Best Fomat?

[Toast-Tim]

I'm about to purchase/install Toast 12 Pro. Using cTiVo, I want to download some content from my TiVo box to my Mavericks iMac. cTiVo lets you specify numerous formats for the downloaded content, but I don't know what input format Toast 12 Pro works best with; the TiVo files to download are HD. My end objective is to edit the downloaded files' contents and then burn them to either a DVD or save to a Hard Drive. I am not interested in producing Blu-Ray content.

 

Reviewing the forums, I see that Toast 12 and Yosemite are currently incompatible .. I won't upgrade to Yosemite until forum contributors relate that the two work well together.

 

What format should I tell cTiVo to download the files from my TiVo box to my iMac?

 

What format should I tell Toast 12 Pro to create the edited files in?

 

I had Toast 11, and found only two 30-minute HD files could fit on a CD, so I'm considering writing the edited files to a large-capacity HD. If I go this route, I'd like to be able to plug that HD into my TiVo's auxiliary external memory jack and be able to play the files on my TiVo. Is this feasible? If not, would I be able to connect, via a USB port, or via my iMac's wireless Wi-Fi net, the external HD to my iMac and play edited content on my iMac?

 

The TiVo is the Series 3. I replaced it's original internal disk with a 3-tb HD, and it's near its limit for storage of saved HD programs.

[tsantee]

I find the best cTiVo setting as "Decrypted TiVo Show". This creates a mpeg-2 file which works well with Toast and is a time-saver.

 

Since you want to make standard-def DVD's, choose DVD-video in the Toast Video window. To save them as playable files on your Mac choose the AppleTV preset in the Toast Convert window.

 

I can play the decrypted TiVo shows without any conversion using a Network Attached Storage (NAS) hard drive connected to my smart TV and smart Blu-ray player. No need for Toast in that case.

 

TiVo will not play videos on a hard drive connected to the TiVo unless they were put there by the TiVo in the first place. Roxio used to bundle an app called Mac2TiVo with earlier versions of Toast. I'm not sure if it still works with the current OS but it might. You drag in a folder that has one or more videos and they get sent to the TiVo as MPEG-2 videos that appear in your My Shows folder. I think they are only standard definition and are copied to the TiVo's hard drive for playback. The TiVo automatically deletes them after (I think) 48 hours.