Viewing HD content from my PC on a TiVo?

[mskvarenina]

I'm about to purchase an HD hard disk camcorder and will quickly be transferring recorded content from my camcorder to my PC hard drive. I'd love to be able to play this content on my HDTV without having to connect the camcorder to the TV so i'm wondering if TiVo can play or "share" this content living on my PC to my TiVo?

[madneon]

if you plug in your camcorder and the drive shows up in windows under my computer just open up tivo desktop and under video tell it to go to your camcorder's drive or you can just copy the movies from your camcorder and place them into your tivo folder, or you can use pytivo and place the movies in there.....oh yeah you have to make sure they are the correct format first...if not you will have to convert the HD movies ( I use mediacoder)

[steve614]

Assuming that you have your Tivo networked to your PC, you should be able to use Tivo Desktop.
If your HD camcorder records in some proprietary format, you will have to convert the videos so the Tivo can handle them.
IIRC, the S3 Tivos support h.264 format, but if you have an S2 then you will have to convert to mpeg2 standard def.

[cgould]

My S3 HD Tivo plays back MPG2 HD files beautifully now (post 9.3),
from my HDV Canon HV10 (tape) camcorder. This is 1440x1080 60i 25Mbps MPEG2.

Use Tivo-to-come-back, eg publish video folders in Tivo Desktop, browse Now Playing list on your HD Tivo to your PC name, and copy the file over. It's slow to copy.

But:
Your harddisk camcorder is likely AVCHD or H.264, MPEG4- the Tivo doesn't support this directly (yet, there are hints), at least not via TivoDesktop.
There are some hack-type methods to get it to stream, check for that thread...
TivoDesktop Plus might be able to transcode it during transfer, but, might not-
if you have a video editor program, you could transcode your AVC/H.264 native footage to the MPG2 "HDV" format, and the Tivo should be able to play it.


All better than spending $200-300 more on some HD network media extender like PS3/Xbox360 or Popcorn Hour etc!

[TexasGrillChef]

I transfer HD MPG2/MPG4 TS streams to my TiVo with pyTiVo.

I can also convert TS & M2TS streams from HD camcorders to HD-MPG2 or HD-MPG4 using a program called: 4Media HD Video Converter. Available from: http://www.mp4converter.net/

Its great because it can also maintain the DD5.1 audio track that MANY programs downconvert to stereo.

TGC

[mcdannej]

For making recordings (home video or entire series recordings) available on Tivo I can't recommend pyTivo enough. Very simple to set up, and has worked like a charm for the last month or so. I'm not kicking my XBMC to the curb, but the vast majority of my network files are being watched through the Tivo now.

[mskvarenina]

Yes my camcorder outputs AVCHD so am I correct in hearing that I'd use the 4Media HD converter to convert it and place the file in the directory which TiVo uses for captured video?

Also, what about conventional .AVI files that I captured from my SD camcorder? Can I get those to play on TiVo as well?

[TexasGrillChef]

Yes my camcorder outputs AVCHD so am I correct in hearing that I'd use the 4Media HD converter to convert it and place the file in the directory which TiVo uses for captured video?

Also, what about conventional .AVI files that I captured from my SD camcorder? Can I get those to play on TiVo as well?

Yes that is correct. You could use 4Media HD converter to convert it, or use another program. Many are available. I like 4Media because it is easy to use and is small.

pyTiVo will automatically convert AVI files to play on your TiVo on the fly. Although because of extra processing time being done on the fly. It may or may not transfer "Real" time.

IMHO I would CONVERT the AVI file to MPG2 or MPG4 at best quality. That way pyTiVo will just tranfer directly to your TiVo without any on the fly converting. Thus leading to a faster transfer to your TiVo.

TGC

[mskvarenina]

Just how hard is it to setup a pyTiVo environment? At first glance on the website it looked quite intimidating (you need a Python interpreter, FFmpeg...what's all this?). Do you know if anyone has written any easy to follow step by step instructions for this?

What I'm ultimately looking to do is archive my MiniDV SD tapes and now HD recorded content from my new camcorder to my PC, perhaps to a drobo (up to 16TB of storage) and 1) be able to watch any of this quickly and 2) be able to edit and burn a DVD if necessary (which will be rare).

[mskvarenina]

OK, sometimes a little reading goes a long way. I went to the Python website and downloaded and installed version 2.6.1, then I downloaded the current release of pyTiVo, ran then install, pointed it to where my .AVI files then went to Now Playing on my TiVo and to my surprise my videos where there. I clicked on one, it started transferring and few minutes later I was viewing my first home movie on my TiVo.

Isn't technology great?

And this is just another feather in TiVo's cap as I argue with people why TiVo is superior to the SA8300HD.

So now I see what you mean about the .AVIs. I guess they are converting on the fly which is slowing down the transfer process. The next step for me will be to see if any of my editing software (Pinnacle Studio, Sony Vegas) can edit MPEG2 or 4 files or if I'll have to keep both the AVIs and MPEGs.