Can VLC correctly play .tivo files on Mac OS X Mountain Lion

[WDW.Passholder]

I can open the .tivo files with VLC, but there is a lot of pixel breakup and no audio in the test file I am trying. I can play the same file using Roxio Toast, Roxio Video Player.app but that hangs up if I try to skip ahead in the file or if I try almost anything other than just play/pause. Any suggestions on usage of VLC instead would be appreciated.

[fkuehne]

Could you please upload a sample to http://streams.videolan.org/upload so we can have a look? Thanks!

[WDW.Passholder]

I will plan to create a small .tivo file to test with. The file I had the issue with was around 20 Gb. Probably will not complete that until this weekend at the soonest.

[Halberstadt]

I can open the .tivo files with VLC, but there is a lot of pixel breakup and no audio in the test file I am trying. I can play the same file using Roxio Toast, Roxio Video Player.app but that hangs up if I try to skip ahead in the file or if I try almost anything other than just play/pause. Any suggestions on usage of VLC instead would be appreciated.

I have exactly the same symptoms, using a MacBook Pro, Mac OS 10.8.2, and VLC 2.0.3.

Bill Halberstadt
Newark, Delaware

[fkuehne]

We still did not receive any sample file, so there is nothing we can do I fear.

[Halberstadt]

We still did not receive any sample file, so there is nothing we can do I fear.

In my case, the two files I am trying to use are both more than 5GB in size. This is too large to transfer with the bandwidth I have at my current location (away from home). I have not found an editor that would let me extract a smaller selection and keep the original .tivo encoding. When I return home in a few weeks I can attempt a TiVo transfer of a smaller file and/or upload one of the originals to you, if the original poster has not been able to send one to you.

Bill Halberstadt

[WDW.Passholder]

I recorded a 5 minute sample file and am uploading it now.

[WDW.Passholder]

Was the sample file received OK ? If yes, please reply with an update on if it was helpful, thanks!

[WDW.Passholder]

Please reply whether you received the sample file. It is OK if you are unable to get it to work, or have not had time to analyze it, I just want to verify that I completed what you asked for.

[Jean-Baptiste Kempf]

not seen any .tivo file there...

[WDW.Passholder]

I uploaded a .tivo file on October 16, is it possible that Felix Paul Kuehne did receive it ? Do the files in that area automatically purge after a length of time? Do you have size limits for files there?

If nobody captured a copy of the file, let me know. I deleted the file quite a while ago from my iMac. If I need to create another, perhaps I should wait to transfer it until an agreed to time when someone will be looking for it.

[Jean-Baptiste Kempf]

I have not seen it. And there might be a 2GB limitation

[WDW.Passholder]

I am attempting to upload a file again now. I had to select a short video file to try to stay under 2 Gb, the TIVO files in HD are large. The file is showing as 913 Mb on my iMac. It is about a 10 minute video.

[WDW.Passholder]

I had to try twice, but my most recent attempt said that the upload completed. Please verify whether you received the file. I did see a message about Database Maintenance around the time my first try failed, so hopefully seeing the completed message after my second try really means you have the file this time.

[Jean-Baptiste Kempf]

Seems to have worked.

[WDW.Passholder]

Good, thanks for the reply. Let me know if you have all you need to analyze this.

[Sam Hobbs]

It was my understanding that Tivo files (with extension tivo) require a Media Access Key (MAK) to be played and the MAK depends on the customer's account. We are not supposed to disclose the MAK to anyone except the people that the account applies to. Now, please excuse me for not remembering the terminology, but there is a decoder (encoder?) program that can do the decoding. I think VLC would need to use it. So Tivo customers must install the "Tivo Desktop" to get the decoder and configure it with the MAK then VLC could use the decoder to decode the tivo file.

I apologize if the VLC developers already know that.

I am not sure about any of that. The thing I am reasonably sure is that I (in my Windows system) cannot play tivo files using VLC directly but I can using Windows Media Player directly and that I can play tivo files using VLC indirectly if I first convert the tivo file using a tool called DirectShow Dump Utility. I believe the DirectShow Dump Utility is open-source and should show what needs to be done.

I hope that helps.

[WDW.Passholder]

The software used to extract the data from my TiVo DVR has my MAK code, but whether you need the MAK code to play the extracted file is something I am not familiar with. I did have to enter my MAK code into the one part of the Roxio software in the past, the TiVo Transfer, but unknown to me if then the Roxio Video player.app is also aware of my MAK code, since that software can play files I transfer to my iMac, even though I have stopped using the TiVo Transfer program for transferring the files. My goal is to have a better performing player, for the files that I have legally transferred from my TiVo DVR. I may not always want to have to convert them to mp4 to watch them.

[Sam Hobbs]

VLC has the advantage that we can replay at a faster speed and the audio is still good. It is good for news and shows like Dr. Oz. The point I am making is that as a Tivo customer, I understand the interest in alternatives. We have totally valid reasons to want to use VLC with Tivo files directly.

I should leave this to the experts, but I think in this situation Tivo has made this software so easy to use that we are not aware of these details. In other words, it is likely that the MAK code is being used in the manner you describe without you being aware of it.

If I am correct, then it is only the result of my attempts to get similar answers and I have searched the internet trying to get answers. I think if you do search, you will learn that it not possible to use a .tivo file without the MAK code, except to get a small amount of information about the video, such as the title.

[Tim Winders]

I just stumbled across this forum... Sam is correct... in order to properly play/decode the .tivo files, you need to enter the MAK key from the TiVo which recorded the file.

You can use the free tivodecode command line utility from the kmttg package

http://code.google.com/p/kmttg/

The direct download for the Intel version (which works on Mountain Lion) is

http://code.google.com/p/kmttg/download ... p&can=2&q=

This will extract the mpg video/audio from the .tivo files. VLC can then play that .mpg file successfully.

The command like command to use the tivodecode program is:

$ ./tivodecode -m <MAK CODE> -o <OUTPUT FILE> <INPUT FILE>

Perhaps this can get integrated into a future build of VLC (a preference for entering/saving the MAK) to be able to play and transcode a .tivo file directly?

Thanks!

=== Tim

[Jean-Baptiste Kempf]

Someone should add that to VLC.

[brycenesbitt]

When I play a .tivo file with VLC, I get a blank gray screen.
Tivo files are lightly encrypted with a Media Access Key, a 10 digit code (MAC).
Using widely available software to convert .tivo files to mpeg, they play better with VLC than from the native TiVo desktop.

[Sam Hobbs]

In Windows, the "native TiVo desktop" does not play Tivo files. I do not know it it does in a Mac so if that is what you mean then this comment is not relevant.