The personal video recorder (PVR) is built entirely on a hard drive, much like a computer. Thus, it is apparent that the PVR will attract hackers, who wish to improve the machine or discover ways of destroying it. Hacks for popular brands TiVo and ReplayTV have publicly been around on the internet for many years. An example is [[1]]. Hackers may choose to upgrade the amount of space on their PVR hard drive, personally customise their settings or “designed and built Ethernet cards, a web interface, and figured out how to extract / insert or transfer video among their TiVos.� (http://www.wordiq.com/definition/TiVo, Accessed 28 Oct 2004)
While PVR companies do not support the hacking of the products, they are not stringent on the existence. (http://www.law.duke.edu/journals/dltr/articles/2001dltr0029.html, Accessed 28 Oct 2004) A positive can exist as PVR companies can continually try to stamp out future problems. Of course, strong stances do apply should they be caught hacking the PVR, such as cancellation and end of the warranty.
REFERENCES
Duke L. & Tech. Rev (2001) “Hacking Digital Video Recorders: Potential Copyright Liability For Dvr Hackers And Service Providers,� retrieved October 28, 2004, from this source.
WordIQ (2004) Definition of TiVo, retrieved October 28, 2004, from this source.
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Linda Wong 08:33, 29 Oct 2004 (EST)
