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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..."
Well then, I guess Apple has nothing to lose by rolling out its own box and iTunes-based service, as has been rumored. Some say the mac mini is a trojan horse destined to serve exactly this purpose.
---If you can't trust a nerd, who can you trust?
Well, I'd been sitting on this since I got my Tivo2Go update and figured it out in approximately fifteen minutes. It looks like Tivo's screwing all us Mac types now, so I've got no cause to keep it to myself anymore.
.m2v files. In deference to the DMCA, I'll leave the forum scouring as an exercise to the reader. The terms 'tivo' 'demux' 'mac' and 'key' generally appear on the same page.
Fire up Safari and go to https:// or choose the tivo from your rendezvous/bonjour bar and change it to read https://
User name: tivo
Password: your tivo access key that you can get from your Tivo account online
From here, you can download encrypted files off of your Tivo to your Mac via a web interface. From there, it's a matter of scouring a few forums to find the correct command line tools to strip the DRM off of files and leave you with pristine, quicktime playable, Toast burnable
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, &
MythTV including support for the Plextor ConvertX (which has linux drivers as well as a Mac flavored version bundled with Elgato's EyeTV)
*shrug*
e.
Build Your Own PVR/HTPC news, reviews, &
This is probably as good a time as any to put in a plug for El Gato's products. They make some really excellent hardware and software that can do TiVo-style recording via Mac OS X. It works and works well, with no DRM whatsoever.
~jeff
I think you're right, and that may be on the horizon, but many people want PVR now. Hence EyeTV -- am I missing something here, or does EyeTV replicate everything that TiVO offers? Why would someone buy TiVo over EyeTV?
Maybe TiVo should offer their software OR connections to their scheduling servers as a service. That way, you could roll your own PVR and then put the "TiVo OS" on it. They make money off subscriptions and are no longer beholden to the MPAA because since you're just using their front end and scheduler, whatever happens with the files once their on your HD isn't their legal issue anymore (because you sign an agreement to use their software responsibly, the EULA).
There is another promising open-source Mac alternative which is just getting off the ground.
Get a ReplayTV instead. There are several Mac-friendly tools that can pull the MPEG-2 files off it over the network. You can even make your Mac/PC act like a networked ReplayTV and have the ReplayTV pull video from it and show it on your TV. You can play them using Apple's MPEG-2 codec for QuickTime (costs $20 or something) or VLC. With the QuickTime codec, you can convert the files to DV and then edit them in iMovie or Final Cut (Express) easily.
Note: I only have experience with the 4000 and 5000 models, so perhaps the newer ones break all this, but I don't think so.
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
Well, that's kinda ture, but with Apple's DRM on tthe songs purchased from iTunes, you can at least play them on both Windows and on the MacOS. And with not too much effort, you can play those songs on Linux.
With TiVo's DRM or whatever, you're still limited to playing them on only Windows.
There's never enough when you have too little
in my opinion, apple has the least restrictive DRM in iTMS. It is so trivial to get your music out of iTunes...you don't even need third party programs to do it.. as far as I know iTunes is the only music service you get a real...playable CD out of. Everything else uses...Hyper-DRM... The brand of DRM Microsoft is selling is complete and total... every device from memory stick, to camera, to phone, to audio device, to pc & pda will be required to ONLY run MS brand of DRM. MS version means you can purchase from anybody...but loose the key file in a hard drive crash and you'll have to repurchase again. Apple's files can be burned DRM'd to any media...they just have to "phone home" to apple to get permission... Apple let's you "own" your copy...just like a CD... MS ensures you will only ever "rent" your copiesl....with experation dates.. forever.