[Macworld]

Post your comments for Bugs & Fixes: Bugs affect TiVo-to-iPhone transfers here

[groovydave]

Popcorn uses the Turbo.264 to convert the files as well. Although, I'm still tinkering with the audio settings as the just "Go" option left the audio very low.

[ampressman]

I don't know if they've since removed this capability or you just missed it, but I have Toast Titanium version 8 with the Tivo Transfer program and it has easy-as-pie export to iPod, iPhone, PSP and several other formats.
I just highlight a video a video I've transferred over from my Tivo and click the "Toast it" button. In Toast Titanium 8, I again highlight the video and click on the "export" button. Then I'm offered a variety of formats, including all of the ones I just mentioned.

[hillstones]

Wow. Talk about a misguided article! And this comes from the guy that created the Macfixit website (which by the way is horrible now that it is owned by CNet).
Toast 8 Titanium did TiVo transfers and conversions to the iPhone/iPod without any additional software needed. Toast 9 added editing features to the Toast Video Player so you could edit your TiVo recordings. Toast Titanium will convert your edited TiVo recordings directly to any portable device of your choosing. TiVo Transfer is not a new feature for Toast 10.
After you edit your TiVo video using the Toast Video Player, use Toast's Convert option to encode the video to any portable device. Works excellent and it is bug-free (once Toast 9.0.4 was released).

[jonro]

I'd like to know if there is any way to get programs from a DirecTV HD Tivo to store on my Mac.

[nhaukap]

Ted you must be using a Tivo box more current than my Series 2, because I've been using TivoDecode with TivoDecode Manager 2.1 (http://www.thebenesch.com/tdm) for almost a year without any trouble. V.3 was released this month and indicates some improvements and fixes, but I can't get it to work, so I've stuck with 2.1. Unfortunatley, TDM only works with Series 2 Tivo.
For me it's been a straightforward process...use TDM to download shows from Tivo into .mp4 files, using custom settings of 360x240 at 1200 bitrate. A 30 minute show ends up being about 275 mb; drag manually to iTunes to transfer to iPhone. Sounds like I'm gonna be in your boat if/when I upgrade to Series 3 or Tivo HD though.
Thanks for the writeup
-Nelson

[ted_landau]

How embarrassing!

Toast 10 does indeed have an option to convert the TiVo files to iPhone format! I am using it as I write this reply and it appears to be working (if it fails, I'll let you know). Although I knew the option was there, I had somehow assumed it would not work for TiVo files. It appears I was wrong.

The material in this article is still relevant, however, for those who want to convert TiVo files and do not have Toast. But I was indeed misguided for those who do have Toast.

And yes, what is new in TiVo 10, at least as I understand it, is the ability to go from your Mac to TiVo, not the other way around.

I plead guilty on all counts.

- Ted

[hillstones]

jonro said:

I'd like to know if there is any way to get programs from a DirecTV HD Tivo to store on my Mac.

No, unfortunately, TiVo based DirecTV DVR's are very limited. They do not include the Home Networking features which allow you to transfer shows from the DVR to a computer. You need the stand-alone TiVo Series 2 (for standard broadcast cable/satellite) or a Series 3/TiVo HD for high def cable broadcasts.

[hillstones]

The best feature of Toast 9.0.4 and Toast 10 is the ability to edit your TiVo recordings so you can remove the commercials, and then do your conversion to either DVD or a portable device. Toast 8 featured TiVo Transfer, but no editing options. Toast 9.0.4 fixed the bug that caused an audio video sync error when you edited the video file.

[ncrbrd]

Obviously Ted's experiences with these tools are what they are, but I've been using iTiVo for some time and seldom have issues with it. Ted's "when the stars aligned" comment made it sound as though iTiVo seldom works properly, but that has not at all been my experience.
Ted also failed to mention that iTiVo incorporates some open-source commercial-skipping capability. Here I'd agree that the results are occasionally unpredictable, at least more so than with the core download-and-convert capabilities of the app. The results are well worth the small risk, though, and I believe this feature deserves a mention.

[sarbs58]

Be careful with the newer TiVos. I recently upgraded to a TiVo HD Series 3. The HD TiVo's require CableCards which I thought was a good thing since I could now record two programs at once. However, almost EVERYTHING is copy protected and cannot be transferred to any other location. I used to be able to TiVo a movie or tv show, transfer it to my Mac and watch it there or convert it to be viewed on my iPhone. Unfortunately, TiVo has completely revoked this functionality and I am restricted to watching TiVo shows only on my television. If anyone has any suggestions or found any alternatives, let me know! This has totally frustrated me and almost completely ruined my love of TiVo.

[yoav]

Hi there, I'm the guy who's responsible for iTiVo and its sister application pyTivoX: http://pytivox.googlecode.com/ (which lets you transfer shows from your mac to your tivo).
I'm sorry to hear you've had that much bad luck with iTiVo. I do my best to fix bugs as I find them, but as you are aware, it is dependent on underlying tools that I do not necessarily have much control over.
Having said that though, I've found it VERY rare for there to be issues when converting shows to the iphone, as long as there are no competing downloads from the tivo (the tivo only allows one download at a time, and rather rudely drops off transfers if it thinks there are more).
I'd certainly recommend you give iTiVo a try (it's easy to install and un-install if you don't like it), and I do appreciate bug reports if it's anything I could fix.

[Gregsaiz]

I've used iTivo and the software seems to work pretty well. The problem I've found is the Tivo transfer is unbearably slow for HD content from my TIVO HD. It seems transferring a 1 hour show takes almost 1.5 hours and you can't watch (stream) on my Mac while the file is transferring. That makes it all but useless. I assume the bottleneck is the processing power of my TIVO box but if anyone has a recommendation, I'd appreciate it.

[ted_landau]

RE: "Having said that though, I've found it VERY rare for there to be issues when converting shows to the iphone, as long as there are no competing downloads from the tivo (the tivo only allows one download at a time, and rather rudely drops off transfers if it thinks there are more)."

Not sure what more I can add. I was only doing one transfer at a time. They were HD files of about 3GB each. And I kept having the trouble I described in the article. I did not mean to suggest that the problems were exclusive to iTiVo. I had similar problems with virtually every variation I tried. iTiVo was simply the one I tried the most.

In any case, I am glad to hear that others may have a better success ratio than I did.