If my wife did this I think I would get rid of her :).

Both Dave Zatz and a TiVo Community member have reported that TiVo plans to discontinue their rewards program sometime in the near future. Unlike the TiVo Community thread, Dave Zatz went ahead and contacted his TiVo rep. to get some more details. According to Dave’s rep, April 28th will be the last day that you can earn points and May 28th will be the last day you can redeem your points.

Based on this information, I’ve gone ahead and used up all of my rewards points on a TiVo HD and two TiVo t-shirts (which I’ll probably give away on this site). Prior to this news, I had planned on waiting for TiVo to add new items to the program but, now it looks like that won’t happen. I’ve been meaning to post something about the lack of new items that are available via the rewards program however, it looks like that post is no longer needed….

Thanks to this site’s faithful readers, I’ve been fortunate enough to receive a number of great items from the rewards program. In a little of three years I’ve referred 82 people via the rewards program! That being the case, I’m obviously very disappointed that TiVo is going to discontinue the program. Hopefully TiVo will reconsider this move because, I think if they discontinue the program they’re loosing out on a great opportunity to get new subscribers……

Did you know that you can use the “Clear” button to delete a recording off of your TiVo? To use this tip, all you have to do is highlight the show that you want to delete and then “click” on the “Clear” button. This tip will save you a lot of time especially if you’re like me and your neurotic about deleting shows that you’re no longer going to watch.

Do you have a TiVo tip that you would like to share with everybody?  If yes, feel free to contact me…

I’m embarrassed to say that American Idol is at the top of my Season Pass list. What’s at the top of your Season Pass list?

Did you know that you can “page” through your TiVo’s guide data simply by using the fast forward button? I use this tip all the time to quickly navigate through the guide. If you don’t use this button, you’re stuck having to navigate the guide one show at a time. This tip will obviously save you a lot of time if you frequently access the guide. Does anybody have any other tips for navigating the guide?

For a limited time, TiVo.com is offering a factory renewed TiVo HD for $199.99! The offer is good until April 2nd and it even includes free shipping and a 30 day money back guarantee! $199.99 is obviously a good price for the TiVo HD. If you don’t like the idea of purchasing a refurb unit, you can always pick up a brand new TiVo HD for $250.51 or $49.48 off the retail price.

The terms of this offer are as follows:

1. Offer includes:
One (1) factory renewed* TiVo HD unit for $199 when you also purchase one of the following payment plans at the same time:
• $12.95/month with a 1 year commitment, or
• $129/1 year prepay
2. Connection to TiVo service required via an existing phone line, or broadband connection and wired or wireless home network (Ethernet cable or compatible wireless network adapter required, sold separately).
3. After your commitment period is complete, your TiVo subscription will continue at the then-applicable monthly rate.
4. This offer is not eligible for Multi-Service Discount. TiVo reserves the right to substitute a different TiVo box of equal or greater value. Cannot be combined with any other offer, including TiVo rebates.
5. An early termination fee applies if there is cancellation during the commitment period.
6. Money Back Guarantee applies to initial activations if canceled within 30 days and DVR is returned for a full refund. No refunds for cancellations, except as permitted under the 30 day Money Back Guarantee.
7. Terms and conditions of TiVo Service Agreement and TiVo Service Payment Plan will apply. See www.tivo.com for details.

Here’s a feature that I didn’t know was possible. According to a TiVo.com knowledgebase article, the TiVo Glo remote (Series 3 remote) is a “learning remote” which is capable of being programmed via another A/V remote. Essentially what this means is that you can program your glo remote by pointing it at another device’s remote and the glo remote will program itself. This is obviously a great feature if you are having a tough time getting your glo remote to control another A/V device.

Has anybody successfully used this feature? If yes, I’d love to hear how well it worked….

Here’s a list of Mac software which is capable of improving your “TiVo experience”. Some of the applications on this list may no longer work but, I thought I should include them just in case they ever get updated. If you’re a Windows user you might want to check out my Windows roundup which I published back in December of ‘07. A star () next to the application name means that I’ve actually used the application before.

Please let me know if I’ve left anything off the list….

TiVo Desktop : TiVo Desktop is the official Mac application from TiVo.com. The app allows you to browse and listen to your music on your TiVo. Along with this feature, TiVo Desktop also allows you to view photos and publish videos using TiVo Go Back.

Roxio Popcorn : Popcorn® 3 lets you enjoy your video anywhere you want, on the playback device of your choice. Easily make high quality copies of your DVDs and movies. Take television recordings from your Mac to the portable device of your choice for on-the-go viewing or fit 4 hours of video on a single layer-DVD. Now with batch video conversion, support for a broad range of consumer devices, and exclusive support for TiVoToGo transfers, your video will go everywhere you do. Review here.

Roxio Toast: Roxio Toast® 8 sets the standard for burning CDs, DVDs, and now Blu-ray discs on the Mac. Create superior sounding audio CDs with crossfades. Enjoy your TV shows anywhere with exclusive EyeTV burning and TiVoToGo transfers to DVD or iPod®. Copy your audio CDs, movies and DVDs. It’s your digital life, Toast It!

SeasonPassGetter (SPG) : SPG takes TiVo content and transfers it to iTunes. Its main purpose was to transfer regularly scheduled recordings (Season Pass on TiVo) for viewing on AppleTV. There was a lot of interest in content for the iPod, so when a show is transferred to iTunes, SPG will initiate an iPod sync. Wake up in the morning and your shows are ready to go. Review here.

TiVo File Decoder: Portable C program to convert a .TiVo file from TiVoToGo to a normal MPEG file given the MAK for the TiVo which generated the file. Used by several applications including TiVo DecodeManager and several other 3rd party addons.

VisualHub : VisualHub is a great application for converting video files into a number of different formats. One of the nice things about VisualHub is that it provides a TiVo “profile” which allows you to convert video files into a format that your TiVo will be able to playback using the TiVoGoBack feature. More information about this feature can be found here.

TiVo NowPlaying : OS X dashboard widget which allows you to transfer and transcode shows from your TiVo. Review here.

TiVoTool: TivoTool allows you to download, stream, or burn videos from your Series 1 or 2 Tivo or DTivo. You can also send videos to iTunes for viewing on a video enabled iPod. The command line version consists of a subset of these functions and works on Linux.

pyTiVo: pyTivo lets you stream most videos from your PC to your unhacked TiVo. pyTivo acts as a TiVo GoBack server. It loads many standard video compression codecs and outputs mpeg2 video to the TiVo. It allows you to watch videos that are stored on your computer in, say, DivX format without having to wait for the video to be transcoded first.

Is it just me or does it seem like a lot of shows on your TiVo have the CCI flag set which prevents you from transferring these shows using TiVoToGo? Lately, it seems like more and more shows have this turned on. Am I the only one experiencing this problem and is there anything I can do about it?

TiVo has extended their TiVo HD offer to 2/22. In case you weren’t aware, this offer allows you to get three months of service for free when you purchase a TiVo HD directly from TiVo.com. Originally, this offer was supposed to end on 2/17 however, TiVo has extended the offer until 2/22! This is obviously a great deal considering the fact that the TiVo service will cost you $12.95 per month under this deal….