It's nice for TUAW when Laurie is proven prescient, although it does tend to give her a slight air of haughty competence. Just five days ago she and Dave Zatz figured "a GUI wrapper can't be far behind" for the TiVoDecode tool... and now there are two. David Benesch's TiVoDecode Manager is a full-featured beastie -- it automates discovery, download and decoding of TiVo video to the desktop of your friendly neighborhood Macintosh. It's already at version 1.1, which bodes well for a rapid development schedule. Note also that for now you may need superplayer VLC to watch the MPEG-2 files that result.There's also Nik Friedman's droplet TiVo Decoder, which wraps the same behind-the-scenes code in a basic drag-and-drop utility. It doesn't include a way to get the original files off your TiVo, but if you turn on Bonjour bookmarks in Safari you should see your DVR listed and you can grab the files via the browser.
Now, if I can get Laurie to post something predicting a financial windfall for me, or even "Rumor: Mike's post-holiday-party headache should be gone within a day or so," that'd be just great.
Update, Sunday evening: Reader Samuel McConnell has let us know about his Automator action, also called TiVo Decoder, which provides a wrapper for the utility -- you can check it out on his site.
[via engadget & PVRblog]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
12-09-2006 @ 8:04PM
John said...
I'm the author of the NowPlaying widget (http://www.dashboardwidgets.com/showcase/details.php?wid=281) and I've gotten the binary to work for on-click decode and download for unencrypted mpgs. Anyone know the legal ramifications of putting this feature in?
Thanks
-John
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12-09-2006 @ 8:11PM
msr said...
You're funny :)
Reply
12-09-2006 @ 8:54PM
Michael Rose said...
#1 -- John, IANAL, but some products that use open-source components to decode video for repurposing (I'm thinking of forty-two in this case) force the user to download the relevant libraries separately, rather than packaging them as part of the product. Not sure whether this provides any real cover.
#2 -- thanks. We do try.
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12-09-2006 @ 8:57PM
Samuel McConnell said...
Hm, TivoDecode is what I called my Automator workflow that does the job, the one I released days ago.
http://www.geocities.com/kyoutekia
Reply
12-09-2006 @ 9:07PM
John B Hopper IV said...
Michael,
What about the actual un-DRMing? Is that considered "illegal"? I'd like to release the widget with the feature, but don't want TiVo knocking on my door. :)
-John
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12-09-2006 @ 9:11PM
John B Hopper IV said...
OK, I'm an idiot.. you were suggesting making the user install the binary... (I'm sick - my brain isn't working well! :) - it's an idea, unfortunately not very elegant.
The DirectShow guy never got sued did he?
-John
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12-09-2006 @ 10:04PM
Michael Rose said...
Samuel -- sorry we didn't know about your Automator workflow, want me to add the link to the main post?
John -- again, I am not a lawyer and you probably want to talk to one. Judging by the DMCA and DeCSS cases, it seems likely to me that tivodecode is potentially under the shadow of the DMCA, but you would be better off asking the gang at the EFF for an opinion.
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12-09-2006 @ 11:15PM
Dan Riley said...
The largest subscriber base of TIVO users is DirecTIVO,
yet we are the last to get any help with putting video
we have recorded into our Macs or PCs for that matter.
It's depressing. All of you who record with stand alone units
have much less quality video than we do because your
units have to encode and decode the signal all over again
while we just record the digital stream right from the sat feed.
It's such a shame the only place we can watch it is on our TVs.
Dan
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12-10-2006 @ 10:33AM
Samuel McConnell said...
If you want to, Michael, then go ahead.
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12-10-2006 @ 12:24PM
marc said...
Does anyone know if these will work with Comcast (Motorola) boxes? I tried both software approaches, but no luck. Just not sure if they *should* work - meaning I'm doing something wrong. Thanks.
Reply
12-10-2006 @ 8:22PM
stooke said...
Is there a file decode option for non-tivo-to-go files yet? I have a Tivo 1 without Tivo to Go, and you used to have to streap the video to another system - it seemed awkward.
Reply
12-11-2006 @ 12:29AM
ClunkClunk said...
"Does anyone know if these will work with Comcast (Motorola) boxes? I tried both software approaches, but no luck. Just not sure if they *should* work - meaning I'm doing something wrong. Thanks."
No, these will not, as they are not TiVo boxes. These scripts are actually very specific, for TiVo Series 2 Stand Alones.
Reply