HP MediaSmart add-in adds TiVo compatibility, enables video transfers to and fro
By Tim Stevens 
posted March 10th 2010 7:59AM
posted March 10th 2010 7:59AM
posted March 10th 2010 7:59AM
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countdown until someone hacks the plug-in so I do not require said Media Smart server.
10:
9:
8:
...
That said, concurrent countdown started for when I'll buy a Tivo to replace my 2 completely free multi-room 722 series HDDVRs from Dish, which I only pay $7/month for service on (total):
9,000,000:
9,000,000:
9,000,000:
... might go to 8,999,999 sometime next week, it's a slow counter....
@zelannii
Or until they shut down your Dish DVR due to the injunction. I would say the countdown for that is T minus 3 months.
@zelannii
I'm pretty sure you can already do this with Tivo Desktop Plus or for free with many other user made programs.
So do we get a link to the download or what?
I'm good. I have a DVR from dish. Just waiting for something good soon
This won't fix the really annoying problem of cable providers flipping the protected switch on programming so that it can't be taken off the TiVo except via analog transfer (which kills much of the benefit of a connected DVR in the first place).
@CRA1G Amen, brother. Cox Communications in Northern Virginia locks down everything but the locals. No TiVoToGo, no multi-room viewing. Which is why I recommend FiOS TV in our area.
It initially annoyed me that this was a MediaSmart-only plugin, but after reading about the limitations (no streaming straight from the WHS, no auto-transfers), I think I'll stick with my existing solution - a weird hack of SyncToy, WHS, tivodecode, and Handbrake.
@erwos That hack sounds familiar. Maybe someone will incorporate all those steps into one, and let it stream, without requiring the MediaSmart
"Or, when you start to miss those happy TiVo sounds, you can send that content back over to DVR to view from there"
This is just stupid. why the hell do they need to transfer anything to anywhere?
It should send a copy over to the PC for playback on anything that is connected to the PC.
And in all reality, it should STREAM to the PC, so you can watch the content on ANY PC/MAC in your house, rather then transfer.
The further we move into the digital age, the more these stupid content creators, and hardware manufacturers get greedy.
I want multi room and device access to all of my DVR content WITHOUT transfers back and forth, and I want to be able to watch it all at the same time from any location.
Of course, what should happen is, iTunes should have a subscription service and SAME DAY release for TV shows as the air date. I would pay a fee to allow access to up to 5 shows at one time in their library. I could access it on any computer in my house, put it on my iphone/ipod. And allow everyone else in my family to do the same.
Full on-demand content will kill the need for the DVR and provide the content control that the creators and studios want.
If I wasn't wasting 90% of my cable bill on spanish and home shopping channels, or the joke of paying more for HD, I wouldn't be so angry.
@emax Yo no comprendo?
@davezatz I do understand. They want you to send content to your PC, then if you want to watch back on the DVR you need to SEND IT BACK.
That is just stupid. period.
@emax
When you "send it back" to the Tivo, the copy remains on the server. The "send it back" terminology is used b/c Tivo doesn't support streaming its recordings, it makes a copy of the recording on the Tivo.
Between Tivo's the transfer is usually faster than real time so you can watch the recording while its copying. But in some instances (such as when both Tivo's are under heavy load), the transfer is not faster than realtime. This situation is most likely why the older TiVo's probably don't stream their recordings.
Yes, streaming would be ideal, but TiVos have never supported streaming of its own TV shows. The newer Tivo should be fast enough to stream, but as of now, only copying the shows is supported.
@scyber If I sent it to my computer. the tivo should make a copy of it on the computer. And even though a copy exists on the computer I should be able to watch it on the tivo as well. Once a copy gets sent to a computer or other device, it should still reside, and be functional on the tivo. This way, if i put it on the computer, then on my portable device, my wife can still watch the show at home without any "resync" or send back, or any nonsense.
@emax
I'm pretty sure it does work that way. There is no requirement to delete it from the original TiVo. The assumption is that you would delete it after its backed up or it would delete automatically as the tivo fills with newer recordings.
You are making up limitations that I don't think exist.
I've always found that the extraction of video off my TiVo is extremely slow. After the file that has transferred at about a 1:1 speed, you then have to re-encode the .tivo file to actually be able to use it.
Hopefully it will be faster with the WHS add-in, but I doubt it.
@romanamor
I agree about the slowness... but the question is, why does anyone want to pull stuff OFF the TiVo?? If I have an episode of SNL I want to put on a portable device, I just go download the torrent... it's way faster than transferring.
I do transfer content from my PC to my TiVo to watch it... and I do that quickly, easily, and FREELY with PyTivo.
@romanamor Yup. I bought a quad core 3.0GHz machine just for this sort of thing, and it barely does the job. I can't imagine the WHS version would be at all fast...
Make it work with the new DirecTivos and I'm interested.
Unless your cable provider (*cough* Time Warner *cough*) has enabled the no-copy flag on all your channels... in which case you can't copy shit (even if you've purchased Tivo's $25 Tivo2Go/Tivo Desktop software).
@Veraxus Yes, the Time-Warner d-bags set the no-copy flag on every single program they can, regardless of the copy status set by the actual content owner. That's abuse of the no-copy feature, IMHO.
The FCC agrees, since they forced TW to stop overriding the no-copy flag on OTA programs, but their jurisdiction over cable programming is limited.
@Veraxus
FIOS doesn't seem to flag anything. FIOS TV FTW.
@gus2000 I have this same issue in TWC-NC. I didn't know about the limitation and the set bits until I'd already paid the $25 for TiVo Plus desktop. it seems like it would be such a nice feature. It's too bad they want to treat their customers like children. I just wish I could hack my Series3 to ignore that bit.
Just one more reason to add to my list of reasons to buy a MediaSmart server
Anyone know what the advantages of this are over PyTivo (or any of the other free tools out there)?
@THJ
PyTivo is amaing! But it doesn't transfer FROM TiVo TO PC... it's for the other way around... but like I said in a previous post, with torrents out there, I can't imagine why anyone would need or want to transfer soemthing FROM the TiVo in the first place.
Only available to the latest generation of the MSS. What a way to alienate your early adopters/supporters!
Too bad TiVo only cares about the Premier now and not its older Series 2/3 users.
I was about to, the night of the Premier launch, buy a factory refurbished Series3 (since it was only ~$80). Page wouldn't load at all. I try again the next morning - they got rid of, somehow magically, every last Series3 on their webstore and replaced them with the frickin' Premier units that I didn't want to buy.
Waiting to see how this is better than running Galleon on my WHS...
http://galleon.tv/
With Galleon I get automatic download of shows from my TiVo to my WHS share, can publish them back out, and can add other gadgets.
For non-TiVo-sourced stuff I want to play on my TiVo, I also have pyTivo running to transcode on-the-fly.
I was excited, wanted to do this over a year ago. Sadly still can't as it doesn't support my older CHEAP (but works great) MV2120 Media Vault. I'm guessing because that's running some Linux OS versus Windows. Oh well, now wishing I had more spare cash to get a newer Media Vault.
With all these dang media player appliances and toaster-sized PC's intended to also be used as media players, you'd think someone would make a recorder appliance or toaster-sized PC for recording.
All I want is a recording appliance with 2 tuners (and IR blasters to control cable/satellite boxes) that can schedule recordings and store the video files on an internal drive, external drive, or push it onto a NAS or other media server.
Then I can use media player appliances at each TV to play those recordings in any room with a TV.
Where can i find this to download?