As far as I understand it, TiVo is basically a computer running Linux with a tuner card, right? Obviously, there's a bunch of proprietary software and things lying around, but at the lowest level? Operating on the assumption that that's true, might it be possible to remove the tuner card from the TiVo box I recently acquired and install it in one of my PCs? I don't really want to have to pay the monthly fee, and I don't see how the company could complain - the fee's nominally for the service, not the hardware. Is this possible? If so, are there any "gotchas" I might want to watch out for? I've been looking for the hardware specs, but I can't seem to find them. Help appreciated.

well....

yeah few problems. First, the paradox:

You say you don't want to pay the monthly fee. By not paying the fee, the card can't receive the service, so you can't do anything with it even if you can get it to 'work'. So what's the point in having moved the card to your PC in the first place?

Otherwise:

1) you'd can't do squat with the card without a driver. You can't write a driver without the hardware specs, they don't make those hardware specs public, so you are out of luck doing anything with the card

2) If the Tivo box is part of say a directTV set-top box or something similar, you don't actually own the hardware, DirectTV does. You could have just a straight up TiVo box which you would then own in which case this isn't a problem

-me

I understand your point about the drivers - I was sort of hoping they might have just used a commercially available card with drivers already existing. And again, I can't figure out what sort of card they're using. It's probably a long shot, I suppose... but just in case anyone does know, I thought I'd ask.

I don't really understand what you're saying about the "paradox"... if there's just a simple TV tuner card in there, I don't see why I couldn't stick it in a PC and use commercially available software with it.

And yes, I do own an actual TiVo box. I wouldn't try to take apart something owned by my cable company.

Quote: Original post by EmrldDrgn
I don't really understand what you're saying about the "paradox"... if there's just a simple TV tuner card in there, I don't see why I couldn't stick it in a PC and use commercially available software with it.

Oh, gottit. I thought you were trying to extract the "talk to Tivo service" functionality deal and use that on your PC somehow hacking it to get the service for free. Now i get you're just trying to get a 'free' TV tuner card.

If you're already willing to just destroy the Tivo box you may just want to open it up and see what hardware is there; alternitevly google around for more hardware info on the Tivo and/or pics of the inside. It's possible that if they do use a non-custom tuner card that it's got labels indicating brand/whatever. However, IMHO, that's a longshot; they're most likely using their own custom hardware.

-me

TV tuner cards can be bought quite cheaply, so I don't know that this would be saving you much money. Also, there isn't a "tuner card" in the TiVo. There's a tuner circuit, soldered onto the mainboard along with the other receiver circuitry. Unless you really like following traces and doing SMC soldering on PCI prototyping boards (which would far exceed the cost of buying your own tuner) this is a silly idea.

Why not just sell the TiVo box, get a tuner card with the money and install MythTV?