DivX/XviD

[Krepta3000]

Hi everyone, this is my first post, so here goes. I love DivX, and XviD, I have many video files collected over time and I wish I could watch them on TV. I really really wish TiVo would give me the Option of recording things in DivX format, and I wish the Tivo Desktop app would allow me to convert downloaded videos to DivX. The DivX codec makes videos a lot smaller, more portable too, and doesn't lose a whole lot of quality either. So, why not? Please?!

I have heard of people sharing their TiVo recordings with each other, and it seems that this is totaly impractical, even time wasting, when the recordings are so Huge. I'm running out of space to store movies on the TiVo, so I started downloading them to my computer, which takes a LONG time, but now I'm running out of space on my computer too, Aaaaah!

I gotta go get DVDRs to record this stuff to, that seems like a better option than storing everything on VHS.

Well, uh, thanks for reading, hope to bug you a lot more often, soon. :)

Krepta.

[PeternJim]

Check the pricing of a standalone DVD burner (the sort that lives by the TV, not the computer). The price is constantly dropping, and if you connect it to the output of your TiVo, it does just fine.

There is no doubt signal loss due to the analog nature of things, but we don't have an issue with the quality, especially for most network TV shows, we don't notice enough loss to complain about. It's real-time, but it is fairly effortless.

[Krepta3000]

Good suggestion about the DVD Recorder, but if I'm gonna get a DVD Recorder, I might just bite the bullit and get the TiVo DVD combo system. But I'm serious about DivX, I've looked in a lot of places for DivX capable DVD players and Recorders, so I know it's out there. Please make TiVo play and record DivX!!

[megazone]

The current Series2 hardware will never playback, or record, DivX - period. It uses a hardware encoder and decoder that does MPEG-1 and MPEG-2. DivX is based on MPEG-4. For what TiVo is designed to do, there isn't a lot of advantage to putting DivX in the box.

For TTG videos you've copied to a PC, the TiVo Desktop Plus 2.3 can already convert to formats like MPEG-4 and H.264 (aka MPEG-4 AVC). And H.264 is roughly the same compression as DivX, so you can already shrink the files if you want. There are also third party applications like TVHarmony that will do it for free, and support more formats. And programs like Galleon will convert formats from the net to MPEG-2 for transfer and playback on the TiVo.

The coming Series3 will reportedly use a decoder that can handle MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4 AVC/H.264, and VC-1/WMV9. But it will still record analog content into MPEG-2 using an encoder. Digital content, from antenna (ATSC) or digital cable, will be recorded as-is - and right now both ATSC and digital cable are all MPEG-2.

If the S3 does have such a decoder, then it is possible for it to handle other formats based on those codecs, such as DivX, but it will remain to be seen what it does support. I don't expect it to be a do-everything box out the door, but to be upgraded over time.

[BigT4187]

I have a stand alone DVD player that I got at WalMart for $60. It plays any DivX/XviD file I throw at it.

[SirMontego]

yup Tivo doesn't do divx/xvid/avi.

The easiest thing to get is a philips dvd/divx player. They only cost around $60 and it plays pretty much all forms of divx burned to a cdr or dvdr. (no wmv support though)

If you don't want to put everything onto discs you can get the Mvix which is like an external harddrive with a video player. That'll also play all forms of divx. It costs $200, but you need to add your own harddrive though.

As the most ghetto solution, you can run a wire from your computer to your tv . . . . but i'm sure you already thought of that.

[dagap]

I love DivX, and XviD, [...] wish I could watch them on TV.
[...]
I wish the Tivo Desktop app would allow me to convert downloaded videos to DivX.
[...]
I'm running out of space on my computer too, Aaaaah!

Get a DVD player that plays DIVX/XVID. Philips DVP-642 is a popular one. $50 or so, sometimes (rarely) $40. Watch techbargains.com.

There are lots of video conversion software packages. Surely there's something that'll convert tivo to divx?

Get an external hard drive.