# So long and thanks for all the fish.



## JWThiers (Apr 13, 2005)

After over 2 years and 1600 posts, mostly in the underground, I have decided to step into the light so to speak. I am ditching my DirecTv tivo's and upgrading to a pair of Tivo HD's and switching to cable. I have always said that if you have SA tivo's you really don't have any reason to hack them unless you have a mixed network of Dtivo's and SA tivo's. So I am going to put my money where my mouth is, so to speak, and try this without hacking them. I've learned a lot while here, but I am sure as I time goes by and I don't use those skills I will lose them. I haven't been posting as much of late anyway (Too little time, too much to do) but before those skills become too rusty I am going to be pulling back even more.

Anyway I just wanted to say that it has been great interacting with everyone and wish you all good luck in your future endeavors. I'll still lurk here and post from time to time.


----------



## Gunnyman (Jul 10, 2003)

/KC and the Sunshine band
Please don't go.
Don't go away.......

JW you've been an asset to the DTV hacking community.
/SALUTE!


----------



## rickyble (Dec 9, 2007)

and love the movie. Just remember the answer is "42".


----------



## SteelersFan (Sep 7, 2004)

You will be sorely missed! Good luck and have fun with the new HD toys.


----------



## rbautch (Feb 6, 2004)

If you come back and hack those Tivo HD's, we won't hold it against you!  The SApper forum could use some of the same great support you've given the Zipper forum.


----------



## 100Tbps (May 12, 2006)

JWThiers said:


> After over 2 years and 1600 posts, mostly in the underground, I have decided to step into the light so to speak. I am ditching my DirecTv tivo's and upgrading to a pair of Tivo HD's and switching to cable. I have always said that if you have SA tivo's you really don't have any reason to hack them unless you have a mixed network of Dtivo's and SA tivo's. So I am going to put my money where my mouth is, so to speak, and try this without hacking them. I've learned a lot while here, but I am sure as I time goes by and I don't use those skills I will lose them. I haven't been posting as much of late anyway (Too little time, too much to do) but before those skills become too rusty I am going to be pulling back even more.
> 
> Anyway I just wanted to say that it has been great interacting with everyone and wish you all good luck in your future endeavors. I'll still lurk here and post from time to time.


I did exactly this in the past 45 days. I couldn't be happier. MRV + TTG are built-in. There is no need to hack, and it's more complicated to do so because the Tivo needs to call home for guide data, unlike D*. So if you stall upgrades, you lose out - or so I've read. I haven't needed to hack a thing.

MRV with 9.2a will not work with your networked DTivos, so extract what you want (HD only of course, who'd want fuzzy MPEG2 "SD" content?) before preparing them for doorstops or ebay.

I ordered a THD directly from Tivo. I explained I was coming over from D* and they let me have a lifetime sub right on the spot. I bought a secondary unit from Weaknees with a 1 TB drive and because I was now a Tivo subscriber, I was able to add the 1TB THD as a lifetime, too.

Going from <10 D* HD channel choices to ~30 (not including local network affiliates) has been like climbing out of a cave.

Best wishes!


----------



## PortlandPaw (Jan 11, 2004)

I'm jealous! JW has been a lot of fun on these forums. I just wonder what he's going to do with all those obsolete DTivos?


----------



## HellFish (Jan 28, 2007)

Please make sure you let us know your opinions of the switch. I'm interested in doing the same thing (if an alternative option ever comes up that doesn't include Comcast).

I heard when you tell TiVo you've been a Dtivo customer for a number of years, they send you a postcard attempting to explain their relationship with Dtv, you, and the features you have been missing for so many years. It states:

*WE APOLOGISE FOR THE INCONVENIENCE*


----------



## JWThiers (Apr 13, 2005)

I got my Cable Turned on Yesterday, with Brighthouse. The Installation went smoothly enough, but then again I had it all set up so all he had to do was put the cards in and activate them. I had to get Single stream cards so I have to get 4 of them for the 2 THD's. The installer said that they people here don't use CC's much and that I was only his 3rd install in 18 months. The biggest pain in the whole thing that I saw was that the installers don't have a special number to call to get into customer service (they do have the extension to dial to bypass the automated system but it looks like they get put into the cue like everyone else. So there was a 10 minute wait on the phone and then later when He was leaving I was supposed to get the install billed to my Internet account but somehow was COD instead He waited for 20 minutes before I just gave him a check.

It will take a bit to get used to the channel lineup, But I can deal with that. DTV is still on until I am sure everything works OK, but first blush seems OK. I keep you all posted on the transition after I settle in and really test it out.

Thanks for the kind words above.


----------



## PortlandPaw (Jan 11, 2004)

Very smart to keep the DTV on -- you wouldn't want to miss the Patriot's victory this evening!


----------



## JWThiers (Apr 13, 2005)

Quick update, It looks like my installer didn't properly activate my CC's. After nosing around setting up channels and such I noticed that I wasn't getting all the channels I thought I should. My symptoms are that some of the channels don't act like they mapped over properly. For example, channel 157, 158, and 159 are supposed to be CSpan 1-3. I get Cspan 2 but instead of 1 and 3 I get a shopping channel and a channel that had hockey instead (I like hockey but not on CSpan 3 or maybe that might be a good idea... combine hockey and politics. No wait that already is happening in real life. Never mind). I also don't get all the HD channels I was supposed to get. Anyway I might have blown it off as something to do with not having a 2 way connection, but I also wasn't getting the CSpan that was part of basic/standard cable on channel 97. I double checked this by connecting the cable to the back of a cable ready TV and Channel 97 is in fact CSpan not a shopping channel. I confirmed with Tivo that some of the information in the CC setup looked wrong. This was happening on both THD's. Round 2 with brighthouse starts tomorrow afternoon. Fortunately the channels I watch most are not affected so it isn't a crisis... yet!


----------



## bnm81002 (Oct 3, 2004)

PortlandPaw said:


> Very smart to keep the DTV on -- you wouldn't want to miss the Patriot's victory this evening!


it was a great Patriots win too, NOTTTTTTTTTTTTTT
what a great CHOKE JOB by the BeliCHEATS, ha ha ha ha
now it's the Celtics turn then the Red Sox as well
 :up::up::up:


----------



## willardcpa (Feb 23, 2001)

Hmmm, things weren't exactly set up right, I wonder why. Oh, hold it, you made him wait 20 minutes for a check, nevermind.


----------



## BTUx9 (Nov 13, 2003)

bnm81002 said:


> it was a great Patriots win too, NOTTTTTTTTTTTTTT
> what a great CHOKE JOB by the BeliCHEATS, ha ha ha ha
> now it's the Celtics turn then the Red Sox as well
> :up::up::up:


Looks like I've got another oxymoron for my list:
"Sportsmanship"


----------



## HellFish (Jan 28, 2007)

JWThiers said:


> I have always said that if you have SA tivo's you really don't have any reason to hack them unless you have a mixed network of Dtivo's and SA tivo's. So I am going to put my money where my mouth is, so to speak, and try this without hacking them.


Hey JWT, something occurred to me over the weekend. What about that there EPP & Bufferhack? Tivos of the unhacked variety do not have anything comparable to them, do they?

I really don't know since I just look at the stuff that's applicable to Dtivo, but I don't even think bufferhack is available for 9.2, or whatever version the THD is at, is it?



BTUx9 said:


> Looks like I've got another oxymoron for my list:
> "Sportsmanship"


Why do you single out bnm81002? If someone says:


PortlandPaw said:


> Very smart to keep the DTV on -- you wouldn't want to miss the Patriot's victory this evening!


they deserve to get their faced rubbed in it when their team chokes. The Pats' dynasty started when they were 14 pt dogs, and ended when they were the 14 pt favorites.


----------



## 100Tbps (May 12, 2006)

HellFish said:


> Hey JWT, something occurred to me over the weekend. What about that there EPP & Bufferhack? Tivos of the unhacked variety do not have anything comparable to them, do they?
> 
> I really don't know since I just look at the stuff that's applicable to Dtivo, but I don't even think bufferhack is available for 9.2, or whatever version the THD is at, is it?


Neither is available that I know of, but for me, it's worth the trade off to receive twice or more as many HD channels, be able to MRV shows around, have access for TTG, and know Tivo is watching after the software and working to make it better. D* really left Tivo users high and dry in this space.

Re: EPP, You can configure extra time in the Season Pass and those lower in the order will be clipped by that minute if there's a conflict (if configured). I do miss EPP's automatic functionality. I also miss bufferhack. I hope Tivo can be convinced to make this user-configurable. But again, MRV for HD shows and TTG are really the trade-offs.


----------



## Soapm (May 9, 2007)

Any bets on how long it will take him to hack them?

I think Omikron will have them both in the next 30 days... 

Good luck to ya JW and thanks for all the help...


----------



## bengalfreak (Oct 20, 2002)

BTUx9 said:


> Looks like I've got another oxymoron for my list:
> "Sportsmanship"


As if anyone on the Patriots team knows what the word means. Puh-lease.


----------



## bengalfreak (Oct 20, 2002)

Soapm said:


> Any bets on how long it will take him to hack them?
> 
> I think Omikron will have them both in the next 30 days...
> 
> Good luck to ya JW and thanks for all the help...


Don't you need a PROM mod to hack new SA or THD Tivos?


----------



## Da Goon (Oct 22, 2006)

bengalfreak said:


> Don't you need a PROM mod to hack new SA or THD Tivos?


Yes, that's why he referenced omikron.


----------



## Soapm (May 9, 2007)

Probably a bad joke on m part. I do wish JW well. This is a habbit I wished I could kick. Maybe we need a support group?


----------



## HellFish (Jan 28, 2007)

100Tbps , the EPP readme mentions it will work on all series, all versions, all models. 

You make it sound like you can setup the season passes with an EPP like feature with the SA Tivos? Or is it exactly like the padding feature the Dtivos have?

In any case, EPP may just be enough for me to want to put up with hacking a SA unit when I eventually do the switch. Hopefully a bufferhack patch is only being thwarted by the lack of people that have a series 3 unit.


----------



## 100Tbps (May 12, 2006)

HellFish said:


> 100Tbps , the EPP readme mentions it will work on all series, all versions, all models.
> 
> You make it sound like you can setup the season passes with an EPP like feature with the SA Tivos? Or is it exactly like the padding feature the Dtivos have?
> 
> In any case, EPP may just be enough for me to want to put up with hacking a SA unit when I eventually do the switch. Hopefully a bufferhack patch is only being thwarted by the lack of people that have a series 3 unit.


Honestly, I don't know. I haven't hacked it, but EPP was coded prior to the current THD 9.2a release.

Here's my understanding of how things work, and let's assume a single tuner to keep it easy:

In 9.2a, Season Passes are constructed such that you can configure recording to start a few minutes early and run a few minutes long (if you want; this is not the default). If there's an overlap with another show lower in the Season Pass order, you can configure the THD to still record the second show, but it will clip the beginning. This feature is called Overlap Protection and has been around on SAs for a while (so I've read).

For manual recordings, I'm pretty sure EPP would pad the extra minute before and after automatically, which was a nice feature. It's also smart enough to not add the extra minute if there's a recording planned for an adjacent show. My favorite part was the recent addition to start the playback at the 1 minute bookmark so you have the buffer intact if you needed it, but don't have to FF 1 minute to get the show started. THD does none of this, so EPP is superior for these attributes.

Because THDs need to call home every day for guide data and entitlement, hacking to prevent an automatic software upgrade is concerning to me in that I don't know how long an older version is supported. It's probably trivial and keeping up with and hacking newer releases is no big deal. But since I always relied on others to provide the tivoapp offsets, I decided to not hack and just go with what they give me. The risk of damaging the PROM didn't seem worth it to me given the current product has just about everything I want except web-based management and an extended buffer. So for me, that's my trade-off. Others may really want or need one or both of these enough to justify opening the box and hacking the PROM.


----------



## JWThiers (Apr 13, 2005)

HellFish said:


> 100Tbps , the EPP readme mentions it will work on all series, all versions, all models.
> 
> You make it sound like you can setup the season passes with an EPP like feature with the SA Tivos? Or is it exactly like the padding feature the Dtivos have?
> 
> In any case, EPP may just be enough for me to want to put up with hacking a SA unit when I eventually do the switch. Hopefully a bufferhack patch is only being thwarted by the lack of people that have a series 3 unit.


I really haven't messed with EndPadPlus much, but on the SA tivo you can do early Start/Late end like Tivo and DTivo but they also have a Conflict resolution feature that when shows that are being recorded overlap the program with the higher priority gets recorded and the lower priority show gets truncated. Stock on a DTivo the lower priority isn't. Honestly the only features I used with my hacked DTivos was MRV and maybe the e word (but I won't admit that ) so the conflict resolution part is new to me (EPP might do that). That that feature sounds pretty sweet.


----------



## HellFish (Jan 28, 2007)

100Tbps,
EPP doesn't touch tivoapp or anything else in the tivo. It's a separate program that runs independent. This is why I think EPP states it's compatible with all tivos.

As far as ease of updating a hacked unit, there is the SApper, and Da Goon's update script. Both of these seem to make updating a breeze (I hope).

JWT,
Have you reached a resolution with the problem you had earlier? I hope it hasn't got any worst.


----------



## 100Tbps (May 12, 2006)

HellFish said:


> 100Tbps,
> EPP doesn't touch tivoapp or anything else in the tivo. It's a separate program that runs independent. This is why I think EPP states it's compatible with all tivos.


EPP is a TCL script which leverages file data contained in MFS. At least up to a certain point, sure, it works with what was out there when it was written. If Tivo changed something relative to MFS or data structures in 8.x or 9.x, the EPP TCL script may or may not work anymore depending on what was changed. The TCL script does pay attention to the sw version because earlier Tivo releases required different handling. I'm not trying to be difficult, I'm just saying I haven't tested it and because Tivo did change things in earlier releases requiring EPP to pay attention to the tivoswversion, it's fair to be cognizant to the fact things could change again.

I hope it still works; it was a great program. I wish Tivo would adopt it.


----------



## BTUx9 (Nov 13, 2003)

I'm sure SOMEBODY patented the "soft-padding" that EPP uses, which may be why it isn't used in more places (dvrs, etc.) (or not, but it is by far the best way to increase your chances of getting complete programs)


----------



## JWThiers (Apr 13, 2005)

Well I figure I'm due for posting an update. The move didn't go as smooth as I had hoped. But not because of anything on the THD. The hardware works wonderfully, my only complaint is they do seem to have a lot of ads for all their services and MRV of HD is SLOW!!! Its not too annoying just a bit of culture shock. The OTA tuner is great I can get about 50 channels Most of them digital, a a good portion of them HD (PBS has 4 channels each and I get 3 different PBS stations). 2 of the local networks have a 24 hour weather channel. 

Now the downside. On Feb 1, Brighthouse added 6 HD channels but decided not to make them available to Cable Card Users. I had my cable installed Feb 2. Originally they said it was because they were switching to SDV (SDV is NOT compatible with Cable Cards YET) which it turns out that they are actually switching later this year, they just don't want to have to take it away later when they do switch. OK I can deal with not having the new channels for a while (A USB Dongle is due out 2nd quarter to fix the issue with SDV), I won't be getting an HD set until April anyway. The real issue that worries me is that when they made this switch is they seemed to have broke some Cable Cards. I don't receive CSPAN, but another user in the area says that he can't get ANYTHING that is not an HD channel. So Brigthouse has some work to do.

Anyway I am really pleased with the hardware and tivo service, moderately annoyed at the cable service. At least I can get the SciFi Channel (BattleStar, and Stargate). Actually If I could find a way to get these 2 programs another way for free that didn't involve illegal downloads, I might be able to even drop cable. Well maybe not I like a lot of the movie channels too. Amazon Unbox? well all in all I am generally happy with the switch and will be unsubscribing from DirecTV today ot tomorrow.


----------



## JWThiers (Apr 13, 2005)

HellFish said:


> Please make sure you let us know your opinions of the switch. I'm interested in doing the same thing (if an alternative option ever comes up that doesn't include Comcast).
> 
> I heard when you tell TiVo you've been a Dtivo customer for a number of years, they send you a postcard attempting to explain their relationship with Dtv, you, and the features you have been missing for so many years. It states:
> 
> *WE APOLOGISE FOR THE INCONVENIENCE*


Its been a month and a half now and while the transistion wasn't as smooth as I would have liked (BHN started added some channels to the lineup the day before I got my install and decided not to let Cable card users have access to them and they took a few away that had previously been in the line up. All thanks to SDV's PLANNED (yes PLANNED not actual) deployment in the not so distant future) and a few channel mapping issues), but overall not too bad. Love the THD, Love Amazon Unbox, Tivo Desktop works as advertised. The only drawback that I haven't found a way around yet (I haven't really tried yet actually) is that some shows are marked as copy protected and you can't MRV them or move to the PC for burning to DVD with Tivo Desktop. I'm sure there is a way around this but I have been busy with other things as well.

One thing that I hadn't considered but may be an option for some is dropping cable/Sat completely and just using OTA and Amazon Unbox. Many TV series (on cable channels) are available for download the day after it airs for $2. If you don't have a lot of cable programs that run every day (Daily Show and Colbert Report on Comedy Central for my wife) it could be VERY inexpensive. Think about it. for a Cheap $60 a month cable bill you can have a tivo subscription and still Download more than 20 episode a month. Make it a more high end cable bill and the savings could stack up quickly. Just a thought. Ultimately I stayed with cable because my wife wouldn't budge on Jon and Steven, and wouldn't get an appleTV and a new TV (ATV needs HD) in the bedroom to get them (Not on Unbox).


----------



## ciper (Nov 4, 2004)

You havn't hacked the unit to disable encryption so you can get the shows to your desktop the "other" way?


----------



## JWThiers (Apr 13, 2005)

Nope haven't hack it one bit. I have said for a long time in this forum that unless you wanted to mrv between a dtivo and an SA tivo, there was no reason to hack a tivo and I am going to try to stick to that philosophy. One day I may eat crow but not today. So far I have only had problems when wanting to do stuff from HBO or Cinemax. But AMC has a good offering and isn't protected that I have noticed. Just got around to doing "Letters From Iwo Jima", my wife says its good but I haven't gotten around to it yet. Nobody spoil it by telling me who wins.


----------



## Soapm (May 9, 2007)

JWThiers said:


> Just got around to doing "Letters From Iwo Jima", my wife says its good but I haven't gotten around to it yet. Nobody spoil it by telling me who wins.


Then I won't tell you about the butler, he didn't do it this time... :up:


----------

