Hands-on with TiVo Desktop 2.5
(Credit: TiVo)TiVo released an upgrade to TiVo Desktop application yesterday, a PC-based application that allows TiVo Series2 owners to stream music and photos from networked PCs to the TiVo, as well as download TV shows from their TiVo to a PC--a feature called TiVoToGo. The newest update--TiVo Desktop 2.5--offers some significant upgrades: Windows Vista compatibility, DivX and Xvid support for transferring videos on your PC to the TiVo, and automatic conversion of TiVoToGo files for viewing on portable devices, such as an iPod or a PSP.
The feature we were most interested in was the ability to send DivX and Xvid videos from our PC to our Series2 TiVo. To use this feature, you'll need to spend an extra $25 for the TiVo Desktop 2.5 Plus Upgrade, which also enables the ability to automatically convert TiVoToGo files for portables. Once we paid for the update and input our registration key, the process was pretty simple. The TiVo Desktop software simply looks in the My TiVo Recordings folder on your PC for compatible DivX files. Since most users will probably have the files saved somewhere else, TiVo provides an easy workaround--just create a shortcut in the My TiVo Recordings folder that points to the location of your DivX files. In our case, we just created a shortcut to the My Videos folder; our DivX files then showed up as available to transfer.
The transfer process itself is slow, and it seemed to monopolize our PC. After we set it up to transfer a DivX file, the TiVo Desktop application spiked to 90 percent CPU usage, according to Windows Task Manager. This most likely means that the program is transcoding files to a TiVo-friendly file rather than the Series2 box playing the files natively. In our experience, the transfer process wasn't flawless either--a couple small movie trailers transfered fine, but two larger files got stuck and effectively hung. So while we loved the idea of watching DivX and Xvid files on our TiVo, there were enough hiccups that we felt that burning DivX files to a DVD and watching them on a DivX-compatible DVD player is still a whole lot easier--especially since even bargain DVD players have DivX compatibility now.
(Credit: TiVo)Converting files for portable use was easy, although very slow. First, we transferred an episode of The Office from our TiVo to our PC, which took about 30 minutes over our wireless network--equivalent to the length of the show. After that, we had to only right-click on the file and tell it to convert for the PSP, and off it went. Unfortunately, it took about 45 minutes before it was ready to go.
What's nice about the 2.5 update is that you can tell the TiVo to automatically convert transferred files to your preferred format, so you can set up a bunch of recordings to transfer and convert while you're at work, for example. You also have the option of whether you want the original, full-size file to be automatically deleted or to keep it. And you can also set up the software to automatically transfer a series, so, for example, every episode of The Office can be set to transfer to your PC, then converted to portable format, and they will be ready for the next morning's commute without you having to do anything. The video quality on our PSP was pretty good, and we were able to watch in its native wide-screen aspect ratio. There's no denying the whole process is slow, but the automation makes it easier to swallow. Unlike the DivX playback, we could actually see ourselves using this feature.
The TiVo HD lags behind the older Series2 in network functionality
(Credit: CNET)While TiVo Desktop 2.5 offers new functionality for Series2 owners, there are still many holes in TiVo's support for network media functions across the product line. Both TiVoToGo and the ability to transfer video to the TiVo are not available for the newest Series3 and TiVo HD, which makes it harder for TiVo to differentiate itself from the DVRs provided by the cable company, which are usually cheaper. Mac users are also left behind in this update, as TiVo Desktop for Mac is unable to automatically encode video for portable devices or transfer DivX files to the TiVo. So while we're happy to see TiVo continue to support the Series2 TiVo--a more than five-year-old product--we're really hoping to see this functionality on the newest HD-capable TiVos.
Why isn't the top-of-the-line box getting all the good features? Piracy worries with HD content? Surely it could excluded from transcoding if necessary.
My PSP is waiting for all this TiVo goodness but it's being left hungrier than a supermodel in a buffet line.
OK I said, let's install it on my laptop. This time, it was almost the same. Copying movies FROM tivo worked fine....sending movies TO Tivo...nope.
I finally gave up, re-installed the freeware version, only wish I could get my $25 back. Oh well, lesson learned.
Without the listing function, transfers to my PC are not possible.
I guess I'll just have to wait for version 2.6.
all in all, if you want convenience, then stick with tivo to go and pay the $25 to do it all for you.
btw, the free tivo to go also allows you the option to transfer a series automatically as well.
I am a rather new user of Tivo and Tivo Desktop 2.4a, but I have the application on two machines (could not install it on the vista laptop) and I have 2 Tivo boxes, all on a home network, all wired, no wireless. I have gained a lot of experience with this over the past couple months and used everything heavily. I am sorry to say that the transfer rate from Tivo to computer or reverse is terribly slow, as in, about 5 Mbps even on a 100 Mbps network (just faster than real time for "High Quality"). This is known by Tivo and not getting fixed and from what I could learn, *never* getting fixed. It's an abominable transfer rate. I would love to know why. And I'm talking over the wire.
Also, the application is a pig (as in, runs like a dog). Try transferring something. It pegs one of the 3 GHz processors on my power machine and even keeps the other somewhat busy. In fact, it pegs the processor just in the act of *selecting* things to transfer. And note the RAM usage. Ever upward and never back down, indicating a memory leak. If the program doesn't crash out on you, you can get the memory back if you close the program.
Try selecting and transferring 20 full length programs at once. Sure, you wouldn't do this much, but if you do, you eat well over 2 GB of RAM and your machine will be most unhappy. My rock solid XPP machine had to change virtual memory settings during this. And it takes, literally... all day... but of course, you already knew that from the transfer rate I mentioned. Oh, and I calculated that carefully.
Of course, the Tivo box runs linux and the application is open sourced, so, what can I expect? I suppose I should be debugging it myself. Maybe after I get 2.5 I'll create version 2.5J for Jim.
So, can I say something nice? Yes. The fact is, I will continue to use the program, because I need it for what I want to do. Given the choice of having it, such as it is, or having nothing, I'll take it. Also, it's free. But not really, is it? Because it's advertised as a feature of the product. Which is why I don't cut them any slack for not having the vista version out long ago.
Lastly, I will say that even with these complaints, I am very happy with Tivo. I'm using them both together on a rock bottom basic cable system and it's been a real pleasure. I've even been able to teach 80 year olds how to use all this new stuff.
Thanks for letting me blow steam,
Jim