PTVupgrade, a site that has been around for years selling pre-upgraded TiVo hard drive kits and upgrade services, has recently started work on a package for hacking DirecTV Series 2 TiVos, called PTVnet. The current Series 2 DirecTiVo hardware can run all the applications the standalone hardware can, but DirecTV never released the 4.0 OS to their customers. To let those users make the most of their crippled hardware, PTVnet will make upgrades and hacking easy by selling a pre-built hard drive ready to drop into a DirecTiVo box.
It sounds a lot like the Sleeper ISO method in this guide to hacking a Series 2 DirecTiVo I pointed to last month. My guess is that they have taken all the best and most useful tools out there in the hacking community, and baked them into these drives, ready to drop in with no muss and no fuss.
What's funny is that I just got back from a trip to Fry's to buy a new upgrade drive for my own Series 2 DirecTiVo, which I intend to upgrade tonight, but now I'm not so sure. The DirecTiVo hacking world doesn't have too many tools beyond the Sleeper ISO and it's not that easy to tweak out a drive for all the capabilities. I'm shooting for adding the TiVo 4.0 OS and TiVoWeb to my own drive, and will document it for later republishing on this site. Maybe the PTVUpgrade guys can get me a kit to test out here as well, which I can compare with the "doing it by hand" method. [thanks MegaZone]
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