How to Transfer Multiple shows from Old TiVo

Transfers are only one at a time, but you can select many shows and they will get transferred one after another. Try selecting several for transfers when you go to bed.

 

Or use TiVo Desktop to transfer them to a PC for permanent storage.

 

Please let me give you the benefit of recent experience.

To begin with, TiVo calls it transfer, but they really mean copy.

If you download the free version of Tivo Desktop and put it on a computer on your network with enough hard drive space, you can select a bunch of shows at once from a list of what's on the S2 and start them downloading to the computer and then walk away. Afterwards, you can access the computer with your new TiVo and transfer them to it from the computer.

You can also select one show to start transferring from the S2 from your new TiVo and then select more, and it'll do them all.

So, why go through all the extra hassle of adding in the computer and TiVo desktop?

1. If you go straight TiVo to Tivo, some of the info about the show (like original air date and some other stuf and maybe episode number) disappears and the listing for the show no longer says when it was recorded, just when it was transferred. If you're like my mom and have a bunch of Dr. Oz or Charlie Rose, it can get very confusing which to watch first and such.

2. If your Tivo hard drive gets screwed up in any way, and they seem to do it at the drop of an electron, getting your recordings back is unlikely. but if you have a backup of them on the computer, well, you have a backup!

Yes, computers crash too, although usually not so catastrophically as a Tivo will, and if the computer does crash, you can probably put the drive into another computer and rescue the recordings.

 

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I also noticed (and posted here) that some metadata is not preserved in a TiVo-to-TiVo copy. Are you saying that metadata is preserved better when using a roundabout process of copying from TiVo to computer and then from computer to (different) TiVo using TiVo Desktop? That seems counterintuitive and strange, but it's very interesting. Thanks.

 

Yep, if you go from Tivo to computer via the free version of TiVo Desktop and then to second TiVo, you won't be able to tell that you didn't record it on the second TiVo in the first place. Go figure.


(I have no idea or way of knowing if the paid for version of Tivo Desktop breaks this or not)

 

Since Tivo does not do multiple transfers at the same time, you cannot transfer to your computer while its still transferring to the other Tivo.

If you get messages like it saying that transfer will happen later... and there are no transfers in action, just reboot the 'Calling' Tivo.