What will happen with all the unused tivo sd ?

[mdoelworks]

I realize the cpu is really slow in these boxes and that makes them impracticle for a lot of uses.
With Hdtv becoming more and more prevalent, the Sd units are going to really start piling up.

Its a shame they can't just be completely erased so people could write their own code to run on the box . I'm not talking about hacking to get free service. I'm talking about completely removing everything tivo related from the hard drive and writing custom programs to play around with the hardware.

The reason I thought about this is I work with a lot of embedded micros and think it could be an interesting platform to play with. But I understand thats not possible.

it would be a great peice of hardware for things like monitoring a home weather station and recording data , etc. It only takes a 8 bit , 10mhz cpu to accomplish task like that. You could replace the hard drive with a compact flash card. So in the box you have a power supply, network interface, usb interface, ide port and an ok cpu for embedded stuff. Hate to see all that go in the trash.


So are all the sd units in the future going to the landfill ?

[classicX]

I think that most people who have unused SD units will let them gather dust in their closets until they either give them to someone who has no need for HD or they toss them.

[fallingwater]

TiVo employs a 4 year amortization when writing off revenue from Lifetime Service. Its current offer to transfer Lifetime Service to a HDTiVo for $199 from S2's activated before Oct. 1, 2003 ends on Feb. 3.

Think of that 4 year term as a rolling time period. It's not unlikely that, in the future, similiar promos for Lifetime Service Transfers will be offered for any TiVo's w/ Lifetime Service over 4 years old.

[wkearney]

Bear in mind the power supplies are often interchangeable. I had one in blow a capacitor (an 89 cent part). I swapped one out of another one I had lying around and was back up and running in under an hour. At some point I'll replace the cap in the bad one. That's quite a savings over a $25+shipping replacement...

[ZeoTiVo]

Its a shame they can't just be completely erased so people could write their own code to run on the box . I'm not talking about hacking to get free service. I'm talking about completely removing everything tivo related from the hard drive and writing custom programs to play around with the hardware.

Easy to take out the hard drive and if you completely wiped it and started over it would be completely within the TOS* as you use none of the TOS. I think there is the ROM chip that would have to be dealt with on newer models. Not sure if new OS that just ignored it would be fine. maybe so.

Problem is someone has to write the drivers for the hardware that is in the BOX and since more powerful and way easier to work with PCs are way cheap I have not seen much public movemnet on such a project. I have no inclination to work on such a thng myself but would make use of such software if it became avaiable. Of course TiVo would rather see them work as TiVo DVRs and collect the sub fee for now so they would not exactly be excited or helpful for such a project.


* there is open source code on there you can leave behind of course. Just easier to say wipe clean and install your own.

[classicsat]

They draw too much power for what you will be doing in the end. You will be powering an unused tuner (or two), video/audio encoder(s), and audio decoders.

You would have to install a MIPS Debian, which from what I have seen, isn't very easy. If someone wants to be a hero an make a ready to go image, please do.

Plus the 5xx and later units still need the PROM hack.

[ZeoTiVo]

They draw too much power for what you will be doing in the end. You will be powering an unused tuner (or two), video/audio encoder(s), and audio decoders.

something could be done to turn them off if they were not being used.
IF I already had the TiVo hardware I would be interested in making it a file server with some cron jobs to do some useful utility work as well. save the bucks for not buying a SAN server. Especially a DT with ethernet port

[mdoelworks]

The main barrier to doing anything with the box isn't tivo.
Its broadcom.
Broadcom is perhaps the worst company to try to get data sheets from on their chipsets.
They often want you to sign NDA agreements and pay hefty licensing fees to even begin talking to you.
Power requirements are actually really low.
If you removed the hard drive and cut power trace to the tuners, your down to just supplying what the micros need. Way less than any pc.

The broadcom chips have i2c interfaces which is great because that would interface with every single micro device out there. From temperature sensors to card readers.

As for using Mips debian, you wouldn't have to.
There are plenty of compilers that will convert C code straight into assembly.
It would be running your own code dedicated to the single task that you set up.

People tend to try to take cpus like the one in the tivo , put an os on it and use it like a pc. That can be a mistake. Embedded micros are very capable, they just need to be programmed for a specific task and not trying to make them into a general pc like system. Once you do that, you have the full power of the micro at your disposal.

What would make the tivo hardware attractive is the cost in the future.
I imagine these units would go for $5 each eventually.
To put together a embedded cpu + usb interface + nic + ir interface easily runs close to and often over 100.00 per board.


For example look at this board that would be the equivalent of the tivo hardware:
http://www.jkmicro.com/
Sadly without broadcoms help its an impossible task.