PC to Tivo Playback released

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PC to Tivo Playback released

Looks like the TiVo 7.2 beta is over, as Tivo Desktop version 2.2 was released today. Coupled with the newly released Tivo OS 7.2, transfering video from a PC to your TiVo is now possible. The same earlier referenced TiVo support article explains the functionality and how to convert your other formats into the proper mpeg2 version.

A reader that has the new OS and desktop software writes:

Your PC with Tivo Desktop shows up as a server on your Tivo's now playing list, and any mpegs in your "Tivo Recordings" Folder show up on the Tivo.

If anyone has the new OS and software, can you leave a comment on whether or not streaming video from the PC to the TiVo is possible? It'd be a shame if you had to move half a gig of video files over before you could play them. If streaming is possible, this would allow you to use your PC as a video archive, by storing video there instead of the TiVo hard drive.

by Matt Haughey August 22, 2005 in News, TiVo

Comments

Still ignoring the Mac.

I'm rapidly losing my love of Tivo. If I'm going to be forced to use a PC for these features, why not use a Media Center PC that has no monthly fees, has a hell of a lot more horsepower, and can do infinitely more? Hell, the interface isn't even that bad, if reviews are to be believed.

Tivo stopped supporting me. I'll stop supporting Tivo.

Posted by: Joshua Ochs at Aug 22, 2005 9:01:43 PM

Grow up about the mac already. You choose a digital solution that isn't accepted by the mainstream. Why should a tiny company like TiVo be forced to support the counter culture world of the mac lovers? Steve Jobs has had many opportunities to provide a video solution to his customers and has repeatably denied any interest. It will hurt them in the long run. When it comes to television TiVo is the real innovator and if you can't adapt to the mainstream then maybe you should just stick with that crappy comcast DVR instead.

Posted by: Discfree at Aug 22, 2005 9:36:30 PM

"Streaming" is possible, meaning, you can start watching once you start transfering. It functions the same way as Multi-room viewing.

Posted by: tivocranks at Aug 22, 2005 11:10:49 PM

"Streaming" is possible, meaning, you can start watching once you start transfering. It functions the same way as Multi-room viewing.

Posted by: tivocranks at Aug 22, 2005 11:13:07 PM

Why do you think Tivo is "innovative"? Tivo wasn't even the first PVR. It has two claims to fame - a great interface and a rabidly loyal fanbase. Sound familiar? Tivo supported both Windows and Macintosh until TivoToGo (some would say the Mac support was even better, with the iTunes and iPhoto integration), and then signed with Microsoft for their encryption.

Think about this for a minute - Microsoft. These guys are their biggest competitor with the Media Center PC. And now Tivo is locked in with them. Someone care to explain why this is a good strategy? Now everyone who wants to use Tivo's extra media features has to run Windows. Think Media Center and all that will always be a "special edition"? Think again. Suddenly all of Tivo's remaining users will be able to use a Microsoft solution that works "well enough", and hey, it's already installed and integrates better. Sound like anything (hint - they were bought by AOL)?

Okay, so they're in bed with Microsoft, so TivoToGo will never happen for a non-Microsoft platform. Let's look at other things. Video streaming: why does this need any particular OS support? Open a video file, convert to MPEG2 on the fly, send to Tivo. The vast majority of that is cross platform code. No proprietary DRM or anything. Or how about the fact that the Tivo Desktop installer crashes on 10.4.2, even though all Tivo has to do is delete *one line* of code from their post-install shell script ("AddFirewallEntry", for anyone who is interested)? See why I'm a bit pissed at this company?

Finally, DiscFree, ponder this. If Tivo ignores Mac users, what are they more likely to dump - the Tivo or their Macs? Given how much overlap there is between Mac users and Tivo users, that could be a significant chunk of Tivo's userbase down the drain.

Posted by: Joshua Ochs at Aug 23, 2005 12:05:51 AM

I can transfer Tivo shows to my Playstation Portable easily now that PSP Video 9 supports directly transferring. This makes tivo significantly more useful to me. Tivo should be advertising that this is possible, its pretty nice.

Posted by: Randy at Aug 23, 2005 3:23:39 AM

I forced a download and seem to have this running properly now. To answer Matt's question, it behaves just like an MRV (watching a show from a different tivo)- that is, you can play it as it is transfering.

Folks that believe streaming is superior to tranfering have the option of deleting the show when they are done watching. Then the Tivo process would be identical to streaming.

I was playing a .Tivo file recorded at "Best" which because I have satellite means it is recorded at a slightly higher bitrate (resolution 544x480) than most Tivos (whose best is usually 480x480). Played from a cheapy PC (1.8ghz althion eMachine) used as a server, going across a wired network at 100mbps, the show played without any jerkiness or pausing.

I am betting that there would be jerkiness if the file was stored at a much higher bitrate (say- one that was from a 720x480 source, like a Dvd burner .tivo, or a ripped dvd). Can't comment on that yet though- I have to transfer a file over from my toshiba Tivo dvd burner to verify.

Those posters that think an MCE delivers a better value- go ahead. Go to some outfit with a liberal return policy like Best buy because I think you will not only not be satisfied with the price, (10X a tivo), but the fact that no one other than dweebs in the family will figure out let alone tolerate the quirkiness and unintelligibility of the interface.

I own a winbook 410 MCE, and it blows major chunks.

Sure, you can build an MCE for less than a thousand. BUt you'd still be wasting ridiculous amounts of money. I bought a "broken" Tivo for $17 off ebay. All that was wrong was a burned out hard drive. You want "free" service? Fine- get a lifetime sub. Now it is free, and you have still paid hundreds and hundreds less than anything else.

Posted by: justin thyme at Aug 23, 2005 4:16:27 AM

Mac users have an alternative -- EyeTV. It uses your Mac for its hard drive, and there's even an HD version available.

Posted by: Kerri at Aug 23, 2005 4:44:47 AM

Does anyone know if this upgrade in any way changes the Tivo Series 2 USB ports speed??

Posted by: Daniel McAndrew at Aug 23, 2005 5:12:11 AM

TiVo is hire-ing more Mac Developers recently the features are coming to Mac and most of them are already there. I don't see myself using anything else then TiVo.

Posted by: Linda at Aug 23, 2005 5:37:41 AM

"And now Tivo is locked in with them. Someone care to explain why this is a good strategy?"

Sadly, 'cause TiVo didn't have the $$$ or resources to develop their own DRM scheme that could work on all platforms.

So, instead, the licensed an 'out of the box' solution just for Windows.

TiVo's posting job openings for Mac developers recently. However, that is in no way a guarantee that Mac users will have identical functionalily that Windows users have... and even if they do, it still could be years away.

Posted by: chris at Aug 23, 2005 5:53:37 AM

Thanks for the info from those who have already experimented. Can the tivo play a .tivo file from the pc that you had previously transferred there? It would seem obvious that you could, but I believe there has been some question. Anyone tried it?

Posted by: M at Aug 23, 2005 8:30:07 AM

I can confirm that you can play .tivo files that you previously transfered to your PC.

Posted by: Mark at Aug 23, 2005 8:51:20 AM

I'd take issue with the person slamming "quirkiness and unintelligibility of the interface" of MCE.

The interface of MCE is actually quite easy to use.

I recently did just what you suggested... bought an MCE PC from Best Buy. First attempt was a Gateway box. It was so slow, and the video out quality was so crappy (coax cable only from the included tuner card) that I returned that.

Swapped it for a Sony MCE PC with a better tv tuner card. Seemed fine, however here's the classic PC-as-a-dvr issue... you leave a DVR on ALL THE TIME. After anywhere from 12-24 hours of running, though, something would start to drain memory resources, and the whole thing would slow to a crawl. Made both auto recording, and playback, of files a pain in the ass.

I'm sure with a ton of effort I could have figured out what was up, but why bother. I went back to my TIVO.

That said, I'm not a very happy TIVO user either. I'm an early adopter. Have had 5 Tivos over the years, and was even featured once in the LA Times as a TIVO advocate in an article they did on DVRs.

But I'm also a MAC user. Not getting the full value out of an appliance because its "chosen sides" is ridiculous. When you're discussing computers or whathaveyou, you expect OS compatibility issues, but TIVO is (bottom line), an appliance.

In the same way it has Coax out, S-video out, composite out, etc, to support the variety of televisions, receivers, and other home theater equipment it interfaces with for recording and playback, I have the basic expectation that it'll properly interface with a commonly supported OS for the other services a user pays for.

Zippy

Posted by: thezippy at Aug 23, 2005 9:06:20 AM

As per a previous comment on this subject (another posting on Tivo transfers, you will be able to transfer MPEG's to Tivo. Certain encoding issues apply.

As per streaming vs transfering, I have 3 (count em) solutions to watching media from the net (UK programs I get via UKNova) Tivo is the best solution so far:

1) Media Center with XBox eXtender, totally useless, limited support for codec's requiring a transcode of pretty much everything I need to watch.

2) Dlink DSM 320, nice solution, buggy though, crash prone, and again has some issues with codecs. FFwd and RRwd support is useless, meaning you have to sit through an entire show or ffwd back to where you were watching from in real (slow) time... so much for streaming media.

3) Tivo and new desktop, Most of the Mpegs I have transfer out of the box to Tivo, those that dont (DixX/Xvid) need a "quick" transcode (I use graphedit). The transfer comes down faster than realtime, (streams faster than dlink), and I have a cached copy on the box so I can stop, pause, ffwd, rewind. Perfect.

Posted by: G at Aug 23, 2005 9:11:36 AM

How is TiVo innovative? Have you read this blog in the last three years. TiVo has done some really amazing things like being the first to support HDTV. Bringing in the open source community to develop applications around services like Ebay and Flickr. Having a lax security policy that enables die hard geeks to hack into their boxes and add functionality and hard drives despite the business risks and potential for abuse. Introducing Netflix on demand despite hollywood's distate for their company. In 2001, they were testing a p2p service, but could never get the media companies to sign off on the innovation. The problem isn't that TiVo is in bed with Microsoft, it's that they are in bed with Big Media. My point isn't to argue whether the Mac is a good system or not (personally I think I-tunes is crap), but only to point out that just like Microsoft, Mac can produce their version of a media center if TiVo is so lacking. TiVo isn't worried about Microsoft canibalizing their software because of how powerful and wonderfully innovative the software truly is. If TiVo was so irrelevent to Mac users, you wouldn't be complaining about lack of support on a system that represents less then 10% of the computer systems sold, you'd instead be firing TiVo for something more attractive. If most people had to choose between a Mac and Tivo I would argue that they would choose Tivo. Already most people get to choose between Softie and the Mac and they still pick Softie because of it's compatibility and it's superiority over the Mac. Instead of complaining that the Mac isn't supported by TiVo, why don't you go on the Mac boards and complain that Apple doesn't support the evolution of the digital home.

Posted by: Discfree at Aug 23, 2005 9:48:58 AM

The ability to playback .tivo files you already transferred using Tivotogo effectively makes your computer a MASSIVE TIVO ARCHIVE.

Would be great if you could designate more than one folder as visible.

Posted by: tivocranks at Aug 23, 2005 10:05:30 AM

Why did TiVo go with Windows Media for DRM? Because Windows is the dominant platform for one, very much so, and it gives them the majority of the market 'out of the box.' But that's not the only reason. The majority of portable media players, nearly all, use WMV and WM-DRM for their content. TiVo *had* to support this to have a portable solution. Apple has *zero* presence in this market. TiVo would never be able to develop their own solution and have it accepted by all the other vendors, they had to support what the market wants - and that's Windows Media, like it or not.

That does not mean they're abandoning Macs. Developing for the Windows platform has been easier because they just have to write one DLL and it plugs into the WM framework to decrypt .TiVo files, allow support by a plethora of WM tools, transcoding, etc. Apple doesn't have the same level of support on their platform, TiVo will need to do more of the work themselves. They continue to work on it, but of course the solutions are going to come out faster for Windows - it takes fewer resources. I'd think Mac users would be used to this by now, it goes with your platform choice. Hell, I like Linux, I'm not bitching because I don't have TiVo Desktop. You know, Galleon runs on Mac. While you can't play back .TiVo files, I bet Leon will have 'TiVoToComeBack' (as many have called it) support soon. And you could still use the machine as an archive, moving files to and fro, plus publishing your own MPEGs.

As to the question asked about USB speeds - all the 7.x software has USB2 support. So if you already had 7.1, you had USB2. If you had a DVD unit with 5.x, then 7.2 bumps you to USB2 speeds.

Posted by: MegaZone at Aug 23, 2005 11:02:10 AM

Which personal editing tool is the easiest to use - Sonic MyDVD, Adobe Premiere, or Nero?

Posted by: New York at Aug 23, 2005 12:19:37 PM

BFD!!! My modded Xbox is already doing this and could stream all video formats out there.

Posted by: Netrage at Aug 23, 2005 2:37:03 PM

Well then, I do not understand something.

When I learned of TivoToGo, I researched and put in the request to have my Series 2 Tivo upgraded to version 7.1.

But transferring a half hour program at Best recorded quality talks over an hour on my Cat 5e wired network.

Is that to be expected for a USB2 port (to ehternet) adapter?
(And 1.5 to 2hr programs take upwards of 3 hrs.)

How can I find out for sure if my Tivo is running USB2?

Thanks.

Posted by: Daniel W McAndrew at Aug 23, 2005 8:30:55 PM

Daniel, you need to be using a USB 2.0 100baseTX adapter, like the linksys usb2000 to get the maximum speeds.

Posted by: Matt Haughey at Aug 23, 2005 11:22:49 PM

oops, linksys usb200M is the exact model:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B000085ZKV/

Posted by: Matt Haughey at Aug 23, 2005 11:23:24 PM

Very good. Perfect.

Thanks much.

Posted by: Daniel W. McAndrew at Aug 24, 2005 6:49:49 AM

I think Mac people wouldn't be as bitter if TiVo hadn't claimed to be working on Mac support, demoed a Mac version of TiVoToGo (saw it myself), and then apparently washed their hands of it. Yoink! That's what really burns.

Posted by: Jason at Aug 24, 2005 10:47:58 AM

TiVoToGo is NOT a Micrsoft DRM solution. Microsoft DRM is all based on Windows Media codecs, but tivo uses plain MPEG2 with custom encryption. I'll paste some info that I found online about TTG:
Tivo files, having the .tivo extension, are essentially encrypted and fingerprinted mpeg files. MPEG is a common video format. Your unique Media Access Key (MAK) is appended to all shows as text, and perhaps embedded as a watermark in other ways.
Tivo Desktop software installs software (a DirectShow DLL) which is needed to unlock your .tivo file.

A codec capable of handling the MPEG file format, associated with DVD media, needs to be installed on your system. A codec is basically an AV translator that understands how to present (decode) the audio and video. If your PC came with a DVD drive, chances are good you have the proper codecs already installed. Tivo has a list of codecs that they have successfully tested here, though many others will work including the very fine and free DScaler MPEG filter. I get fine results using the codec bundled with WinDVD.

I believe that the reason that it's out on Windows first is that adding a Directshow filter is easy in the windows world. Quicktime apparently is not as extensible, plus I heard that it has(had?) issues dealing with 2gig+ files.

Posted by: Martin at Aug 24, 2005 11:46:27 AM

Followup to a couple of points above...

1) Modded XBOX, yup probably the best allround solution, IF your ready to crack open your Xbox and play with open source stuff, which I am and have done, but I don't think it applies as a mainstream product. Can I buy one pre-loaded in BestBuy? If not then its not a contender for the consumer electronics front. So no comparison to the solutions I discussed.

2) TivoToGo transfers and MRC(multi room viewing) for me with the USB200M mentioned above operates at faster than realtime even at high quality. USB2 support is comming so expect even faster.

Posted by: G at Aug 24, 2005 2:11:21 PM

USB2 support is here actually, with 7.x.

Even with USB1.1 I could get about realtime speeds with 'High', and just under realtime with 'Best' on a standard S2. With USB2.0 both are better than realtime.

WiFi 11g could still use improvement. TiVo has made some improvements in 7.2, and they're still working on it to optimize the drivers and boost performance.

I'll be interested to see if the TiVo-branded 11g adapter that TiVoPony revealed earlier this year will provide an advantage. Contolling the HW and SW means they should be able to optimize the hell out of it.

Posted by: MegaZone at Aug 24, 2005 3:08:09 PM

Ok, so no mac - how about Linux? :) Has anyone tcpdumped things
to see how the pc communicates w/ the tivo? Since I can serve
up music & photos from a simple perl script, I'm guessing that
serving up these videos is not too hard....

Posted by: Eric at Aug 24, 2005 10:38:28 PM

Yes, I know this doesn't "count" since it's a hack and not commercially available, yadda yadda yadda, but it's worth mentioning that the TiVo modding community is coming up with a way to manage similar goodness for hacked machines. Which means it would (ostensibly) work from a Mac.

It's called "TiVoServer:"

http://www.dealdatabase.com/forum/showthread.php?t=44485&page=1&pp=40&highlight=tivoserver

That said, I've hacked my two DirecTiVo's for expanded storage, extraction without any annoying DRM, Multi-Room viewing, HMO, TiVoWeb and more, all over USB 2.0. And it all works wonderfully with my Mac. I gotta say if it weren't for all the hacks out there allowing me to realize the true potential of this hardware, I'd be a pretty unhappy camper right now. (Both with DTV for not allowing MRV and HMO, and TiVo for not supporting the Mac more.)

In fact, extraction to the Mac (off a hacked box) is *better* than TiVoToGo... much faster and easier, and no pesky DRM to contend with.

I imagine I'll stick with these two dual-tuner integrated boxes for as long as I can... at least until the clarion call of HDTV gets me to reconsider.

Posted by: Josh at Aug 25, 2005 8:09:49 AM

Okay, just a little more please.
I think maybe my problem - since I do have the 7.1 OS for TTG, and the Linksys USB200M - either is the cable quality or my connecting from Tivo/USB200M/cable/router to ethernet on my P4 PC.

So far, I am wondering if the supposed Cat 5e cable is what it says it is - - or should I try a second USB200M for plugging into a USB port on the PC?? (dumb, I know)

Posted by: Daniel W. McAndrew at Aug 26, 2005 9:33:02 PM

For Macintosh users here is what you need:
-A Tivo enabled DVD burner such as my Pioneer 810H.
-A Macintosh G4 1 Ghz or faster.
-A free program called MPEG Streamclip 1.3.1 located at www.alfanet.it/squared5 (this program rocks PC users have a few programs that are expensive or don't have the ease of use that this one does)
-And DVD Studio Pro or you can convert to another format and use iMovie

1.) Record what you like and burn to DVD-RW
2.) Streamclip commercials out of the program as it automatically joins all .vob files for a given program. You can even open individual programs from a DVD that has several on it. i.e. two episodes of a program per DVD. After editing commercials out with Streamclip demux to m2v and ac3.
3.) Use DVD Studio Pro to import and burn to DVD.

Now you have a custom DVD without commercials.

ArchonOSX

Posted by: ArchonOSX at Sep 5, 2005 4:19:46 PM

where do i get the software to download my tivo movies to a computer

Posted by: john at Oct 3, 2005 2:48:59 PM

"where do i get the software to download my tivo movies to a computer"

http://www.tivo.com/4.9.4.1.asp

-Dylan

Posted by: Dylan at Oct 3, 2005 5:02:37 PM

I happened on 7.2 and 2.2 by accident. Didn't know either was coming -- just noticed new features and a new icon on my TiVo screen and was prompted to upgrade desktop on one pc.

The huge difference to me is what seems new -- streaming. You can watch something on your pc on your television as it is streaming and also, on your pc while streaming from your TiVo. The only thing I notice is that you can only watch what is streaming -- if you queue more than one show/movie/etc. to transfer, either way, you can only watch the actively streaming one (duh!).

Anyways, the practical result of this is that I now have true multi-room viewing without having to buy a second TiVo and a subscription -- I can just open my laptop anywhere and watch whatever is on my TiVo without bothering to transfer it in advance.

Posted by: jeff at Oct 13, 2005 2:40:47 PM

I just bought a 540 series 2 tivo.My first TiVo and I can't use HMO unless I have a pc? Don't think so. Have G4 desktop and iBook... Looked thru A LOT of threads...about a week later I put pieces together and did the following:On my G4 I went to Safari, Bonjour. Typed in (I can't put in url... my ip address forward slash nowplaying forward slash index dot h t m l
Downloaded show from there. On Virtual PC I used Dirct Dump (I don't even use TiVo Desktop on VPC) and formatted it from tivo format to DV format using ffmegx.Both downloaded from internet for free. VPC I already had. For movies I recorded from HBO (no commercials) I burned to DVD using Toast. With commercials I use iMovie. It was easy to do and I am a newbie! I'm sure a lot of you are very tech savy but just wanted to post for those of us less so :-) It didn't take long to complete whole process. I can watch on my iBook, too. It is an option until/if TivoToGo ever works with Mac.

Posted by: TiVoMac User at Mar 18, 2006 3:39:02 PM

I dont see anyway of serving up videos already on my PC via the Tivo software,. Is it possible to stream any type of video sitting on my PC to my tivo in the living room? What the fuck are they waiting for?

Posted by: Joeq at Nov 19, 2006 3:36:30 PM

PC to Tivo Playback released

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