how do I copy prgrams from my PC to DVD?

[rulqqkn]

I have transfered several shows from my Tivo via my wireless network to my PC and know I would like to copy these programs to DVD so that I can watch them later on my DVD player. How do I copy programs from my PC to DVD to view later?

Thank you for you knowledge!

[james.92]

Well, does your pc have a DVD burner and software?

[jjberger2134]

You will need TiVo "approved" software to convert the file.

Look at the following link for instructions:

http://www.tivo.com/4.9.4.1.asp

[juanian]

Somewhere I saw a post talking about an all-in-one application that would download programs from a TiVo and write them to a DVD. I didn't bookmark it at the time (because I didn't think I would need it), but now I have a use for it, and I can't find information about it. Has anyone else seen this?

P.S. Hmm, odd that the spelling checker used on this board doesn't automatically know the word DVD!

[CuriousMark]

Somewhere I saw a post talking about an all-in-one application that would download programs from a TiVo and write them to a DVD. I didn't bookmark it at the time (because I didn't think I would need it), but now I have a use for it, and I can't find information about it. Has anyone else seen this?
Toast, for the Mac.

Things aren't as simple in the PC world.

[juanian]

Toast, for the Mac.

Things aren't as simple in the PC world.No - the program I'm thinking of is a freeware program being written by someone.

[juanian]

Maybe TiVo2DVD (http://sourceforge.net/projects/tivo2dvd/) is what I had seen. The blurb says:

Tivo2dvd creates and executes the series of commands
required to access, format, and burn television shows from
a Series II Tivo directly to a DVD. It supports processing
multiple shows at once, to a DVD with menus.

It appears to be for Linux. (I wonder if I can get it to work with my Mac.)

[ibukhari]

I have a similar problem, copying files from my PC, where I have saved the Tivo files, to a DVD. I have MyDVD, but it is ghastly slow! It takes forever to write to a DVD. Any suggestions? Is it my DVD burner? Do I have to change some setting in MyDVD? Anybody's knowledge would be appreciated.

[wolflord11]

Here is the way I do it. The DVD's play on any DVD Player:

First download and install:

VideoReDo. It is free to try, $49.99 to buy.
DVD Styler. It is free.
DVD Decrypter. It is also free.

Then create a folder on your C: drive, within “My TiVo Recordings” called “TiVo Burned to DVD” to use as a work place.

Open VideoReDo
Click “Open Video”
Look in your “My TiVo Recordings" file and select the show you want to burn.
Save As .vob (DVD Stream).
Repeat for each show you want to burn.

Now go back to your “TiVo Burned to DVD” folder and change the extension of the .vob file to .mpg

Open DVD Styler (this is where you create a menu for your DVD)
Use the "Background" tab to select a menu background (You can cut/paste an image file and save it in C/program files/DVD Styler/Backgrounds if you don’t like theirs).

Use the “Button” tab to select a menu button style. Drag and drop the button where you want it to appear on the background.

Double click on the button to change the text, font or properties.

Now use the “Directories” tab, find your “TiVo Burned to DVD” folder.

Drag and drop your file(s) into the storyboard at the bottom of the DVD Styler box
Double click on your menu buttons and assign them to the right title/chapter for each selection.

Click File>Burn DVD (make sure “create ISO image” is selected).

Change the "Save To" location to the “TiVo Burned to DVD” folder

Open DVD Decrypter

Select Mode>ISO>Write so that you can find your file (the default is to read a DVD from your drive).

Load a DVD+R (the only format I’ve tried) into your drive

Select the Source (you’ll find it labeled “dvd” in your “TiVo Burned to DVD” folder if you didn't change the "save as" name.

Hit the “DVD” icon to start recording

With practice it does not take long at all. The results are very impressive. BTW, VideoReDo will also edit out any advertisements. :D

[richsadams]

Hey Walflord11. Excellent post! Thanks for the detailed "how to"! :up:

[ibukhari]

Thanks for the detailed instructions!

[ibukhari]

********* find the asteriked part below to see where i got stuck, Thanks.**********

Your Instructions
Here is the way I do it. The DVD's play on any DVD Player:

First download and install:

VideoReDo. It is free to try, $49.99 to buy.
DVD Styler. It is free.
DVD Decrypter. It is also free.

Then create a folder on your C: drive, within “My TiVo Recordings” called “TiVo Burned to DVD” to use as a work place.

Open VideoReDo
Click “Open Video”
Look in your “My TiVo Recordings" file and select the show you want to burn.
Save As .vob (DVD Stream).
Repeat for each show you want to burn.

Now go back to your “TiVo Burned to DVD” folder and change the extension of the .vob file to .mpg

Open DVD Styler (this is where you create a menu for your DVD)
Use the "Background" tab to select a menu background (You can cut/paste an image file and save it in C/program files/DVD Styler/Backgrounds if you don’t like theirs).

Use the “Button” tab to select a menu button style. Drag and drop the button where you want it to appear on the background.

Double click on the button to change the text, font or properties.

*************This is where I got stuck************
the directory tab wouldn' t show my New Tivo subdirectory in the folder tree, yet I
can see it in Explorer???



Now use the “Directories” tab, find your “TiVo Burned to DVD” folder.

Drag and drop your file(s) into the storyboard at the bottom of the DVD Styler box
Double click on your menu buttons and assign them to the right title/chapter for each selection.

Click File>Burn DVD (make sure “create ISO image” is selected).

Change the "Save To" location to the “TiVo Burned to DVD” folder

Open DVD Decrypter

Select Mode>ISO>Write so that you can find your file (the default is to read a DVD from your drive).

Load a DVD+R (the only format I’ve tried) into your drive

Select the Source (you’ll find it labeled “dvd” in your “TiVo Burned to DVD” folder if you didn't change the "save as" name.

Hit the “DVD” icon to start recording

With practice it does not take long at all. The results are very impressive. BTW, VideoReDo will also edit out any advertisements.

[ibukhari]

I got around the directory not being visible in DVD Styler but now have another issue. When I am running DVD Decripter, the file format is not recognized.

[pdhenry]

If all you're trying to do is archive the shows off of the PC so you can load them later and just transfer them back to the TiVo, all you need to do is burn the .tivo file to a DVD without any conversion. It won't be playable on a DVD player but you will be able to play it on a PC with TiVo Desktop or transfer it back to the TiVo.

Two advantages are that a .tivo file is much smaller than a DVD video file of the same show (so you can fit 4 hours or so of .tivo programming on a single-layer DVD) and you don't have to deal with the time required to transcode the video.

[ibukhari]

Actually I transfer my files to my computer and store my programs there. What I was trying to do was to put it on a DVD so I could play it at my friends house. Is it really so complicated?

[pdhenry]

Is it really so complicated?Yup. :( (My opinion, anyway.)

Unless your PC is fast it's easier to pack up the TiVo or laptop and carry it over.

[steve614]

Is it really so complicated?
I use VideoReDo to snip the beginning and end of a program and to edit out commercials. I normally output to .vob.
Then I use Nero Vision Express 3 (which came bundled with my DVD burner software) to make a playable DVD. I use both -R and +R formats, both types work in my DVD player.

The only thing complicated about this process is the time it takes for Nero to transcode all the info. If you have enough info to fill a disk and there is also compression involved, it can take up to 2 hours.
But, IMO, Nero makes up for this with the ease of adding chapter marks and editing menus and whatnot.
Besides, once the transcoding process starts, I go watch my Tivo and before I know it, my DVD is finished. :)

[ibukhari]

Ok this is becoming an obsession! I now am using Video reDo, which I concurr with everybody is a great product, to cut cut out commercials and saving as an mpg file. I then tried to use DVDstyler to create a menu but could not get my Tivo directory to show up when I opened the directory tab, weird. I then put the output files into a directory that was visible from there I could see my files. However I decided that this was silly workaround and gave up on
DVDstyler for the time being. I then use Cucusoft AVI to ..... to burn my files. The output is erratic, either that or my DVD players (2 built into my TV's(Toshiba'), my home theatre DVD player and the 2 in my 2 computer) suck! One of my discs plays ok for the first selection, but the second selection doesn't have any sound! The discs also seem to be very sensetive to the different players. eg they don't work at all at my girlfriends house. In other playersthey skip, or seem to playing one frame at a time but very fast or a video playing too slowly. What a pain, however I will keep fiddling with this.

[JimSpence]

I wonder if the OP has read this thread? :)

[minkx]

I had this working just fine with NERO 6.

1. Just open the .TIVO file in NeroVision Express 3 (you will have to use See All in file Types as it does not see the .Tivo files otherwise.

2. Next, if I wanted chapters, so I could jump past the commercials, I'd find where the end of the commercial break was and mark it as a chapter. In the chapter creation you can right click on the chapters and rename them to something other than Chapter 1, 2, 3.

**. Nero had a download NVEContent3.zip for different backgrounds and templates for the opening menu. Nero 6 worked and it burned great. The time was about 2 hours for a 1 hour high quality show.

For some reason, on occasion the voice wouldn't sync. No one could reliably fix that.
Now I upgraded to NERO 7 - it does not work. TIVO techs say use MyDVD.
Guess I'll give it a try.

[AntKnee]

I have the same problems with getting the DVD Styler to find "My Tivo Recordings" folder yet I can move the folder contents to another folder and it will read them just fine. That seems confusing.

[rage777]

Here's how I do it:
1. Use DirectShowDump to convert .tivo to .mpg.
2. Use TMPGEnc MPEG Editor to remove commercials. (I should probably just get Video reDo)
3. Use Nero Vision to put it on a DVD. This part takes forever, so I don't have a way to do it quickly.

The reason for not sync'ing is usually the software that you use. I use to use WinAvi, TMPGEnc, and other programs to convert the mpg to DVD, but that didn't work so well. I found that Nero Vision works really well, but took the longest to convert to DVD. This sync problem is even worse if you go from avi to DVD.

[captain_video]

The OP never actually indicated what kind of files he's working with (.tivo or .ty). It makes a difference because the utilities used to convert them to regular .mpg files are different. I'll make the assumption that the OP is working with S2 SA Tivo files (i.e., .tivo format) since you'd have to use the method which cannot be named here to obtain .ty files. I don't have any experience with .tivo files so I'll assume anyone that deals with them will be using the correct utilities that will automatically transcode the audio to 48kHz, if necessary. I'll also assume that said utilities will handle any odd resolutions appropriately.

I see no rational reason why anyone would edit a file in VideoReDo, save it as a .vob, and then change the extension to .mpg. VRD can save the files as mpgs outright, which happens to be the default output format, BTW. VOB's are not straight mpg files, but contain additional information. You really shouldn't go around renaming files just because it seems to work. Making recommendations of this type are not good for anyone and just indicate the poster has little working knowledge of video formats. If you want to work with mpg files then save them in the correct format.

SA Tivos will save the recordings in various resolutions, based on the record quality that's specified. I don't recall what resolutions SA Tivos use but I remember having to tweak the settings in TivoWeb on my S1 SA Tivo to get it to record in 720x480 so I wouldn't have to worry about working with oddball resolutions, although I did have to transcode the audio to 48kHz, IIRC. I believe this is no longer an issue with S2 models. DTivos save their files in 480x480, which is the same as SVCDs. Many authoring programs will not work with these files, although DVD-Lab was designed with Tivo mpg files in mind and will accept them without complaining. Most off-the-shelf authoring programs will simply choke on these files and refuse to process them.

"Tutorials" on DVD authoring that I've seen in these forums leave me wanting more. This is mainly due to the restrictions this forum places on these discussions, leaving the vast majority of forum members in the dark (with the exception of those that dare venture to the "other" forum for enlightenment). I've been authoring and burning DVDs created from all types of Tivos for over five years now so I have gained a little expertise in this area. I haven't used any of the utilities mentioned above other than VideoReDo, which I've been using for several years. I've never used DVD Styler so I have no idea how well it works, but based on the instructions posted, I think I'll stick with my method. I've just never heard of a DVD being authored the way wolflord11 described. Here's a breakdown of my process, albeit somewhat simplified (I'll be using .ty files for my discussion):

1. Obtain the .ty files (I can't tell you how to do this. It's against the rules. ;) )
2. Mux them to mpg files (TyTools or tytompg will work).
3. Edit with VideoReDo and save as mpg's.
4. Import into DVD-Lab and allow them to demux into elementary streams (not particularly necessary but it's the way I do it).
5. Create menus, and music, titles, and whatever other bells and whistles you desire.
6. Test project and compile DVD fileset.
7. Burn to DVD using Nero as DVD Video.

FYI - I've found DVD-R discs to be far more compatible with players than the +R variety. However, there is a setting in Nero that allows +R discs to appear as -R media when played back to enable greater compatibility with more players.

The all-in-one utility that someone was asking about is called TyTools and can be found at the "other" forum. It doesn't burn the files to DVD but will allow you to process, edit, add menus, chapter stops, and create a set of files ready to burn to DVD. There's also another one called TySuite Gui or something along those lines. It requires Java to run but I haven't tried it yet myself. I never saw anyone mention that you needed a VIDEO_TS folder when using any of the above methods (a necessity when creating a DVD fileset, at least with every authoring or burning tool I've ever used). It's required as part of the DVD standard.

There are some good tutorials on DVD authoring in forums such as Doom9, Afterdawn, Videohelp, and digital-digest, as well as the "other" forum (but you may have to look around to find them as they tend to get buried in a myriad of other posts). There's a tutorial in the AVSForum HD DVD Software forum on how to use HD files with Ulead DVD Movie Factory using your existing DVD burner and media so they'll play back in HD on a HD-DVD player. I don't believe they've worked out a method to do this with a Blu-Ray player yet. I've got all six Star Wars movies saved in HD on DVD-R discs that I recorded from HBO a while back, along with a host of other movies.

NeroVision transcodes the video, which is why it takes so long. Next time try DVD-Lab and save yourself oodles of time. Most people that are "In the know" steer clear of NeroVision for this very reason. Transcoding reduces the image quality and takes forever to process.