On Sat, Jun 01, 2002 at 10:39:52AM -0700, Steve Schear wrote: > [This sort of thing is why I will never consider buying networked > appliances that I don't feel are in my control. Has anyone considered > reverse engineering Windows for an open source release?]
To be honest, the complaints about this are excessive. The problem isn't that the TiVo recorded a promotional show, it's that it recorded a show that has some semi-adult content in it and parental controls don't restrict promotional recordings. All the normal promotional aspects apply: It won't be recorded if it conflicts with a scheduled recording, it can be aborted if you're watching live tv at the time, it appears on the 'front page' of the menu, not with the other shows, and it's generally recorded in the dead of night keeping conflicts at a minimum. You can argue that they shouldn't be selling promotional ads on the TiVo, but that's going to fall into the mess of the reality that these things do in fact subsidize the hardware and software updates, at least for now. As for outgoing information, TiVo units are powerpc linux systems, and fairly easy to get a shell on the standalone units. They can be modified with a fair bit of unix knowledge to stop the logging, and verified by modem snooping or if setup to use broadband by just sniffing the network at the time the transfer occurs. DirecTiVo units are harder to get a shell, but can be modified to never call home at all. However such modification is the same modification to get the TiVo 'subscription' for free. If done, it also stops promotional recordings. UltimateTV surprisingly is less intrusive, it doesn't have to use the phone at all (except for standard DirecTV PPV calls) and uses the downstream from the dish to verify subscriptions. I don't know if it does promotional recordings now, but the OS can be updated off the stream so it could start doing so at any time. I think it has an inferior UI. For an open source PVR, probably the easiest way would be to rip anything not GPL from the TiVo and start from there. PC style setups exist in both Linux and Windows but suffer from system size and poor remote control integration.
