# Preserving Tivo shows: ISO file vs VIDEO_TS file



## fbhk (May 30, 2011)

I'm just figuring out how to transfer Tivo programs burned to dvd-r discs onto my Seagate external hard drive. I've noticed that I can save the disc as either an ISO file to my computer, then copy the ISO file to the Seagate, or I can copy the program from dvd-r disc directly to the Seagate as a VIDEO_TS file (thus saving the extra step of copying to my computer first). I want to save these shows to my hard drive so I can stop using dvd-r discs and use rewritable discs, but I want to be able to burn them to disc later if desired.
I've burned both the ISO file and VIDEO_TS file to a blank disc and believe the quality to be the same. Is there any advantage to saving these programs as either ISO files or VIDEO_TS files? I assume there's no difference, but I wanted to ask. Thanks.


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## dianebrat (Jul 6, 2002)

Tivo shows are MPEG, I don't understand why you just don't save them that way.


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## fbhk (May 30, 2011)

If I rip the discs to my computer without using a dvd copy software program, they only show up on my computer as "video clip", not mpeg, and I can't burn them to disc later since they're not an ISO image or a VIDEO_TS file. Am I missing something?


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## mattack (Apr 9, 2001)

You can just *download* the shows to your computer -- on Windows with the official Tivo software, or on other platforms (e.g. Mac) with things like kmttg.. If you have them do the automatic decoding, they end up with regular MPEG files. (However, to play them back on a Mac, you need VLC, mPlayer, or most but not all play with MPEG Streamclip along with Apple's MPEG 2 playback component.) The "decoding" is not video conversion, the quality is not changed.


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## dianebrat (Jul 6, 2002)

fbhk said:


> If I rip the discs to my computer


huh? rip the discs? you've completely lost me,
A Tivo records in MPEG with a simple DRM wrapper, DirectShowDump can then convert it with your MAK to a standard MPEG.

So I would have the Tivo record it, use TivoDesktop to bring it to a PC, use DSD to convert it to an MPEG with no loss or transcoding, and then archive it in the manner of my choosing.

Are you using one of the Tivo/DVD combo units?


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## fbhk (May 30, 2011)

I've tried to download to my computer using Tivo Desktop, but many of the programs are 3-4 hours long (all are in HD, none in SD), and the transfers always fail between 1/4 and 1/2 of the way through. I have two Tivo HD units, one is hard wired to my router (Linksys E4200 dual band gigabit), the other has a Tivo wireless N adapter, but neither will transfer a complete program. Therefore, if I want to save something, I'm forced to record from Tivo to disc, then burn/rip the disc to my computer (if I don't want to keep a disc around but want the ability to burn to disc later). 
If I could tranfer the programs via Tivo Desktop, I wouldn't have a problem. Are you able to transfer long programs in HD successfully?


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## orangeboy (Apr 19, 2004)

fbhk said:


> Are you able to transfer long programs in HD successfully?


Yes, regularly. I use kmttg (and tivodecode) in place of TiVo Desktop.


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## wmcbrine (Aug 2, 2003)

Are these files, by any chance, being truncated at the 2 or 4 gigabyte point? There's a known problem with a certain virus scanner (IIRC) where it does that.

Re: your original question, ISO files are basically the next step past the VIDEO_TS folder structure in making a DVD. If you were to mount an ISO as a virtual disk, VIDEO_TS is what you'd find inside it. So yeah, no difference.

And guess what's in the VIDEO_TS folder? An MPEG program stream. Except that it's chopped up into 1-gigabyte chunks, which are given the extension ".VOB", and some chapter info and other stuff is added.


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## ggieseke (May 30, 2008)

fbhk said:


> I've tried to download to my computer using Tivo Desktop, but many of the programs are 3-4 hours long (all are in HD, none in SD), and the transfers always fail between 1/4 and 1/2 of the way through. I have two Tivo HD units, one is hard wired to my router (Linksys E4200 dual band gigabit), the other has a Tivo wireless N adapter, but neither will transfer a complete program. Therefore, if I want to save something, I'm forced to record from Tivo to disc, then burn/rip the disc to my computer (if I don't want to keep a disc around but want the ability to burn to disc later).
> If I could tranfer the programs via Tivo Desktop, I wouldn't have a problem. Are you able to transfer long programs in HD successfully?


Sounds like you're transferring to a disk that's formatted as FAT32 instead of NTFS. FAT32 has a maximum file size of 4GB. If the files are getting cut off at 2GB you're probably running Kaspersky antivirus.


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## dianebrat (Jul 6, 2002)

fbhk said:


> Are you able to transfer long programs in HD successfully?


Yes, 19.6GB, does that count as long? :up:
I would with with the other suggestions such as verifying you have an drive that can support the large files, and then the potential antivirus issues.

And I STILL don't get how you're getting them on to a disc! are you taking the output of the Tivo and feeding it in to a DVD burner? If so you're making it a lot more complicated, fixing that transfer glitch would make your life much easier and give you better archival copies since there would be no processing.


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## fbhk (May 30, 2011)

orangeboy said:


> Yes, regularly. I use kmttg (and tivodecode) in place of TiVo Desktop.


I'm new at this, so bear with me. I think I read in one of the posts above that kmttg is for Mac, and I have a PC. Can I use kmttg with Windows?


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## jcthorne (Jan 28, 2002)

Not to mention the HD resolution shows would be stored as HD rather than being downconverted to SD.

Yes, really need to get your tivo to go figured out rather than this dvd burning kluge.


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## fbhk (May 30, 2011)

wmcbrine said:


> Are these files, by any chance, being truncated at the 2 or 4 gigabyte point? There's a known problem with a certain virus scanner (IIRC) where it does that.
> 
> Re: your original question, ISO files are basically the next step past the VIDEO_TS folder structure in making a DVD. If you were to mount an ISO as a virtual disk, VIDEO_TS is what you'd find inside it. So yeah, no difference.
> 
> And guess what's in the VIDEO_TS folder? An MPEG program stream. Except that it's chopped up into 1-gigabyte chunks, which are given the extension ".VOB", and some chapter info and other stuff is added.


I'm not sure at what point the files are being truncated. Most of the files are 20-35 gb, and I've seen them get beyond the 2gb point. I would say it's possible the transfers are failing at the 4 gb point, but I haven't stayed glued to the tranfsers long enough to find out. 
Thanks for the info on ISO and VIDEO_TS files.


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## fbhk (May 30, 2011)

ggieseke said:


> Sounds like you're transferring to a disk that's formatted as FAT32 instead of NTFS. FAT32 has a maximum file size of 4GB. If the files are getting cut off at 2GB you're probably running Kaspersky antivirus.


I am running Kaspersky (per Best Buy's recommendation when I bought my HP desktop there 6 months ago). Assuming you're right that my hard drive is formatted as FAT32 instead of NTFS, how do I go about reformatting to NTFS?


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## fbhk (May 30, 2011)

dianebrat said:


> Yes, 19.6GB, does that count as long? :up:
> I would with with the other suggestions such as verifying you have an drive that can support the large files, and then the potential antivirus issues.
> 
> And I STILL don't get how you're getting them on to a disc! are you taking the output of the Tivo and feeding it in to a DVD burner? If so you're making it a lot more complicated, fixing that transfer glitch would make your life much easier and give you better archival copies since there would be no processing.


Most of the files I'm trying to transfer are 20-35GB, so as the posts above suggest, either my hard drive currently won't support such large files, or Kaspersky is interfering with the transfer. Will investigate.
As far as getting the programs onto disc, I'm doing just what you said. I'm taking the recorded Tivo program and burning it onto a dvd-r disc through a dvd recorder. Isn't that standard practice if you know you want to keep a copy of a program on a disc?


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

fbhk said:


> Most of the files I'm trying to transfer are 20-35GB, so as the posts above suggest, either my hard drive currently won't support such large files, or Kaspersky is interfering with the transfer. Will investigate.
> As far as getting the programs onto disc, I'm doing just what you said. I'm taking the recorded Tivo program and burning it onto a dvd-r disc through a dvd recorder. Isn't that standard practice if you know you want to keep a copy of a program on a disc?


How are you burning a 20 to 35GB file to a DVD? A DVD only holds 8.5GB.
Even if you used a BD, you would need a dual layer BD to go over 25GB plus it is very slow. Hard drives are inexpensive and very large now. They are also much quicker to copy a file to than burning it to a DVD or BD.


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## evanborkow (Mar 17, 2008)

fbhk said:


> I am running Kaspersky (per Best Buy's recommendation when I bought my HP desktop there 6 months ago). Assuming you're right that my hard drive is formatted as FAT32 instead of NTFS, how do I go about reformatting to NTFS?


With Kaspersky, you have to make an exception for the program you are using to transfer from the tivo to your pc.


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## fbhk (May 30, 2011)

aaronwt said:


> How are you burning a 20 to 35GB file to a DVD? A DVD only holds 8.5GB.
> Even if you used a BD, you would need a dual layer BD to go over 25GB plus it is very slow. Hard drives are inexpensive and very large now. They are also much quicker to copy a file to than burning it to a DVD or BD.


I'm having to use 3-4 dvd-r's per file. Cheaper than using dual layer but they pile up. I'm just now figuring out how to copy to file, so I'm going to stop using -r discs and use -rw's to copy to file. Then, if I can get the transfer issues fixed, I'm going to stop burning to disc altogether.


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## mattack (Apr 9, 2001)

fbhk said:


> I'm new at this, so bear with me. I think I read in one of the posts above that kmttg is for Mac, and I have a PC. Can I use kmttg with Windows?


kmttg is Java, so it's cross platform.. in other words, the UI is probably funky on all platforms! (it's definitely not Mac-like.) But the functionality and the feature additions by the author make it worth dealing with the slight weirdness. (There's at least one feature he added just because I asked for it.)


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## ggieseke (May 30, 2008)

fbhk said:


> I am running Kaspersky (per Best Buy's recommendation when I bought my HP desktop there 6 months ago). Assuming you're right that my hard drive is formatted as FAT32 instead of NTFS, how do I go about reformatting to NTFS?


Kaspersky is the first issue. I think there may be a way to make an exception for kmttg or TiVo Desktop, but I don't use it. Their site may have more answers. You could always just remove it and use something else like Microsoft Security Essentials.

Assuming that you're running XP or later there's a utility called convert.exe built into Windows. If it's 95, 98 or ME it's time to buy a new PC.


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## unitron (Apr 28, 2006)

fbhk said:


> I am running Kaspersky (per Best Buy's recommendation when I bought my HP desktop there 6 months ago). Assuming you're right that my hard drive is formatted as FAT32 instead of NTFS, how do I go about reformatting to NTFS?


Ditch Kaspersky and just use the free version of Avast!.

If you're running a 6 month old HP PC I'm assuming you're running Windows 7, so you can run the new "advanced format" drives without a problem.

Go get a 2 or 3TB drive and add it as a second hard drive in your PC, and tell Windows to format it as one big NTFS partition.

Then install the free version of TiVo Desktop, and go into Preferences and change where it keeps the "My TiVo Recordings" folder to the partition on the new hard drive.

You can use Windows to create sub-folders inside that folder and sort your copied shows into them, and those folders will show up in your Tivo's Now Playing list, and you can look inside them.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

fbhk said:


> I am running Kaspersky


This is the program that has the problem wmcbrine described and is most likely what's causing you transfer issue.

That being said, even if you can get it to work, there are some trade offs to both methods. Downloading directly from the TiVo keeps the files HD, which is nice if you plan to watch them on an HDTV, however it also creates significantly larger files. By recording them on the DVD you're downresing them to SD, but DVD quality SD which is pretty good, and the files are 1/4 the size.

It all depends on your usage. If you're happy with the quality of the DVDs, and prefer the smaller files sizes, then stick with that. If you'd rather have the files in HD regardless of the file size then add the exception to Kaspersky and you should be able to download directly from the TiVo without issue.

Dan


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## fbhk (May 30, 2011)

unitron said:


> Ditch Kaspersky and just use the free version of Avast!.
> 
> If you're running a 6 month old HP PC I'm assuming you're running Windows 7, so you can run the new "advanced format" drives without a problem.
> 
> ...


Yes, I'm running Windows 7. I configured Kaspersky to make an exception for Tivo Desktop, but my transfers are continuing to stop at just over the 4GB point. I'm going to investigate this transfer issue a little more before I drop Kaspersky, but at least there's another option with Avast. I have a Seagate 3TB drive and will configure it as you suggest so the Tivo transfers will go directly to the Seagate. Thanks.


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## fbhk (May 30, 2011)

Dan203 said:


> This is the program that has the problem wmcbrine described and is most likely what's causing you transfer issue.
> 
> That being said, even if you can get it to work, there are some trade offs to both methods. Downloading directly from the TiVo keeps the files HD, which is nice if you plan to watch them on an HDTV, however it also creates significantly larger files. By recording them on the DVD you're downresing them to SD, but DVD quality SD which is pretty good, and the files are 1/4 the size.
> 
> ...


I've made the Tivo exception to Kaspersky, but the tranfers are cutting off just past the 4GB point. You're right - the picture quality of the DVDs is sufficient in most cases and the reduced file size is a plus, so I'll probably continue to do some burning to rewritable discs, then copying to an external hd to save space. I need to have the additional option of a direct transfer, however, so I'm going to keep trying to figure out why these transfers are stopping at 4GB. Thanks for your input.


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## dlfl (Jul 6, 2006)

With Win7 you need to be sure you're running the latest version of TiVo Desktop, 2.8.2 I believe. I've heard the built in upgrading feature doesn't always get the latest version.


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## dianebrat (Jul 6, 2002)

fbhk said:


> I've made the Tivo exception to Kaspersky, but the tranfers are cutting off just past the 4GB point. You're right - the picture quality of the DVDs is sufficient in most cases and the reduced file size is a plus, so I'll probably continue to do some burning to rewritable discs, then copying to an external hd to save space. I need to have the additional option of a direct transfer, however, so I'm going to keep trying to figure out why these transfers are stopping at 4GB. Thanks for your input.


Why not dump Kaspersky which is known to have this issue and move to Microsoft Security Essentials for a few weeks to eliminate Kaspersky (or confirm it)

It just sounds like you keep making things a lot harder than they should be in this situation.


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## fbhk (May 30, 2011)

dianebrat said:


> Why not dump Kaspersky which is known to have this issue and move to Microsoft Security Essentials for a few weeks to eliminate Kaspersky (or confirm it)
> 
> It just sounds like you keep making things a lot harder than they should be in this situation.


I'm attempting a transfer now with Kaspersky disabled, and it's at 4.5 GB and still working. Will try a few more transfers and if successful will get rid of Kaspersky as you suggest.


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## unitron (Apr 28, 2006)

fbhk said:


> I've made the Tivo exception to Kaspersky, but the tranfers are cutting off just past the 4GB point. You're right - the picture quality of the DVDs is sufficient in most cases and the reduced file size is a plus, so I'll probably continue to do some burning to rewritable discs, then copying to an external hd to save space. I need to have the additional option of a direct transfer, however, so I'm going to keep trying to figure out why these transfers are stopping at 4GB. Thanks for your input.


If you're transferring to a FAT32 partition you aren't going to get beyond 4GB because FAT32 can't do files bigger than that. You need an NTFS partition, preferably a second huge drive that's all one partition.


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## bschuler2007 (Feb 25, 2007)

With Windows 7, I highly doubt it is FAT32, unless it isn't his boot drive and is an external drive.

As for converting it to NTFS, it is just a simple dos command (no need to reinstall, no loss of data, etc). convert drive_letter: /fs:ntfs 

That said.. I would think this is anti-virus, firewall, or something software related. You don't happen to have anything Symantec or Firewall (besides Windows) related installed?

Also I second the suggestion to use Microsoft Security Center.


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## unitron (Apr 28, 2006)

I would expect anyything named Microsoft Security Center to be more concerned with Microsoft's security than mine.

The free version of Avast! and a little common sense should be all that's needed.


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## dianebrat (Jul 6, 2002)

unitron said:


> I would expect anyything named Microsoft Security Center to be more concerned with Microsoft's security than mine.


I suspect he meant Microsoft Security Essentials


unitron said:


> The free version of Avast! and a little common sense should be all that's needed.


MSE is regarded as a legitimate option, and the preferred free AV of many folks, myself included.


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## fbhk (May 30, 2011)

bschuler2007 said:


> With Windows 7, I highly doubt it is FAT32, unless it isn't his boot drive and is an external drive.
> 
> As for converting it to NTFS, it is just a simple dos command (no need to reinstall, no loss of data, etc). convert drive_letter: /fs:ntfs
> 
> ...


You're right - my computer has Win 7 and is NTFS, not FAT32. Made a successful transfer last night (finally) with Kaspersky disabled. Will drop Kaspersky and use Avast and Microsoft Security Center.


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## ggieseke (May 30, 2008)

I like Microsoft Security Essentials too. Windows Defender was only antispyware and you still needed your own antivirus, but MSE is both and it seems to work quite well.

AFAIK it's the only free program that isn't just a shill to get you to buy a full version. Microsoft has the capability and infrastructure to write a solid security app and give it away forever, which most companies don't.


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## fbhk (May 30, 2011)

ggieseke said:


> I like Microsoft Security Essentials too. Windows Defender was only antispyware and you still needed your own antivirus, but MSE is both and it seems to work quite well.
> 
> AFAIK it's the only free program that isn't just a shill to get you to buy a full version. Microsoft has the capability and infrastructure to write a solid security app and give it away forever, which most companies don't.


Good info -thanks.


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## unitron (Apr 28, 2006)

fbhk said:


> Good info -thanks.


I run the free version of Avast! for anti-virus and another free program, Spybot S&D, for anti-spyware, and I'm careful not to click on anything and everything or believe every email I get.

I'm unfamiliar with Microsoft Security Essentials, but if I were going to use it, I'd use it instead of Avast! and Spybot, not in addition to.

Before I used Avast!, I used the free version of AVG and liked it just fine, but they abandoned 98 SE before I did, so I switched.

What I use works for me, your mileage may vary, as your situation is no doubt not identical to mine.


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