Late last week I received the following questions from a TiVoBlog reader. Instead of just replying to the email directly, I thought it would be a good idea for me to post my reply here since others may have the same questions.

Hello Alex. Just discovered your site. Nice work. Alex I have a chance to get a Tivo Series 2 80 hour dual tuner DVR as a gift. I receive Comcast digital cable in Howard County Maryland. My questions to you are,

1).Can I record all if any of my digital channels?.

2).What do I need to do or buy to be able to burn movies or programs from my Tivo to a DVD, or transfer to my PC, or directly to an external DVD burner via USB or Firewire connection. My ultimate goal is to be able to turn my Tivo’ed programs into DVD’s. Thanks for any and all help.

Steve M.

Before I get into the response, you might want to check to see if you can get the TiVo software on your Comcast DVR. I know that you don’t live it the Northeast but, it’s worth a try…

1.) A dual tuner TiVo will allow you to record digital cable however, you are still going to need a set-top box in order for it to work. TiVo’s website has a great tutorial and video on how to setup a dual-tuner TiVo with a set-top box. If you don’t want to keep the set-top box, you might want to look into a TiVo HD or a Series 3 since both of these DVRs take advantage of the CableCARD technology. A CableCARD will eliminate the need for a set-top box.

2.) Burning TiVo recordings to a DVD is really simple. The easiest way is to do it is to go the “official” route and use Roxio Creator 9 on the PC or Roxio Toast on the Mac. Transferring shows to your PC is pretty straight forward. All you need to have is TiVoDesktop (free) from TiVo.com. On the Mac, you can either use Roxio Toast, Roxio Popcorn or TiVoDecode Manager.

I hope that answers your questions. Let me know if you need help with anything else…

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As a side note, I would like to thank both Richard, Jeffrey & Jonathan 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 Charles. It really is appreciated!

Ben Drawbaugh has posted a wonderful review of TiVoToGo and MRV (multi-room viewing) on the Series 3. Overall, the review is rather positive however, Ben did say that his transfer speeds are rather slow.

Granted, the transfers were pretty slow — in fact, they were about twice real time — and our understanding is that the hardware is the bottleneck, so upgrading to a gigabit network probably won’t help.

My transfer speeds aren’t as slow as what Ben is experiencing. For example, a 30 minute HD shows takes around 43-45 minutes to transfer. I don’t know why there is a difference between what I’m experiencing and what Ben is. At first I thought it was because both of my TiVos are wired but than I noticed that Ben’s TiVos are wired as well. Whatever the case may be, I’m happy that my transfers are faster :).

How fast are your transfer speeds? Are they more in line with what I’m reporting or are your recordings transferring at a speed similar to what Ben is reporting?

bkdtv has posted a great FAQ about TiVoToGo (TTG), Multi-Room Viewing (MRV) and TiVoToComeBack (TTCB) on the Series 3 and TiVo HD. The FAQ answered several questions I had about TiVoToGo including why TTG on the Series 3 is faster than TTG on my Series 2 DT.

Check it out if you have some questions about TTG, MRV or TTCB on the Series 3 and TiVo HD.

Update (11/3 @ 6:04AM):  Roxio has posted a public beta which is supposed to fix the issue mentioned below.  Go here to download it…

Update (10/31 @ 8:24AM): Roxio has done a great job communicating with the community about the issues they’re having with TiVo’s 9.2 software update. Recently, I was given the opportunity to beta test the next version of Popcorn and to my surprise it includes a fix for the double playback issue I was experiencing. Roxio has said that this update should be released shortly so stay tuned if you are having issues with either Toast or Popcorn.

As I alluded to in a previous post, initially I was having a difficult time getting Roxio’s TiVo Transfer app to detect my Series 3 TiVo. After doing some research, I came to the conclusion that TiVo Transfer uses Apple’s Bonjour protocol to discover and list any TiVos on the network. Sure enough, when I fired up iStumbler my Series 3 wasn’t listed as a Bonjour device (DVR-893D is my S2 TiVo).

Like most computer problems (at least on Windows), I decided to reboot my Series 3 to see if that would fix the issue. As soon as the reboot was complete, my Series 3 showed up in both TiVo Transfer and iStumbler’s Bonjour listing (DVR-02A0).

Now I’m able to connect and successfully transfer a show off of my Series 3 TiVo to my Mac (that doesn’t mean everything is working…continue reading).

Unfortunately, I’m still having a problem with any show that I transfer from my Series 3 TiVo. From some reason, any transferred show that I try and watch plays back at twice the normal speed. I took a look at the settings for Roxio’s Toast Video Player however, I wasn’t able to find a setting that could be causing this problem. I’ve seen that other people are having this issue so I guess I’ll wait and see if Roxio comes out with a fix (who knows how long that will take). Until then, I could use TiVoDecodeManager to get content off of my Series 3 however, I just don’t like how TDM works and I would rather get the “official“ Mac TiVoToGo client to work especially since I’ve already paid for it. I’ll be sure to let you know if/when Roxio comes out with a fix….

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

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?

We all knew this was coming but, today TiVo sent out the following press release which indicates that we should see an upgrade for the S3 and TiVo HD sometime in the near future. As expected, the upgrade will bring TiVoToGo and multi-room viewing (MRV) support to the Series 3 & TiVo HD. Also as expected, TiVo has partnered with Western Digital to release an eSATA drive ($200) which will allow you to easily add additional storage to a S3 & TiVo HD.

TiVo Inc. (NASDAQ: TIVO), the creator of and leader in television services for digital video recorders (DVRs), today announced the new availability of several exciting feature upgrades and product support for TiVo Series 3 and TiVo HD customers. The news includes the availability of external storage (E-SATA) from Western Digital, the introduction of Multi-Room Viewing and TiVoToGo availability and the new feature of progressive downloads - all for Series 3 and TIVo HD subscribers. Please see below for more information on the news.
E-SATA
· The My DVR Expander external hard drive is capable of storing up to 600 hours of standard-definition (SD) or up to 65 hours of high-definition (HD) television programming based on 500 GB of hard drive storage.
· This is current the only TiVo Verified external storage device.
· The My DVR Expander is compatible with both TiVo HD and TiVo Series3 DVRs.
· WD’s My DVR Expander external hard drive is available now in the United States from Best Buy retail stores and by ordering online from TiVo.com/store.
· MSRP for the My DVR Expander drive with 500 GB is $199.99 USD.

Multi Room Viewing (MRV)
· MRV allows you to transfer programming between TiVo DVRs.
· It now includes support for Series3 and TiVo HD DVRs, meaning you can share shows between Series2, Series3, and TiVo HD boxes.
· Only SD recordings may be sent from a Series3/TiVo HD to a Series2.

TiVoToGo
· TiVo HD and Series 3 users can now enjoy TiVoToGo functionality.
· TiVoToGo™ transfers are available to all networked TiVo DVRs. This service enhancement allows users to transfer programs from a TiVo box to a desktop or laptop PC.
· Using TiVo Desktop software for Windows or Roxio Toast 8 or Popcorn 3 for Mac OS, TiVo subscribers can now transfer recordings from their Series 3 and TiVo HD boxes for playback, DVD burning, or converting to portable device formats on personal computers.

Progressive Downloads
· The progressive download feature gives TiVo subscribers the ability to watch TiVoCast content while it is still downloading, including Amazon UnBox on TiVo.
· When a download begins, the TiVo box checks the speed of the download, and calculates whether you can begin playback. If the download speed is going faster than playback speed, it will let users start playback immediately.
· If the download is slower, it will wait until users have enough of the program “buffered” on disk to be able to play it from start to finish without hitting the end of the buffer, and then let you start playback.
· This service is available for TiVo HD and Series3 subscribers.

Spotted on Gizmodo & Engadget.

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!

According to several posts on TiVoCommunity.com, TiVo has started to roll out new software (v 9.1.L5) to the Series 2, Series 3 & TiVo HD. The update incorporates a number of new features including the following:

• Crestron Integration
• Advanced Wishlists (TiVo support article)
• Manual recording screen now has some improvements
• Better looking graphics and “crisper” text throughout (mentioned here as well)
• Emergency alert message integration
• MRV and TiVoTGo on the S3 & TiVo HD (the update doesn’t enable TTG & MRV instead it seems to be laying the groundwork for when TiVo enables these two features in November)

TiVoLovers also has a great summary of what’s new in 9.1.L5. Please feel free to leave a comment on this post if your lucky enough to get 9.1.L5. I just tried to update my two TiVos (S2 & S3) unfortunately, neither of them received an update. I expect that TiVo will publish a software priority page for 9.1.L5 sometime in the near future.