Enhance Your Hacked Tivo With This Script

Attached is an automated script that tweaks and enhances your already-hacked Tivo. This script is included with The Zipper, so you don't need to run it if you've already completed a full Zipper install. If you hacked your Tivo with PTVnet, this script can be installed right over it.

Usage: unzip the attached script, FTP it to your Tivo, and run it. It’s interactive, so you can pick and choose exactly what it installs, and it comes with an uninstall script so you can remove everything easily. It works will all Series 2/2.5 Tivos, including the HR10-250 (3.1.5f and 6.3x). Here’s what it does:

1. Installs channel logos on the guide banner and Now Playing list.

2. Replaces the “Almost There” splash screen with this more interesting one. If you don’t like it, you can download any one of these splash screens, and FTP it to replace the one stored in /tvbin/AlmostThere.png. Be sure to change the name of the replacement screen to “AlmostThere.png” to match the existing one before you FTP it to your Tivo.

3. Installs a profile with “aliases” that provide shortcuts to commonly used commands. For example, to mount your root drive as read-write, instead of typing out the full “mount –o remount,rw /”, you simply type “rw”. See the readme for the full list of aliases installed.

4. Installs a Customized Version of Tivowebplus. Now based on Tivowebplus version 2.0.

• Tivowebplus main menu is modified to show the name of your Tivo at the top of each menu – helpful if you have multiple Tivos. Here’s what it looks like:
  
  

5. Installs a fully functional cron setup for improved performance and logging. Creates all required directories and files, and installs a crondtab to do the following:

• Create a tarball (archive) of your logs once/week, and save it in your root directory for easy FTP’ing. Helpful to have if something ever goes wrong with your Tivo, or you just want to explore your logs for well-defined time periods.

• Wipe your logs once/week (after archiving them) to keep them from getting to big and hindering performance. Also wipes the tarball archive above.

• Run fakecall every night at 3am.

• Reboot your Tivo twice/week at 3am. This cleans things out for better performance if you have several hacks running. Also restarts logs, and allows fakecall to reset the last successful call indicator, so your Tivo won't call home (fakecall doesn't update mfs entries without a reboot). This allows you to keep your phone line connected for PPV ordering or CallerID.

6. Searches for and removes MRV/HMO expiration certificates from MFS. If you are using multi-room viewing on a DirecTivo, it's possible you'll receive expiration certificates, which will stop MRV/HMO from working 180 days after your latest Tivo software download occurred.

7. Makes a Backup of Your Season Passes and Wishlists. This is extremely useful if your drive ever fails, or you have to rehack your Tivo, upgrade to a new software version, or buy a new Tivo. Many thanks to agw who wrote the core tcl script that makes this feature possible.

8. Appends Your Crontab to Make a Weekly Backup of Your Season Passes and Wishlists. I always forget to make manual backups in TWP, and when I clobber one of my Tivos, I’m always restoring an outdated backup. This feature uses cron to make weekly backups and store them in /seasonpass-backups/<date>backup. Be sure to frequently FTP the backups to your PC for safe keeping.

9. Adds or Removes Showcases and Yellow Stars. If your Tivo is hacked, you most likely don’t get Showcases and Yellow Stars anymore.

10. Updates the Profile to Easily Edit the Crontab. I added an alias to the .profile called “root” that opens up the crondtab (var/spool/cron/crontabs/root) in vi. Just type “root” from bash to edit this file.

11. Installs NCID CallerID Application. Both the client and server are installed on your Tivo. Also, you can manually configure it to run the server on one Tivo and have it communicate with multiple Tivo clients. Other options can be tweaked to your taste. See the NCID website for details. The on-screen display program used by NCID does not work for Series 2.5 Tivos, so this feature gets skipped.

12. Installs Jamie's USB 2.0 Drivers. Also modifies your usb.map to support backported drivers. There's always a chance that replacing drivers will kill your connection, so be prepared to break out the serial cable or pull the drive.

13. Confirms network settings are appropriate for MRV. Checks to see if your IP parameters are permanently set in MFS, and if not, will set them for you if you choose. This is required for MRV to work properly.

14. Installs "netperf" to measure network performance between multiple Tivos. Actually, it just configures netperf paramters in a series of aliases that let you easily test MRV speeds by typing a single word a the bash prompt.

15. Installs EndPad (Plus). Many thanks to Sanderton and Falcontx for their permission to use this fantastic tool. If you like EndPad (or even if you don’t), please consider making a donation to Cancer Research though this link, posted by Stuart Anderton, the author of EndPad.

16. Installs the joe Text Editor. For all who have cursed vi at one time or another, this is for you. It’s a bit more human friendly than vi.

17. Customizes Your Bash Prompt. This adds a descriptor to your bash prompt, which can be especially useful if you have multiple Tivos. There’s also an option to add the “TiVo colors” to the bash prompt. Here's what it looks like:

18. Keeps Your Hacks Out of /var. The /var partition is the equivalent of a Windows recycle bin, and occasionally your Tivo will decide to wipe everything in there. The problem is that many hacks are hardcoded to use /var, and will not work if stored anywhere else. All such hacks installed by the enhancements script are stored in /enhancements/varhacks. The script creates symlinks in /var that point to the corresponding hacks in /enhancments/varhacks. It also appends the author file with commands to recreate the symlinks if /var ever gets wiped. If you want to move other hacks out of var, copy them to /enhancements/varhacks, and then run the script called var-symlinks.sh.

19. Adds an option to customize Tivo menus using TivoWare’s TuikHelper and Superpatch67Standby scripts. Options include adding/removing Standby and Music & Photos menu items.

20. Includes the following miscellaneous tools:

• folders.tcl – folder manipulation tool.

• deleteshows.tcl – delete orphan shows, searches by show name.

• deleteepisodes – delete orphan shows, searches by episode name.

• clock.sh – continuously displays the time in upper right corner of screen.

• key_backup.tcl - backs your DiskConfiguration key to a file called /enhancements/diskconfig.bak

• key_restore.tcl - restores the DiskConfiguration key from the backup script above

• delmanual.tcl - converts all manual recordings to regular recordings, removing the word "Manual" from the list.

• net-status.tcl - prints your current network settings

• net-launch.tcl - sets/changes your network settings, and allows you to toggle safely between dhcp and static IP.