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.

Here’s a list of Windows 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. I hope to put together a similar list for both OS X and Linux sometime in the near future. 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 : Automatically transfer shows from your TiVo DVR to a Windows PC or laptop. Browse and listen to your computer’s MP3 library from your TiVo box. Watch full-screen slide shows of your computer’s digital photo collection on your TV. Now with higher resolution for Series3 HD. Use Windows Media Player to watch TiVoToGo transfers on a Windows Mobile or Portable Media Center device.
• TiVoPlayList: Retrieve TiVo Now Playing lists over an ethernet connection and calculate total recording time and disk space used.  Batch downloading of recordings to PC (even from multiple machines).
• pyTiVo: pyTivo lets you stream most videos from your PC to your unhacked TiVo. It uses the HMO server protocol, so no hacking of the TiVo is required. It will guess if your video is 4:3 or 16:9 and pad your video if it thinks it is needed (looked good on my tests). It will not transcode an mpeg that is supported by your TiVo. It will stream TiVo recordings (.tivo).
• Galleon : Galleon is a free open source media server for the TiVo DVR which allows you to enjoy many kinds of content and interactive applications right on your TV. The server runs on your home computer and organizes your media collection so that they can be viewed on your home network. Galleon also brings Internet content and applications to your TV.
• Roxio Creator: Transfer your favorite recorded TV shows or movies to your desktop or laptop using TiVo Desktop software. After they are transferred, the TiVo Desktop software will encode them for your portable device. Roxio’s Creator 9 software allows you to burn them to disc for viewing on your laptop, or the long ride to Yellowstone in the mini that came with a built in DVD player or for archiving and creating your own library.
• AutoPilot : TVHarmony AutoPilot makes the process of downloading and converting video a snap. Through a simple user interface, you can tell AutoPilot what shows or internet videos you are interested in, and AutoPilot will do the heavy lifting during the night of downloading and converting it into the right format for your video viewing device (e.g. Apple iPod®, PSP). AutoPilot is the perfect companion to TiVo and TiVoToGo.
• Videora TiVo Converter: Videora TiVo Converter is a free video conversion application developed by the creators of Videora. It allows you to convert your regular PC video files (avi, mpeg, etc) into the proper video format that your TiVo understands.
• TiVo HME Applications: There are too many TiVo HME applications to list hear. Check out this post if you are interested in TiVo HME applications.
• Picasa: Picasa is a free software download from Google that helps you: Locate and organize all the photos on your computer. Edit and add effects to your photos with a few simple clicks. Share your photos with others through email, prints, and on the web. Export your photos so that they can be viewed on your TiVo.
• VideoReDo: VideoReDo™ the MPEG editor that lets you edit TV Shows, Movies, and Home Videos in minutes… rather than hours with traditional video editing software. If you use a PVR or DVR, no matter what your expertise, beginner or video expert, you can easily create custom videos, TV shows and movies.
• J. River Media Center: Music, photos and video YOUR way — all from a single software program! Connect your PC to your home entertainment hardware and control it all with a remote! Load your music on your iPod while you watch TV! All with one easy-to-use program. TiVo support identified here.
• WinMFS: WinMFS is the next generation Tivo upgrading software designed for ease of use. If you are familiar with Mfstools, you are well aware of the complexity when it comes to command options. With WinMFS, many options required to upgrade your Tivo drives are hidden under the hood so you don’t have to think about them. It runs on MS Windows so chances are, you have access to one of these machines. Most operation can be done using USB ports and click of few mouse buttons.
• TiVo Publisher for WHS: The TiVo Publisher Add-In for Windows Home Server (TiVo/WHS) is an implementation of the TiVo HMO “Calypso” protocol for Windows Home Server. The add-in installs as a service, which makes your WHS music, photos, and videos shares browsable from any TiVo that supports home networking.
• TiVo Desktop Universal Audio Plug-in: Out of the box this plug-in supports iTunes AAC files (unencrypted), WMA files (unencrypted) and OGG Vorbis files. However it also contains an interface for adding support for your own audio formats.* (I’ve personally tried it with APE, FLAC and WAV and all work perfectly) It also supports tags for all the built in formats, as well as a a few others via a universal tag library. For everything else it will simply use the file name as the song title.
• YAC (Yet Another Caller ID Program) : YAC is a Caller ID system that uses the modem in your Windows-based computer to monitor incoming phone calls. When a phone call is received, YAC displays the Caller ID info on your TiVo.
• VEMoDE :VEMoDe is a free program that gives you a quick and easy way to turn your videos and movies into portable videos. It will convert from many formats and includes settings for several mobile devices.

Earlier today, John Kohl released Galleon 2.5.2. According the release notes, 2.5.2 contains two major bug fixes:

Version 2.5.2:
———————-
* Fixed bug with GoBack truncating files after 2GB had been transferred.
* Fixed another CPU-spinning bug in the screen saver

It’s great to see that John continues to work on Galleon. In my opinion, Galleon is the best TiVo HME application out there. Go ahead and download your copy of Galleon if you haven’t already….

—————————————————————————————————
As a side note, I would like to thank Andrew 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 Andrew. It really is appreciated!

Earlier today John Kohl uploaded a new version of Galleon (2.5.1) which mostly includes bug fixes.

Version 2.5.1:
———————-
* Fixed a screen saver bug–it would consume all your CPU time on the PC
* Updated Linux install Makefile to work in more cases/on more distributions

Known problems:
* not all galleon skins in HD cover the screen–use tivo skins
* still some layout glitches in HD
* still some HD menu highlights are too big for text

I still haven’t gotten around to trying out Galleon 2.5. I’ve been awful busy and I just haven’t had any time. Have you tried out 2.5? If yes, what do you think?

Just a little while ago, John Kohl uploaded a new version of Galleon. This latest release includes a number of bug fixes as and new features. According to the release notes, the new version (2.5) incorporates the following changes:

Version 2.5.0:
———————-
* Added iPhoto album display capability into Photos application
* Increased album artwork size in music players (HD)
* Fixed built-in Photos application to lay out the grid better for HD.
* Fixed JPG image tag reading for Photos
* Added a new HD Photos plugin that will download, install and run the TiVo Desktop hdphotos
HME application integrated into Galleon similar to what it does for TiVo Desktop.
(you must open TCP port 7111 on your firewall)
* Reimplemented skin resource loading so they don’t use as much memory and cpu
* Added scalable backgrounds that fit the screen in HD mode for pictures and music
* Fixed the HD playbar in the music app so it draws properly
* Fixed layout on music player screen when in HD mode
* Increased font size on music app in HD mode for all screens
* Fixed screen saver on music app to fill the entire screen
* Fixed lyrics downloading to grab from a different source since lyrictracker is down
* Fix MacOS problems (tracker #1760027)
* Upgraded Movie Rentals app to 0.8
* Fixed missing jars in windows installer
* Added service wrapper for unix release and a Makefile to do “make install” or “make uninstall”
* Added a global screen saver framework for all apps that extend BApplication and AppFactory
* Added a bouncing screen saver to display cover art and track title for music player apps

Known problems:
* tracker on music in HD is goofy
* not all galleon skins in HD don’t cover screen–use tivo skins
* still some layout glitches in HD
* still some HD menu highlights are too big for text

For those of you who aren’t familiar with Galleon, here’s a brief summary of Galleon’s features taken from Galleon’s website:

Galleon is a free open source media server for the TiVo® DVR which allows you to enjoy many kinds of content and interactive applications right on your TV. The server runs on your home computer and organizes your media collection so that they can be viewed on your home network. Galleon also brings Internet content and applications to your TV.

It’s been a while since I had Galleon running on any of my computers however, this release has me interested once again. I’ll try to find some time tomorrow to install 2.5 and if I do I’ll be sure to let everybody know how it goes. I really am looking forward to seeing what Galleon looks like on my HDTV…..

Download Galleon 2.5 here.

John Kohl has released Galleon 2.4.1. This version includes a number of bug fixes as well as new features. John has done a wonderful job restarting Galleon development. You should check out Galleon if you haven’t already. It really does improve the TiVo experience.

Version 2.4.1:
———————-
* Turned off HD for applications that don’t need it (e.g. top level menu,
Weather since its maps are small)
* Updated Mac OS X install to put applications in subdirectory:
/Applications/Galleon/
* Fixed Mac OS launch scripts to enable quit function
* Fixed Movies application (needed an update to parse HTML output change from data source)
* Fixed Windows installer JRE detection (accepts Java 6)
* Fixed MusicOrganizer MP3 count (1746310)
* Upgrade to htmlparser-1.6 (fixes movierentals add-on application)
* Added movieRentals application to distribution
* Fixed log file location on windows to put logs inside the logs directory

Known problems:
* tracker on music in HD is goofy
* galleon skins in HD don’t cover screen–use tivo skins
* lots of layout glitches in HD
* HD menu highlights are too big for text

Please report any bugs via SourceForge trackers:
https://sourceforge.net/tracker/?func=add&group_id=126291&atid=705256

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.

Just yesterday I reported that development on Galleon was about to start back up thanks to somebody by the name of John Kohl. Well, it looks like John has been working over time because late last night John announced the release of Galleon 2.3.1 and 2.4 alpha. According to a forum post, 2.3.1 mainly includes some code cleanup with minor internal changes. 2.4 is in the alpha stage however, this version will ultimately bring HD support to Galleon.

Nice job John! I’m excited about getting a new version of Galleon especially since I now own a HD capable Series 3 TiVo.

Release notes:

Version 2.4.0 alpha:
———————-
HD application support. Try out HD photos!
Local forecast page added to weather.
Known problems:
* tracker on music in HD is goofy
* galleon skins in HD don’t cover screen–use tivo skins
* lots of layout glitches in HD
* HD menu highlights are too big for text

Version 2.3.1:
———————-
Upgraded open-source components to mostly current versions
Use track title instead of file name for “Music” listings
Published modified Bananas library
Switched to build with Java 1.5

*** Please send in bug reports if there are any problems with things
that work fine in 2.3.0. This release should not behave any
differently ***

I just noticed a post on the Galleon forum in which John Kohl (I’m not sure who John is) states that Galleon development is about to restart!

Posted By: johnkohl
Date: 2007-06-03 20:15
Summary: Galleon development restarting Galleon development is restarting. Goal #1: learn the source base, get up to recent source releases of third-party components.
Goal #2: HD applications

It’s been a long time since the last Galleon release. Hopefully this forum posting is accurate and we will start to see some updates for Galleon.

Stay tuned for any additional information….

Today while I was browsing through Google Video I came across the following demo video of Galleon. Can you believe that it has almost been a year since the developer of Galleon (Leon Nicholls) decided that he wasn’t going to provide any more updates to this wonderful software? In a little over a year Leon produced some truly amazing results. It makes me wonder where Galleon would be today if Leon hadn’t abandoned the project. Anybody want to step up to the plate and provide us with an update to Galleon?