Other then the recent climb in TiVo’s stock price, there hasn’t been much TiVo news as of late. That being the case, I’ve decided to dig up some old news about TiVo and attempt to see where things are today. To do this, I’ve gone back into this blog’s archive and pulled out a couple interesting news articles:

Well, I think that is enough dumpster diving for now. As you can see, neither of the two news items that I pulled out have really been updated. If anybody has any new information please let me know. I’m sure other people are interested in these two news items.

Updated 06/19/2005: Here’s parts 1 & 2 of this post.

Wow! My new computer only took two hours to transcode and record four Thomas & Friends shows (two hours worth of programming) using MyDVD. This same task use to take six hours with my old 800MHz Pentium III. I guess that a fast computer really makes a difference!

On another note, I spent a little bit of time working with MyDVD’s ability to remove sections of a TiVo recording. Fortunately for me, Thomas & Friends does not have any commercials during the show. Even though there are no commercials, I still wanted to remove some of the junk at the beginning of each show as well as some nonsense at the end. Removing content was extremely easy. All I had to do was drag the little scissors to indicate what I wanted to cut out. As a number of people have said, the scissors were not very accurate. It was somewhat tough to be exact. Fortunately, this problem was solved by clicking on the scissors and using the left or right arrow keys to fine tune the cropping. By using the arrow keys, I was able to adjust the cropping down to the second.

All and all, I’ve been extremely happy with MyDVD. Editing and recording TiVo programs is very easy using this program. If it weren’t for the problems I had early on, I would probably give this application 9 stars. One thing to keep in mind is that I really don’t have much experience when it comes to creating DVDs. To be perfectly honest, MyDVD is really the first DVD creation app I have ever used. That being said, I think that I am going to spend more time investigating other apps. I’ll let you know if I come up with any useful information.

My cheap a$$ finally broke down and bought a new computer (3 GHz, 1GB RAM). I’ve had my old computer since college (’99). I really began to notice how slow my computer was when I started to use MyDVD. In case you didn’t read my previous post, it took me nearly 6 hours to burn a DVD. Along with MyDVD, I also ran into a couple other software applications that really pushed my computer to the limit.

Instead of building my own computer, I decided to go with a Dell. I built my last computer however; I didn’t want to be bothered with all the problems that come with building your own computer. Yes, you can probably build the same computer I purchased for a lot less however; you have to deal with the hassle of getting stuff to work. I thought about getting a Mac however; I didn’t want to have to worry about what software I would have to purchase. I pretty much have all the software I use for Windows. If I had purchased a Mac, I would have to purchase or find replacements for a number of software applications that I use on a daily basis. Sorry Mac fans, you haven’t gotten me to switch yet :(.

Right now I am burning another Thomas and Friends DVD. I’ll let everybody know how long it takes with my new computer. Hopefully it doesn’t take nearly as long as it did before. Also, I didn’t run into the thumbnail problem that I had with MyDVD before. I was worried that this problem would come back to haunt me however; so far, things appear to be working as they should. Stay tuned for me info…

I just got version 7.1b of the Tivo software on my Series 2. It appears to fix an annoying problem I’ve been having with channel changes. Previously, when changing channels the video and audio would flicker in and out for up to 10 seconds. Now channel changing is quicker, and once the image appears, it is stable.

Here’s a review of TiVo Desktop 2.1

I see no reason for me to upgrade. If anything, I might switch to Galleon.

Updated 06/19/2005: Here’s parts 1 & 3 of this post.

I finally found some time over the weekend to create my first Thomas the Tank DVD using MyDVD. My son slept for 1 & ½ hours so I had plenty of time to play around with MyDVD and customize it to my liking. To start, I imported four Thomas and Friends episodes into MyDVD (this is where I ran into problems before). The import process created a thumbnail for each episode that it places on the menu. From this point, I could have just burned the movie to DVD. Instead, I decided to customize the menu so that it was a little more kid friendly.

Customization of the menu was extremely easy. I gave the menu a different background and I also used the Thomas and Friends theme song. Finally I added some text to the menu so that each episode had a title that was more meaningful. After customizing the menu, I began the LONG process of transcoding and burning the DVD.

(Click for larger image)

Before I get any further, let me start of by giving you some details on my computer. The computer I used to create the DVD is rather old. I’ve had it since college! It has a 800mhz Pentium 3 with 512mb ram. Needless to say, this machine is somewhat slow by today’s standards. As a matter of fact, my computer doesn’t even meet the minimum requirement for a machine running MyDVD. Even though it doesn’t meet the minimum requirements, the burn process still worked! All and all, it took my computer about 6 hours to transcode the DVD and record it to disc! During this time, MyDVD consumed 100% of my computer. Needless to say, I should have performed this task over night. From what I understand, this process takes a long time no matter what kind of computer you have. I wonder how long it would have taken if I had a 3 GHz machine? If anybody has experience with a better machine let me know. I’d be interested to find out how long it takes with a better computer.

In terms of the quality, I’m extremely happy with how well it looks on my TV as well as my computer. At first, I was a little concerned about the quality since I burned it using the “fit to DVD” feature in MyDVD. From what I understand, the “fit to DVD” feature changes the DVD quality so that it can fit the content onto a DVD. I used “fit to DVD” because I wanted to try to place at least four shows on one disc. The DVD has worked in every device that I’ve tried thus far!

Other then the hiccups I had with my initial installation, I am extremely happy with MyDVD thus far. The burning/transcoding process took rather long however, this is to be expected considering the fact that I have a somewhat slow computer. Next, I want to try editing a movie so that I can remove commercials. I didn’t have to do this with my Thomas DVD because Thomas and Friends does not have any commercials.

To sum it up, I would recommend MyDVD to anybody who wants to burn TiVo recordings to DVD. Even though I ran into installation problems, I am glad that I purchased this software. I only hope that I don’t run into this problem the next time I try and reinstall. Because of how long it took me to create this DVD, I am considering getting a new computer. Please let me know if you have any experience with how long it takes to transcode a DVD using a better pc.