6 replies to this topic

[aseh]

Hello,

I have a Tivo Premiere and I have Roxio Titanium 11.  I used Tivo transfer to transfer some recording to my Mac.  I was hoping to use mac2tivo to be able to view my transfered recordings on my tivo.  I can see my mac on my tivo but it says i have no recordings.  It does not seem to support the file format to view back on my tivo.  I was essentially hoping to use the software to extend my storage capacity.  Once I transferred to my mac I was planning to delete from the tivo, but the recordings are not showing up.  Any suggestions?  I cant believe you cant see the files without having to do some conversion?  seems ridiculous.  I tested some video files that I had already on my mac and they seem to show up but I cant get the transferred tivo videos to show up.  I havent upgraded to Lion yet either.

Thanks.

[tsantee]

You must put the videos into a folder and then add the folder to the Mac2TiVo window.

One important disclaimer is that the video that gets converted by Mac2Tivo to MPEG 2 for playing on the TiVo is standard definition. So if you want to move high definition video from the TiVo it will become standard definition when sent back to the TiVo.

[aseh]

tsantee, on 27 October 2011 - 06:34 PM, said:

You must put the videos into a folder and then add the folder to the Mac2TiVo window.

One important disclaimer is that the video that gets converted by Mac2Tivo to MPEG 2 for playing on the TiVo is standard definition. So if you want to move high definition video from the TiVo it will become standard definition when sent back to the TiVo.

Thanks for the reply.  I've added my TiVo recordings folder to Mac2Tivo already and I can see my imac from the Tivo.  I cannot see any of teh files with the ".tivo" extension though.  I do not convert any of the files using Toast.  I did not want to do that.  I am just wondering If I am doing something wrong or the file format tranferred directly from the Tivo cannot be seen "back" on the tivo.  Which seems weird to me.

Edited by aseh, 28 October 2011 - 10:30 AM.

[tsantee]

aseh, on 28 October 2011 - 10:30 AM, said:

Thanks for the reply.  I've added my TiVo recordings folder to Mac2Tivo already and I can see my imac from the Tivo.  I cannot see any of teh files with the ".tivo" extension though.  I do not convert any of the files using Toast.  I did not want to do that.  I am just wondering If I am doing something wrong or the file format tranferred directly from the Tivo cannot be seen "back" on the tivo.  Which seems weird to me.

It doesn't work that way. The TiVo won't play .tivo files from the Mac nor will Mac2Tivo convert them to the format that the TiVo can play. Maybe what you need (if you have a compatible TiVo) is to connect an external hard drive to the TiVo so you can expand its own storage.

Mac2TiVo will convert QuickTime-playable video files (and probably MPEG 2 files) on the fly to the MPEG 2 format that a TiVo can see. Your videos need to be removed from their .tivo package before they can be added to Mac2TiVo because the .tivo file is not QuickTime playable.

I know this sounds crazy but its the way it is.

[ichigo]

tsantee, on 28 October 2011 - 11:54 AM, said:

It doesn't work that way. The TiVo won't play .tivo files from the Mac nor will Mac2Tivo convert them to the format that the TiVo can play.

Well, at least I now understand what is  [not] happening. If I'd understood earlier, I wouldn't have bothered with upgrading Toast or getting Mac2Tivo.

TiVo has worked magnificently. I love it. But my TiVo disk was getting full. So I unloaded lots of TiVo files that I didn't immediately need but didn't want to discard.  I used TivoTransfer to copy them to a capacious hard drive attached to my Mac. Then I deleted them from the TiVo's disc.

I _thought_  that Mac2TiVo would let me occasionally reverse the process.  Gradually I've realized that Mac2Tivo doesn't do anything that simple, useful, or obvious. (Nothing in the description in Roxio's documentation is actually false, but it's written so ambiguously that you can't figure out what Mac2Tivo really does or doesn't do.)

I've sadly concluded there's no reasonable hope of returning a deleted .tivo file back to the Tivo disc where it first resided.

But there _is_ a way to see that old program. From the Mac, double click the .tivo file that now resides somewhere on a disc attached to the Mac. That launches Roxio Video Player, and plays it on your Mac. If you want to see it on your big TV screen, connect your computer's video output to your TV.

[tsantee]

ichigo, on 14 November 2011 - 08:40 PM, said:

Well, at least I now understand what is  [not] happening. If I'd understood earlier, I wouldn't have bothered with upgrading Toast or getting Mac2Tivo.

TiVo has worked magnificently. I love it. But my TiVo disk was getting full. So I unloaded lots of TiVo files that I didn't immediately need but didn't want to discard.  I used TivoTransfer to copy them to a capacious hard drive attached to my Mac. Then I deleted them from the TiVo's disc.

I _thought_  that Mac2TiVo would let me occasionally reverse the process.  Gradually I've realized that Mac2Tivo doesn't do anything that simple, useful, or obvious. (Nothing in the description in Roxio's documentation is actually false, but it's written so ambiguously that you can't figure out what Mac2Tivo really does or doesn't do.)

I've sadly concluded there's no reasonable hope of returning a deleted .tivo file back to the Tivo disc where it first resided.

But there _is_ a way to see that old program. From the Mac, double click the .tivo file that now resides somewhere on a disc attached to the Mac. That launches Roxio Video Player, and plays it on your Mac. If you want to see it on your big TV screen, connect your computer's video output to your TV.

The Series 3, HD and Premiere TiVo's support the addition of a specific external hard drive sold by Western Digital as a way to expand recording capacity. A 1 TB drive costs $110 from Amazon. It doesn't work to copy transferred videos back to the TiVo this way, but if lack of storage is why they got transferred in the first place then this is an option for future recordings.

[Koosher]

Once upon a time you could Xfer to an external HD and then playback not just from your Mac or PC but through your TV but they ended that — for God knows what reason — with the Series-3.

It's beyond borderline false advertising the way both TiVo and Roxio/Toast describe the process, leading consumers to think that you can store stuff. (Sucks, quite frankly.)

Bottom line: unless you have AppleTV, don't take anything you might want to watch on a big screen off your TiVo.