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Thread: How many TIVO users are there?

  1. #11
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    Quote Originally Posted by zollymonsta
    I doubt Sky will look into launching their own PVR box. There would be too much of an uproar from their advertisers (with customers being able to skip ads).
    No, Sky would love just such a device to be in everyones homes, they could then sell targeted ads to advertisers based on your profile.
    And the ads would be downloaded to your box while you sleep over the Sat link.

    Don't think that skipping the ads will stop the ads - Sky will simply insert the ads as screensavers when the device is in pause mode or during "idle time" between programs, behind menus etc and while fast forwarding through those ads in the programs, you could be forced to see other ads overlaid over the stuff you're skipping.

    For Sky these would be valuable marketing tools.

    However, whether the consumer will put up with these sorts of tricks is another matter.

    Sky have said that they may leave the high end DVR market to those "early adopters" meanwhile coming out with a basic model.

  2. #12
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    Quote Originally Posted by timmy
    nice history leason number6. just noobs following noobs from my point on eh..

    seriously finding info on nz tivo users wasn't easy. none of you bastards left much of an online trail (heh kidding k). so had no idea how far back it went although I had some existance of the activies of Alex, and Jaffa.
    I think if you looked in the right places (google anyone?) you'd have found the information you sought and lots of it. Alex had some really good Tivo hacking sites, but that site is now history since his ISP now charges for websites where they were free before.

    Both Alex and myself used to hang out a lot at the AVS Forum, then Deal Database when Tivo starting gettting heavy over extraction and service theft (aka no-nags).

    Basically until about 2 years to 18 months ago if you mentioned Tivo, DVR or anything like that you got blank stares from everyone not living in the US - followed usually by "why would I want one of those?"

    So, its been visionaries/early adopters all the way.

    Quote Originally Posted by timmy
    Have also been contacted by several individuals who (claim to have been) using tivos for a couple of years and scrapping their own guide data for their own little communities, thnx for sharing u bastards is about what i usually say to them.

    thankyou for shedding some light number6 now if we could only get Jaffa's turbonet plans...
    It wouldn't surprise me that there were pockets of Tivo users out there scraping data and sharing it locally with no interest in going public.

    Well, Oztivo mailling list was always the best place to start for downunder Tivo advice since NZ and Aus have so much in common TV system wise.
    then UK Tivos forums as a "distant second" but relevant for PAL systems.

    Getting consistent local guide data has always been tricky up until now. In the early days there was no online (web) sources of TV listings as most TV networks did not "get" the internet either.

    Re: Jafas Turbonet plans, well it was his idea so I have no problems with him making money from his hard work.

    Of course if we had Series 2 Tivos working we wouldn't need any Jafa hardware as we could then use one of the supported USB Ethernet adapters.

    Remember going public is a two-way street - you get more members but you get to be a higher profile target and in the early days "under the radar" was the key.

  3. #13
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    Quote Originally Posted by number6
    Another future thing to consider looking at is that Sky Digital Satellite system is very similar to the DirectTV system in the US. So similar in fact (they use the same encryption technology for a start) that a (second) hacking project would be to hack the DirectTivos (as they are called) to work here - its not impossible as the hardware is up to it, all thats needed is some effort to plug it into a Sat dish pointing at Optus B1 (e.g. existing Sky dish) and it may just work out of the box. Ed has bought a DirectTivo with him from the US all it needs is for someone to ask him if they can borrow it for a bit to play with and see how far they get.

    Once this DirectTivo working then you could record two Sky channels at once (with a dual LNB setup), and you might even get full EPG info as well (albeit 7 days worth at the most).

    In theory you could even hack the Conditional Access system (as they have done in the US) to give you free Sky, although thats not the actual intended point to such a project.

    DirectTivos are pretty cheap these days and with all major Free-to-air channels available on Sky and with the availability of two tuner recording, you would need only 1 Tivo to do most of your TV watching.
    Heh-not quite... I do have a DTivo, but it's sitting in Oregon at the moment. Several of the guys on oztivo suggested that getting it to work would be nigh on impossible due to differences in the DTV and AU sat systems. Which leads the interesting question; are they full of crap? If so, perhaps I should look into having my DTivo sent over. I'd pretty much given up on the idea after the Aussies said the systems differences were so great.

    So does anybody have sufficient sat knowledge wrt DTV vs Sky systems? I don't, but if the consensus from people with sat clues is that getting the thing working is plausible then I may have it shipped over and give it a go.

    (an aside; the Aussies say you can pull in Hawaii sats from Brisbane with a 5m dish. Given that we're further south, but also further east, I've been wondering if we could do that. If so, when I buy a house, I'll want to look into pulling the DTV feed, as it's wildly superior to Sky and would cost about the same-I could subscribe via my Oregon address and have a perfectly legit and fully supported system, and just use the SA to pull in FTA stuff via a vcr)

  4. #14
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    I could certainly give it a go..
    If I remember correctly Direct TV uses NDS Videoguard encryption, which is what SKy use over here.. so it looks possible. I have thought it to be possible but haven't pondered any further since last year...
    Just not sure whether the CAM in the DirectTv Tivo will accecpt a sky card. But I think it's worth giving it a shot..

    cheers,
    Jaidev

  5. #15
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    Quote Originally Posted by ehintz
    Heh-not quite... I do have a DTivo, but it's sitting in Oregon at the moment. Several of the guys on oztivo suggested that getting it to work would be nigh on impossible due to differences in the DTV and AU sat systems. Which leads the interesting question; are they full of crap? If so, perhaps I should look into having my DTivo sent over. I'd pretty much given up on the idea after the Aussies said the systems differences were so great.

    So does anybody have sufficient sat knowledge wrt DTV vs Sky systems? I don't, but if the consensus from people with sat clues is that getting the thing working is plausible then I may have it shipped over and give it a go.
    Well, from an australian perspective what they said is correct. However we are not in Australia and our Pay TV system is more similar to DTV than the ****box systems they use in Aus. So I think the aussies are assuming the rest of the world is like them Pay TV wise, when its not.


    Quote Originally Posted by ehintz
    (an aside; the Aussies say you can pull in Hawaii sats from Brisbane with a 5m dish. Given that we're further south, but also further east, I've been wondering if we could do that. If so, when I buy a house, I'll want to look into pulling the DTV feed, as it's wildly superior to Sky and would cost about the same-I could subscribe via my Oregon address and have a perfectly legit and fully supported system, and just use the SA to pull in FTA stuff via a vcr)
    Really depends on which sats and how close the horizon they appear in whatever part of the country you live in.
    A 5m dish is pretty large and will cost a fair bit to install and setup, so the cost of that alone may make it not worthwhile. Couldn't comment on how stable the signal will be as it must be on the edge of the footprint for the DTV sats.
    If you know the satellite(s) we're talking about you can find the footprint charts on the web, which will show the predicted signal strength across the whole pacific ocean area, then you can work out the dish size needed, and also work out the Azimuth and Elevation where the sat appears.

    Then you'll know if its possible to achieve.

    Edit: Just checked the Sat charts for DirectTV sats, according to my info theres no visible Direct Tv satellites from the East coast of Australia due to the sats being below the earths surface.
    Direct TV7 [just launched] at 119.17W would have a AZ of 72.19 and elevation of 9.95 degrees above the horizon from Wellington!
    Can't find the foot prints of this sat but since its halfway between the US and Hawaii I doubt the signal will be very strong and you may need more than a 5M dish to pick it up.
    At 9.95 degrees above the horizon any trees/houses etc could easily block the signal so better buy a house up on a high hill with room for your dish to face East-North-East if you want Direct TV.
    Last edited by number6; 10-06-2004 at 12:34 PM.

  6. #16
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    Mmm, good to know. Whereabouts are you finding that info? Last time I went out searching my results were wildly corrupted by retailers trying to sell DTV systems...

  7. #17
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    Quote Originally Posted by ehintz
    Mmm, good to know. Whereabouts are you finding that info? Last time I went out searching my results were wildly corrupted by retailers trying to sell DTV systems...
    I used Lyngsat website which provides a list of Sats, you click on the Sat you want to know the AZ/EL from your location, then you click on the map of the world where you are (New Zealand is a tiny blob down the bottom right hand edge of the screen) and it shows the lat/long of the location you clicked on and then the Azimuth (compass direction where sat is) and Elevation (height above the horizon) both in degrees where your dish will need to point to.

    The Red dot on the Equator shows where the Sat is located as a nice to know.

  8. #18
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    Sweet as, thanks for the link. Nice to know it's not completely impossible (though perhaps a bit improbable).

  9. #19
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    FYI - there are some good guys in chch that know that sat scene and have some very interesting decoder options. (not tivo)

    www.satmax.ws

    and a nelson based sat digest that carrys a lot of info on local FTA sat channels etc

    http://www.apsattv.com/

  10. #20
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    Thanks Grant...

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