Tivo + Mac?

[adk]

I have a Tivo box, and at the moment it gets the listings through dial-up. I'm considering getting a Wifi adapter for it and I am wondering if anybody else here on MR does anything neat with their tivo and their mac, or whether most of that stuff is windows only.

 

[WildCowboy]

You can download the shows to your Mac...use TiVoDecode Manager. It's not perfect, but it works for me. And it's free.

 

[adk]

How do you connect your Tivo to you mac? I'm debating whether or not to get the official Tivo wifi adapter because I've heard it helps with processing tasks as well as doing the wireless.


When you download the shows, how big is the filesize for say, a half hour program?

 

[MattG]

I have a Tivo box, and at the moment it gets the listings through dial-up. I'm considering getting a Wifi adapter for it and I am wondering if anybody else here on MR does anything neat with their tivo and their mac, or whether most of that stuff is windows only.

The new Roxio Toast 8 essentially has Tivo Desktop built into it. Tivo had been screwing Mac users for some time, saying over and over "it's coming, it's coming," in regards to a Tivo Desktop equivalent for Mac. I think they finally just decided to have Roxio build the software because they realized they'd never get to it and their users were just getting frustrated.

Toast 8 allows you to download shows, watch them on your Mac, covert them to iPod compatible format as well as burn them to DVD. It's pretty sweet! Downloads and burning take a while, but that's to be expected (they're large files).

http://www.roxio.com/enu/products/toast/titanium/overview.html

When you download the shows, how big is the filesize for say, a half hour program?

For half an hour, assuming the show is recorded at high quality, I'd say it takes about an hour to download. Both my laptop and the Tivo are connecting to an Airport Express @ 54mbit speed.

 

[WildCowboy]

How do you connect your Tivo to you mac? I'm debating whether or not to get the official Tivo wifi adapter because I've heard it helps with processing tasks as well as doing the wireless.

When you download the shows, how big is the filesize for say, a half hour program?

Yes, I have the TiVo wireless adapter. All you have to do is tell TDM your Media Access Key and it finds your TiVo on your network.

I don't have any files on my PowerBook right now, and I don't remember exactly. It depends on the quality of the recording and varies a fair amount, but I'm going to estimate 1 GB/hr. But I could be way off. The compression isn't great, so files are much larger than H.264 ones from the iTunes Store.

The new Roxio Toast 8 essentially has Tivo Desktop built into it.

Yes, the official TiVoToGo software is bundled with Toast 8. But since I don't have a need for Toast, I'm not going to dish out the $50-$70 for it.

 

[adk]

I already have toast 7 and god only knows where I put the CD key, so there's no way I'm paying for a full copy of Toast 8. Does tivo really still not have any mac software?

 

[DTphonehome]

The new Roxio Toast 8 essentially has Tivo Desktop built into it. Tivo had been screwing Mac users for some time, saying over and over "it's coming, it's coming," in regards to a Tivo Desktop equivalent for Mac. I think they finally just decided to have Roxio build the software because they realized they'd never get to it and their users were just getting frustrated.

Toast 8 allows you to download shows, watch them on your Mac, covert them to iPod compatible format as well as burn them to DVD. It's pretty sweet! Downloads and burning take a while, but that's to be expected (they're large files).

http://www.roxio.com/enu/products/toast/titanium/overview.html

Remember, all this is for Series2 Tivos! Us Series 3 owners are left out as usual.

 

[WildCowboy]

I already have toast 7 and god only knows where I put the CD key, so there's no way I'm paying for a full copy of Toast 8. Does tivo really still not have any mac software?

There's TiVo Desktop, which allows you to access your music and photos from your TiVo. That's a free download for Mac from TiVo, but it's pretty limited in functionality. The TiVoToGo software bundled with Toast 8 is the official TiVo release...you're just forced to pay for somebody else's program in order to get it.

 

[OscarTheGrouch]

I have a Tivo box, and at the moment it gets the listings through dial-up. I'm considering getting a Wifi adapter for it and I am wondering if anybody else here on MR does anything neat with their tivo and their mac, or whether most of that stuff is windows only.

Nope. I use a mac and tivo desktop, its really easy, and works really well..

 

[ddrueckhammer]

I used to use my Airport Express to network my Tivo. Unfortunatly, my Airport Express died so I bought a network adaptor for my Tivo.

It has me wondering though, is there a way to share your wireless connection through the eithernet port of an AppleTV (for instance to network a Tivo, Xbox 360, PS3 etc.)? There may not be an officially supported way, but I was hoping the hardware might support a hack in the future...

You can share your music and photos though Tivo Desktop if you have the full Tivo service. I don't right now...I have the Toshiba DVD burning Tivo that comes with lifetime Tivo basic service...

If you are brave enough to remove the hard drive from your Tivo you can install all kinds of hacks to give it additional functionality at no additional cost. I'm not sure if it still works after updates though...I have been thinking about doing this since the Tivo interface has gotten slower and slower over the years since they keep adding stupid features I don't use like the KidZone thing...