TiVo Fall 2007 Update Apparently Breaks TivoToGo/Toast on the Mac

[javabird]

Originally Posted by fredric100

I've probably trashed over 30 blank DVDs trying to burn a TTG transfer with good audio since the Fall update, testing various workarounds and fixes.

You can test your movie before you burn a DVD. After you set up your DVD in Toast, then choose "Save as a disc image." When it's done creating the image, then use Toast to mount the .dmg and play it in your Mac's DVD Player.
This is a good way to prevent burning a lot of coasters.

[fredric100]

Originally Posted by javabird

You can test your movie before you burn a DVD. After you set up your DVD in Toast, then choose "Save as a disc image." When it's done creating the image, then use Toast to mount the .dmg and play it in your Mac's DVD Player.
This is a good way to prevent burning a lot of coasters.

Good tip, thanks. Sad that it's necessary.

Once the image is built and tested good (like that's ever gonna happen), is there easy way to burn the image to disk? Does Toast have a feature for importing disk images or something?

[derekcbart]

Originally Posted by fredric100

Good tip, thanks. Sad that it's necessary.

Once the image is built and tested good (like that's ever gonna happen), is there easy way to burn the image to disk? Does Toast have a feature for importing disk images or something?

Double click the Toast Image and then it will open up Toast. You can then tell Toast to burn it to DVD. I do this all the time with non-TiVo burns that I do and know that I will have to make additional copies in the future of.

[Sparkylulu]

Yawwwnnnn....stretch.....oh, hello, 2008. Let's see if this Tivo/Roxio thang has been cleared up....nope?
Okay. Well, here's to another waste of my money!
Cheers!

[fredric100]

It's time to get this fixed. This is ridiculous.

I've posted a letter to Tom Rogers, CEO of TiVo, which you can download here.

Mail it to him at the address on the letter.

I've worked in the high-tech industry for 20 years. Believe me, if he gets a bunch of these letters, this will get fixed. I'll post the number of letters downloaded in this forum.

- Fred

[TiVo Kid 2003]

Originally Posted by fredric100

It's time to get this fixed. This is ridiculous.

I've posted a letter to Tom Rogers, CEO of TiVo, which you can download here.

Mail it to him at the address on the letter.

I've worked in the high-tech industry for 20 years. Believe me, if he gets a bunch of these letters, this will get fixed. I'll post the number of letters downloaded in this forum.

- Fred

Hi Fred,

Your letter says that audio problems have made TTG for the Mac unusable.... well it's definitely true for Windows too.

I'm not a Windows fanboy but I suspect the majority of TTG customers are Windows users... maybe if you leave out the Mac reference (or also mention Windows) it'll get more attention within the company.

Just my 2 cents.

[fredric100]

Originally Posted by TiVo Kid 2003

Hi Fred,

Your letter says that audio problems have made TTG for the Mac unusable.... well it's definitely true for Windows too.

I'm not a Windows fanboy but I suspect the majority of TTG customers are Windows users... maybe if you leave out the Mac reference (or also mention Windows) it'll get more attention within the company.

Just my 2 cents.

Done. Excellent suggestion, thank you.

12 downloads of the letter so far. A good start - thanks to everyone who's helping.

[benvon]

Letter downloaded, printed and mailed.

Thanks for putting that together.

[fredric100]

Originally Posted by benvon

Letter downloaded, printed and mailed.

Thanks for putting that together.

My pleasure. Thank you very much for mailing it.

31 downloads so far. I'm hoping we can hit at least 100. If no results by then, perhaps I can get some press attention for our mail-in campaign for customer support from TiVo.

The letter is here.

[culpeppa]

Success!

I've been reading this thread and encountering all the same problems with TT and Toast. My setup:

iMac running OSX 10.5 Leopard
TiVos Series2 and a Series3 connected using TiVo wireless adapters

The new TiVoDecodeManager version 2.1 (January 08, 2007) does it all. It successfully transfered video, decoded to .mp4, and placed in iTunes. The sync to my iPhone was flawless.

Give it a try. Forget about "TiVo Transfer" or "Toast Titanium". Not needed for Mac users.

[fredric100]

Originally Posted by culpeppa

Success!

Give it a try.

Hi all. Unfortunately TiVo Decode Manager 2.1 yielded the same old bloody audio problems as TTG in my case.

Workflow:
1. Xfer from Series 3 to Mac Mini using TiVo Decode Manager, MPEG2 format
2. Save the MPEG2 file as a Disk Image using Toast
3. Mount the disk image, play back using OSX DVD Player

Configuration:
1. OSX 10.4.11
2. TiVo Series 3
3. TiVo Decode Manager 2.1 writing MPEG2
4. Toast Titanium 8.0.3

Result = skipping audio

I also tried the MPEG4/Import to iTunes option on TiVo Decode Manager. In that configuration, TiVo Decode Manager simply failed to create an object file on the Mac side.

[culpeppa]

Originally Posted by culpeppa

"I also tried the MPEG4/Import to iTunes option on TiVo Decode Manager. In that configuration, TiVo Decode Manager simply failed to create an object file on the Mac side."

Hmmm... that's the option I used that worked. Ah well.

[fredric100]

Originally Posted by culpeppa

Hmmm... that's the option I used that worked. Ah well.

So it looks like this is still broken for many Mac and Windows users, and for many people there are no good workarounds.

In 1 week we've had 46 letters to the TiVo CEO complaining about this bug downloaded by people reading this thread. That's excellent. If we can hit around 100 downloads, I'm going to try to get some external press/blog coverage of this issue to increase the pressure. It's disgraceful that TiVo lets this situation continue.

The letter is here. Every letter sent by a new person helps.

[rufusryker]

I have a Mac Powerbook G4 running 10.4.11 and a TiVO Series 3. TTG is working for me so far, but I only use it for transferring video to my iPhone. I was going to buy Roxio software, but after reading this board I had second thoughts.

I'm using the widget NowPlaying 2.5.1 to transfer programs from my TiVO wirelessly to my mac. Then I use MPEG Streamclip 1.9 to convert the file to Mp4 format in the proper dimensions. I then drop the file in iTunes and sync it with my iPhone. So far, so good. The image quality looks great. I did have to buy the MPEG-2 playback component from Apple ($20) to make this work, but everything else is free.

However, I have not used these programs to burn a DVD yet. Someone should try using NowPlaying to pull the file from TiVO and decode it, before sending it to Toast to burn a DVD.

[Sparkylulu]

I appreciate others saying that they have figured out a workaround, but this is ridiculous.
I shouldn't have to get a workaround. I have Toast. I have TTG. It used to work. It should work now.
Where is Paratox or patatox or whatever his name was?????

[fredric100]

Thanks very much Rufusryker. At your suggestion I tried a transfer using the NowPlaying widget, followed by a DVD burn using Toast. DVD audio was good, whereas every other workaround has failed for me. I'll do more testing over next few days to confirm.

Configuration:
- OSX 10.4.11
- TiVo HD
- Toast 8.0.3
- TiVo NowPlaying widget 2.5.1 / Download here (free).
- QuickTime MPEG2 Component / Download here ($20).
- MPEG Streamclip 1.9 / Download here (free).

Workflow to Burn DVD:
1. Transfer show from TiVo using NowPlaying widget 2.5.1 (creates MPEG2 file)
2. Burn the MPEG2 file to DVD using Toast 8.0.3

Workflow to Transfer to iPod (per Rufusryker, above):
1. Transfer show from TiVo using NowPlaying 2.5.1 (creates MPEG2 file)
2. Convert MPEG2 file to MP4 and resize using MPEG Streamclip 1.9
3. Drop MP4 file into iTunes, synch to iPhone, etc.

[wdave]

The key to whether that works is in the use of tivodecode, which the Tivo NowPlaying widget uses to transcode the Tivo file into an mpg. So, instead of using Streamclilp (and buying the MPEG2 Component), it's easier to use the free iSquint for the conversion into iPod or Apple TV format (assuming that's your final destination). So for me, this has worked well, and should yield the same success as the above:

Configuration:
- OSX 10.4.11
- Tivo Series 3
- Tivo NowPlay widget 2.5.1 / Download here (free).
- iSquint 1.5 / Download here (free).

Workflow to Transfer to iPod or iPhone:
1. Transfer show from Tivo using NowPlaying 2.5.1 (creates MPEG2 file)
2. Convert MPEG2 file to MP4 using iSquint 1.5

Note: In iSquint, use the "Optimize for TV" choice to convert for the higher resolution iPhone. Use Standard quality and H.264 encoding.

[fredric100]

Although it worked for me with one show, the DVD burn using NowPlaying widget -> Toast has failed with different content. Result = same old skipping audio. So, still no robust workaround for burning DVDs, far as I can determine.

[rufusryker]

Fredric100,

Have you tried playing the same file (that you burned with toast) using Streamclip? Does the audio skip in the same spots when viewing that file? If the audio sounds fine, maybe you should then try converting the audio part of the MPEG-2 file. I notice that under the FILE menu in Streamclip is a selection "Convert MPEG with MP2 audio..." Try converting the old MPEG-2 file, and then burn the new file using Toast. I have no idea whether this will work, but it might be worth a shot.

[fredric100]

Originally Posted by rufusryker

Fredric100,

Have you tried playing the same file (that you burned with toast) using Streamclip? Does the audio skip in the same spots when viewing that file?

Funny you should mention that, I had same idea this morning. The audio DID play properly in StreamClip (with QT MPEG2 component). So I then exported the MPEG2 file from StreamClip to "MPEG with MP2 audio" (a transcode which ran pretty quickly, whereas other transcodes, e.g. to AVI or whatever, took too much time to be useful, even if they had worked).

I'm encoding the exported file as a DVD right now, I'll let you know if it works.

[fredric100]

Originally Posted by fredric100

I then exported the MPEG2 file from StreamClip to "MPEG with MP2 audio" ... I'm encoding the exported file as a DVD right now, I'll let you know if it works.

Didn't work (audio still skips).

[rufusryker]

That's too bad. Still, I think we are closer to a solution.

I would go to "Show Stream Info" under the File menu. My audio for a short HD file I decoded is shown as "Audio Tracks: 128 AC3 3/2, 48 kHz, 384 kbps". It shows the video as "Video Tracks: 224 MPEG-2, 1280 × 720, 16:9, 59.94 fps, 80.00 Mbps, progressive." If you look at the Preferences in Streamclip, there are a few interesting options that might do the trick. One check box is for "fix streams with data breaks." If it "fixes" the audio tracks, that sounds like a good option. (See Next Post for info from manual.)

I don't actually own Toast 8, so I can't test this myself. I plan to get a copy soon, along with a new computer with an Intel Duo processor. The G4 is a real dog when it comes to encoding.

[rufusryker]

I guess I also should have looked at the Streamclip manual! It's under the Help menu. (Note that MPEGs decoded from TiVO are NOT automatically scaled to any standard DVD frame size.) I did a simple search for "toast" and came up with the following:

Convert to MPEG...
converts the stream into a muxed MPEG (program stream) file; if the frame size is suitable, you can import this file in Toast 6, 7, 8 or Sizzle and burn it directly, with no encoding time and no loss of quality. Audio is left in its original format (MPEG, AC3 or PCM).
Suitable frame sizes for DVD are 720x480, 720x576, 704x480, 704x576, 352x480, 352x576. If the frame size is not suitable, please try the "Convert to Headed MPEG" command instead. The "headed" conversion is not required for Sizzle.
If Toast stops with an error before burning the file, please enable the option "Fix streams with data breaks" in preferences and try again.

Convert to Headed MPEG...
same as "Convert to MPEG" but adds a special header to the MPEG file that lets you import unsupported frame sizes into Toast 6, 7, 8 and skip recompression. However, DVDs made from "headed" MPEG files are not guaranteed to work with all players. Please DO NOT TRY to open "headed" MPEG files in QuickTime Player (it will crash). Also never try to burn a DVD from MPEG-1 or high-definition MPEG-2 with Toast 6 (it will hang).
The headed conversion shall not be used for Sizzle.

Demux to M2V and AC3...
demuxes the stream and creates an M2V video file and an AC3 audio file; if the frame size is suitable, you can import these two files in DVD Studio Pro or Toast 6, 7, 8, and burn them directly with no encoding time and no loss of quality. For muxed files that have AC3 audio, this command runs faster than Demux to M2V and AIFF, because no audio conversion is performed; and again, the resulting files take less space in the DVD.

Demux to Headed M2V and AC3...
same as "Demux to M2V and AC3" but with the "headed" M2V file that lets you import unsupported frame sizes in DVD Studio Pro and Toast 6, 7, 8. You can't use this command if the audio track is not in AC3 format.

----------------

Ok, my new theory is that the audio skipping and syncing issues occur when Toast attempts to scale and compress the standard MPEG-2 file to a standard DVD format (or other format). This might explain why the file plays fine on several players, but not after a Toast burn. I'd use Streamclip and select "Convert to Headed MPEG," plus enable the option "Fix streams with data breaks" under preferences. If that doesn't work, I'd try "Demux to Headed M2V and AC3," and then import these files into Toast before burning.

[farvoyager]

I have been following this thread because I, too, have been having audio sync problems with Tivo / Toast, etc. After lots of experiments, I have a hypothesis: Tivo files mis-report their frame rate when downloaded (or the framerate information is accidentally garbled).

When Tivo files are translated into mpegs, they report their frame rate as 23.976, but these are NTSC files and their frame rate SHOULD be 29.97.

I have checked their reported frame rate by using Mpeg Streamclip. I have gotten the TiVo files as mpegs onto my desktop both by the "Tivo Decoder Manager" and the "Tivo Decode" script (having used my web browser to get the file itself). In both cases, the resulting mpg does not play nicely with many mpg players and Mpeg Streamclip lists their frame rate as 23.976.

If I am right about this, it would explain why Toast is producing audio sync problems. Toast reads the tivo file and assumes it has to re-encode a 23.976 frame rate up to 29.97, but since the file is ACTUALLY in 29.97, this produces video that falls out of sync with the audio. Indeed, my copy of Toast produces sync problems even with the mpegs that I got by means of "Tivo Decoder Manager" and the "TiVo Decode Script." Since both of those mpeg files also mistakenly report their framerate as 23.976, Toast is bound to go haywire.

At the same time, I think this explains why users are having success with "Visual Hub" and "iSquint." Both of those programs seem to ignore the 23.976 framerate header information and simply ASSUME that they are receiving a standard NTSC framerate of 29.97 / 30 fps. So, when you use those programs, it re-encodes the file AND adds the proper framerate of 29.97 / 30 fps. Not surprisingly, the resulting video plays as it should.

I now have to try the following experiment and I'll report the results:
1. Get the tivo file on my computer as an mpg (either Tivo Decoder Manager or Tivo decode -- doesn't matter)
2. Use Visual Hub to make this mpeg into a .vob file (i.e. native DVD format) which will also acquire the proper frame rate tag of 29.97, thanks to Visual Hub's assumption about the framerate.
3. Import the .vob file into Toast and burn it / save as a disk image.
4. Watch the video and see if it syncs!

If I'm right in my hypothesis, the above process should work. I'll report the results later.

BJ

[fredric100]

Originally Posted by farvoyager

If I'm right in my hypothesis, the above process should work. I'll report the results later.

BJ

I just tested BJ's method using the free trial version of Visual Hub (only encodes 2 minutes), with content which had previously resulted in bad audio when burned to DVD via every other method discussed here.

BJ's method worked for me, at least this once. I'll continue testing with other files.

More data to substantiate BJ's hypothesis that Tivo files mis-report their framerate when downloaded (or the framerate information is accidentally garbled), and that this matters to some players/encoders and not to others: the framerates of my content, which is HD, for which the correct framerate is 59.94, are reported as:

59.94 by StreamClip (where audio plays correctly)
59.94 by Toast Video player (where audio plays correctly)
59.96 by QuickTime player (where no audio plays at all)

Let's see if others can reproduce this success. Visual Hub is available here.

[AZ_Tivo]

Pls ignore.

[fredric100]

Originally Posted by rufusryker

I'd use Streamclip and select "Convert to Headed MPEG," plus enable the option "Fix streams with data breaks" under preferences. If that doesn't work, I'd try "Demux to Headed M2V and AC3," and then import these files into Toast before burning.

Hey - these were all good ideas. Results were either that Toast would ultimately hang during the process of encoding the DVD, or that I'd get a DVD with continuous (as opposed to skipping) audio, but with the audio out of synch (ahead of) the video. So as I mentioned above, I'm now testing BJ's "cause = bad framerate header, workaround = use Visual Hub to burn DVDs" approach.

[farvoyager]

Originally Posted by fredric100

59.94 by StreamClip (where audio plays correctly)
59.94 by Toast Video player (where audio plays correctly)
59.96 by QuickTime player (where no audio plays at all)

Interesting! Are you using the MPEG-2 quicktime component (the one that costs 20 dollars from Apple)? I've read that it often won't play sound at all, even when you buy the component. (I, too, have that problem, even though I bought the component!) Somewhere, buried on their site, Apple says that the component is only to *display* the mpeg-2 on quicktime, not to give audio. Thanks, Apple!

How does your HD material play with VideoLan player? VLC is free and plays just about everything. Those results would be interesting, too.

Are you having audio sync with burning HD Tivo that your bring in solely through Toast?

P.S. I'm at work right now and won't get to test my theory more until late tonight. Results tomorrow! Grrr!

Happy testing!

BJ

[rufusryker]

The Apple MPEG-2 component is just a video codec. QuickTime does not play AC3 (which TiVO uses) or PCM audio, only MP2.

MpegStreamclip has a function "Convert to MPEG with MP2 Audio" that converts just the audio tracks so that the resultant files play in QuickTime (and can also be burned to DVD.) I've tried this out, and it works very well.

[fredric100]

Originally Posted by farvoyager

Interesting! 1. Are you using the MPEG-2 quicktime component (the one that costs 20 dollars from Apple)? I've read that it often won't play sound at all, even when you buy the component.

2. How does your HD material play with VideoLan player?

3. Are you having audio sync with burning HD Tivo that your bring in solely through Toast?

BJ

1. Yup, I shelled out the $20 for MPEG-2 Quicktime component.

2. Here's how the HD material plays in different players:
VideoLan player: Audio plays correctly. Player does not report framerate of the stream.
Toast Video player: Audio plays correctly in the player. However, does not burn to DVD correctly (that's why people are pissed). Player reports correct framerate of the stream.
StreamClip player: Audio plays correctly. Player reports correct framerate of the stream.
Quicktime player: No audio. Per rufusryker (above), after conversion to "MPEG with MP2 Audio" using StreamClip, then the audio plays correctly. Player reports incorrect framerate of the stream.
Miro player: No audio. After conversion to "MPEG with MP2 Audio" using StreamClip, then the audio plays correctly. Player does not report framerate of the stream.
RealPlayer: No audio. After conversion to "MPEG with MP2 Audio" using StreamClip, then the audio plays correctly. Player does not report framerate of the stream.
Windows Media player: "File format is invalid."

3. Yes, I get "skips" or breaks in the audio when I burn my TiVo HD content that I import (and process) exclusively in Toast to DVD .

I just had another successful burn (of 2 minutes worth of content) using Visual Hub Free Trial Version on a second problematic file. I'm hoping your test passes also, in which case I'll become a Visual Hub customer .