My Baby Misses The 'Tivo Guy'

April 15, 2008 8:28 PM

My son misses the "Tivo Guy"! Can you help?

After five years of faithful service, our old series 2 Tivo died and was replaced (by Tivo) with a new series 2 DT box. All great and wonderful ... except for one thing: My toddler was madly in love with "the guy" (the original Series 2 Tivo animation with the slides and balls and catchy music), and when we played the new animation for him he burst into tears. He misses The Guy.

I know we can watch it on YouTube, which will do for now - but is there an Easter Egg anywhere on the Series 2 DT with the old video on it? Or, failing that, is there somewhere I can download the old animation from and then transfer it onto my Tivo?

posted by anastasiav to technology (10 comments total)

Well, I think you could download the YouTube video and put that on the Tivo.
posted by DMan at 8:54 PM on April 15, 2008

Well, I think you could download the YouTube video and put that on the Tivo.

I wasn't aware that you could transfer YouTube video from their site to your desktop. I was under the impression they were all run as Flash. How do you download from YouTube to desktop?
posted by anastasiav at 9:08 PM on April 15, 2008

There's a Firefox extension that does it, or you can go to www.keepvid.com. Then you'll just have to convert it to a format the Tivo can play--honestly, I'm not sure what that is but I know you can find it out there somewhere.
posted by DMan at 9:10 PM on April 15, 2008

Here's a site that takes a YouTube URL and converts it to a downloadable video file in a variety of formats. Not sure what format(s) TiVo can play, I've never used this site, YMMV, etc.
posted by notnamed at 9:46 PM on April 15, 2008

Here's a tip on how to save YouTube files as MP4 files. No extra websites necessary, plus better quality than Flash.
posted by mikepop at 5:59 AM on April 16, 2008

You won't need to download and transfer anything before too long, since TiVo is rolling out YouTube services on the box for ya.
posted by bcwinters at 6:42 AM on April 16, 2008

I have a plush TiVo guy, as a result of being a beta tester at one point. MeMail me your address and I will send it to you. Your son will probably get a kick out of being able to re-enact the original animation (you will have to supply the slides and balls and catchy music, however).
posted by kindall at 9:00 AM on April 16, 2008 [6 favorites has favorites]

Let me see if i can put together the file for you. Stand by.
posted by John Kenneth Fisher at 5:48 PM on April 16, 2008

Ok, I have converted the files I found on youtube to a Tivo-compatible formatfor you with a great conversion app I use called VisualHub.

Right click - download the below. I believe the first one is the one you want.

Slides
Tivolution
HDTivo

These are all in the specific mpg format that a TiVo can play natively.

As for the transferring them TO the Tivo, I'm going to assume you know how to do that, or can find it, but if not, just come back and myself or someone can help you with that. if so, let us know what computer OS you are on - Mac or Windows (or other, I suppose).

(Those links won't be left up forever, but since I have no idea what my max bandwidth is, I'll leave them up for a week or two. If they don't work, try the next day I guess.)
posted by John Kenneth Fisher at 6:12 PM on April 16, 2008

Wow. Oh, how I love this community!!

Thank you everyone!
posted by anastasiav at 4:42 AM on April 17, 2008