# tivo emulator???



## shermysherm (Jan 5, 2004)

is there a way to hook up my tivo hard drive to my PC and transfer files to and from it and is there some kind of tivo emulator for the PC.


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## goony (Nov 20, 2003)

No 'Tivo emulator' for the PC, sorry.

Many people (me included) have great results with standalone DVD recorders attached to our DTivos (assuming you are wanting to make a DVD backup of your recordings in case the hard drive fails). To have edit capabilities, get one with an internal hard drive.

If you have your DTivo networked you could transfer programs, but discussion of that sort of thing is not permitted in this forum. If you use the Google search engine and look for a *deal* on a *Tivo database* you may discover some entertaining reading.


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## srs5694 (Oct 14, 2001)

It depends on what you mean by "transfer files." TiVos run Linux and use the Mac hard disk layout, so you can attach the drive to a computer with Linux installed (or that boots certain Linux variants from CD-ROM) and transfer OS files back and forth to your heart's content. This is true even if the computer is not a Mac; _however...._

TiVos store their recordings in a filesystem that's unique to TiVo. AFAIK, this format isn't easily read except by the booted TiVo, and to a lesser extent from certain specialized utilities (used for backing up a TiVo disk or copying its contents to another disk). Thus, you can't transfer TiVo recordings in the way you suggest.

As goony suggests, though, you can transfer recordings using networking and certain programs whose discussion is censored on this forum or by feeding the video output to whatever recording device you like (a VCR, a DVD-R, a computer with a video input card, etc.).


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## rminsk (Jun 4, 2002)

srs5694 said:


> and use the Mac hard disk layout


The survey say "buzz". Try again.


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## classicsat (Feb 18, 2004)

They use a variation of the apple partition table, and ext2 system partitions. and MFS media/data partitions. Direct acces to the MFS partitions isn't easy, and for the purposes of accessing recordings, forbidden within the rules of this forum.


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## rminsk (Jun 4, 2002)

MFS (TiVo) and HFS (Apple) have no relation what so ever. MFS is not the old Macintosh file system either. MFS is built from the ground up to handle very large blocks of data. I guess the only similarity is that the TiVo filesystem and the old Mac file system is that they are both flat file systems.


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## srs5694 (Oct 14, 2001)

rminsk said:


> MFS (TiVo) and HFS (Apple) have no relation what so ever.


Nobody in this thread has said they are related. I think you misinterpreted what was written based on your own knowledge of the old Apple MFS filesystem (used on old Mac 400KB floppies), which as you say is unrelated to the MFS used by TiVo.



> MFS is not the old Macintosh file system either. MFS is built from the ground up to handle very large blocks of data. I guess the only similarity is that the TiVo filesystem and the old Mac file system is that they are both flat file systems.


There are two issues here:


The partition table format -- The TiVo uses the Apple partition table format, as used on Macintosh computers equipped with hard disks, although some models use a byte-swapping format that requires a special driver setting to read properly. The partition table enables multiple filesystems to be stored on a single hard disk. On a TiVo, several partitions are used for housekeeping, two partitions are used for the TiVo OS files, and the largest partitions are used to hold video files.
The filesystems used on individual partitions -- As I and classicsat have said, TiVo uses MFS (a TiVo-specific filesystem) for recordings, but ext2 (a Linux filesystem) for OS files. These filesystems are stored on separate partitions defined by an Apple-style partition table.

Believe me, I know what I'm talking about here. I've accessed TiVo hard disks on x86 PCs using Linux and transferred files to and from the ext2 partitions. I understand Linux partitions and filesystems pretty well, having written about them innumerable times in books and magazines.


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## Markman07 (Jul 18, 2001)

srs5694 said:


> I understand Linux partitions and filesystems pretty well, having written about them innumerable times in books and magazines.


Cool! What are some of the books you have written or is it wrote or wroten. jK I would love to check them out! Maybe I have a few already.


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## srs5694 (Oct 14, 2001)

Markman07 said:


> Cool! What are some of the books you have written or is it wrote or wroten. jK I would love to check them out! Maybe I have a few already.


Check my Web page. I haven't updated it recently, though (bad me!), so a couple are missing, namely _Degunking Linux_ and _LPIC Study Guide._ I also write the "Guru Guidance" column for Linux Magazine.


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## rminsk (Jun 4, 2002)

srs5694 said:


> I understand Linux partitions and filesystems pretty well, having written about them innumerable times in books and magazines.


I also know them pretty well since I contributed code to the kernel...


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## srs5694 (Oct 14, 2001)

rminsk said:


> I also know them pretty well since I contributed code to the kernel...


In that case, I'm puzzled by your "the survey say 'buzz'" comment to my earlier post. I suspect you misinterpreted what I wrote.


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## rminsk (Jun 4, 2002)

Mac hard disk layout does not mean mac partitioning scheme. Hard disk layout could mean the filesystem layout, how the files are organized on the drive, ...


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## srs5694 (Oct 14, 2001)

rminsk said:


> Mac hard disk layout does not mean mac partitioning scheme. Hard disk layout could mean the filesystem layout, how the files are organized on the drive, ...


"Mac hard disk layout" is, by itself, ambiguous, and I should have been clearer. In the context of the whole post, though, my meaning should have been clear, since I later referred specifically to filesystems as something other than the "disk layout."


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