Like a kid on Christmas, I was extremely excited yesterday when I was able to successfully transfer a high definition show from my Series 3 TiVo using the 9.2 service update. To my surprise, TiVoDesktop only took ~48 minutes to transfer a 55 minute 6GB HD program! How is possible? Why is the Series 3 better at transferring programs than my Series 2 TiVo? My Series 2 normally takes around 60 minutes to transfer a 60 minute standard definition program so how is my Series 3 able to transfer a HD program in the same amount if not less time? Does the S3 have some hardware built in which allows it to perform better when it comes to TiVoToGo or is there less conversion necessary with the HD content? Can somebody educate me?

Whatever the reason is, I’m extremely happy with being able to transfer shows off of my Series 3. I am however, having some issues with getting Roxio Popcorn to work on my Mac. Has anybody successfully transferred a show from their TiVo HD or Series 3 using Roxio’s Popcorn or Roxio Toast for that matter?

Roxio Popcorn is a great TiVoToGo client for the Mac. For reason it seems faster then TiVoToGo on my Windows box. Is it really faster or am I just having some wishful thinking?

Earlier this week, Brad Grupczynski (SPG creator) released an updated version of the SeasonPassGetter. According to the release notes, SeasonPassGetter v.10 fixes an IP address issue that some people where having.

Version 0.10 (08-OCT-2007)
- Fixed the Get Shows button in the Show List window. Bug only affected some users depending on their TiVO IP address.

It’s great to see a new version of SPG (even if it only contains one bug fix). If you have any issues with SPG you should definitely contact Brad. I know from personal experience that he is more then willing to help.

Early last week I stumbled upon a free little Mac app called SeasonPassGetter (SPG). SPG allows you to automatically download and transcode TiVo recordings for playback on a number of devices.

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. I haven’t experimented with many different settings, just the ones I list below.

Thus far I’ve had a lot of fun working with SPG. The app is relatively easy to use and I especially like the fact that transferred shows automatically get added to iTunes (we all know how much I like this feature). Using SPG, I have successfully transferred eleven shows (two season passes) to my Mac. Both transfer times and the quality of the transcoded content seems to be the same if not better than other TiVoToGo clients that I’ve used.

The only complaint I have about SPG has to do with its GUI. In my opinion, SPG’s GUI is rather plain and somewhat difficult to use for a novice user. I spoke with the developer (Brad Grupczynski) about this and due to his time constraints, he doesn’t think that he will update the GUI anytime soon.

That being said, I think SPG is a great application and I would definitely recommend it, especially if you don’t want to pay for Popcorn or if for some reason you not happy with TiVoDecodeManager. The software does a great job transferring TiVo recordings and I wouldn’t shy away from it simply because the user interface isn’t glamorous…..

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As a side note, I would like to thank both Nathan and Kenneth for putting me down as their TiVo rewards referrer. If you’d like to put me down as your referrer, all you need to do is enter my email address (raianoat AT gmail DOT com) when you activate your TiVo. Thanks Nathan & Kenneth!

So far I’ve been extremely happy with my $44.99 purchase of Roxio Popcorn 3. I purchased Popcorn mainly because I wanted an officially supported TiVoToGo solution for the Mac and also because I wanted to review the product.

Click on each of the following screenshots for some additional information…

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As a side note, I would like to thank Fred for putting me down as his TiVo rewards referrer. If you’d like to put me down as your referrer, all you need to do is enter my email address (raianoat AT gmail DOT com) when you activate your TiVo. Thanks Fred!

I just found a coupon code which allows you to receive 10% off of the price of Roxio Popcorn 3. With this code, you can get Popcorn for $44.99. Amazon has a better price ($42.99) unfortunately, at the time of this writing you can’t download the software directly from Amazon so, if you want to save a couple of bucks you will have to wait for Amazon to ship you a CD.

To get this discount, all you have to do is enter “ANNIVERSARY” during the checkout process.

Just today, Roxio made available Popcorn 3. As promised, the software is available for $49.99 ($42.99 on Amazon). For those of you who don’t know, here’s what Popcorn 3 has to offer:

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^TM transfers, your video will go everywhere you do.

I’m downloading my copy now so stay tuned for a review some time in the near future….

Spotted on TiVoLovers.

Recently I noticed that TiVoDesktop was having a difficult time rendering thumbnails for certain images (screenshots to the left). After spending some time investigating the problem, I came to the conclusion that all of the images that are “broken” where at one point rotated using OS X’s Preview on my MacBook. For some reason TiVoDesktop does not like how I rotate and then save the image using Preview.

Has anybody else experienced this problem?

John Kohl just announced that Galleon 2.4 alpha is now available for the Mac. Try it out if you haven’t already…

Posted By: johnkohl
Date: 2007-06-16 21:12
Summary: MacOS installer for 2.4.0 alpha

I’ve updated and created a MacOS installer for 2.4.0 alpha. Submit any bugs with SourceForge tracker.

I just upload a simple OS X dashboard widget that I created with Yahoo Pipes and Apple’s dashcode development environment. The widget displays content from several of the top TiVo related websites/blogs. Currently the widget subscribes to the following websites/blogs.

• TiVoBlog
• ZatzNotFunny(only TiVo content)
• TiVoLovers
• Zeigen.com (only TiVo content)
• DavisFreeberg.com (only TiVo content)
• TiVo’s Official Blog (even though it isn’t updated that often)
• TVSquad (only TiVo content)

One of the nice things about using Yahoo Pipes is that I can add a new feed whenever I want and anybody who is using the widget will automatically start to receive content from the newly added feed.

Version 1.0 can be downloaded by clicking on this link or by visiting the “downloads” section of this website.

Let me know if you encounter any problems of if there is a feed that you would like me to add. I’m also looking for some help in sprucing the widget up. Let me know if you’re interested.