Best way for .tivo -> .avi ??

January 20, 2007 4:45 PM

I'm looking for the best way to get movies off my Series 2 TiVo and into high quality un-DRM-ed television shows of really any format, but preferably some kind of DivX.

I've looked around some and experiemented and I've found seems to either not encode right or constantly reboot my tivo, so I was hoping for someone who has actually done this successfully already. I don't use windows, so while I have access to a windoze box to do the initial conversion, I need a solution that doesn't leave me with .wmv files that don't play in windoze media player anyway.

I used to use the old TyTools for my series 1 backups, but now that my series 2 isn't modded, I have to use the tivo desktop stuff I guess? Basically, as far as competency, I can rip a dvd from disk to divx so best doesn't mean easiest.

Thanks!!!!

posted by judge.mentok.the.mindtaker to technology (6 comments total)

I'm not sure I totally understand your question (grammar is weird, unless my eye are just fuzzy... which is totally possible). But DirectShow Dump will strip the Tivo DRM (http://prish.com/etivo/tbr.htm) and give you a pure MPEG file. From there you can encode that file into any format you want using pretty much any of your typical software packages. You can also automate the encoding using EtiVo (http://prish.com/etivo/EtiVoService.htm). TivoCommunity.com is also a good resource for this sort of think.
posted by tundro at 5:17 PM on January 20, 2007

Thumbs up on DSD; thumbs down on my grammar. I was wondering if there were any good one-click solutions. (I heard a rumor there is a plugin for DivX player that goes from tivo straight to divx since tivo is mp4 anyway) But there are a ton of crappy faqs, and EtiVo reboots my tivo slightly more than the standard tivo desktop, and its encoder doesn't work after initial install so I wanted to "ask" before I fight with these freewarez.
posted by judge.mentok.the.mindtaker at 5:59 PM on January 20, 2007

Get a USB>Ethernet adapter and plug your TiVo into your home network. Compatible adapters can be found on Tivo's site.

Connect to your tivo using a web browser. The address is the IP address of the box. Connect using https, instead of http.

Login using the username "tivo" and the password is your media access key. You can find your Media Access key in the Account & System Information menu.

Once you're "in" you'll be shown a fancy-looking webpage that contains all of the recordings on your Tivo. You'll be able to save the recordings as raw files.

Once you have the raw files, you just need a converter. For OS X, one can use Tivo Decoder to decode the file into a Quicktime.

There's this great website called Google that will fill in the rest.
posted by donguanella at 11:16 PM on January 20, 2007 [2 favorites]

Just to clarify, I think tivo files are mpeg2 in their "natural" form, not mp4. I highly recommend using a wired ethernet adapter if at all possible, as the wireless rates were painfully slow for me.

For anyone else playing around with their Tivo, the Videora Tivo Converter program is a fantastic way to get other video files onto your Tivo. I backup my DVDs onto my pc, and then just transfer them onto my Tivo whenever I want to watch.
posted by shinynewnick at 9:08 AM on January 21, 2007

donguanella -- right, google. There is also something called reading the clarification which says:

I've looked around some and experiemented and I've found seems to either not encode right or constantly reboot my tivo, so I was hoping for someone who has actually done this successfully already.

So no, google can't help me there. Does your solution not reboot your tivo? I mean really.
posted by judge.mentok.the.mindtaker at 5:28 PM on January 21, 2007

No, it doesn't.
posted by donguanella at 5:04 PM on February 6, 2007