Old Tivos never die -- or do they?

[doggod]

I have a DirecTV tivo, model SD-DVR120, that suddenly, inexplicably, stopped responding to DirecTV commands a few months ago. It also stopped receiving any programming from the satellite, so the DirecTV solution was just to send me a new box. They told me to keep the old one -- throw it away, whatever.

But it's still got a ton of programming on it, and so I plan to keep it until I get through all the movies and stuff it has stored. But after that ...?

The thing is, I figure the drive is still obviously working, otherwise I wouldn't be able to play back all the recorded stuff. And I'm thinking, "I wonder if anybody has figured out a way to modify one of these old boxes just to act as a recording device for off-air TV."

What a shame to just toss this perhaps-useful box into the dumpster if I could put it to work after just a little tinkering.

Any ideas on this?

[rbtravis]

Have you checked the batteries in the remote?
If you want it fixed CCS corp can fix everything wrong except for the hard drive for $100.00 flat rate with a 3 month warranty.
http://www.ccscorporation.net/dss.htm
Its the green thing to do. :)

[Dkerr24]

Have you ever opened a Tivo unit? Not much inside, really. A power supply, circuit board, and a EIDE hard drive. That's about it.

But no, there is no known way to turn the unit into an off-air recorder.

Many cities do have recycling centers for old computers and other electronics.

[dtremain]

But no, there is no known way to turn the unit into an off-air recorder.
Or unknown, for that matter.:D

To clarify a bit more, the unit only records the Directv data stream and has no analog to digital converters to record anything else.

Essentially, it is a Directv receiver with recording capability. Not a bad thing to be since the recordings are, therefore, lossless.

[doggod]

>> unit only records the Directv data stream and has no analog to digital converters to record anything else. <<

OK, I'm getting the picture, so to speak. But your comment raises another question for me: If the unit is set to record (only) digital video, doesn't that perhaps imply that there might be some way to kludge it into recording off-air digital video?

[bitmap]

kludge it into recording off-air digital video?

No, sorry. To clarify a bit more, it has Directv DSS tuner hardware, and can record and playback MPEG2 streams it gets from the tuners. Its not compatible with Directv MPEG4, Echostar/Dishnet, or D-OTA signals.

They do make a fairly nice video console for watching videos from your PC using tivoserver. One of my four DSR704s has never once even been connected to a SAT line, and only plays shows from the other units or my PCs via the network. Search google for "tivoserver 0.4.4-a7" if you want to try it out.