[geeks] ST:TNG

[Kurt Mosiejczuk]

On Thu, 4 Oct 2001, James Sharp wrote:

> I'm pretty sure that the filesystem that TiVo uses to store digital video
> has been successfully hacked and people are exporting data off them via
> ethernet cards.

You can do that.  There is an extractstream program floating around out
there...

I understand why TiVo, Inc. frowns upon it though.  They aren't that big
of a company and a good chunk of their revenue actually comes from the
networks who pay for space on the "Network Showcase" or the like.  And
the networks don't want their shows "pirated".

The thing I find most funny though is that they say these shows could
be traded napster-like.  That's laughable with the standalone unit.
While the DirecTiVo units record the DirecTV stream which WOULD be
worth "sharing", the standalone units use encoder chips that have to
do encode/decode in realtime.  They don't do a spectacular job.
Basically, here are the "costs" in space for the 4 grades you can record
in:

Basic  1GB/hr
Medium 2GB/hr
High   3GB/hr
Best   4GB/hr

Most find Basic unacceptable (and I am in that category), and while I find
Medium good for most of my needs, most do not.  People are NOT going to
trade shows from standalone units.  It's ludicrous.  The worst case would
be them re-encoding to DivX or the like for a nice small file... which
any shmuck with a TV capture card can do now anyway.

I suspect TiVo is most afraid of the wrath of DirecTV, because DTV buys
the encoders that cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to encode their
streams, and the DirecTV stream is the equivalent of the SA "Best"
quality while taking up "Basic" space.  Of course, I hear that the stream
from those boxes is still encoded, but I seriously doubt that would pose
much challenge for any but the most casual hackers.

--Kurt