How can I help?

[Rob Nespor Bellis]

Just adding my name to the list

Long time Tivo user / hacker.

I'm reading through the threads at the mo and will pitch in if I can help.

Rgds,

R.

[asantaga]

Adding my name the list, multiskilled currently lots of enterprise java+oracle stuff, but have lots of unix, shell script experience, have a S1 UK and S1 US , both hacked/networked, lots of toys installed. tinker with tcl...

more than happy formatting/zapping/partioning hard disks etc, so happy to Test images out.

[Paul_J]

I now have a second tiVo so if I can do any testing I am happy, I am on a TalkTalk phone line so I cans test those issues if you wish. I will get a NIC for it when I move my main one over to the new service in June.

[swiftnick]

I can offer a mirror for disk images and instructions when the time comes.
I have 40Gig of web space and unlimited bandwith if anything needs mirroring.

Also have ASP.net, C, C++, C# knowledge if needed.
Nick

UK Series 1, CacheCard, 1TB

[ericd121]

My skills are pretty paltry when matched against others in this thread, but, if needed, I could dust off my CSS skills if a splash of colour is required.

Errors in spelling, punctuation and the like tend to leap out at me, so proofreading would be another area in which I could assist.

[dutchdude]

I'm in communications/marketing - media relations, press releases, copy writing, proof reading - that kind of stuff. Let me know if any of those skills are needed on this project. Hats off to all of you .

Dutchdude

[Concatinate]

Well I don't think I can offer much compared to some of the CVs above, 'cos I'm hardware design. My attempts at software makes grown men snigger. If you need something hardware orientated, just shout.

[Pete77]

Well it took me a while to find my way here probably because I recognise that not everyone in the forum has always seen eye to eye with me and also because whilst I took a computer studies AO level a very long time ago in 1980 and learnt some BASIC programming back then I recognised early on that my mind did not function like that of the genius programmer.

However I have spent a lot of time professionally working in financial information collection including checking databases are up to date, that data is translating as expected and looking for missing and non updating data items. I'm therefore pretty good with large Excel spreadsheets of data and sorting them and looking at why those data items that have very old dates or odd data values outside the normal ranges are in that condition. This may therefore in some way perhaps make me useful for looking at the completeness and currency of EPG listings even though I profess to thus far know nothing about Slices and the like (other than that they exist and some how feed data to the Tivo).

I am committed to keeping my Tivo working since there still seems to be nothing in the way of an FTA tv recorder that is quite as good although I'm perhaps wrongly making an assumption that Suggestions can still be supported by the self help Tivo database? As Suggestions would appear to utilise some of the most complex and hidden aspects of the current Tivo database I recognise that this may in practice be problematic.

Anyhow I note there are only another 6 weeks to go before switch off (or is June 1st the last day on which Tivo will provide 21days of forward EPG data in which case we have 7 to 9 weeks before total Tivo uselessness sets in) so if I can help in any meaningful way then perhaps someone can get in touch.

The final date of official service shutdown looks like a bit of a problem to me as June 1st is the time of year when people often turn their attentions to matters of travel and the outdoors so people may be less worried initially about having no Tivo than they would have been had switch off day been say November 1st.

EDIT:- I forgot to add I have two out of service Tivos with Lifetime Subs (not that this is relevant any more) that are not currently in use that could be deployed to testing in some fashion. One is just a dial up unit and the other has a Cachecard but I managed to screw up the network settings with nic_config_tivo so that its now on a non existent IP address so the drive needs pulling to get the unit working again. Then I also have my other original Tivo with a Cachecard and 2 250GB Samsung HA250JCs ( these are six years old in June) that is still in daily service.

[healeydave]

I'm in communications/marketing - media relations, press releases, copy writing, proof reading - that kind of stuff. Let me know if any of those skills are needed on this project. Hats off to all of you .

Dutchdude

Hehe, if you can figure out how to get the word out to the users that probably never visited a forum in their lives and are considering ditching their tivo reluctantly because all they have is the annoying "Tivo Inc. Death Message" to go on, we would really appreciate it, but I guess with no budget or mailing list, thats stretching anyone's abilities

[Orddu]

but I guess with no budget or mailing list, thats stretching anyone's abilities

Two things spring to mind which might help with this maybe...

1. Get hold of a short snappy URL and put up a one-page summary of what's going on and how to get into it, in simple "my granny could do that" language.

2. Try to get e.g. BBC Click interested enough to say something about the "Save the TiVo" programme. At the very least, they have a Facebook and a Twitter where perhaps something could be said?

[dutchdude]

Dave,
It's an interesting project - with a fascinating story behind it:
One of the best ideas in consumer electronics technology with a committed following (rarely has a consumer electronics product had such a strong and committed following), which is surprising given that in 2003 they stopped selling the tivo; and then, 7 years later, the disappointment of a broken commitment (a "lifetime" service that turns out to be much less), leading to "the consumer fights back" (- and wins) - add an element of international collaboration, innovation, a flavour of altruism. And in this tale I can see also room for an evil company of two... I'm sure a couple of tech reporters in the mainstream press are willing to cover this.

I just need some help to get the storyline and facts right, and a couple of people part of the community/ at this campaign happy to tell the story.

Thoughts?
M

[healeydave]

Orddu,
I like idea 2, but I'm not sure Tivo has ever been seen as tech worthy news on these shores unfortunately. Plus I'm camera shy

Location Worcester? Really

[Pete77]

One of the best ideas in consumer electronics technology with a committed following (rarely has a consumer electronics product had such a strong and committed following), which is surprising given that in 2003 they stopped selling the tivo; and then, 7 years later, the disappointment of a broken commitment (a "lifetime" service that turns out to be much less), leading to "the consumer fights back" (- and wins) - add an element of international collaboration, innovation, a flavour of altruism. And in this tale I can see also room for an evil company of two... I'm sure a couple of tech reporters in the mainstream press are willing to cover this.

I quite like the sound of this idea although the only area of sensitivity may be that as currently proposed the new EPG service will also support the UK Tivo S1 in Virgin cabled areas. As Virgin is just about to launch a version of their new 500GB Tivo with an install charge of only £49.95 and will only require you to subscribe to their base level tv package to get this box if they are antagonised enough they might try to force Tivo to do something to kill off the replacement EPG service idea. So long as our S1 Tivos are still dialling in the Tivo servers there is the potential for Tivo to send out something nasty software update wise to try to shut down our Tivos for good. Of course this is nothing that a complete re-image of the drive(s) in the box should not fix (I doubt the BIOS on the motherboard has a kill command that Tivo can activate) but could lose us many potential users of the new EPG amongst those who do not have Network cards in their Tivos.

So perhaps any heavy duty publicity of our new service with the media would need to wait until most Tivo S1 users were already switched over to it.

[healeydave]

Dave,
It's an interesting project - with a fascinating story behind it:
One of the best ideas in consumer electronics technology with a committed following (rarely has a consumer electronics product had such a strong and committed following), which is surprising given that in 2003 they stopped selling the tivo; and then, 7 years later, the disappointment of a broken commitment (a "lifetime" service that turns out to be much less), leading to "the consumer fights back" (- and wins) - add an element of international collaboration, innovation, a flavour of altruism. And in this tale I can see also room for an evil company of two... I'm sure a couple of tech reporters in the mainstream press are willing to cover this.

I just need some help to get the storyline and facts right, and a couple of people part of the community/ at this campaign happy to tell the story.

Thoughts?
M

Well it is a fascinating story, not just ours, but the fact that the technology was desired so much that Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Mexico, Netherlands to name a few, started up their own systems due to the lack of official service.
The commitment of Tivo's loyal users over the years not to hack the service and jeopardise the business is not something I can't ever recall happening before in all my years in tech (and I started out when MS did with their extensive product range of MSDOS at the time).
Its a shame Tivo's marketing has been so poor, no product like this should have ever allowed another vendor like bskyb come along and steal their limelight. One of the most frustrating things is to hear people go on about how much they love sky+ and the majority of the time these people have no idea it was ripped off from tivo, hell, 90% of the time, they haven't even heard of tivo. The only thing that is more shocking is that a decade on from when tivo first launched in the USA, tivo has never addressed its poor marketing and thats a long time to have such a critical part of your business failing so badly and not be addressed!

The guy's involved in this project have done great work and we've only touched the tip of the iceberg. The effort that went into the original reverse engineering and building of the tivo mothership emulator and the continued improvements and script work that people like the OzTivo team have done is fantastic!

[healeydave]

I quite like the sound of this idea although the only area of sensitivity may be that as currently proposed the new EPG service will also support the UK Tivo S1 in Virgin cabled areas. As Virgin is just about to launch a version of their new 500GB Tivo with an install charge of only £49.95 and will only require you to subscribe to their base level tv package to get this box if they are antagonised enough they might try to force Tivo to do something to kill off the replacement EPG service idea. So long as our S1 Tivos are still dialling in the Tivo servers there is the potential for Tivo to send out something nasty software update wise to try to shut down our Tivos for good. Of course this is nothing that a complete re-image of the drive(s) in the box should not fix (I doubt the BIOS on the motherboard has a kill command that Tivo can activate) but could lose us many potential users of the new EPG amongst those who do not have Network cards in their Tivos.

So perhaps any heavy duty publicity of our new service with the media would need to wait until most Tivo S1 users were already switched over to it.

Its a good point, and I'm no expert in this field, but the fact that Tivo decided to walk away from the S1 service which prompted us to take steps to enable us to continue to use our perfectly operational boxes, lends me to believe they really have no reason to call foul on our project. After June 1st, we will not be utilising anything from their own resources, we will have provisioned our own system in its entirety. Not an inkling of tivo service theft can be wielded toward us since tivo themselves have withdrawn the service voluntarily, we are merely picking up where they left off. The exclusivity deal is between Virgin and Tivo for a new service and it has nothing to do with the old defunct service that was between tivo and bskyb. We were here first and VM would have some audacity to try and preach to us what we can and can't do with our bought & paid for hardware!