# VLC won't play my .tivo file But WMP 11 will



## hurricanedavid (Jul 21, 2007)

I just installed Stinky's MPEG-2 Codecs, and WMP 11 plays my .tivo files just fine. 

How can I get VLC to play them as well?


Tivo Series 2 DT
Win XP Pro sp2


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## wmcbrine (Aug 2, 2003)

Strip the DRM.

They only work in WiMP because TiVo Desktop installs a thingamajig for them. VLC doesn't use system codecs/filters/whatnot, so the .TiVo file won't work. But if you convert it to a plain MPEG, it should work fine.


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## hurricanedavid (Jul 21, 2007)

k. It does work after I convert them to MPG. But I was hoping I didn't have to.

Thank you


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## wmcbrine (Aug 2, 2003)

If you strip the DRM with something like tivodecode, it's a lossless process (apart from the metadata).


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## Yoav (Jan 13, 2007)

hurricanedavid said:


> k. It does work after I convert them to MPG. But I was hoping I didn't have to.
> 
> Thank you


Just so it's clear, when you're 'converting them to mpeg' you're not really converting. You're extracting the mpeg that is in there so that it is playable everywhere, not just on the computer that has the right drivers installed and the right key set. (This is known as DRM).

So there's absolutely NO good reason to avoid this. It means your files will work. Work when you take them to another computer, and work in 50 years when/if tivo is long gone and stop making plugins for future media players.


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## jtkohl (Feb 7, 2004)

wmcbrine said:


> If you strip the DRM with something like tivodecode, it's a lossless process (apart from the metadata).


Well, you can keep at least some of the metadata with the -D or --dump-metadata flags.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

wmcbrine said:


> They only work in WiMP because TiVo Desktop installs a thingamajig for them. VLC doesn't use system codecs/filters/whatnot, so the .TiVo file won't work. But if you convert it to a plain MPEG, it should work fine.


That "thingamajig" is called a DirectShow filter. Windows Media Player uses DirectShow, VLC does not.

That being said I think there is a way to get mplayer to use tivodecode to play .tivo files without the need for DirectShow. However, as far as I know, no one has come up with a similar hack for VLC.

Dan


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## murrayandstacey (Feb 2, 2009)

Dan203 said:


> That "thingamajig" is called a DirectShow filter. Windows Media Player uses DirectShow, VLC does not.
> 
> That being said I think there is a way to get mplayer to use tivodecode to play .tivo files without the need for DirectShow. However, as far as I know, no one has come up with a similar hack for VLC.
> 
> Dan


This might be a bit off topic but -- Would installing another directshow filter under a secondary user account (in Vista) allow the secondary user to watch .tivo content on the PC? The Admin account can download and play fine via Tivo Desktop 2.7. The secodary account has access to the folder containing the .tivo content but is unable to play the .tivo content. Any ideas?


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## moongdss74 (Jun 6, 2009)

not sure if this helps guys, but I was having the same issue and I just downloaded v.9 of VLC and it now plays my files without a problem. I think the playback quality of WM11 looks a bit better, but YMMV


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## gonzotek (Sep 24, 2004)

Dan203 said:


> That "thingamajig" is called a DirectShow filter. Windows Media Player uses DirectShow, VLC does not.
> 
> That being said I think there is a way to get mplayer to use tivodecode to play .tivo files without the need for DirectShow. However, as far as I know, no one has come up with a similar hack for VLC.
> 
> Dan




```
tivodecode -m $MAK -o - filename.TiVo | vlc -
```
Replace $MAK with your media access key. This line says: Invoke tivodecode using my Media Access Key, pipe the output to stdout, and invoke vlc with piped input from stdin. Note the "*-o - *", and the trailing dash after vlc, these are important.

The drawback of using this method is that you can't seek in the file, only pausing and playing will work.


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## wkearney99 (Dec 5, 2003)

Anything available that will also transcode the metadata from the .tivo file? MPG has the ability to hold all of the same info but tivodecode doesn't appear to bring it over.


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