[PLUG] Re: "Video Games" episode of The History Channel's "Modern Marvels" show

[Alan Batie]

On Fri, Apr 19, 2002 at 11:43:07PM -0700, Greg Long wrote:
> Near as I understand, because these are broadcast, it's legal to
> distribute (without charge of course)

Sorry, that's not correct.

> ReplayTV has built in goodies to reportedly automatically cut the
> commercials and allow for sharing over broadband connecitons, though
> I've never looked into specifics of this, as I'm not in the market for
> such a machine.

From what I've seen about it (I have an earlier Replay --- they want
way too much for the new one):

Automatically cutting the commercials is something you can have it do
while watching, but doubt it does it when sharing.

Sharing is bandwidth limited such that the example they give is that it
takes all night to do one 2hr movie.

> TiVO I have heard runs on a Linux system - and many have hacked it and
> installed larger HD's and configured it to use their broadband
> connections vs. its normal dialup.

I don't know about the broadband part (I know Tivo has been hacked to
support Ethernet, but don't think it's been hacked to get updates over
it), but both Replay and Tivo are relatively easy to upgrade HDs with,
though it helps if you're starting with a brand new machine.  Memory
Time here in town will do it for you, and ebay has all kinds of offers
to do it as well.  It doesn't require any "hacking" to upgrade the disk
from what I recall --- it's basically a matter of dd'ing the old disk
to the new one and putting the new disk back in, if your unit only has
one to start with.  A quick search on yahoo should find the sites with
detailed instructions.

I have the Philips DSR-6000, a Tivo unit with builtin satellite receiver.
It stores the bits directly off the satellite, resulting in much higher
picture quality (which is why the Replay is relegated now to the auxiliary
TV), and while it still phones home every night, the program guide comes
over the satellite, saving phone time.

-- 
Alan Batie                   ______    www.rdrop.com/users/alan      Me
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