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Any way to play .TIVO files on a Mac?

post #1 of 8
7/1/06 at 12:22pm
Thread Starter 
I have TivoToGo running on a PC and would like to be able to play the .tivo files on my Mac. I couldn't find any previous posts about this...

Is there any way to play the .tivo files on a Mac?

Thanks!
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post #2 of 8
7/1/06 at 2:32pm
Maybe this would work:

http://tivotool.com/
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post #3 of 8
7/1/06 at 2:39pm
Thread Starter 
Well, cool...will check that out!
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post #4 of 8
7/1/06 at 6:35pm
Quote:
Originally posted by Argelius
I have TivoToGo running on a PC and would like to be able to play the .tivo files on my Mac. I couldn't find any previous posts about this...

Is there any way to play the .tivo files on a Mac?

Thanks!

The last I heard, you can transfer the files to the Mac, and you can change a default preference in the Tivo Desktop Preference Pane so that the "Video" option is visible, but the files are still encrypted as they sit on the Mac.

defaults read com.tivo.desktop

the items to change is FileVideo/VideoUIEnabled. When you do this and close and reopen the Tivo Desktop pane, you will see a "Video" tab.

That doesn't do anything, except tell you that the video part is definitely coming "real soon now".

To download the files to your Mac,

- Turn on Bonjour in Safari.
- Load the bookmark that will appear under Bonjour that represents the Tivo.
- Note the Bonjour name in the URL (mine is "http://dvr-e567.local./index.html", so the Tivo name is "dvr-e567.local")
- make a URL with that Tivo name like so:

https://dvr-e567.local/nowplaying/index.html

Enter that in Safari and it will display the Now Playing screen.

Or you can use the Now Playing Dashboard widget from Apple's Dashboard site. It now has a download arrow beside each recorded show.

Ignore Safari's "can't recognize the security certificate" dialog, and you can download the files to your Mac. I haven't figured out a way to play them, but you can use this to archive .tivo files and free up space on the Tivo.
--Johnny
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--Johnny
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post #5 of 8
7/11/06 at 1:55pm
Lundy, perhaps you can help with my problem. Indeed, the new tivo mac desktop software (1.9.3) adds a new video capability, allowing downloaded and apparently properly encoded video to be viewed on Tivo from a Mac. This has been discussed on a TivoCommunity forum (http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb...d.php?t=298090)I was able to enable the video tab and set a video folder and placed a .tivo file into it. Now my G4 appears on the Now Playing List! The problem is that when I go to it, I get the message that there are unknown problems preventing it from displaying the videos. Any ideas on how I can get this to work?
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post #6 of 8
7/11/06 at 11:56pm
Go to https://<TIVO IP>. User: tivo Pass: you media number (get it at tivo.com).

You can download from there.

Use tivotool to decode. You will be good to go.
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post #7 of 8
7/11/06 at 11:57pm
Quote:
Originally posted by stevev
Lundy, perhaps you can help with my problem. Indeed, the new tivo mac desktop software (1.9.3) adds a new video capability, allowing downloaded and apparently properly encoded video to be viewed on Tivo from a Mac. This has been discussed on a TivoCommunity forum (http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb...d.php?t=298090)I was able to enable the video tab and set a video folder and placed a .tivo file into it. Now my G4 appears on the Now Playing List! The problem is that when I go to it, I get the message that there are unknown problems preventing it from displaying the videos. Any ideas on how I can get this to work?

I have that going and it works great. What format are the movies in? I think tivo can only play MPEG2.

Try using MPEGStream to encode it correctly.
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post #8 of 8
7/12/06 at 7:53am
Quote:
Originally posted by jpennington
I have that going and it works great. What format are the movies in? I think tivo can only play MPEG2.

Try using MPEGStream to encode it correctly.

This TivoTool still only works on the Mac if you have a hacked Tivo, right? That's what the website says.

And the .tivo files that you download from the Tivo to the "TivoShows" folder that is created by the hacked Tivo Desktop Prefpane are still encrypted, right? So they won't be playable from the Tivo itself across the network, that's my understanding.

Just want to make sure I didn't miss an update somewhere.

Of course, if there are un-encrypted videos that one can convert to MPEG-2 on the Mac and then put in the TivoShows folder, that should work for playing them across the network on the Tivo?
--Johnny
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--Johnny
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