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..."

Comments

Boo hoo

[cryptochrome]

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.

Re:Boo hoo

[hey!]

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.

DRM

[dr00g911]

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.

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 .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.

roll your own...

[enrico_suave]

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.

btw mythtv .18 was released

[enrico_suave]

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.

EyeTV?

[commodoresloat]

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?

Re:EyeTV?

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

am I missing something here, or does EyeTV replicate everything that TiVO offers? Why would someone buy TiVo over EyeTV?

EyeTV is missing a number of features. First, you need a mac to interface with and control it. Next it does not have the concept of season passes. Third, it does not record suggestions in it's spare space. Fourth the UI is not quite as nice.

On the other hand, EyeTV has no DRM, a built in editor, burns VCDs and DVDs, has no monthly fee for scheduling, is much easier for hard drive upgrades, and can be used to rip your existing video collection.

I bought an EyeTV a year or so and am delighted with it. There are still some TiVo features I'd like, but all in all I prefer having control and easy archiving.

Another Mac Option: Center Stage

[Steve Cowan]

There is another promising open-source Mac alternative which is just getting off the ground.

Try ReplayTV

[TallGeek]

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.

err - "All a mistake" TiVo says...

[lightning01]

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