TiVo Desktop

TiVo Desktop copies recordings from a TiVo digital video recorder to a computer over the home network. Enter the box’s media access key, the ten-digit code from its settings that unlocks its recordings, and the program lists every show stored on the box with its title, episode and length.

Tick the ones you want and they transfer to the computer as .tivo files, a protected wrapper around ordinary MPEG video. The program’s own decoder plays those files on the computer and lets other players open them. A season recorded over the winter can be watched on a laptop or kept on a disk after the box is full.

It is a finished program. TiVo Desktop is no longer sold or developed, and its maker has moved on, but the transfer it performs happens entirely on the local network between the box and the computer, with no server in between. That is why it still works for the one direction that matters most, pulling recordings off the box.

The sections below cover the transfer, the protected files and how to play them, the other direction that no longer works reliably, and what the program is still good for.

Pulling recordings from the box

TiVo Desktop finds TiVo boxes on the local network by itself. Pick one, enter the media access key once, and the Now Playing list appears on the computer, the same list the box shows on the television. Select recordings and they queue for transfer, one after another, at the speed the home network allows. A long drama takes minutes over a wired connection.

Transfers can be set to run automatically. Choose a series and the program picks up each new episode as it is recorded, so a folder on the computer fills with the week’s shows without any clicks. Transferred recordings keep their titles and descriptions, so they stay recognisable in a folder.

The protected files, and playing them

Recordings from TiVo Desktop arrive as .tivo files, which are ordinary MPEG-2 or MPEG-4 video wrapped in protection tied to your media access key. The program installs a decoder that lets players on the computer open them with the key, and a converter in a higher edition once turned them into plain files for phones and tablets. The files stay locked on any computer without the key.

That protection is why the program’s decoder remained important to the community of TiVo owners. Recordings from newer boxes use a transport stream format that other tools decode unreliably, and the program’s own decoder was long the one guaranteed way to open them.

For playing the decoded video with every format quirk handled, VLC Media Player is the usual choice once a file is unwrapped.

The other direction

TiVo Desktop also sent videos and photos from the computer to the box, so a family’s home videos appeared in the television’s list alongside the recordings. That direction depended on the maker’s servers to announce the computer to the box, and users have reported it failing since those servers were switched off. Pulling recordings down still works. Pushing media up often does not.

Owners who want the computer visible on the television have moved to a community program built for exactly that. A community media server for the box serves a library of video from the computer to it and transcodes on the fly, and it does the job the original has lost.

What it is still good for

Here is the plain answer. It is still good for getting recordings off a TiVo box onto a computer, which needs only the box, the computer and the home network. It is still good for opening the protected files those transfers produce. For someone retiring an old box, that is the way to save the recordings before it goes. For a household with a working box, it is the way to watch recordings away from the television.

It is not good for sending media to the box, and it is not good on a computer where its old decoder clashes with current players. A recording converted to a plain file is the sounder archive, and HandBrake converts the decoded video into a standard format that plays anywhere, with no key.

Conclusion

TiVo Desktop suits owners of a TiVo box who want their recordings on a computer, to watch away from the television or to save before an old box is retired. Its decoder is the one tool that opens the protected files it produces. The transfer over the home network still works exactly as designed.

It is finished software with one direction lost, and its files stay tied to your key. Pull the recordings down, convert the ones you want to keep into plain files, and hand the serving side to the community tool built for it.