TivoToGo on smart phones?

[cnsayre]

I have a new smart phone running Windows Mobile 5 (I think... I hopefully can upgrade to 6 when it's released).

I'm interested in dumping some Tivo shows onto it... I have a 2 gig microSD card in it, so I have some room.

I've tried synching a tivo show with it, using WMP 11. It was a half hour show and it worked just fine, although the resolution/image was crappy.

I tried an hour show. Nothing. It failed to "convert" or synch... or something. I got an error.

I've tried converting shows to other formats. Most don't show up on the evice at all... a .mov doesn't work. H.264 sorta played.... well, the sound played, no video. Divx didn't work either.

Any suggesstions on what to do/use/what format to convert to to watch shows on this?

Thanks,

cnsayre

[Capn Jack]

A friend uses Orb to do this. I haven't tried it but it's a hint of a solution.

[MEHRHIT]

What's your PDA? I have a Treo 700w and I transfer shows and watch them every day while on the treadmill at my health club. It's awesome. The resolution is fantastic, although I wish I could get the volume higher.

I'm not a pro by any means, but I can tell you some things I have done to get the shows synced. I have had problems understanding how the Media Player works as far as the sync process. I get it to work and then I forget exactly what I did. I really wish I had a step by step process to follow, but I printed that from an Internet site and it didn't seem to make sense.

It seems to help to move the show from the Library to Playlist. When I drag the show over to the sync list, sometimes I sync and I get an error message. So then I start to play the show on my PC, for about 30 seconds, then I stop it and go back to the main screen. Then I try again and it usually syncs. Sometimes it syncs right away and sometimes it goes through the conversion and then syncs, which of course, takes tons longer.

I think the problem lies in getting the converter to work properly. I can't figure out how to convert the show before syncing. I usually end up having it convert and sync all in one step. I wonder if starting it playing gets it to convert quickly?

If anyone knows the exact process to follow, I sure would appreciate knowing. Even though I get it to work, I would like to understand what I'm doing. Also if anyone knows of a good skin to use for TIVO on a PDA, I would love to get that. I have trouble fast forwarding in an efficient way. It's very difficult to control, so I usually end up just letting the commercials play. It would be great to have a TIVO skin!!

[hyachts]

I use Orb for this. I'm using Cingular GPRS, so the bandwidth stays pretty low - in the 30-40 Kbps range. The shows are watchable, but that's about it. I mostly use it to listen to (and watch a little of) shows like the Daily Show and Colbert Report while I'm at my desk at work.

As an aside, I can also check in on my house via webcam on my phone with Orb. Pretty nifty.

[maddogmarquis]

I'm new here but just recently discovered a solution that is just right for pda/smartphones. Took a while to first find the right app, and second to hone the settings that work the best. Here's what I did, I pretty much guarantee it'll work for you.....

I have the new Nokia E62 running the new Symbian OS 3rd Edition btw, but this software is available for all types of smartphones.

It's a 2-part software called "smartmovie" that gives you a player for your phone and the conversion software for your PC. It's not that expensive at all, I suggest downloading the free trial, start w/my settings and go from there. I guarantee you'll end up buying it.

Install the software on your phone/PC. I opened up the smartmovie converter, and picked a .tivo episode off of my NAS, clipped out the commercials (breaking the simpsons show into 3 parts), and let it encode. It encodes a 5X of play time....

For the encoder settings, this is the optimal settings for pretty much any smartphone IMO, my nokia has a big 320x240 screen, and the picture/sound quality is amazing....after all the crappy attempts using other methods, this was a real pleasant surprise.

VIDEO SETTINGS
320x240
256 kbs for the video
don't check the "reduce framerate", stay with the native tivo of 30 fps

AUDIO SETTINGS
check "enable audio"
check "force mono" (stereo will choke a smartphone processer causing choppiness)
Set to 22050 Hz
64 kbs
I set the volume boost to 160% since the TiVo ones seem to be low for my phone.

After that, you can clip or edit the commercials out if you so desire. I do, because if you number the non-commercial clips in order there is a setting in the phone that will play your clips in successive order....as you hit the end of one file, it automatically transitions the next file...pretty nice.

Another setting that this phone player has that I haven't been able to find anywhere else is the saving grace of this whole issue. The audio mismatch that happens with a higher quality video. There's a setting where you can adjust the video/audio preroll in milli-seconds. After about 3 mins of fiddling, I got the audio and video to match perfect. As long as I always encode with the same settings, I don't have to change the preroll setting of about 54 msec.

Go to lonelycatgames to find this stuff....I love it!!


I'm looking for a way to have my NAS seen by my series 2 TiVo for both storing shows, and streaming music/pictures on my TV. Does anybody here have anything that could help? Thanks in advance.


Here's the features off the website:
Standard AVI format, allowing you to preview converted files on your PC.
Player uses the phone screen in portrait or landscape mode, utilizing full screen size of the device.
Rescaling of video to utilize full-screen area.
PC converter allows you to split video file into multiple segments, so that it fits onto your memory card, if not entire, then cut to more parts - you may watch your favorite video in parts, e.g. while traveling to work/school.
Support for subtitles - allowing you to watch movies in different languages.
Friendly PC converter - preview videos on PC, select parts you want to convert, alter quality.
Supports DirectShow codecs, so you may use video codecs downloadable from the internet.
Very fast conversion; on standard PC conversion is 5x faster than video clip playback time. You'll convert entire movie in just a few minutes
Bicubic rescale algorithm shrinks video to small screen size in best possible quality.
Adjustable quality parameters for video and audio streams, allowing tuning target video to your needs.
Customizable video Player (brightness, language, volume, and more).