How-To: Serve video to your TiVo

TiVos have been hacked on and modified by dedicated hardware enthusiasts ever since they first showed up on the scene in the late 90s. Video streams can be pulled off of them and re-inserted by hand, but previously that was a rather painful process -- and playing non-TiVo video was even more painful. In today's How-To, we'll show you how to serve up your archived video to your TiVo with a click of your remote.

Today we'll be using a piece of software called TivoServer to set up a... TiVo server. Because the TiVo is designed to only play back TiVo recorded video, it can't play back video that's been encoded in other formats. The nice thing about TivoServer is that it pretends to be another networked TiVo, and it actually re-encodes video on demand to the format that TiVo is expecting.

We're sure you understood that, but here's the short version: TivoServer will serve up your collection of DivX / AVI / whatever codec videos for playback on your MRV-enabled (unencrypted) TiVo.

Stock TiVos include some video encryption, but it's easily disabled when the box is hacked. We modded ours by hand, but we hear that the TiVo Zipper hack can also take care of this for you.

For today's How-To, we'll serve using our Ubuntu Linux box. It's on the same LAN as our TiVo, but otherwise there's nothing special about the installation. The machine doesn't have to be the latest and greatest -- we've successfully run TivoServer from a 700Mhz Pentium III.

Our DirecTV TiVo has been networked and modded to allow the MRV (Multi Room Viewing) feature to work. With it, the DTiVo can transfer and receive shows to and from other TiVos with MRV enabled. (OK, this pic is of our HD tivo, but you get the idea)

Download TivoServer for Linux from the download section on SourceForge. You'll want to grab tivoserver-0.4.3-linux.gz and save it to your home directory. It's a standalone binary, so you don't need to install any pre-requisites that Ubuntu doesn't include. (And yes, there are OS X and Cygwin versions.)

Create a video directory in your home directory (i.e. /home/willo/video). Alternatively, you can create a symbolic link to the top directory of wherever you like to keep your video files. TivoServer doesn't allow us to change the location that it searches for videos.

Copy some video files into your video directory. TivoServer won't start unless there's something in there. (If you add files later you'll need to restart TivoServer.)

Open up a shell and cd to wherever you saved tivoserver-0.4.3-linux.gz. To set it up, unzip the file, make it executable, and run it:
gunzip tivoserver-0.4.3-linux.gz
chmod 755 tivoserver-0.4.3-linux
./tivoserver-0.4.3-linux

TivoServer should be running if you put your video files in the right place. Now go visit your TiVo.

At the bottom of the Now Playing List, you should find TivoServer. Select it.

Under the TivoServer, you'll find your list of shared videos. Select one to test it out.

Select one of your videos and hit Watch on this TV.

The TiVo will request the file and TivoServer will transcode and send the stream to the TiVo.

Once TiVo has enough in the buffer, it'll give you this splash screen. Go ahead and start playing the show.

Sweet, geeky success.

TivoServer is a nice piece of software, but it has a few problems. There's no config file, so you have to point ~/video at your video location. If it chokes on a file it doesn't like (like some DVDs we encoded with XviD), it will crash. Support for TivoServer can be found at the dealdatabase forums.

Still, even with its quirks, TivoServer means that you can archive your videos using DivX (or whatever makes you happy) to conserve storage space and play them back on any networked TiVo in the house. Good luck, and may the forc-- nevermind.

[(Unverified) Posted Mar 31st 2008 10:18PM]

Excellent article and comments about TiVo.
http://www.1-satellite-tv-facts.com

[(Unverified) Posted Sep 12th 2006 5:04PM]

Will it work with Windows XP machines also?

[(Unverified) Posted Sep 13th 2006 1:13AM]

Awesome

[(Unverified) Posted Sep 12th 2006 5:12PM]

Sure. There's a version for win32. http://sourceforge.net/projects/tivoserver/

[(Unverified) Posted Sep 12th 2006 5:14PM]

What this, or any DVR type thing like the Xbox360, needs is a tactile sensing touchscreen remote.

1. When you move your finger over it .. it senses that you are using the remote .. Then, an on-screen version of the remote's display face appears on screen .. and you move and select the item you wish.

2. Also, it should have voice activation. You press the remote and say or spell out what you want. The remote itself can be bypassed if the unit itself listens for a trigger word so you can say "My Tivo, switch to HBO"

[(Unverified) Posted Sep 12th 2006 9:06PM]

How did you get MRV working on an HD Direct TV unit? I didn't know that was possible.

[(Unverified) Posted Sep 12th 2006 5:43PM]

I'm still waiting for the perfect bedroom media center. Does someone sell a low heat fanless tuner / streaming device yet that will let us watch live tv and stream xvid avi's served from another part of the house? I'm looking for something for my bedroom tv that doesnt require lots of hacking or reboot/crash headaches. A media center is too loud, has too much heat for my bedroom. (works great in the living room though) The xbox doesnt tune in TV. A media center extender doesnt stream xvid. The other DVD player avi stream combo units dont stream live tv either. What is the perfect bedroom device? (for HDTV)

[(Unverified) Posted Sep 12th 2006 5:54PM]

I am confused. Is it possible to hack the HDTivo (HR10-250) to use the MRV feature of the other series 2 Tivo devices? Please provide a url to the procedure for me. Thanks

[(Unverified) Posted Sep 12th 2006 6:42PM]

I just rip the DVDs to .mpg files and put them in the Tivo recordings folder (for Tivo Desktop). Tivo see the PC and the .mpg files, just a matter of transfering the movie. Simple.

[(Unverified) Posted Sep 12th 2006 6:44PM]

I have a Tivo Network setup at home but I don't understand what this offers me over my pc running the Tivo network software and dropping my converted video files into my Tivo videos directory with a new extension - I have done it on a few movies with only one failure.

Does anyone know what Tivo Server would give me that the current software from Tivo does not?

[(Unverified) Posted Feb 10th 2007 11:24AM]

Please tell us more about your system. Our networked DirecTV Tivos w/ software version 6.2 can connect to PCs & Macs for music & photos ---but do not show movies under Now Playing. Any help would be appreciated. TR

[obsidian Posted Sep 12th 2006 6:48PM]

@Raskawa

Tivo Server would automatically do the conversion for you.

[(Unverified) Posted Sep 13th 2006 1:00PM]

Do you have a link for the modifications made to unlock the DirecTiVo? I have been looking for a reliable source of those modifications.

[(Unverified) Posted Sep 12th 2006 7:26PM]

While this setup is nice, there is an easy way.
Just download the latest tivo software, and head
over to http://www.videora.com/en-us/Converter/TiVo/
and download the free software. Just point videora
to the tivo videos location and go to your tivo
and transfer. I have been doing that for awhile and
I have been very happy.

[(Unverified) Posted Sep 12th 2006 9:16PM]

I need a USB/Ethernet adapter for my tivo and was wondering what kind you guys have (the one in the picture)?

[(Unverified) Posted Sep 12th 2006 9:00PM]

I run the standard Tivo server software on my PC to serve up videos, pictures and music. I also happen to have GBPVR (http://www.gbpvr.com/) installed on the same PC. I have GBPVR encode the recordings into mpeg2 or mpeg 4 (whatever Tivo understands), and dump them into the video folder that the Tivo software watches. Boom, just like that I've got an additional Tivo. GBPVR is pretty slick, so I essentially have two Tivos on my home network.

[(Unverified) Posted Sep 13th 2006 12:34AM]

It is easy to transfer videos from Tivo to PC, then put onto DVD, iPod, PSP following the guide http://www.dvd-ripping.biz/tivo-to-dvd.html

[(Unverified) Posted Sep 13th 2006 2:11AM]

....wait, why are you keeping Flightplan on there?

[(Unverified) Posted Sep 13th 2006 10:43AM]

"How to serve video to you TiVo"
Oh my god, IT'S A COOKBOOK!

sorry that this the first thought I thought of reading the heading... you know the Twilight Zone... anyway

[(Unverified) Posted Sep 13th 2006 1:45PM]

Do you let that HR10-250 make phone calls or not? I'm assuming no-way, but just curious.

[(Unverified) Posted Sep 13th 2006 4:32PM]

According to the tivoserver website (http://sourceforge.net/projects/tivoserver/), a hacked TiVo is necessary. Is this true? The engadget story simply seems to say that MRV is enabled.

[(Unverified) Posted Sep 13th 2006 4:55PM]

That a DirecTiVo HR10-250, so you need to hack it to get MRV.

[(Unverified) Posted Sep 13th 2006 11:07PM]

I was asking in reference to a "regular" Series 2 TiVo, not the DirecTiVo HR10-250.

[(Unverified) Posted Sep 22nd 2006 12:18PM]

There IS a config file. It's stored at /home/[username]/.tivoserver/settings.cfg.

Also there's a version coming (slowly) down the pipe that should work on Series2 (and hopefully Series3) boxes WITHOUT hacking :)

[(Unverified) Posted Sep 22nd 2006 12:20PM]

Oh, and there is a Windows install for previous versions. We are working on an install of the newest (much superior) version 0.4.3.

[(Unverified) Posted Oct 28th 2006 5:46PM]

If you are running the TivoServer on Windows 2000 or greater, you can use a utility from sysinternals to create a "junction" (almost just like a UNIX symlink) and store your videos wherever you would like.

Junction: http://www.sysinternals.com/utilities/junction.html

[(Unverified) Posted Dec 18th 2006 12:59AM]

[u]Which one kind of [url=http://www.ipod-video-converter.com][color=black]ipod video converter[/color][/url]
software is well?[/u]

[(Unverified) Posted Jun 7th 2007 11:29AM]

Just in case someone is still watching this post, I have a question. Does this method or any known method work with streaming audio or video from the web through the series 2 or 3 tivo? I mean *.asx or *.wax or others.