# pyTivo install help.



## 2004raptor (Dec 31, 2005)

I wasn't sure if there was a dedicated thread so I made my own. I can post there if someone can point me to the correct thread.

I would like to get pyTivo working. I can't figure out how to install it.

I used this site:
http://pytivo.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/Windows_Install
I'm on windows 8.1 BTW.

1. Downloaded Python 3.4.1. Seemed to go OK. Installed to Cython34 directory. 
2. Installed the wmcbrine fork as it was said it's for beginners. Also extracted to CyTivo
3. made a copy of pyTivo.conf.dist in the above directory. Renamed to pyTivo.conf
4. Grabbed 64 bit of FFmpeg and copied the ffmpeg.exe to CyTivo\bin. I had to create a bin folder in the directory.
5. Also got tivodecode and put it in same folder as above.
6. I disabled windows firewall.
7. Went into CyTivo and clicked on the pyTivo file. Quick flash of window on screen and then gone.
8. Tried to open http://localhost:9032 in Chrome browser and get the customary "This webpage is not available"

Not sure what I've done wrong.


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## moyekj (Jan 24, 2006)

The very 1st line of the page you link to says this:


> pyTivo does not work with Python 2.4 and below, nor 3.0 and above.


You installed python 3.4. Try uninstalling that and install version 2.7 instead.


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## 2004raptor (Dec 31, 2005)

moyekj said:


> The very 1st line of the page you link to says this:
> 
> You installed python 3.4. Try uninstalling that and install version 2.7 instead.


I knew it wasn't my fault. 

Thanks. I'll try it later.


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## 2004raptor (Dec 31, 2005)

Edit - OK, got to http://localhost:9032/ now. I'm sure I'll be back shortly.


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## squint (Jun 15, 2008)

Now you get to deal with the fun stuff--problems caused by routers and firewalls.


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## 2004raptor (Dec 31, 2005)

OK, I'm working on it.

Got this so far. Everything look OK? Alot of the fields are blank????










Now the next part might be tricky. What I would like to do is to be able to access an external USB hard drive that is connected to my Western Digital Live box in the living room. Not even sure if tat's doable.

But I added \\WDTVLIVE\Elements\Movies to the path for my Movies. When I go to the "Push from MyMovies" I do see all my video files.

I assume my next step is to go to the Tivo and see if it sees these files???? i can't right now becasue the tv is in use.  But I will later.

How about the mini? Since I have these set to "push" does that mean I might can access them on the mini?

Am I close?


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## 2004raptor (Dec 31, 2005)

And I am confused on the next part about running python as a service.

I am running 2.7.8 64 bit. I did see a 2.7 but no 2.7*.8* but I may have overlooked instructions telling me the last part doesn't matter.  I just want to make sure before I download and configure.


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## lpwcomp (May 6, 2002)

2004raptor said:


> OK, I'm working on it.
> 
> Got this so far. Everything look OK? Alot of the fields are blank????


Both the "ffmpeg" and "tivodecode" entries are in error. They are supposed to be the FULL path to the executable, including the ".exe"

Assuming you put ffmpeg.exe in C:\pyTivo\bin, that entry should be:

C:\pyTivo\bin\ffmpeg.exe

similarly, the tivodecode line should be:

C:\pyTivo\bin\tivodecode.exe



2004raptor said:


> Now the next part might be tricky. What I would like to do is to be able to access an external USB hard drive that is connected to my Western Digital Live box in the living room. Not even sure if tat's doable.
> 
> But I added \\WDTVLIVE\Elements\Movies to the path for my Movies. When I go to the "Push from MyMovies" I do see all my video files.
> 
> I assume my next step is to go to the Tivo and see if it sees these files???? i can't right now becasue the tv is in use.  But I will later.


More or less.



2004raptor said:


> How about the mini? Since I have these set to "push" does that mean I might can access them on the mini?


No. They have to be transferred to a "real" TiVo before the Mini can access them.



2004raptor said:


> Am I close?


Yes.


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## lpwcomp (May 6, 2002)

2004raptor said:


> And I am confused on the next part about running python as a service.
> 
> I am running 2.7.8 64 bit. I did see a 2.7 but no 2.7*.8* but I may have overlooked instructions telling me the last part doesn't matter.  I just want to make sure before I download and configure.


It's not talking about running _*python*_ as a service, it's talking about running _*pyTivo*_ as a service. It's not necessary. I don't.


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## wmcbrine (Aug 2, 2003)

lpwcomp said:


> Both the "ffmpeg" and "tivodecode" entries are in error. They are supposed to be the FULL path to the executable, including the ".exe"


Also, ffplay is not ffmpeg.

Also, if ffmpeg.exe and tivodecode.exe are in pyTivo\bin, as here, there's no reason to specify their paths at all.


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## lpwcomp (May 6, 2002)

wmcbrine said:


> Also, ffplay is not ffmpeg.


Yes, I noticed that but decided to ignore it. I figured that explicitly posting what it should be would be enough.



wmcbrine said:


> Also, if ffmpeg.exe and tivodecode.exe are in pyTivo\bin, as here, there's no reason to specify their paths at all.


Knew that too and once again decided to ignore it.


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## 2004raptor (Dec 31, 2005)

thanks for the help. I guess I somehow copied the ffplay file instead of ffmpeg and I didn't know I needed the .exe.
Got that taken care of.



> It's not talking about running python as a service, it's talking about running pyTivo as a service. It's not necessary. I don't.


The instructions say


> Select the version that matches your installed Python version. Ex: If you installed Python 2.7 32bit then download pywin32.win32-py2.7.exe


 I did word it wrong above but the point was my python is 2.7.8, I didn't see a 2.7.8. I'll try a 2.7 just to see what happens.


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## lpwcomp (May 6, 2002)

2004raptor said:


> The instructions say I did word it wrong above but the point was my python is 2.7.8, I didn't see a 2.7.8. I'll try a 2.7 just to see what happens.


Ah, I see. Yes, since pywin32 version only go 2 digits, that's all that needs to match.

I would suggest that you not run pyTivo as a service until you have it working. It is easier to see what is going on.


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## 2004raptor (Dec 31, 2005)

thanks. 

OK, so when I have this set up, it doesn't "stream" the movie from my usb device to the Roamio, it copies it? Does it just copy, surely it doesn't move it.

Then from there, it will "stream" to the mini?


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## jrtroo (Feb 4, 2008)

Those are good questions to have asked before going through the install process!

But, yes to all.


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## lpwcomp (May 6, 2002)

2004raptor said:


> thanks.
> 
> OK, so when I have this set up, it doesn't "stream" the movie from my usb device to the Roamio, it copies it? Does it just copy, surely it doesn't move it.


Yes, it is a copy.



2004raptor said:


> Then from there, it will "stream" to the mini?


Once it is on the TiVo, the Mini can access it just like any other recording.

I want to be sure you understand something. The Mini cannot initiate the transfer of the recording from the computer to the TiVo.

You can access pyTivo to initiate a Push using a browser running on any device in your network. The way to do that is to use the local IP address of the system that is running pyTivo rather than localhost. For example, if the IP address of the system is 192.168.1.101, you would put

192.169.1.101:9032

In the location field of the browser.


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## 2004raptor (Dec 31, 2005)

jrtroo said:


> Those are good questions to have asked before going through the install process!
> 
> But, yes to all.


Well, sure. I figured as much but something I saw last night made me wonder. Before I made the changes (ffmpeg.exe, etc) I was able to pull up the Movie folder on the Roamio. The only files it showed was some exercise videos of my wifes. The are all rips of her dvd's I did a year or so ago. I believe they were in .vob format or something?? Anyway, I didn't want them on the roamio but I did select them and saw where it said I could "transfer" them. I was just making sure it didn't literally mean to move the file instead of copy.
And I thought it was odd that it showed those file rather than the others in the directory.



lpwcomp said:


> Yes, it is a copy.
> 
> Once it is on the TiVo, the Mini can access it just like any other recording.
> 
> ...


I get it about the mini, thanks for explaining.

Once I get it working I will refer back to your suggestion on pushing through a browser. I'm already in this a bit deeper than i want.


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## lpwcomp (May 6, 2002)

2004raptor said:


> Well, sure. I figured as much but something I saw last night made me wonder. Before I made the changes (ffmpeg.exe, etc) I was able to pull up the Movie folder on the Roamio. The only files it showed was some exercise videos of my wifes. The are all rips of her dvd's I did a year or so ago. I believe they were in .vob format or something?? Anyway, I didn't want them on the roamio but I did select them and saw where it said I could "transfer" them. I was just making sure it didn't literally mean to move the file instead of copy.
> And I thought it was odd that it showed those file rather than the others in the directory.


What type are the files you are expecting to see? Also, post your redacted pyTivo.conf. file.



2004raptor said:


> I get it about the mini, thanks for explaining.
> 
> Once I get it working I will refer back to your suggestion on pushing through a browser. I'm already in this a bit deeper than i want.


After you get everything working, if you're feeling adventurous, you might want to take a look at vidmgr since it would give you a way to initiate the push to the TiVo via the Mini.


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## 2004raptor (Dec 31, 2005)

lpwcomp said:


> What type are the files you are expecting to see? Also, post your redacted pyTivo.conf. file.


I was just pointing out that it was weird that it:
a. only showed the .vob files. I have .mkv, .mp4 and several other files in there. I'm not insinuating it would play anything, just thought it would list others. 
b. showed *any* files since I obviously did not configure things correctly.



lpwcomp said:


> After you get everything working, if you're feeling adventurous, you might want to take a look at vidmgr since it would give you a way to initiate the push to the TiVo via the Mini.


thanks. I'll add that to my list.


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## lpwcomp (May 6, 2002)

2004raptor said:


> I was just pointing out that it was weird that it:
> a. only showed the .vob files. I have .mkv, .mp4 and several other files in there. I'm not insinuating it would play anything, just thought it would list others.
> b. showed *any* files since I obviously did not configure things correctly.


I suspect that you have the wrong type share which I was why I suggested that you post pyTivo.ccnf file. The type should be video. mkv and mp4 definitely should show up.


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## wmcbrine (Aug 2, 2003)

.vob files don't require transcoding to send to the TiVo, thus they're shown even when you screw up the FFmpeg setting. A .vob file is just an MPEG-2 program stream, which is basically (minus the encryption) the native format for TTG.


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## mdcubsfan (Jul 28, 2006)

prob should have posted this thread here instead of the roamio forum, but

hi - brand new to the whole pytivo thing. Trying to find a way to save everything I've recorded on my Tivo as I wait for a new hard drive to upgrade to 3TB.

I tried searching the forums first, but really didn't find anything that worked or that I could figure out

If anyone is willing to help a pyTivo newbie, it would be greatly appreciated!

Setup last night, and after figuring out I think most of it, finally able to see my tivo roamio plus and programs successfully.

2 questions

1. as soon as I hit the transfer button it immediately says "tivodecode.exe has stopped working" and forces me to close the program. seems like there were some threads about this problem with premieres and unchecking some box but didn't see that here

2. are my not able to pull off any HBO shows? allows me to at least attempt transfer of other shows.

thanks so much!!


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## wmcbrine (Aug 2, 2003)

mdcubsfan said:


> 1. as soon as I hit the transfer button it immediately says "tivodecode.exe has stopped working" and forces me to close the program. seems like there were some threads about this problem with premieres and unchecking some box but didn't see that here


"Decrypt with tivodecode" and "Transfer as mpeg-ts" are incompatible -- only one should be checked at a time. If that's not the issue, could it be that your tivodecode is built for the wrong architecture (e.g. a 64-bit binary on a 32-bit system)?



> _2. are my not able to pull off any HBO shows?_


That depends on your TV provider... but probably not, no.


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## 2004raptor (Dec 31, 2005)

Been meaning to come back and thank those involded with getting this up and running for me. I finally had a chance to transfer a show to the roamio and watch it through the mini.

Now I will work on getting the pytivo running as a service. Then, _maybe_ look into how to do all of this from the mini.


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## 2004raptor (Dec 31, 2005)

I think I got pytivo running as a service. That wasn't too bad. 

I did briefly look at VidMGR. 

I'm not sure I want to tackle that.


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## lpwcomp (May 6, 2002)

2004raptor said:


> I think I got pytivo running as a service. That wasn't too bad.
> 
> I did briefly look at VidMGR.
> 
> I'm not sure I want to tackle that.


I don't use Vidmgr either but it is the only way "to do all of this from the mini".


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