Network Remote Control for TiVo Series 3+

Author:	William McBrine <[email protected]>
Version:	0.31
Date:	July 6, 2014

An on-screen virtual remote control that can control your TiVo over the network. It works with the Series 3 or any later TiVo model.

Python 2.x is required (tested on 2.7), as well as Tkinter (normally part of Python's standard library) or GTK. Mac OS X and Linux users should have what they need already; Windows users should visit http://python.org/ . The remote has also been tested on Windows CE and other platforms.

This program uses the network remote control interface first made public by TCF user Omikron in this thread:

http://tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=392385

which has doubled as the support thread for the app, and, previously, the only place where it was distributed. Nowadays, the latest version can be found at:

http://wmcbrine.com/tivo/

Released under the GPL 2+.

Quick Start

By default, the TiVo's network remote service is disabled. To enable it, go into the "Messages and Settings" menu, then "Settings", "Remote, CableCARD, & Devices", and finally "Network Remote Control", and check "Enabled".

Once Python is installed on your system, you should be able to just extract the Network Remote archive anywhere, and click on "Network Remote.pyw", or run it from the command line. (Mac users may have to use the context menu if starting it from the GUI.) No installation is required. Network Remote.pyw is the only required file, although zeroconf.py is also needed if you want to use the "modern" style of TiVo autodetection, which I recommend.

If it's working properly, you should within a few seconds see a list of available TiVos from which to select, if any were found, along with a box to enter the address manually, in case it wasn't autodetected. Alternatively, you can directly specify the TiVo's address on the command line (see below).

Zeroconf-based autodetection needs to send and recieve UDP on port 5353. Old-style autodetection sends and recieves TCP and UDP on port 2190, and recieves TCP on a randomly-chosen port. The core remote functionality will work as long as it can make outgoing TCP connections to port 31339.

Buttons

The function of most buttons should be obvious, but a few may need explanation:

Zoom

Also known as "Aspect" or "Window" on pre-Premiere remotes; they all use the same code.

Aspt

This displays a menu that lets you send discrete codes to select each mode. It's the only way to access the TiVo's hidden stretch mode, and it's useful in HME apps that do video streaming, but don't act on the Zoom IRCODE.

CC

Closed-caption menu; now uses discrete commands for this purpose instead of the Info-Down-etc. sequence used in older versions.

Vid

A menu of options to change the output video mode. Note that these actually change the options set in Settings > Video > Video Output Format. They may or may not change the current video mode! Also, the list of codes has not been updated to include 1080p modes. Use with caution.

Mcr

A menu of macros (multi-code sequences). "Clock" sends Select-Play-Select-9-Select, to toggle the on-screen clock. "SPS30" sends Select-Play-Select-3-0-Select, to change the behavior of the Advance button between the default mode and 30-second skip. These should be used during playback of a recording, not LiveTV.

Adv

Advance, also known as "the button with an arrow pointing to a line". This is your 30-second skip/slip or catch-up button, also used to enter the dash for OTA channels.

A/B/C/D

The multicolored buttons found on the latest TiVo remotes.

Kbd

Sends the text in the "Text:" window (see below). Note that you can just hit "Enter" on your keyboard when the text field is in focus to accomplish the same thing (not to be confused with "Enter" on the remote).

Standby

Puts the TiVo into standby mode, or pulls it out of it (into LiveTV) if it already was. This function is available as a discrete remote code for universal remotes, but isn't on the standard peanuts.

Quit

Exits the remote program; doesn't send anything to the TiVo.

Keyboard Shortcuts

Most buttons have keyboard shortcuts, which can be much more convenient to use than mousing around and clicking. Of course these don't work when the text input window has focus. Numbers, letters (A/B/C/D buttons only; not for direct text input) and arrow keys are what you'd expect (use uppercase for A/B/C/D); other shortcuts are:

TiVo          t, F1, or F11
Zoom          z or w
Info          i or F10
LiveTV        l or F2
Back          b
Guide         g or F3
Select        Enter/Return
Thumbs Down   d or F6
Thumbs Up     u or F5
Channel Up    PgUp or F7
Channel Down  PgDn or F8
Record        r or F9
Play          p
Reverse       v or [
Pause         Spacebar
Forward       f or ]
Replay        x or -
Slow          o
Adv           s or =
Clear         Esc
Enter         e or .
Aspt          a (cycles instead of showing menu)
CC            c (toggles instead of showing menu)
Quit          q

As a bonus, only available via keyboard shortcut:

Stop          `
Toggle graphical button labels      G
Switch between Landscape/Portrait   L

Some of these are taken from the keys used with TiVo's HME simulator from the Java SDK. The function keys are what the TiVo recognizes from an attached USB keyboard.

Buttons with no corresponding keyboard shortcuts: Mcr, Vid and Standby.

Text Entry

For the TiVo's on-screen keyboards, instead of moving the cursor around manually to select each letter, you can type your text here, and the program will enter it for you. The typical case now is to use the TiVo's new direct text entry method, which is selected by setting "Cols:" to zero (the default). This now works on the Series 3, HD and Premiere, and even works in HME apps if they've been updated to support it.

For apps that still require the old method, set "Cols:" to the number of columns in the keyboard, and ensure that the selector is on 'A' when you start sending the text. If these aren't set correctly, the results are unpredicatble.

The new method should be used when possible, since it's faster and reduces the risk of arrowing into the wrong place. Where it's not supported, only spaces and numbers will come through in this mode.

Command-Line Options

-v, --version	Print the version and exit.
-h, --help	Print help and exit.
-k, --keys	Print the list of keyboard shortcuts and exit.
-z, --nozeroconf
	Don't try the Zeroconf-based method of detecting TiVos.
-l, --landscape
	Move the second half of the button display to a position to the right of the first half, instead of below it. The default layout is similar to a real TiVo peanut, which makes for a very tall, narrow window -- too tall for some environments.
-g, --graphics	Force "graphical" labels for some buttons. Normally they'll be used automatically on suitable platforms.
-p, --plaintext
	Force plain text labels for all buttons. If both -g and -p are specified, the last one on the command line takes precedence.
-c, --nocolor	Don't use color to highlight any buttons.
-t, --force-tk	Use the Tkinter GUI even if GTK is available.
-2, --force-gtk2
	Use the GTK 2 (PyGTK) GUI even if GTK 3 is available.
-o, --old-tk	Use the pre-ttk Tkinter code even if ttk is available.

Any other command-line option is treated as the IP address (name or numeric) of the TiVo to connect to. Connection is automatic on startup, and disconnection on exit. May include port (defaults to 31339).

Changes

0.31

Added the new "Back" button, as found on Roamio remotes (sends "IRCODE BACK"). This also has the keyboard shortcut 'b'.

New menu button "Mcr." (Macros) provides the functions formerly done by the "Clock" and (in 0.4 through 0.26) "SPS30" buttons (although "Vid." actually takes Clock's space in the grid.) Let me know if there are any other macro sequences I should include here.

New menu button "Vid." (Video Mode) to send the direct video switching codes -- see above for details. I don't recommend actually using this, but I include it for completeness.

Keyboard shortcuts are now bound to all buttons in Tkinter (as they had already been in Gtk), eliminating the problem of clicking on a button and losing keyboard shortcuts. Also, the shortcuts work with menu buttons now.

Version 0.14 of zeroconf.py -- see the pyzeroconf project for details.

New icon, reflecting new layout (as well as OS X 10.10).

0.30

Zeroconf announcements without an "swversion" field no longer cause errors. (These could be returned by rproxy in some cases.)

Expanded the function that skips over proxied TiVos to include those in the form "Proxy(xx.xx.xx.xx)", and not just "Proxy(tivoname)".

New icon for OS X -- includes the new ttk look, and uses a Roamio as the background (and is also a smaller file).

0.29

The Aspect and CC buttons now pull down menus with all the options for each, instead of cycling through. The "Aspect" label has been shortened to "Aspt." to fit. The keyboard shortcuts still cycle as before.

On startup, the TiVo selector is now always displayed (unless an address is given on the command line), even when only a single TiVo is found; and the entry box is included after the list of TiVos, so you can always enter an address that's not on the list. These changes can help in some cases where the TiVos' announcements aren't making it through the network, or for connecting to things (like rproxy without Zeroconf) that aren't announcing.

Ports other than 31339 can now be specified, on the command line, in the entry window, etc. (via colon notation, e.g. "1.2.3.4:5678"), and are now recognized via Zeroconf. Although no TiVos use ports other than 31339, this feature can be useful with rproxy (q.v.). When no port is given, 31339 is the default.

For Tivos proxied via rproxy (and assuming that the proxy is announcing via Zeroconf), the entry for the original TiVo is now automatically removed from the list of TiVos available to connect to at startup (since you can't connect to it anyway).

The Mac app bundle now uses the default Python (2.7) instead of 2.6. This is necessary to get the benefits of ttk, but it drops support for OS X 10.6 in the resulting app. (You can still use the non-app version.) Let me know if this is an issue.

0.28

The Mac app bundle is now signed (for compatibility with Gatekeeper), and sandboxed -- its only permissions are network access.

GTK 3+ and ttk widgets for Tkinter are now supported, with fallbacks to the old APIs and options to select them. ttk often looks quite a bit nicer than the old Tk version. (ttk requires Python 2.7, AFAIK.)

Color highlights are now used for a few keys (A/B/C/D, Thumbs, Rec, Pause), where available (can be disabled by option).

The "graphical" button labels are now the default for most environments, selectable via option and, now, togglable at runtime by pressing "G" (capitalized -- lowercase "g" is still Guide).

Landscape mode can also now be toggled at runtime, by pressing "L" (capitalized -- lowercase "l" is still LiveTV). In addition, at startup, if the remote is too "tall" for the screen, it will switch to landscape mode automatically.

Restored shortcut keys for Aspect ("a") and CC ("c").

More robust Zeroconf.

0.27

Enhancements for the Mac -- now builds a proper app bundle.

The "Aspect" button is back, but it does something different from "Zoom" (which is also still present); see the "Buttons" section for details. To make a place for this, I've dropped the SPS30S macro button. (Since the setting is preserved across reboots now, it's less needed.)

Some buttons now have an alternate, "graphical" rendering, via Unicode glyphs, selected by the "-g" command-line option. (This is on by default with the Mac app version.)

Bug: The Thumbs Down shortcut 'd' was overridden by the one for the 'D' button. Fix: The A/B/C/D shortcuts are now capital (shifted) keys.

Various minor fixes, reorganization, and doc changes.

The program's name is now standardized as "Network Remote Control for TiVo", or "Network Remote" for short.

Dropped support for Python 2.3 and 2.4.

0.26

In some Tkinter installations, with versions 0.24 and 0.25, pressing the space bar (to pause) would also invoke the default button widget response of the space bar selecting the button (in this case, the "Enter" button). First reported by "mjh".

0.25

The closed caption toggle is no longer a macro, but instead uses IRCODE CC_ON/OFF to change the mode directly. (The program assumes that captions are off at startup; if not, it just takes an extra button press to synchronize with the TiVo's state.)

0.24

Back to using the KEYBOARD command on the Premiere (only), as it turns out it's not quite equivalent after all. This new mode allows direct input of mixed case (instead of uppercasing everything, as previously, and still on pre-Premiere units), and of all standard keyboard symbols -- very close to the behavior of a Slide remote or other USB keyboard.

The rearrangement of widget creation (?) in 0.20 effectively broke the setting of focus to the label in Tk -- since tabbing no longer went directly to the text entry field. Especially noticeable on Macs, where there's no button highlighting. So, I now use focus_button, as in Gtk. Reported by "MelSmith".

Changed the "SPS30", "Clock", and "CC" buttons from hardwired functions to ones built from a tuple, "MACROS". Perhaps these will be easier to redefine?

0.23

Direct text input for all supported TiVos, now based on the IRCODE command instead of the KEYBOARD command (which is equivalent except for being limited to the Premiere). This even works in HME apps now (if they're updated to recognize it), so this mode is now the default. Thanks to CT McCurdy for discovering this.

0.22

The new keyboard shortcut for the 'C' button conflicted with the one to toggle closed captions. Maybe closed caption toggling is too dangerous to have a keyboard shortcut anyway.

Attempt to reconnect automatically.

Report more (hopefully all) errors to the GUI instead of the console.

Expand elements of small windows in Tk, as with the main window.

Some restructuring of the code, hopefully easier to follow.

Finally added a README.txt.

0.21

Use a single window instead of creating and destroying multiple windows (eliminates the losing focus problem). Note that this causes some weirdness with Tkinter: if you manually resize the selector window, the new size is retained for the full window, otherwise the full window resizes itself properly.

0.20

A, B, C and D buttons for the Premiere; new layout with less excess space; function key shortcuts; "Aspect" becomes "Zoom".

0.19

Space and numbers weren't working in direct text input.

0.18

Direct text input for the Premiere; minor Zeroconf fixes; support for Australian/NZ TiVos and the Premiere in non-Zeroconf autodection.

0.17

Zeroconf-based autodetection. (This was the last version for 14 months, until the release of the Premiere motivated me to resume development.)

0.16

Add TiVo HD XL to the supported list.

0.15

Make it compatible with Python 2.3; suppress the console window on Macs.

0.14

Adapt CC button for 9.4; pop up error on connection failure.

0.13

Autoconnect was failing on single-TiVo networks.

0.12

Delay between commands to address crashing TiVos; prompt for address if autodetect fails; minor fixes.

0.11

Autodetect TiVos; fix -h.

0.10

Fixes for numeric keypad in Tkinter on some platforms.

0.9

Shortcuts from the HME simulator, fix for Gtk in Windows, CLEAR at end of SPS30 and Clock, support numeric keypad.

0.8

More command-line options, fixes for keyboard shortcuts.

0.7

Landscape mode.

0.6

Keyboard shortcuts.

0.5

Text entry.

0.4

CC, SPS30, Clock.

0.3

Show status messages; allow address on command line; minor layout changes.

0.2

Added Tkinter support.