Tivo Desktop and TivoTo Go - No longer Mac compatible

Posted:
in Future Apple Hardware edited January 2014
With Tiger now out, Tivo has posted the message that Tivo Desktop is no longer compatible with macs. if you have Jaguar, your fine, but not for Tiger. Tivo desktop gives users the ability to move pictures and music to your tivo from your mac.



TivoToGo has never been compatible with iLife and from the looks of it, it won't ever.



This is not right. Why would Tivo do this, they are a great product and have specifically left us out.



Here is my theory. Comcast has agreed to 1) use MS to do IPTV and 2) contracted with Tivo to the new comcast HD boxes. So I think Tivo sold the farm to save their skin and are letting MS and Comcast tell them what to do... "first thing is first, drop all mac support."



So, the question is, when will apple give us another solution? Either a PVR mac Mini, or 2) Airport Express A/V, or 3) build a new PVR from the ground up.



Either way, I don't care, I just want something to record and pass video and music between computer and A/V Living room.

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 13
    kickahakickaha Posts: 8,760member
    I'm still stunned no one has whipped up an app to work with QuickTime Streaming Server (which is free) to fulfill this niche. That plus a digitizer box that the customer can select based on *their* local needs, and voila - ready to go. Ah well.
  • Reply 2 of 13
    tednditedndi Posts: 1,921member
    This does indeed sukc!



    I just bought a direct tivo and thought that I would get the functionality of the tivo and the ability to get the content on my mac for later viewing.



    Seems no dice. Should have stuck with my old sony receiver. It had more functionality.
  • Reply 3 of 13
    arty50arty50 Posts: 201member
    This is why I bought a ReplayTV instead. TiVo appears to be selling their soul piece by piece to big content. The 30 second skip keeps getting axed. None of the DirectTiVos have true Series 2 features (namely HMO and ethernet capability).



    Meanwhile, Replay has brought back commercial skip. It works almost flawlessly. If I'm recording live tv it doesn't always skip the latest commercial properly, but for 99% of recordings it takes you right from the beginning of the commercial break directly to the end. It's awesome.



    Also, you can use mReplay or DVArchive to store and watch shows on your Mac. Best of all, they save the shows in plain ol MPEG2; unlike the proprietary TiVo format.



    Are the menus as fancy as TiVo? No. But the unit works very well and is very geek oriented. Not to mention they don't track user viewing habits, unlike TiVo.
  • Reply 4 of 13
    hmurchisonhmurchison Posts: 12,419member
    Wow Arty50



    I wrote off ReplayTV after the new owners(parent company of Denon and others) killed Commercial Advance. If it's back in I'll start looking at Replay again.



    Tivo is pretty much on life support. I thought Apple might snatch them up but It looks like the big companies aren't worried about Tivo's patent portfolio enough to forgo on making their own devices. Good.
  • Reply 5 of 13
    tinktink Posts: 395member
    We got Tivo as well and this sukcs!



    I'll have to get an old pc hooked up. errrrrr

  • Reply 6 of 13
    xoolxool Posts: 2,460member
    I just got a TiVo and I know I'm gonna love it. Too bad on TiVo's official software though... just have to wait for some generic client clone app.



    Meanwhile, has anyone tried TiVo Broadcaster?
  • Reply 7 of 13
    tchwojkotchwojko Posts: 139member
    The Tivo media files are DRM'ed and can't be decrypted without a Wintel box.



    Tivo Desktop 2.0 has the TivoToGo feature and is only available on Windows.



    Tivo Desktop 1.9 works on the Mac, but doesn't have TivoToGo. (Tivo Broadcaster fixed a compatibility problem with Tivo Desktop 1.9 and Tiger. 10.4.2 also fixes the problem from what I've heard.)



    I haven't seen anything for playing Tivo recordings on Macs (at least without either a Wintel box or physically hacking the Tivo itself).



    Elgato seems to be the closest Tivo competitor for a consumer device to get TV recordings on a Mac.
  • Reply 8 of 13
    arty50arty50 Posts: 201member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by tchwojko

    Elgato seems to be the closest Tivo competitor for a consumer device to get TV recordings on a Mac.



    Nope. I've read endless threads about how good EyeTV and other computer based solutions are. But the dirty little secret is that none of them work well with digital cable or satellite; namely because they have no way of controlling the cable/sat box. No thanks.
  • Reply 9 of 13
    tchwojkotchwojko Posts: 139member
    Quote:

    namely because they [ElGato] have no way of controlling the cable/sat box.



    I didn't say they were a great alternative, just the closest.



    If you have a better product suggestion for digital TV recording and getting that to a Mac, I'd love to hear it.



    I do not have a cable or satellite box (analog cable is good enough) so Elgato would work for me.
  • Reply 10 of 13
    arty50arty50 Posts: 201member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by tchwojko

    I didn't say they were a great alternative, just the closest.



    If you have a better product suggestion for digital TV recording and getting that to a Mac, I'd love to hear it.



    I do not have a cable or satellite box (analog cable is good enough) so Elgato would work for me.




    You should get whatever works for you. It just seems as though most people I know have either digital cable or DirecTV/Dish. Whether you're in that boat or just have analog cable or even rabbit ears, I really have to recommend Replay. It handles all of your tv stuff and networks with your mac so you can store and view programs on your computer. IMHO, it's the best of both worlds.



    Heck, I love my Replay just for the channel guide. The UI on the GI/Motorola 22xx cable boxes is horrible!
  • Reply 11 of 13
    emcemc Posts: 27member
    I switched, but I switched to a PowerBook so setting it up to record TV just wasn't practical. If I wasn't home, more than likely, neither was my PowerBook. I switched from a fairly new HP Athlon 64 system so I picked up an old Radeon All-In-Wonder 8500DV, it doesn't do HD, bit neither do my tv's. I have DirecTV and standard cable for local channels. What I like about the All-In-Wonder is that I can connect both the satellite and cable up to different inputs on the card's breakout box and the BeyondTV program will automatically list in the guide all the channels I get and switch between them to record what I want. Snapstream also sells a serial adapter to connect to the lowspeed data port of the dish receiver so that it can tune the channels. I can get output in mpeg2 and then convert to whatever I want depending on quality needed. It is just sad that right now there is not great solution for mac os. I wish snapstream would put together a version of BeyondTV for the Mac, it is a very nice, very well put together system.
  • Reply 12 of 13
    tchwojkotchwojko Posts: 139member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Arty50

    It just seems as though most people I know have either digital cable or DirecTV/Dish. Whether you're in that boat or just have analog cable or even rabbit ears, I really have to recommend Replay. It handles all of your tv stuff and networks with your mac so you can store and view programs on your computer. IMHO, it's the best of both worlds.



    Heck, I love my Replay just for the channel guide. The UI on the GI/Motorola 22xx cable boxes is horrible! [/B]



    Well, Comcast is moving the SciFi Channel to digital cable, so one of the handful of channels I watch is gone. I refuse to pay over $60/month for a bazillion channels I won't watch. I had digital cable with a box, and really despised the interface on it, too (no idea what brand/model it was).



    So I'll probably be moving down to basic cable (just so I won't have to deal with crappy rabbit ear reception) plus NetFlix. I'll get the shows later than I'd like, but I won't be spending $700/year on them.



    I'll look at Replay, thanks for the suggestion.
  • Reply 13 of 13
    Tivo stores files using a propetary form of mpeg 2 on their files not viewable, normaly, by computers. When you transfer from TiVo to Windows TiVo removes its protection, streams the show, and Windows TiVo Desktop adds a "secure" DirectShow wrapper around the content.

    So there are two problems currently with Tivo2Go on a Mac:

    1) "Secure" transfer of files. easy.

    2) adding a secure wraper that plays well with Mpeg2. No DirectShow support in Mac. So they would have to do something totaly different and activly support two radicaly different systems.



    Furthermore TiVo has no control over the DirecTivo units. They are contracted to supply software. They dont control what exactly goes into the boxes or what features are enabled. So call up DirecTV and whine at them for not having HMO.
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