Tivo To Sage

[mike1961]

I've got one last thing to do for my conversion now that Sage is up and running. I want to transfer some of the videos from my Tivo box to Sage. I know I can do this by using the TivoToGo software but that transfers at USB 1 rates and takes forever. I removed the hard drive out of the Tivo Box and I can conect it to my computer as a slave but I think it's formatted in a Linux format. Is there some kind of pc software that will transfer files from the Tivo hard drive so that I don't have to wait an eternity for the transferring to complete?

Thanks,
Mike

[stanger89]

FWIW,

Discussion of that might be frowned upon here as it's not really legitimate to extract recordings from a Tivo (I know AVS doesn't allow discussion of it). However there's a great Tivo forum, Tivocommunity, that probably could help you.

To answer your specific question, yes, there are programs, drivers actually I believe, to mount Linux partitions in Windows, but I'm not sure they work that good, and I think there's more to extracting recordings than simply mounting the drive and copying files.

[mike1961]

Stanger - No problems - I'll respect that but Tivo provides the TivoToGo program which allows you to transfer programs from Tivo to your computer. So, I was thinking that it appears that it is legitimate. I was just looking to do it quicker.

I agree, that the idea in the "Tivo community" is frowned on to some degree. It's strange in a way because it's almost like the Tivo developers are saying "okay, we'll let you transfer Tivo videos to your computer but we are going to make it very inconvenient and discourage you from doing it...but, we will allow you to do it."

(Edited: to add, if it were not legitimate, why would it be okay to post it on a Tivo forum? In fact, Tivo would hate me for that and would probably even remove the post for I would be saying that I've discovered Sage and it's much better and I've dumped Tivo)

Mike

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by mike1961

Stanger - No problems - I'll respect that but Tivo provides the TivoToGo program which allows you to transfer programs from Tivo to your computer. So, I was thinking that it appears that it is legitimate. I was just looking to do it quicker.

Aren't they DRM'd or something when you use thier utility though?

I agree, that the idea in the "Tivo community" is frowned on to some degree. It's strange in a way because it's almost like the Tivo developers are saying "okay, we'll let you transfer Tivo videos to your computer but we are going to make it very inconvenient and discourage you from doing it...but, we will allow you to do it."

Sounds a lot like Managed Copy on HD DVD/Blu-ray.

(Edited: to add, if it were not legitimate, why would it be okay to post it on a Tivo forum? In fact, Tivo would hate me for that and would probably even remove the post for I would be saying that I've discovered Sage and it's much better and I've dumped Tivo)

Mike

You talking about the official Tivo forum (I couldn't find it), or Tivo Community? To put it quite simply, different forums have different levels of acceptance of grey-area activities. It's kind of like the whole DVD ripping thing, some forums (Doom9) discuss anything and everything, others shy away from it, or the more questionable parts (breaking CSS).

Oh, and FWIW, I don't think Tivo Community is associated with Tivo in any way.

[AndyS]

Originally Posted by stanger89

Oh, and FWIW, I don't think Tivo Community is associated with Tivo in any way.

Tivo Community is owned and run by the same people that run AVSForum (AV Science).

Andy.

[Narflex]

The DRM protected files you copy to your PC with the TivoToGo software should be able to be played back in SageTV or SageTVClient directly (these are the .tivo files). (they won't work in the Placeshifter)

[mike1961]

First - regarding the forums - yes you are correct, my mistake, I was thinking of the forums that are available directly via the support link at the Tivo website.

Second - they may be protected in the .TIVO format but when I said copying them to my pc I never specified a format but just wanted to transfer it the exact same way in the same format as TivoToGo does. In any event, Narflex is right that Sage will play them. Also, for those out there who want to play them in the placeshifter I know that VideoRedo will remove commercials (as we all know) and write it out in standard mpeg2.

Thanks for the info. I think it may not be worth the trouble and may just be easier to leave the Tivo running for the next few days for whatever files my wife wants transferred. As it turns out, one of the huge reasons I started looking at options like Sage was when I got the second Tivo and saw how slow it was to transfer files. Along with all the other bonuses Sage has to offer, tranferring files is a non-issue in Sage since everything is all on the file server.

Thanks again for the support,
Mike

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by mike1961

Second - they may be protected in the .TIVO format but when I said copying them to my pc I never specified a format but just wanted to transfer it the exact same way in the same format as TivoToGo does. In any event, Narflex is right that Sage will play them. Also, for those out there who want to play them in the placeshifter I know that VideoRedo will remove commercials (as we all know) and write it out in standard mpeg2.

Wow, now that's effective DRM. What a waste.

[nick_l]

for what its worth: you cannot copy the files directly from the tiVo HDD because shows are actually stored in multiple files, and audio and a video. The reason transfering takes so long with TTG is that the TiVo acutally has to join the two files together before they are transfered out onto your network. And yes, they are drm'd.

Nick