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Video extraction and TiVo

Michael Gartenberg of Jupiter Research recently raved about Windows Media Center XP over TiVo mainly due to the ability to transfer recorded shows to his laptop. Even though Media Center XP has felt a little buggy to me and I've enjoyed years of TiVo, I would agree with Gartenberg that watching shows on other devices is indeed a killer feature. This got me to thinking about TiVo's ability to move shows around to other devices, or the almost complete lack thereof.

I've been reading the TiVo community boards for a couple years now, and early pioneered hacks weren't often welcomed. I can remember when someone started doing the very earliest hack to allow an ethernet card to be attached. Many on the TiVo boards assumed the ethernet connection was to either extract movies for pirating on the internet, or for downloading show data from the internet instead of paying TiVo. Granted, the TiVo community does have some no-no subjects, and I can completely understand why they don't like anyone talking about getting around their $12.95 monthly service charge, but oftentimes other basic hacking projects fall into the "this is taboo to talk about" category. Right now on the boards, video extraction is a taboo subject.

If you look at the ethernet hacking history, eventually after a few months of tinkering people figured out a stable way to get a TiVo on a network and then they hacked in support for talking to their TiVo. Many asked for ethernet support because the modems would often fry and in many cases an installation of a phone line nearby was required. Eventually TiVo opened up a way for people to update online and now from TiVo's own site they encourage users to buy a wired or wireless ethernet device (on TiVo's end, the cost of maintaining modem banks is high, whereas sending data over ethernet is almost free).

What I find frustrating is the kneejerk response of some community members and I suspect, TiVo employees (especially the former TV exec they have as president now) whenever a hacking project like this starts. People often assume the motivation for hacking is nefarious. It is assumed these features will enable stealing service, stealing content to pirate online, or stealing free cable/satellite. Where that attitude so often goes wrong is that a tiny, tiny minority of people may want to do things like that, but the vast majority have legitimate, responsible reasons for these features, and I would go so far as to say those legitimate reasons could convince new customers to buy one.

Video extraction on the TiVo is now almost impossible. There is a program out there to enable extraction in the old series 1 devices, but it does require some serious hacking involving scripts on the TiVo and a hacked ethernet connection. With the series 2 box, they've encrypted the stored movies and made shell access to the device difficult, so the box is essentially locked up.

The series 2 TiVo is now essentially a VCR with a giant blank tape that you can record anyting you want to, but you can never eject the tape. With a VCR, you can save the tapes in a closet for later use, you can take them on trips with you to enjoy what you taped, and you can go over to a friend's house to watch the tape. Those are all perfectly legitimate and more importantly, completely legal things that 99.999% of people do with VCRs.

When I saw the methods for copying video from ReplayTV, Media Center XP, and SnapStream systems, I realized the utility that far outweighs the piracy. Moving shows to your laptop is a great, useful thing for business travellers. It's also great to watch a show on your computer in another room while someone watches a live show on the TV. Being free to copy a show to a DVD so a friend can see something they missed is also a great feature. Putting a 1 Gigabyte show onto kazaa from my cable modem isn't exactly a feature I would want or ever use (Hey everyone, make my connection super slow by all trying to download this whopping file from me that would take you days to complete! Yeah, that sounds like a great idea!).

As I write this, I'm spending a week away from home, and for the plane ride out here I "ripped" half a dozen of my DVD movies to my laptop. I've got 30Gb free and I find it's a lot easier to use a few gigs for storing movie files than it is to lug 5 or 6 DVD cases around in my bag. Also, my laptop battery lasts longer when it's not spinning the DVD drive for two hours. While I got to enjoy a movie on my way here, and I might watch a few this week when I have downtime, I would have much preferred to have been able to grab the 5 Daily Shows I haven't yet watched on my TiVo. I would have grabbed a couple American Choppers and the Monster House marathon I missed. Instead I'll return home and probably pass on the two-week old Daily Shows.

People that are new to TiVo often find some concepts of it hard to understand. You pay a few hundred bucks to bring this mysterious black box into your house, and the box does stuff for you but nothing physical ever goes into it or comes out of it. It virtually saves and deletes programs but nothing is permanent. A TiVo is disruptive to normal TV setups because most people are used to saving things on tapes for years. Letting people transfer movies to their other devices or burn shows to DVD would probably alleviate many first-time buyers concerns about longevity of programming, and let them work it into their existing lifestyles.

Video extraction is a great feature, it's perfectly legal and incredibly useful. It would likely attract more (badly-needed) customers to TiVo and I know it'd make me a happier customer if I was allowed these uses. But what do I know? Maybe it's a better long-time business strategy that TiVo should just continue assuming their customer base consists of pirates that want to steal precious shows simply to transfer online.

by Matt Haughey August 2, 2003 in TiVo

Comments

I could not agree more, and it's really too bad that you have to do so much hacking to get that feature working on the series 1 devices. It would have come in really handy when I bought the series 2 and wanted to extract some stuff I had been saving. I don't want a bunch of VHS tapes laying around. That's just one of the many reasons I bought a TiVo in the first place. I suppose it's just a matter of time before someone figures out how to extract the video on the series 2 devices, so I will be waiting. Great post.

Posted by: Brad Barrish at Aug 2, 2003 5:46:08 PM

Weird, I found this article at Cnet that contradicts what Gartenberg said in his original piece.

Posted by: Matt Haughey at Aug 3, 2003 12:19:41 AM

Am I missing something? I didn't see any quotes by Gartenberg in the Cnet article you found, nevermind the fact that it's from September 2002.

Posted by: Brad at Aug 3, 2003 2:19:03 AM

I agree, I like the idea of being able to take my shows with me when I am on the go. I have been playing with the personal video station from snapstream.com and as much as I like my tivo, the snapstream software is offering me more flexibilty. I can stream shows from my home pc to my pc at my office and watch my recorded shows while eating lunch at my desk at work, and I can also move them to another computer, put them on a CD or DVD. The next time I take a trip I plan to put a bunch of shows on my notebook for the ride.

I was thinking of getting another series 2 tivo, but now am leaning more towards just getting a PC to do the job -- since PCs are so cheap nowadays, (compaq has some that will do the job starting at $350) I can get a pc that will do what tivo does and more (the abilty to move my shows/take them with me) for less than tivo + a lifetime subscription. I think if tivo doesn't start adding the features like this that people want, more people will just go the PC route.

Posted by: Rapunzel at Aug 3, 2003 2:32:54 AM

Brad, I mean the article claims that Media Center XP won't allow you to play movies on other devices. Perhaps they relaxed those restrictions since last fall, especially considering Gartenberg has done it personally without problems.

Posted by: Matt Haughey at Aug 3, 2003 9:00:10 AM

In an earlier article you mentioned having a DirecTIVO. I have one as well and love it, though I would also love the ability to extract the video to my laptop, or to save it to DVD.

However, DirecTV can complicate matters regarding video extraction. Since I suspect TIVO would need authorization from DirecTV to allow their stream content to be transfered. Maybe this is why we haven't seen a Media Center DirecTV edition?

Posted by: Frank at Aug 3, 2003 10:18:29 AM

That's a good point Frank, and could be a likely reason why the HMO isn't available for series 2 directivos. I never thought of their licensing restrictions.

Posted by: Matt Haughey at Aug 3, 2003 10:29:19 AM

I wrote up a little explanation of how to use TyStudio for those that are interested.

Video extraction really isn't that hard to do thanks to the hard work of others.

Posted by: Michael at Aug 4, 2003 10:18:40 PM

This great!

Posted by: Mike at Aug 5, 2003 1:37:28 PM

Um, didn't replayTV just announce they are cutting that feature to stay on production companies' good side?

Posted by: Sky100010 at Aug 5, 2003 3:49:50 PM

The studios deserve a huge amount of criticism for this. Way more than the music labels. The music lables weren't trying to prevent the ripping of CD's!! The other thing that is bizarre is that there are numerous other ways to put programs and movies on your device. There are dozens of USB and cards to capture video. There are DVD burners. Etc. And further, I'm confused about why anyone save the commercial-free and pay-per-view channels would even care if their stuff is getting around.

The efforts such as Freevo, et. al. are interesting but they spend way too much energy on silly features and not enough on copying Tivo. I'd like to see someone get Freevo to work exactly like Tivo, install it on a cheap PC-like device and hook it up to TitanTV.

Posted by: pb at Aug 6, 2003 3:33:01 PM

Many of the issues about 'transferability' of TiVo or other PVR content should be resolved once you have an integrated set-top box with DVD-R capabilities. In this respect, the forthcoming Sony PSX console will be the device to match.

Posted by: Andrew C. at Aug 24, 2003 7:38:31 AM

Please note that Pioneer is coming with the DVR 810H is a DVD recorder with Tivo. Advertise on Popular
Science page 65 issue October 2003. Available in the fall 2003.
Now you will be able to record your shows as the vcr and play in mostly any dvd player. any comments

Posted by: Luis Antonio Guerra at Sep 15, 2003 8:20:13 PM

This is why I bought a Replay 5160 instead of a Tivo. All I need is a cable (or a WET-11) and free DVArchive software to download to my computer. From there I can edit, store, burn to DVD, or take it on the road in my laptop. Entirely legal, appropriate, and a piece of cake.

As noted above, with the soon-to-come proliferation of PC-based and/or DVD-R-equipped DVRs, I think Tivo will eventually be forced to allow extraction...

Posted by: Will Collier at Oct 2, 2003 10:20:52 AM

Excuse my ignorance as I am about the most non-technical person that has probably ever posted a comment related to the topic of DVR Extraction... but exactly how is it done.

I have a Toshiba Satellite series notebook with Media Center XP, a TV Tuner built in, and a DVD burner. What is the simplest way to get a recorded program stored in Tivo onto a DVD?

Thank You,
Jeff

Posted by: Jeff White at Feb 3, 2004 5:34:52 PM

I don't understand why video extraction from a TIVO unit is an issue. Let's face it, I am able to record a TIVOed show to my VCR. I then can transfer this video to my laptop via my video camera. It's certainly not efficient but it works.

Posted by: Matt at Feb 16, 2004 9:05:45 AM

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