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View Full Version : Not Happy With Your Plain-Vanilla Tivo?


Suhit Gupta
03-03-2004, 01:00 AM
<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://abcnews.go.com/sections/scitech/ZDM/tivo_upgraded_pcmag_040301.html' target='_blank'>http://abcnews.go.com/sections/scitech/ZDM/tivo_upgraded_pcmag_040301.html</a><br /><br /></div>No problems... Apparently, sup'ing up and accessorizing is not limited to cars and computers anymore. <br /><br />"One of Amazon's most popular technology books last month was <i>Hacking TiVo</i>. The book's enormous popularity intrigues me because of what it says about TiVo digital video recorders: 1) Geeks love TiVo; and 2) Many of these same gadget-happy TiVo owners are not satisfied with TiVo in its off-the-shelf incarnation."<br /><br />Apparently, WeaKnees.com, a TiVo upgrade and parts company, has created a Series 2 system. This article talk about the upgrades, and the pros and cons. Good stuff.

Gary Sheynkman
03-03-2004, 01:04 AM
Leave it to the crazy enthusiasts to make the product THAT much better :lol:

James Fee
03-03-2004, 01:05 AM
As a TiVo freak I've upgraded both of my "DirecTiVo's" (TiVo's for DirecTV). Weaknees is a great resource for parts and I've used them for my rails. Another good resource is 9thTee (http://www.9thtee.com/tivoupgrades.htm) as is TiVo Community (http://www.tivocommunity.com), which is an offshoot of AVSForums.

Now if they would just release the HD DirecTiVo I can calm down! :drinking:

Suhit Gupta
03-03-2004, 01:18 AM
As a TiVo freak I've upgraded both of my "DirecTiVo's" (TiVo's for DirecTV). Weaknees is a great resource for parts and I've used them for my rails. Another good resource is 9thTee (http://www.9thtee.com/tivoupgrades.htm) as is TiVo Community (http://www.tivocommunity.com), which is an offshoot of AVSForums.

Now if they would just release the HD DirecTiVo I can calm down! :drinking:
That is the one thing that Time Warner's DVR (Digital Video Recorder) has... i.e. an HD version.

Anyways, what upgrades have you had done through Weaknees? And, was it worth the money?

Suhit

James Fee
03-03-2004, 01:34 AM
Well to get the correct rails it was. I also ordered the fan kit because my TiVo's were getting really hot and I didn't like the "Radio Shack" special I cooked up one night.

Suhit Gupta
03-03-2004, 02:18 AM
What are these rails you talk about? Something for swapping out the hard drive???

Suhit

Neil Enns
03-03-2004, 02:34 AM
I've got a a DirecTivo as well (DirectTV + TiVo in one box). It's fantastic, although sadly a tad slow.

I've done the same upgrade that cageyjames mentions. The rails kit from Weaknees lets you put two drives into your DirecTivo. As shipped, the unit only has a mounting bracket for one drive, so you need the kit to hold two. I still only have one 120GB drive in my unit, but someday I'll get the second drive. The extra fans they include are great, and are quieter than the stock fans. Cheap way to get extra capacity for your TiVo.

You don't get the full benefit of a TiVo until you have the scads of drive space. Instead of constantly wondering if stuff is going to fall off, and running out of room for TiVo suggestions, you actually get a huge whack of stuff to weed through.

DirecTiVo, by the way, is way better than a regular TiVo (IMHO). You can record two shows at the same time, and everything comes down pre-MPEG4 compressed from the dish so you can fit way more content on the same size drive than a regular TiVo unit.

I'm waiting for a *cheap* HD DirecTivo :)

James Fee
03-03-2004, 03:57 AM
What are these rails you talk about? Something for swapping out the hard drive???

Suhit
http://www.9thtee.com/TiVoMtgBracket.htm

Suhit Gupta
03-03-2004, 04:01 AM
Ahh excellent, something that enables you to install that second hard drive :). Very nice...

Question for you (since I don't own a Tivo): can the Tivo take anything more than 40GB? That seems to be the number everyone is talking about. Also, what is the effect if you put a 10,000 or 15,000 rpm HDD, is there a performance increase. I guess my question boils down to - can the Tivo take different kinds of HDDs?

Suhit

James Fee
03-03-2004, 04:38 AM
Ahh excellent, something that enables you to install that second hard drive :). Very nice...

Question for you (since I don't own a Tivo): can the Tivo take anything more than 40GB? That seems to be the number everyone is talking about. Also, what is the effect if you put a 10,000 or 15,000 rpm HDD, is there a performance increase. I guess my question boils down to - can the Tivo take different kinds of HDDs?

Suhit
Yea, but I don't believe a faster drive really matters. I've seen people throw a couple 200 gig drives in there. Its more about space rather than speed. 5400 is really all you need.

A great place to start hackin is the TiVo Hacking Wiki (http://alt.org/wiki/index.php/TivoHackingLinks)

Suhit Gupta
03-03-2004, 04:56 AM
I guess the reason why I am asking about the drive speed is because the Time Warner DVR is SO INCREDIBLY SLOOOOWWWW. Seriously! It takes about 10 seconds for it to respond to any of button pressed on the remote. I have called Tech Support and they keep saying that this is normal behaviour and in fact say that 10 seconds response time is quite good.

Suhit

James Fee
03-03-2004, 05:24 AM
I wouldn't call the TiVo speedy, but its much faster than that. I think much of that has to do with the OS. What is your TW DVR running? TiVo uses Linux (as I'm sure you know).

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

Crocuta
03-03-2004, 05:52 AM
Yea, but I don't believe a faster drive really matters. I've seen people throw a couple 200 gig drives in there. Its more about space rather than speed. 5400 is really all you need.

There are times when I wonder if a faster drive might make a difference. Sometimes, when I ask it to rearrange the order of my season passes, or change the recording options on one, it sits there for two or three minutes and I can hear the hard drive working. I always figured that the delay was caused by the HDD speed as it checked out my new requests against the schedule and resorted all of the recordings. If course, I don't know that the HDD is the bottleneck, but it seems possible. If so, a faster disk might make some difference.

Neil Enns
03-03-2004, 06:58 AM
Faster drives won't make a difference, based on everything I've read at www.tivocommunity.com.

The max size is something like ~130GB per driveTo get the most storage you install two 160GB drives, but you don't get full use of all the space due to a kernel limitation. I think if you have a Series 1 TiVo you can patch the kernel to remove the limitation.

Suhit Gupta
03-03-2004, 09:47 AM
I wouldn't call the TiVo speedy, but its much faster than that. I think much of that has to do with the OS. What is your TW DVR running? TiVo uses Linux (as I'm sure you know).
The TW DVR is actually the Scientific Atlanta Explorer 8000. And it runs a proprietary SA operating system :(. Sux0rz!

Suhit

James Fee
03-03-2004, 02:09 PM
Faster drives won't make a difference, based on everything I've read at www.tivocommunity.com.
That's exactly what I've read/understand.

Crocuta
03-05-2004, 06:06 AM
Faster drives won't make a difference, based on everything I've read at www.tivocommunity.com.

Well those guys ought to know; they've done some amazing things with their Tivos. I'll bow to their experience. :werenotworthy: