CurtPalme.com Home Theater Forum

jkruger · Joined: 24 Oct 2007 Posts: 2434 Location: Carlsbad, CA

I picked up a directv/tivo box, #HR10-250. I want to try to use it as a dvr for my OTA channels. I hear it can be modded to do this. I have cox cable with a dvr on that so I'm good there but want to record some local stuff. Anyone got suggestions?

**ecrabb** · Posted: Mon Apr 19, 2010 7:56 pm Post subject:

Short of completely reloading some alternative operating system (making it not a TiVO anymore), I can't see how you could use it for an OTA DVR.

As-is, it will be expecting a DirecTV card to work at all, and then it will need a satellite signal (and valid card) to get guide data.

Did you read about this somewhere?

SC

Sparky015 · Posted: Mon Apr 19, 2010 8:28 pm Post subject:

Yes, this is what I struggle with as well. I have digital cable, I hate having to rent the box, which happens to be the DVR as well, but I know if I go out and build/buy my own, I still need to rent a cable card in order to decode digital cable/download the guide. I know of no other way to get around it. I feel like I'm bent over a barrel by the cable company. Even if I ditched digital cable and went standard to get rid of the box, you still are screwed, because all of the HD channels are part of the digital service.

This is a hot topic for me right now. My "exclusive" 1 year pricing ended this month, and the cable company wants a 60% increase in rates. Insane. I'm contemplating ditching cable and going back to free over-the-air HD and building my own DVR.

I'm watching this thread intently! Mr. Green

Nashou66 · Posted: Mon Apr 19, 2010 8:37 pm Post subject:

Steve. i do not know how you could net tell them about this:

Athanasios

jkruger · Joined: 24 Oct 2007 Posts: 2434 Location: Carlsbad, CA

You mean I wasted my five bucks? Laughing

**ecrabb** · Posted: Mon Apr 19, 2010 10:43 pm Post subject:

Well... I thought the thread was specifically about modding the HR10-250 to use as an OTA DVR, which like I said - I don't think is possible - at least, not without completely blowing away the TiVo OS and reloading some flavor of Linux and MythTV or something... Which, if you're going to do that, why bother with the ungodly slow HR10-250 hardware.

Now, if the discussion is about any and all methods of recording OTA, well then - yeah - there are dozens of potential PC-based solutions, from MediaCenter PCs with a tuner card, to an old Windows box with a MyHD card in it, to USB-based solutions for Mac/PC, and/or SFF PCs running Linux w/MythTV and Boxee, XMBC, Plex, or MediaPortal.

You can take a $100 surplus PC (with or without OS), and for less than $100, turn it into a full-blown OTA DVR with all sorts of cool media streaming to watching things like Netflix, podcasts, YouTube, Pandora, etc. etc. etc.

SC

**ecrabb** · Posted: Mon Apr 19, 2010 10:44 pm Post subject:

Spanky Ham · Joined: 22 Mar 2006 Posts: 3919 Location: Comedy Central

Crabb covered it. I haven't heard of a way to do this. I have one with about 20 HD movies on it and would love to be able to do just OTA.

macgyver655 · Joined: 22 Aug 2007 Posts: 6966

You should be able to use the box as an OTA receiver without a sat connection or card. In the menu there should be a selection for a check box for OTA only, IIRC.

Of course you still cant record. There use to be software called Hackman but I dont know if its still working or not.

**ecrabb** · Posted: Tue Apr 20, 2010 3:23 pm Post subject:

jkruger · Joined: 24 Oct 2007 Posts: 2434 Location: Carlsbad, CA

The only use I would have for the thing would be to replace the OTA box I have with one that had a dvr.
I have never been able to get my HTPC to function right with the lg combo drive and a tuner card at the same time so I gave up on the tuner cards. I dont even use the PC very much since I have standalone Bluray and hddvd players also.
I tried setting up my DVHS to record from the OTA box but it quit powering up while I was doing that and I have not gotten around to looking into that.
I'll probably be able to sell the remote and get my 5 bucks back.

**AnalogRocks** · Posted: Tue Apr 20, 2010 4:12 pm Post subject:

http://www.channelmasterstore.com/CM_7000PAL_DVR_p/cm-7000pal.htm

Still on pre order but it's an OTA PVR, bit more than 5 bucks though.

jkruger · Joined: 24 Oct 2007 Posts: 2434 Location: Carlsbad, CA

Is there some way to hook up an external hard drive to my Samsung SIR-T165 OTA box via the firewire connection?

WanMan · Joined: 19 Mar 2006 Posts: 9668

I thought firewire was where you connected the smoke detector. Smile

jkruger · Joined: 24 Oct 2007 Posts: 2434 Location: Carlsbad, CA

No smoke detectors in my house. They would never shut off! Laughing

dturco · Posted: Tue Apr 20, 2010 11:23 pm Post subject:

TheVerge · Joined: 19 Jul 2009 Posts: 914

macgyver655 · Joined: 22 Aug 2007 Posts: 6966

**ecrabb** · Posted: Wed Apr 21, 2010 2:42 am Post subject:

Mac,

Yes, I had several of this exactly model - Hughes HR10-250 - for several years before DirecTV made the move to MPEG-4 and obsoleted them. I had all three modded with the PTVnet/InstantCake mod software. The modded kernel allowed decryption of the recorded streams and ran an FTP server so I could pull the MPEG TS files directly off the hard drive over the network to Mac or PC for archiving. It was slow, but it worked perfectly. Even though the HR10-250 was kind of a POS (it the slowest guide of any STB I've ever had), I was pretty disappointed when DirecTV starting transitioning to MPEG-4 and finally forced the switch and I lost my archiving capability.

So, trust me when I say the [i]DirecTV[i] HD Tivos specifically will NOT be usable without a satellite connection. Without a satellite connection, there will be no guide info. Without any guide info, the DVR can't function. Without a card, you can't get a satellite connection. No card, no satellite, no DVR. Period. Not even with the modded software.

It is NOT like the Samsung SIR-TS360 or other non-DVR DirecTV receivers with OTA tuners... With most (or all) of those, you could press a key combo, or stick any old card in the slot (valid or not), and bypass satellite signal verification to get to the menus to switch to OTA-only mode.

The DTV HD Tivos were much more locked-down then their non-DVR counterparts because of the recording capability.

SC

**ecrabb** · Posted: Wed Apr 21, 2010 2:46 am Post subject:

Oh, and I have the PTVnet software and InstantCake CDs if anybody wants a copy... It's fairly technical in that you have to use an older PC, connect a bootable CD-ROM drive as master to boot the InstantCake CD from, connect the target DVR drive as a slave, run a few commands from a command line to image the drive, take it back apart, install the drive in the HD Tivo, and boot it up with a very specific brand/model USB network adapter. Once that's all done and it's on the network, it's mostly browser-based configuration.

But, again... Unless you have a card and a satellite connection, it ain't gonna work. Wink

SC