Slashdot Mirror
TiVo to Mac Users: Buzz Off
jamie writes "Though TiVo's website still claims it's 'working hard to make the TiVoToGo feature' work on Macs, its CFO just admitted otherwise. Bringing your recordings to your Mac to watch, he said, seems unlikely 'unless we find a way to record it under the current platform, and I don't think that will happen in the next few years.' Translation: no DRM, no content. Fortunately for Mac users, there are alternatives..."
as I repeatedly like to say... I love my series 2 Tivo, but *this* is one major advantage to building your own pvr as opposed to buying a STB.
I don't have to wait (nearly as long) to add functionality to my DIY PVR's... I can take advantage of a bevy of open source and commercial projects to install/modify/tweak to do what I want with my content, all without annoying DRM getting in the way.
A DIY PVR is neither as cheap or as easy as a TiVo (but it doesn't have to be very hard) but with a homebuilt PVR I don't have to deal with half hearted empty corporate promises and waiting... and waiting. I can drag/stream content (from my PC PVR)over my network to my g4 gooseneck imac right now and play it. If I pony up for a plextor convertX I could record mpeg2 right to the Mac. If I'm feeling adventuresome I could put the MythTV OSX client on it (and so on, and so on...)
All the times I've heard "why would you spend XYZ dollars on a PC/MAC based PVR, when a TiVo is 99 dollars or cable co DVR is 5 bucks a month?" This typoe of shennanigan is why.
I can move content freely to other platforms without waiting for a bunch of giant corporations to figure out how to get their DRM to talk to eachother or if they can spare the development time to support a given platform. *sigh*
All i need is obtrusive banner ads during FF to really burst a blood vessel =P
e.
Build Your Own PVR/HTPC news, reviews, &
Kind of a crappy position for the marketing people at Tivo. It's either (1) Give people one more reason to by a Mini, so when Apple rolls out its own PVR they can crush Tivo like a Ferrari rolling over a toad, or (2) piss off all the Mac fans so they'll cheer when Apple rolls out its own shiny PVR solution.
The only difference is whether anybody feels sorry for Tivo.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
PVRBlog reports that TiVo says his words were misunderstood. I think the quote was "Why can't we all just get along?" Tivo Doing Damage Control for Mac Fans
I only have experience with the 4000 and 5000 models, so perhaps the newer ones break all this, but I don't think so.
I can confirm that. I have a 50xx series and a 55xx series. Both work fine with mReplay, MPEG StreamClip, ffMPEGx, DVArchive, etc.