LincolnBlogs

For those of you who are following the whole TivoGrab script, a friend, Russ Wenner, wrote a nice howto for the program:

A Step-by-Step How-To on using the “TivoGrab” PHP script by Linc Fessenden (by Russ Wenner 8/14/08)

1. A few things you will need before you begin:
a. You will need to make sure your TiVo is “Network Enabled”.
b. You will need to know the IP address of your TiVo.
c. You will need to know the MAK (Media Access Key) for your TiVo.
d. You will need PHP v5.2.x or newer on your Linux box. It may work with an older version but this is recommend by the author of TivoGrab.
e. You will need ‘curl’ installed on your Linux box.
f. Depending on how many shows you download from your TiVo to your PC you may need a fair amount of free space on you hard disk or /home partition. Just make sure you have several free GB’s first.

2. Download TivoGrab from http://lincgeek.org/linc/docs/tivo/tivograb.tgz

3. Move tivograb.tgz to a location you want to store you converted files. I recommend you make a directory somewhere under /home.

4. Extract tivograb.tgz (Most GUI versions of Linux allow you to right click on the file and choose ‘Extract’)

5. Next, using a text editor open tivograb.php

6. At the top of tivograb.php inside the empty quotes ” ” you will need to insert the IP address and MAK for your Tivo.

// The IP address of your web enabled Tivo
$tivoip=”192.168.1.xxx”;
// The MAK of your Tivo
$tivomak=”2xxxxxxx6″;

7. Now, save the changes to tivograb.php.

8. Open a terminal window and navigate to the location you have the extracted files and type ‘php tivograb.php’

9. This will automatically create some additional files in the directory

10. Using a text editor open the file ‘getshows.sh’ and remove the shows you DO NOT want convert for use on your Tablet. You do this by high light everything between the #———————————————————— and hit the delete key.

11. Next you will need to make the file getshows.sh executable using the following command. At your terminal prompt type the following chmod +x getshows.sh (In most GUI Linux distros you can right click on the file and choose Properties>Permissions>check “execute file as a program”)

12. Note: This next part can take a long time (i.e. over night) depending on the speed of your network, CPU, and the number of shows you are downloading from your TiVo. You now need execute getshows.sh to download the shows from the Tivo. At the prompt type the following command (don’t miss the beginning dot)
./getshows.sh

13. You may now copy completed .avi files to you Nokia Internet Tablet

14. Last step…Enjoy!

I can’t tell you how much I appreciate this. Especially since I, like most OSS coders suffer from the condition known as Bad Documentationitis. This was a great idea on his part and I wish more people would take his queue and offer to do some documentation (or even revise/update what is already existing) for their favorite OSS project!

Since we’re on the subject and I have had, I guess, at least a few people who have contacted me saying they are running/using this script (and please let me know if you are), I think I ought to make a legitimate project out of it with a webpage, etc. The problem is, I just don’t dig the name, not to mention I am concerned about using “tivo” in the name due to this litigious society we live in. So, please do me the favor of sending me name suggestions, and if you have any ideas about logos, etc., too, that would be extra fantastic!