ReplayTV, as a predecessor to the commonly known Tivo had two features that ultimately lead to the companies undoing:
- Commercial Advance (automatic)
- Internet Video Sharing
Obviously, advertisers did not like the first feature, and movie studios did not like the second. As these boxes could easily share ‘anything’ that they could receive it was/is relatively easy to send video that was captured from cable networks or DVDs over an internet connection.
Mind you that sharing is not as easy as it is over the file sharing networks, user interaction is required to both send and recieve files, and that process is far slower than most people would be willing to wait if they just wanted to ‘pirate’ something.
Several years ago, when I first purchased my unit, it was easy to go to http://www.myreplaytv.com/ to remotely manage my hardware, that service is now gone but in it’s absence there have been some creative solutions.
- http://www.wirns.com/ – Windows Replay Network Server
- http://www.dvarchive.org/ – Virtual ReplayTV for your PC
- http://www.poopli.com/ – ReplayTV Request/Sharing Server
- http://www.replaytvupgrade.com/ivsmagicbeta/ – IVSMagic proxy
My ReplayTV (5xxx) ISN: 00004-54831-42373
Test your connection (or mine):
http://www.lhaven.net/ivstest/
Merry Christmas!