How-To: Get TV shows off of your TiVo and onto your iPod (with video)
posted Oct 18th 2005 12:40PM
You may or may not agree that $1.99 is a fair price to download an episode of Lost, but you'll certainly agree that Apple's initial video library is quite sparse. Well, I've got good news for those of you with a networked Series 2 TiVo – all you need are TiVoToGo and a few software tools and you'll be watching Monster Garage on that shiny new iPod in no time.
As with all video conversions, there are many ways to skin this cat. Below you'll find my preferred method, which I use because of its high rate of success, relative ease, and low cost (free). I'm operating under the assumption that you've already figured out how to use TiVo's Desktop software to transfer shows to your PC and have had success in playing them back. Sorry Mac users, TiVo has forsaken you.
I. Strip TiVo Metadata
TiVo doesn’t want you trading shows on BitTorrent, so they’ve gunked up a typical MPEG2 file. Let the de-gunking
begin…
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Launch DirectShow Dump (http://prish.com/etivo/tbr.htm)
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Click ‘Add Files’
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Browse to My Documents\My TiVo Recordings
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Highlight the .tivo file you’d like to work with
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Click ‘Open’
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Wait for conversion to complete
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Click ‘Close’
II. Convert MPEG2 to MPEG4
The video-capable iPod only supports MPEG4 and MOV files, so we’re in need of a conversion…
1. Launch VLC (http://www.videolan.org/vlc)
2. Click File > Open File
3. Browse to My Documents\My TiVo Recordings
4. Highlight converted .mpg show
5. Click ‘Open’
6. Check ‘Stream Output’
7. Click ‘Settings’
a. Check File, type the file name and location such as C:\vidpod\show.mp4
b. Check MP4 for Encapsulation Method
c. Check Video Codec, choose mp4v in drop-down, choose Bitrate 1024, Scale 1*
d. Check Audio Codec, choose mp4a in drop-down, choose Bitrate 128, Channels 2
channels
* If your TiVo’s connected to a satellite receiver via S-Video and recording at “Best”: Scale .75; DVD-burning TiVos recording at “Best” or “Good”: Scale .5
8. Click ‘OK’
III. Load Up iTunes and iPod
All that’s left is importing the video into iTunes and syncing up…
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Launch iTunes
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Click File > Add File to Library
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Browse to and highlight file
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Click Open
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Click Videos to see your show has arrived
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Sync and go!
Once you’ve mastered these basics, you may consider exploring more powerful and complex methods of manipulating video.
For example you can script batches, further compress video file size, or choose specific output resolutions using PSP
Video 9 (http://www.pspvideo9.com/). With Apple diving into the
portable video market, we’re also bound to see new software solutions springing up – some of them may even be
useful.
Resolution Addendum for the Geeky
For those of you in the know, the new iPod is capable of handling MPEG4 video up to 480x480. That corresponds nicely to most TiVo devices which output 480x480 video at “Good” and “Best” quality. Resolution is slightly less using lower quality and/or RF Smoothing. Resolution is higher on DVD-burning TiVo units and those connected to satellite receivers via S-video. To compensate for those higher initial resolutions, VLC allows us to scale back the resolution as needed. For example, a DVD burning model’s 720x480 resolution must be brought down 50% to 360x240 for iPod playback. While a TiVo connected to a satellite receiver via S-video and recording at “Best” quality serves up 544x480, and should be dropped down 25% to be iPod compliant.
That one pretty neat how-to guide, and combined with TiVo it seems to be the best of both worlds, but I'm still not sold on watching a movie or a favorite TV program on such a small screen.
I have tried this and the conversion works wonderfully. You can convert a 1 hour show to .mp4 file in about 10 minutes.
I am running into a problem though. I tried importing them into iTunes as the directs show, but to no avail. Is there something else that should be done? Please help. Thank you.
James
Also, I just tried to play the file and I received an error message "Error-50: an unknown error occurred". Any fixes?
http://www.videora.com/en-us/Converter/iPod/
It works great, I converted a AVI and it worked great. Very Easy.
Seems like a whole lot of work. Couldn't you just have watched the show in the time it took to do all that?
Mind of Mencia???!! Not worth the effort.
Mac users forsaken?
Am I doing this wrong?
Whenever I deem something saveable on my tivo, I bring it over to my Mac, Plug tivo into my camcorder and my cam into my mac thru firewire.
I then import directly into iMovie, edit (if desired) and export for h.264 or the new option 'ipod video'
It works great and u can get the file size very small without great audio or video quality loss.
FYI 1: QuickTime Pro ($30) doesn't natively support .tivo files or MPEG-2. An additional $20 Apple decoder will give you MPEG-2 decoding. Your TiVo file will still need to be stripped via something like DirectShow Dump prior to using QTP. Depending on how frequently you do this, the $50 might be a good investment. I haven't actually verified it works, though I have no reason to believe it won't. :)
FYI 2: 480x480 does not necessitate a 1:1 square resolution. The TiVo models outputting 480x480 do indeed display 4:3 visual resolution – the pixels are not square. The current version of VLC (0.8.2) honors that resolution in playback, but not in conversion so the output does appear a bit squished.
The problem with #17's comment is that you cant always, easily hack the tivo. This is especially true if you have the Nightlight series 2. But I do beleive this is a subject for another time and place.
Very cool, but since I'm primarily a Mac user (who also has Windoze), I'm curious if there is a way to take my TivoToGo in Windoze and convert it so I can watch it via QuickTime on my Mac/PowerBook?
Ok, Anyone want to share the easiest way for a technology challenged grandmother who spends alot of time at the nursing home (no tv) with grandpa to convert from tivo to ipod? I have tivo, but am not sure if it's the kind you're talking about. I'm sorry, I know this will bug some of you techno geniuses, but I really would love to be able to take some shows with me. Thanks! Cth
Does any1 know the process for getting windows media center recorded shows to the ipod
To James (comment #27): I got that same error-50 when I forgot to properly set mp4v and mp4a in the drop-down boxes. When I fixed that and reconverted the file, iTunes took the file just fine.
G, G, G,...G gots a new Tivo and Video Ipod....it's Hammer Time!
No luck at all using DirectShow Dump to produce files that QuickTime Pro 7 (with the MPEG-2 addon) can play. Simply get a black screen when I transfer the translated file to my Mac (it's nice having both Mac and Windows boxen).
Any other suggestions to "de-gunk" my .tivo files?
Thanks.
GSP & Drew, check out the Mac version of VLC for playback and/or conversion after you've run your TiVo files through DirectShow Dump on the PC.
There is a very important step missing here. Your must use QTPro 7.02 or above to convert a scaled version that works for Ipod Video or you get a "can't copy error" when you try and sync to Ipod. From what I have been told by apple, the Ipod video only support 320 and not 480
This can take many hours for a one hour TV program. This changes the whole thing. Please try and get your facts straight.
Poster #41 is correct, you still need to run the file through QTpro to move to the Ipod.
When I did that, it took ungodly long to export a simple half hour show. I went back and tried Videora, recommended by #28. It works! ! !
So, run your Tivo show through DSD, then convert with Videora. Now, rename the show to remove any symbols except alphanumerics. Add to the iTunes library then sync with your Ipod and you are there! I'm moving my AbFab shows to my Ipod as I post.
I have the new video ipod and tivo as well. I was following all the steps on getting my tivo shows converted to my ipod and at the part where you are supposed to put a file name to save the conversion in(in the stream output screen). Where do I save this file to? It keeps automatically coming up to my tivo recordings folder. Is that the one? Thanks for any help anyone can provide.
I have followed each step over and over and I still can't get the program to load into itunes, let alone the ipod. I have no idea what I'm doing wrong.
It has come to my attention that some folks are having trouble with version 0.8.2 of VLC, but are having better luck with 0.8.0 in prepping video.
I'm currently using Videora iPod Converter (http://www.videora.com/en-us/Converter/iPod/) instead of VLC after running my file through DirectShow Dump. It's a quicker interface to navigate and allows me to queue up many conversions at once. Output format and quality is consistently very good.
Anyone have any ideas on how to take the commercials out of the shows without screwing anything up?
I also am deperately hoping someone has this information please:
Now what about Comcast's PVR player from Motorola? I see that it's got both Firewire and USB ports. Is there anyway to extract video from there?
I have hours of HD content stored and wish to move it to my Mac network. HELP?
After I convert my mpeg to MP4 or MOV, I'm getting the following error: 3ivx.dll was not found
I tried re-installing quicktime but it did not fix it.
Any suggestions?
When you import the movies into iTunes are they listed as "Movies" or "TV Shows"? I've tried similar methods to this one for getting my TV shows into iTunes but I don't like the fact that they're always listed as "Movies" and there doesn't appear to be any way of changing it (only to "Music videos" and thats even less appropriate).
So is there a way to get TV shows into iTunes without downloading from the iTMS?
I've converted successfully using your method and also using the TVHarmony approach. However, with both, the transfer has a synching problem between video and audio. The lag was greater with TVHarmony, but still noticable with your method.
Anyone else have this problem? Better yet, does anyone have a solution!
I've converted successfully using your method and also using the TVHarmony approach. However, with both, the transfer has a synching problem between video and audio. The lag was greater with TVHarmony, but still noticable with your method.
Anyone else have this problem? Better yet, does anyone have a solution!
I've used the Videora conversion tool recommended above, but every time I add a file to iTunes, nothing happens. No error message or anything, the file just never appears! I'm getting really frustrated so if anyone could help me, I'd appreciate it to no end... mccheeksATgmailDOTcom
is there another option besides iTunes to transfer video and photos to the ipod? i've recently given in to the evil empire to buy my wife the new ipod, but i'll be damned if i install iTunes on my machine. any suggestions?
I followed all the directions as above, got everything into iTunes beautifully, and then, when I went to sync my iPod, I got an error that said: "Some of these files (the ones I transferred over) will not be transferred to (your) iPod." Something about it not being permitted? Anyone else seen this? What am I missing? It's in iTunes! I'm so close! I just need to get it on the iPod! Thoughts? Suggestions? Please reply....
I followed all the directions as above, got everything into iTunes beautifully, and then, when I went to sync my iPod, I got an error that said: "Some of these files (the ones I transferred over) will not be transferred to (your) iPod." Something about it not being permitted? Anyone else seen this? What am I missing? It's in iTunes! I'm so close! I just need to get it on the iPod! Thoughts? Suggestions? Please reply....
I too had problems using the VLC tool (as in post #55), so I tried the Videora Converter for iPod mentioned in #45 -- it works great!
The process is really simple:
- Use DirectShow Dump to create an .mpg file
- Use Videora to create an iPod-capable .mp4 file from the .mpg file
how to put video on my ipd from frost wire?????????????????
One other thing -- if you try to import the file into your iTunes library but nothing happens (like post #52), try renaming the final .mp4 file to remove any special characters, etc. -- iTunes doesn't seem to like them.
Oh, the Mac user is never forsaken. A "hacked" tivo is a dream--either hack it yourself or just buy a swap and drop "upgrade" drive from any of a number of online places (http://www.weaknees.com or http://www.ptvupgrade.com for example) that will sell you drives that are not only significantly bigger than the one you already have, but already preconfigured for networking and recording unencrypted programs.
And then tivotool does it all for you. Start up TivoTool, browse your now playing list, click on any program and TivoTool grabs it, converts it, and adds it to your iTunes playlist, all ready for iPod syncing. Automatically.
One click heaven, baby.
TivoToGo. Chuh.
I think I've figured out a TiVo-to-iPod solution that is easy, without audio-video sync issues, and is batchable.
Steps:
1) Download .TIVO file to hard drive
2) Use DirectShow Dump (via VirtualPC) to strip the .TIVO protection
3) Use MoviePod (search for it via MacUpdate.com) to convert the MPEG-2 to MPEG-4*
4) Can then use MPEG Streamclip to remove commercials
5) Import into iTunes and iPod
*Tried several other conversion programs with varying levels of success:
a) ffmpegX = confusing to use and the resulting audio and video were a 1/2 second out of sync
b) iSquint = same sync issue as above
c) MoviesForMyPod = took FOREVER
d) Ollie's iPod Converter = would not process since it uses Quicktime
e) Podner = would not process since it uses Quicktime
f) VLC = worked, but no batch function
If someone has Windows, not a Mac, any suggestions for a program like MPEG Streamclip to remove commercials! I have the video now and everything, but would love to take out that stuff. Because, also, fast forwarding isn't working for me! If I try to fast forward, occasionally the picture locks up and won't restart and I have to go back to the beginning. Thoughts on either question?
Does anyone have a fix for the audio/video sync issues for PC users? Transferring the video to PSP and using PSP Direct 9 the audio is out of sync with the video. Does DirectShowDVD work better?
FYI, got it to work pretty well using DirectShowDVD to strip out the .tivo encoding and then using PSP Direct 9 for conversion and transfer to the PSP.
after using DSD, use Videora to convert the file to mp4. The one in the guide let me transfer to ipod, but then the playback didn't work. With videora, make sure you take out any characters other than letters in the file name, otherwise it will not work. Also, if you're having a problem getting it into itunes, make sure to disable automatic update.
Cool. Anyone tried this and whats the quality like? I was dissin Ipod for just being Ipod now im reconsidering. The Ipod is actually a neat peice of kit. SO thats a PSP and an Ipod on my christmas list.
Would the same process (up to the itunes part) work for getting video on to a PSP?
What about other DVRs? Like the satellite services - I have dish network....
very cool.
now all i need to do is get a new iPod and a TIVO!
Sounds good. I've had all the archos video players and everything, but for some reason, because I have a 20GB ipod, I want this ipod as an upgrade. The archos made it easy, most of the time not even having to convert any video, it just worked - but I still want this one for some reason...
I'm curious about the aspect ratio - he says:
"For those of you in the know, the new iPod is capable of handling MPEG4 video up to 480x480. That corresponds nicely to most TiVo devices which output 480x480 video at “Good” and “Best” quality."
But standard TV resolution is 4:3, not 1:1... the thumbnail in that screenshot looks like the incorrect aspect, but I'm not sure if that's just iTunes doing a poor job of showing thumbnails...
1st - How do those who have ReplayTV (which always records at the high resolution of 720x480) change this into something higher resolution than 360x240? Wouldn't 480x480 look better because its higher res? And isn't that a square, so watching it on the computer would be squished??
2nd - #2, just use PSP Video9 to do psp stuff, it names the video files correctly, and can transfer directly to your psp.
This needs to be automated. It would be wicked to have something that would copy down all your TV shows and rip them at night when you are sleeping. I doubt that Tivo would ever allow a command line interface to thier program though.
well sure it would.
if the psp supports the video which it should.
do notice that the psp has 480x270 (i think) so you should use that as a standard res for pretty pixels :D
We want it because Apple has set the status quo for cool media players. Some media players have more storage or additional features, but Apple definitely has the cool factor.
Archos or pocketdish
http://www.pocketdish.com/av700e.jsp
Death to crippleware.
Would this work to convert a file into something that could be played on a Palm using Kimona or some other software? I have only had my non-video Ipod since last Christmas and do not intend to spend another $400 soon.
Re #8: You can use something like Galleon (http://galleon.sourceforge.net/html/) to automate downloads. Then use dsd's batch processing to automatically strip the tivo bits off.
I've used Quicktime Pro 7 (you need the update 7.03) to kick out video for the iPod for Video. It couldn't be easier, you just take any mpeg or mov file into Quicktime and choose file -> export -> movie to iPod video. I was surprised at how long it took to kick out a 21 minute tv show (about 15 minutes on my dual 2.5ghz G5). When it was done file size was around 95mb and it looked pretty good, even scaled up on screen.
The Videora/PSP Video 9 guys have released a free converter app specifically for the iPod:
Videora iPod Converter
http://www.videora.com/en-us/Converter/iPod/
Since TV content is either 4:3 or 16:9, wouldn't exporting it as 1:1 (as it would be with 480x480) stretch the picture vertically? In fact, given the iPod's screen, wouldn't it make a lot more sense for 4:3 TV shows to be encoded in 320x240? It'll take up a lot less space, for one thing (about 1/3).
those with hacked TiVo's have no need of this trouble.
TivoTool will let you grab any scrambled file on your TiVo (setting your TiVo to record unscrabled is the first and most important thing to do on a TiVo hacking adventure) and drag it to your hard drive. From there - converting to iPod sized screens is simple as pie with the Quicktime 7.0.3 - as #12 said.
Mac users - hack your TiVos! Its your equipment, damnit!
Mu Doggy (#7):
You would need to use DVArchive and RTV Tools to copy the files off and then convert them.
BTW, ReplayTV owners have been doing this for years. DVArchive allows you to copy shows to your PC, and then stream them back across the network to your existing ReplayTV. Since ReplayTV doen't screw with the MPEG2 metadata, you can copy it straight to another device and play it all you want. check out the forums at http://www.planetreplay.com for more info
Does the iPod cope with non-square pixels like most broadcast devices?
720x480 isn't square pixel 4:3 either - rather the pixels/samples are rectangular. There is no reason why 480x480 can't carry 4:3 video, you just have to accept that the pixels aren't square. 480x480 is Super VideoCD res isn't it? 320x240 is Video CD res.
More important for us in PAL-land is whether the iPod will cope with 25 fps video and 480x576 or 320x288 resolution stuff.
(The PSP at the moment doesn't do well with 25fps video...)
So now we can use the ipod to store and transport video content to the DVD player in the back of the mini-van. The kids can have 60G of programming to choose from. That should stop the kids in the back from asking "Are we there yet?" for a good long while.
Is there a workaround for us MAC people?
TVHarmony Autopilot already can automatically download shows from your TiVo while you are asleep and convert them to other formats (such as for the PSP).
And it's free.
http://www.tvharmony.com/main/products.php
Now what about Comcast's PVR player from Motorola? I see that it's got both Firewire and USB ports. Is there anyway to extract video from there?
The PVR from Comcast/Adelphia is what I am wondering as well......... I would LOVE that.
I think I'll be picking up Quicktime 7 Pro. Fiddling with all these bits is gonna take hours... and if you value your time as much as your hourly rate as a contractor or worker, then it would follow that the 29.95 purchase price for QT7Pro could be a good deal.
Thanks for the suggestion Tom.
quick link : http://store.apple.com/1-800-MY-APPLE/WebObjects/AppleStore?productLearnMore=D3381Z/A
I have tried the steps above to convert Tivo2Go to mp4 format, and i keep having an Audio/Video sync problem. Does anyone know what may be causing this and how to fix it.
After all that I can not figure out how to get my TV shows to show as TV shows. They show as movies. The getinfo for all of them has an option to select the video kind, but TV show is not an option that you can select. You are only select Movie or Music Video. If you buy a show it will show as TV Show and it is Greyed out. Anyone figured out how to beat this?
I have done this but the resulting file has no video once it's transferred to the ipod. Anybody know why?
This may be a stupid question, but i went through the steps above for converting to mp4, but after the last step when I am using the VLC, I click ok and nothing happens. Do i have to start the process somehow? thanks
For the second step, instead of using VLC, there's a free program called "3GP Converter" (there's also a not-free one, I think, so don't get confused) that converts most video files to ipod-playable format.
I've been using it successfully to convert videos for a while now, and I've only had audio delay problems on one or two odd starting formats.