# New Guide: Transferring Tivo episodes to your iPhone with a Mac and PC



## TivoRocks193 (Aug 10, 2005)

Just thought members of the Tivo Community might like this new blog post I've entitled "Transferring Tivo episodes to your iPhone with a Mac and PC"

http://www.selikoff.net/blog/2008/08/01/transferring-tivo-episodes-to-your-iphone-with-a-mac-and-pc/

Basically I setup a transfer using the 'best of both worlds', my PC which has terabytes of data, and my Mac which I use to sync my iPhone. The instructions are general for iTouch, iPods, etc. Enjoy!


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## iJasonY (Aug 1, 2008)

Here's the way I do it completely on a Mac:


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## TivoRocks193 (Aug 10, 2005)

Thanks for the link. The only problem I have is my MacBook has limited space, so other than buying a lot of expensive external drives, I prefer the mix and match approach.


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## iJasonY (Aug 1, 2008)

TivoRocks193 said:


> Thanks for the link. The only problem I have is my MacBook has limited space, so other than buying a lot of expensive external drives, I prefer the mix and match approach.


I think your approach is great, but in your blog post you said you'd leave it to somebody else to explain/demonstrate using Toast. That's what I've done, so just trying to add to your already really good post.

FWIW, when I was using my TiVo and a PC, I really preferred using PQ-DVD to convert my ".TiVo" files. I thought it did a better job and was much faster.

Since creating the video podcast in my original post, I have purchased the Elgato Turbo.264 device, and it drastically speeds up the encoding process along with keeping the load off the CPU so I can continue to do other meaningful work on my Mac.


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## TivoRocks193 (Aug 10, 2005)

I need to get an iMac or Mac Pro to solve storage problems. Seriously though, I'm glad someone covered Toast version, haven't tried it before. Thanks!

The PC version can be cumbersome on the transfer... Tivo Desktop doesn't understand "File Performance" and tends to blast the computer for processing power regardless of the setting thats supposed to prevent it. Granted, I believe this is iTunes fault (since Tivo calls iTunes for the transfer) but still.. never seen a quad processor at 90&#37; before.


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## urkel-Os (Oct 23, 2005)

iJasonY said:


> Here's the way I do it completely on a Mac:


Well done, iJasonY. I am interested in putting some TiVo video files on my iPod Touch, and I have a question about conversion of TiVo files. I looked into getting Toast Titanium 9 for my Mac, but it is a G4 and according to the TT9 specs, it will not convert HD video without a G5 or Intel processor. Do you know if the TT9 software will actually enforce this restriction? If not, I'd consider getting the Elgato turbo.264 to beef up the Mac's processing capabilities. Sorry, new to the TTG stuff, and as a Mac user, my options seem a bit limited. Thanks!


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## Andy D (Feb 1, 2008)

iJasonY said:


> I think your approach is great, but in your blog post you said you'd leave it to somebody else to explain/demonstrate using Toast. That's what I've done, so just trying to add to your already really good post.
> 
> FWIW, when I was using my TiVo and a PC, I really preferred using PQ-DVD to convert my ".TiVo" files. I thought it did a better job and was much faster.
> 
> Since creating the video podcast in my original post, I have purchased the Elgato Turbo.264 device, and it drastically speeds up the encoding process along with keeping the load off the CPU so I can continue to do other meaningful work on my Mac.


Your video on converting TiVo to H.264 using Toast was very good. Thanks for doing this.

You mentioned using the Elgato Turbo.264 device, which looks interesting. I read the specs from Elgato and it makes no mention of conveting .tivo files.

I have an iMac G5 with 1GB RAM running 1 Ghz and it takes a long, long time to convert a 1 hour show, so the Elgato Turbo.264 device looks like a real time saver.

What process do you need to use to use the Elgato Turbo.264 device to convert .tivo files?

Thanks,

Andy


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## iJasonY (Aug 1, 2008)

Andy D said:


> Your video on converting TiVo to H.264 using Toast was very good. Thanks for doing this.
> 
> You mentioned using the Elgato Turbo.264 device, which looks interesting. I read the specs from Elgato and it makes no mention of conveting .tivo files.
> 
> ...


Hi Andy, sorry it has taken me a while to get back to you. The Elgato Turbo.264 device is detected by Roxio Toast and uses that to encode your videos instead of your processor. You will see a HUGE improvement over your G5 doing the heavy lifting. I see a pretty good improvement on my 3.06Ghz Core 2 Duo iMac, so yours should be substantial. It is definitely money well spent for the time savings. Also, the Elgato Turbo.264 is compatible with any application on the Mac that exports to QuickTime so iMovie, Final Cut Express, and Final Cut Pro can use it as well.

iJasonY - http://www.techjunkie.me


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## bedelman (Feb 26, 2001)

Note that support for the Turbo.264 is in Toast 9 (and not Toast 8). Toast 9 also includes a video streaming application named Streamer that, although it's a bit buggy, is pretty neat (and encoding for Streamer will also use the Turbo.264)


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## TivoRocks193 (Aug 10, 2005)

I added a post about Toast 10, which I'm sorry to say, is severely limited. I start writing AppleScript's to try to make up for the application's shortcomings in regards to Tivo, but an hour in I realized I was basically writing 99% of the functionality, which seemed like re-inventing the wheel rather than connecting a few dots.

http://www.selikoff.net/blog/2009/10/06/toast-10-review-for-tivo-users/


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