This is in response to a question about taking TiVo programs with you while traveling. Very detailed instructions on TiVo hacking available at:

http://tivo.stevejenkins.com/

There's also info on the TiVo community forum, but that guide is all you need. It's relatively easy for someone familiar with working on a PC, feasible but somewhat more challenging for someone who's never opened up a PC. You do have to open up the TiVo and add a board, but no soldering etc. Doing everything in that guide gets you access to your TiVo through a PC interface (TiVoWeb), as well as making your daily call through ethernet (which you can't otherwise do on Series 1).

To extract video, which is never to be spoken of on the community forum, you can get info at the forum listed below. Process is not too difficult once you done the stuff above. No more opening up the TiVo.

http://www.dealdatabase.com/forum/

Not needed for video extraction, but if you're opening up the TiVo anyway, might as well add a hard drive. Can get kits from:

http://www.ptvupgrade.com/

Thanks, MagMile.

Thanks you for the links, MagMile. I'll be trying this out in my spare time. I'm not worried about losing warranty because mine has already expired.

Actually it is strongly rumored a Linux based program for the Series I can readily make it appear the daily call was successfully made (in reality, the actual info is d/l via the satellite not the telephone anyway). This info also appears scattered in the dealdatabase forum you so nicely quoted.

In addition one can program almost any 3.5" HDD using publicly available info rather than buy a pre-programmed one and save about 40%-50% if you have the time, patience and expertise.

MisterNice

Absolutely correct. weaknees.com has a 120gb "A" or "B" Tivo formatted drive for $189. The same new, unformatted 120gb drive is on ebay for about $90. All the software you need to format and "bless" the drive is freely available on the web, and setting up the drive can take less than an hour.

The advantage to buying the preformatted Tivo drive is that you don't have to take a PC apart to get the ide drive in to format it, and you don't have to mess with finding and loading the software on your PC...

Yes, sorry, should have mentioned the DIY option on the hard drive. And if you're comfortable with the other hacking listed, you'd be comfortable with formatting your own drive.

The pre-formatted drive is a really nice option though for people who have little familiarity with hardware. The other hacks are a little "geeky," which I mean in a good way. But everyone can use some extra space, especially people with older machines. It can slow down the menus a bit, especially displaying the now playing list. Also, I didn't mean to promote ptvupgrade exclusively. Have also heard good things about the weaknees site mentioned.

PS My comment about the daily calls was meant to apply to Series 1 standalones. I should also note that people should check that everything will work for their version. I think the hacks I listed, which worked for me on a Series 1 standalone, will work for DirectTiVos, but you should check. Also, I think some hacks can't be done with Series 2 machines, at least yet.

PPS This is old news to many, but in case someone hasn't heard of this, you can enable (and disable) a 30 second skip function. See:

http://www.bigmarv.net/how/tivo30secondskip.html

One other thing while we're on this. You can sort your now playing list by expiration and alpha as well as recort date. Especially useful if you have a lot of storage. Enter the following keystrokes while in the now playing list:

(S)low (0)Zero (R)ecord (T)humbsUp

Courtesy of the community forum:

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb...threadid=62158

Thanks again, MagMile, for the really useful TiVo tricks. I have once or twice checked the aforementioned forums but you really have to be patient ir order to wade through the threads and find the really really useful tips and hints. So I gave up after you a few minutes.

Wow, the 30 second skip is quite cool. Thanks for the tip. I suppose you can program different timed skips by keying in different numbers.

Ok. Stupid question, but a friend has Driect TV/Tivo. He says he can watch and record one program and record another but if he has the Tivo set to auto record and it is trying to record two programs at once based on the schedule on it's own, it has a "priority" code. But it just auto records the one with highest priority not both.

What setting is missing?

Thanks.

Assuming that he has two feeds coming from the dish into the back of the DirecTivo, he needs to go into setup to ensure that the DirecTivo knows that two feeds are coming in. The way to check is to hit Tivo > Messages & Setup > System Information. Half way down the screen it should say:

DirecTV MultiSat
DVR Service Active
2 Tuners (Record/Record Enabled)

If it does not, he should hit: Left > Recorder & Phone Setup > Satellite Dish Setup > Repeat Satellite Dish Guided Setup. He needs to then follow the prompts and make sure to tell the DirecTivo that there are two inputs coming in.

If he does not have two coax cables coming from the dish to the DirecTivo, he can't do dual recordings.

Ran across ths on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg...glance&s=books