Use cTiVo to download your TiVo programs to your Mac

In the past, one of the only options available to transfer files off your TiVo and onto your Mac was iTivo. It is a simple utility that performed admirably  when it worked. The biggest issue was it's infrequent updates. Every time Apple Mac OS was updated you needed to use your terminal skills to get iTiVo to work again. I've written several blog posts giving instructions on how to get iTiVo working after the upgrade to Mac OSX 10.8 Mountain Lion.

Tivo & the Mac - Downloading Tivo files
Continuing Adventures with iTiVo
TiVo to Mac - Mountain Lion Edition
TiVo to Mac - iTivo Update

Recently Apple just released Mac OS 10.9 Mavericks and once again iTiVo was broken. Rather than dive in and try to fix it I hit up Google to see what everyone else was saying. Low and behold I stumbled across an application called cTivo.  

All I can say is WOW! Finally! An application that works out of the box without any terminal tweaking. Where have you been hiding cTiVo?!?

cTivo describes itself like this:

"cTiVo is inspired by the great work done on iTiVo, but written in Cocoa/Objective C for better performance and compatibility. Current or former users of iTiVo will find a detailed comparison and upgrade path described in iTivo Users."

It's much faster than iTiVo and once you put in your TiVo's MAK address it will scan your network for all your TiVo devices. 

There are a lot of preference settings to play with that give you tons of options.

You can download the decrypted file or transcode it to many different formats to match your device.

Once you have selected the show to download and the format you want click the download button and it will start to download. 

Download progress is marked with a red highlight bar. Additional files are queued up and automatically downloaded when the first file finishes. 

If you have used iTiVo in the past, run, don't walk, and download cTiVo. It looks like the days of struggling with iTiVo are over. Unlike iTiVo the last update for cTiVo was 2014. I just hope that the developers keep the updates coming. 

Tivo & the Mac - Edit your Tivo files

I have had an ElGato EyeTV unit for quite a few years now and it's been great for recording over the air TV on my Mac. One of the great features of this unit is the ease of editing recorded shows. With very little effort you can edit out all the commercials and just watch a show without any breaks.  Now that I have a Tivo I sure didn't want to start watching commercials again so I started hunting for a great video editing program that's easy to use that can edit the Tivo files. Although EyeTV is still the gold standard I think I found a usable work around with MPEG Streamclip. 

I've already covered how to download your Tivo recorded shows to your mac here. Now that you have the show you need to get rid of the commercials. First, download the MPEG Streamclip application. When you open the application you will get a screen that looks like this:

To edit a file just drag it to the screen or use the "Open Files" selection in the "File" menu. There are two basic editing functions you are going to use; trim and cut. First you need to select the sections of the show you want to edit out. 

Drag the slider to the beginning of the show and type "I" for "Select In" then just hit command+T to trim out that section. Trimming a file will cut out everything you haven't selected.

Now move the cursor to the start of the first commercial break and hit the "I" key again. Move the cursor to the end of the commercial break and hit the "O" key for "Select Out." Just the commercials will be selected (as shown in the screen shot below). Then all you need to do is use the cut command (command+X) to get rid of the commercials. If you have trouble finding the right spot when you use the select in or select out location use the arrow keys on your keyboard. They will allow you to move a frame at a time to fine tune your selection location.

Just repeat  this for all the commercials in the show. When you get to the end of the show type the "O" key and do a Trim again to get rid of the ending credits and trailing commercials. That's it! 

Now a few comments about the whole process; One of the challenges I had with editing video was making sure that the audio was syncing. At times, after editing, the audio would get out of sync and there would be a split second delay when an actors mouth would move and the sound would come out. It's very annoying and can render the file unwatchable. 

To make sure that things stay sync'd up here's some of hints that should help.

• Try to minimize edits. Only use one edit per commercial break and don't do a lot of little edits. 
• Don't use the export function to save your video. Just do a "Save As." When you save it will save to the exact same format you used when you moved it from your Tivo to your Mac. Sometimes exporting to a different format will get the audio out of sync.
• Do a "Fix Timecode Breaks" (command+F in the Edit menu) when you first open the file. This may help.

From what I have read, the unsynchronized audio may be a result of a frame rate issue from the original video program. If you have issues with synchronization maybe try setting the frame rate to a different value when you move the file from your Tivo to your Mac. 

Good luck and enjoy your shows!