# Burn a Tivo File to a DVD (Free Apps Only & NO VideoReDo)



## hurricanedavid (Jul 21, 2007)

I am about to drive myself crazy trying to burn a Tivo recording (Series2) to DVD. Please don't tell me how *VideoReDo *will do it. I know it will. I'm trying to do it for free, and can't understand why it is so hard to get good info on how to do this. I guess the free solution is pretty complex, since it seems to be so hard to find.

I can successfully get a Tivo recording into MPG format by using *TivoDecode*. But then I've tried to bring that MPG into both *DVDFlick *and *DVDStyler*, and both fail at creating the ISO file.

I'm guessing I could use *Movie Maker* to essentially transcode the file, but would like to avoid that if possible.

By extensive searching on these forums, I've also found *DVDPatcher*, which can edit the "video area", which someone used to get the file editable for use in *TMPGEnc *something (an authoring program, I think). But I never got that to be of any use.

Can someone help? I, and I'm sure many more, would be very grateful.

Side note: I've also found the free *DVDVideoSoftStudio*, which has a Video Dub program in it that lets me edit out the commercials seemingly without reencoding.

Again, please don't post about VRD or some other paid app, there are plenty of other "how can I burn" posts with that as the solution.


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## steve614 (May 1, 2006)

Free or fast?

You can't have both.


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## cburbs (Jan 29, 2009)

So you want to convert your MPG to dvd format so you can burn it on a DVD?


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## GISJason420 (Feb 9, 2009)

iTiVo FTW


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## Phantom Gremlin (Jun 20, 2002)

GISJason420 said:


> iTiVo FTW


He doesn't say anything about owning a Mac. Maybe iTiVo is a good reason to buy one, but he does say "I'm trying to do it for free".


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## lew (Mar 12, 2002)

I'll tell you what you don't want to hear. Many of us have wasted a lot of time trying the free solutions. VRD can handles "errors" in tivo files that other programs (free and paid) can't.

You'd see a lot of threads discussing free programs if they woked well.

You already know how to generate a mpg file. Do a google search for free mpg to dvd programs.

You can try http://dvdauthor.sourceforge.net/ That's probably one of the better free programs. Probably as good as many of the commercial programs.

There is a reason why these threads end with multiple posters suggesting VRD, it works.

edited to add (in case I wasn't clear) you asked:


> can't understand why it is so hard to get good info on how to do this. I guess the free solution is pretty complex, since it seems to be so hard to find.


 no the reason is the free solutions don't work (100%) of the time with mpg files that come from a tivo.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

In order for DVDStyler, or any other program based on dvdauthor, to create a DVD from an .mpg file that file must have empty NAV packets muxed into it. Decrypted .tivo files do not. The only way to get them is to demux the file to elementary streams and then remux them using mplex. However it's slightly more complicated then that because in order to maintain sync you must first run the original file through mpeg2desc to get the A/V offset...

mpeg2desc -m < [inputfile]

then feed the value it returns into mplex like so...

mplex -f 8 -O [value]mts -o [output file] [video stream] [audio stream]

After that's done you can feed the resulting .mpg file into DVDStyler to make your DVD.

All told it takes at least 5 steps to go from .tivo file to DVD. (i.e decrypt file, get offset, demux, remux, author DVD) 6 if the file is HD and has to be recoded first. VideoReDo can do it all, and edit out the commercials, in one step.

I know you're reluctant to buy VideoReDo, but you should download the trial. At the very least you'll be able to knock out a few DVDs during the 15 day trail and save yourself a little hassle in the short term.

Dan


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## dlfl (Jul 6, 2006)

Although I haven't used it for two years or so, DVDStyler now claims to automate all the steps Dan203 mentions, except decrypting the .TiVo, and it claims to support every conceivable input file format, using ffmpeg I believe.

So why didn't it work with the OP's input file? One answer could be related to another major benefit of VideoReDo, which is that it *repairs* mpeg2 streams, either implicitly during file save or DVD creation, or explicitly by running its "Quick Stream Fix". I've seen numerous posts on this and other forums where users found QSF was the *only* way they could get a useable mpeg2 video.

A frequent pattern is that of the user who searches and tries many things and finally ends up buying VideoReDo because there is no free solution that does what it does. You can automate VRD QSF and/or commercial detection using TVAP (link in signature) or kmttg (see thread here).


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## dbtom (Feb 14, 2002)

lew said:


> I'll tell you what you don't want to hear. Many of us have wasted a lot of time trying the free solutions. VRD can handles "errors" in tivo files that other programs (free and paid) can't.


Absolutely agree. I wasted so many hours before buying VideoReDo. For me, I was on a long flight with my 2 year old when a bad Tivo DVD burn froze up. That was the last straw for me. I realized the price of VideoReDo is well worth my sanity.


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## moyekj (Jan 24, 2006)

Another strong endorsement for VideoRedo here. Even though with some pain you can get DVD authoring to work for free with other methods, ultimately you still need VRD Quick Stream Fix to guarantee no issues in the end result. There is no other tool (free or commercial) that I have found that fixes problems as well as VRD QS Fix. You could go the route of getting the cheaper $50 VRD Plus and then use another tool for DVD authoring such that you can still run Quick Stream Fix, but if you do that it may well be worth the extra money to get an all in one solution.
I am a strong advocate for public domain tools but in this case I can tell you that there is nothing that works as well as QS Fix that I have found.


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## txporter (Sep 18, 2006)

moyekj said:


> Another strong endorsement for VideoRedo here. Even though with some pain you can get DVD authoring to work for free with other methods, ultimately you still need VRD Quick Stream Fix to guarantee no issues in the end result. There is no other tool (free or commercial) that I have found that fixes problems as well as VRD QS Fix. You could go the route of getting the cheaper $50 VRD Plus and then use another tool for DVD authoring such that you can still run Quick Stream Fix, but if you do that it may well be worth the extra money to get an all in one solution.
> I am a strong advocate for public domain tools but in this case I can tell you that there is nothing that works as well as QS Fix that I have found.


+1

I use VRD Plus and burn with Imgburn if I need to burn a disk (which I hardly do anymore).


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## spocko (Feb 4, 2009)

txporter said:


> +1
> 
> I use VRD Plus and burn with Imgburn if I need to burn a disk (which I hardly do anymore).


I've considered that combo. Use VRD Plus to edit and qsfix, some other tool to author the DVD, Imgburn to actually burn the DVD. Many people already have another non-free tool that can author DVDs, such as Nero Vision or another video editing program. Is there any downside to this approach other than having to use multiple programs?


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## dlfl (Jul 6, 2006)

spocko said:


> I've considered that combo. Use VRD Plus to edit and qsfix, some other tool to author the DVD, Imgburn to actually burn the DVD. Many people already have another non-free tool that can author DVDs, such as Nero Vision or another video editing program. Is there any downside to this approach other than having to use multiple programs?


Possibly..... Some authoring programs (e.g., Roxio, Nero) may force a time-consuming and unnecessary transcode of your input file to meet *their* requirements for video dimensions and/or bit rate, or audio format. Modern DVD players are very tolerant of mpeg2's that don't meet official standards for NTSC or PAL videos so this transcoding usually isn't needed.

VideoReDo TVSuite gives you complete visibility and flexibility so you can decide whether to let it transcode to meet NTSC standards. In most cases you can bypass the transcoding.


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## steve614 (May 1, 2006)

Another thing I've noticed with VideoReDo TV Suite is that it uses the maximum available DVD recording space.

I can make a DVD using Nero and see that it only used 3/4 of the disk.
VRD utilizes all the space.


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## rambler (Dec 3, 2005)

I have VRD now, but years back used to use "tvharmony" to convert tivo to avi. Then use a program called "avitodvd" to make something burnable.

Tvharmony was the least user friendly software i ever encountered.


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## Tobashadow (Nov 11, 2006)

TivoDecode then the free version of DivxtoDvd

http://www.videohelp.com/download/vsoDivxToDVD_setup_0.52.99.exe

Yes i know its not a divx file but it works trust me.


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## lew (Mar 12, 2002)

DivxtoDvd is now a $50 program. The previous poster supplied a link to a more then 5 year ol version of the program It was free then.

It may work OK but you'll obviously not get the support you get from a product like VRD. You'll be missing more then 5 years of updates.

Give it a shot. There is a reason why these threads go back to VRD. Very few free programs. Those that exist have issues.


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## txporter (Sep 18, 2006)

I agree with everything others are saying here. You could also try AVStoDVD. This is a freeware conversion/authoring program that is built on an avisynth framework. It seems to be very good and has great support from the gentlemen that wrote it. It really is hard to go wrong with VIdeoredo. You will probably save yourself enough time to make up for the initial cost.


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## PaJo (Dec 17, 2001)

I have successfully used Devede to create dvds from mpg files, but have done it more often with flash files from sources similar to Youtube. . I usually set it up to make an iso file then burn it using a different program but I have used devede to actually burn the disk as well. I understand there is a devede version for windows but I never tried that version http://majorsilence.com/devede

It's not hard to use devede for a basic video, you select DVD Video for any stand alone player, add whatever files you want and select the quality (bit rate) Some times it takes a while to process the files, and when transcoding some lower quality YouTube type videos, the final quality is not always as good as copying a dvd. I never got into creating fancy menu options, I just set it up to play the movies without any intervention.

I have also been successful using mencoder to fix idx problems with mpg/vob files.

Two other free programs you may want to add to your collection are winff and ffmpeg - winff is an easy to use 
gui for ffmpeg which will convert various formats.


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## bciocco (Mar 28, 2009)

I have used DirectShowDump and DVD Flick to make DVDs. DSD is hard to find and I don't remember where I got it. 
I just converted last week's "Chuck". It took my computer about 16 minutes to convert a 6 gig, 1 hour hd .tivo file to a 6 gig .mpg file. If I was going to put it on a DVD, I would use DVD Flick and let it run over night.

edit - 
This link here has instructions and links to DirectShowDump

http://www.dvd-ripping.biz/tivo-to-dvd.html


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