Broke down and bought a TiVo

[balamw]

a friend of mine just asked if there's anyway to get stuff from his tivo box to his mac to make a dvd...

The easiest way to do that is to use a digital camcorder to act as a video -> Firewire bridge, I have a 4 year old Sony TRV-20, and just import the video that way. Yes you will introduce some MPEG-2 -> DV -> MPEG-2 compression artifacts, but it is straightforward.

If you read the forums in one of the previous posts I mentioned, there are lots of "hacks" of questionable legality that can be applied to the box that will allow the video to be pulled off digitally some of the ones I have read about present themselves as a an FTP server or HTTP server to allow you to pull programs off. You then still have to manipulate the video to get it into a good MPEG-2 format for DVDs, which is a little different than MPEG-2 for TiVo. Thne you can import into iMovie/iDVD. This is where the console tools probably come in.

B

 

[MattG]

Well I got it two days ago and have been setting it up and tinkering with it, and I must say, this thing is simply bad-assed. Everyone would own one of these if they saw all it could do.

 

[Aarow]

Isn't there a monthly fee for it? How much is that? Maybe my family will break down and get a tivo. One can dream...

 

[watcher2001]

Isn't there a monthly fee for it? How much is that? Maybe my family will break down and get a tivo. One can dream...

If you have directv sattelite you can get it for 4.99 a month plus the cost of the receiver. Through normal channels I think it is $12.95 a month or 399 for a lifetime subscription. (Lifetime of the tivo box anyway)