chipset).

For answers to commonly asked questions, please refer to the
InstantCake Instructions and Release Notes,
Official InstantCake Discussion Thread, and the
Official PTVnet Discussion Thread