viewing .AVI files through Tivo

Check out pyTivo or streambaby, which are both free.

 

The only reason I didn't suggest TiVo Desktop Plus (other than it's $25) is that I believe .AVI files are only supported if they are Divx or Xvid encoded (in other words, the AVI files you get from consumer camcorders or other devices like the OP's microscope will probably not work with TD).

 

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Assuming your PC is Windows and both it and TiVo are network connected.
Possibly TiVo's Desktop Plus ($25) will do it depending on what video format is actually contained in the .avi files. From the advertised specs:

You can find out what video type is in your files using free program MediaInfo (just google for download).
This would be the easiest solution to get going if it will work.

Free program pyTiVo will transfer most video file types but it is a little more difficult to get going.

Here are the best available instructions for it, although they are slightly out of date:
http://scottsoapbox.com/2010/04/20/pytivo-install-instructions/
The pyTivo wiki is here:
http://pytivo.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/PyTivo
There is an active pyTivo thread on this forum:
http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=328459
and there is a forum dedicated to pyTivo:
http://pytivo.sourceforge.net/forum/
If you have further questions about pyTivo I recommend posting in one of those two places. Someone will help you.

 

You might give Videora a try. It's a 5 year old program but I'm still using it for my S2, and it's super easy to install and use. You'd still need TiVo Desktop (free version) to transfer the converted file to the TiVo.

 

Use Handbrake or ffmpeg to convert the files to MPEG-2, then use the free TiVo Desktop software for the transfer.

 

I do not think so. There is a windows installer for pyTiVo and you install Python before that which also has a windows installer. The only hassle is getting the right version of Python that that is outlined on the PyTiVo web page.
If you have TiVodesktop installed PyTiVo even notes that when you tell it what folder and subdirectories to share.
I just upgraded my Vista box to Win7 and it took me all of 15 minutes to get PyTiVo running again and that included the time to google for the web page and download the installs



I have not used streambaby

 

Streambaby "out of the box" setup is easy as well. Extract the contents of a zip file to a folder, execute a batch file (having Java installed is a prerequisite). There are a bunch of different options to customize Streambaby's behavior, but it is not necessary to do so.

 

I suggested pyTiVo earlier in this thread but I was forgetting that Streambaby will transcode from just about any video format (using ffmpeg just as pyTivo does.). And the installation steps for Streambaby are much simpler. Here they are:

http://code.google.com/p/streambaby/wiki/getting_started

I think either Streambaby or the combination of converting the .avi to MPEG2 (.mpg) and using the free version of TiVo Desktop are probably the two easiest approaches for the OP.

 

Whoops! I forgot about specifying the video's source directory in the ini file. So yeah, my setup explanation was incomplete.

 

I just set up pyTivo and just followed the same directions that dlfl pointed to. Not too difficult. Everything is working except 'push'.

 

I believe for push to work, the following are needed in pytivo.conf [Server] section:

Code:

tivo_username = <username/email address for your tivo.com account>
tivo_password = <password for your tivo.com account>
tivo_mak = <the MAK associated with your tivo.com account>

 

Yup... those are there and the dialog appears but when I try to push, I get an error.

 

What's the error?

 

I post that tonight when I get home. Thanks.

 

Here it is...

unsupported operand type(s) for /: 'str' and 'int'

Traceback (most recent call last):
File "C:\Program Files\pyTivo\plugins\video\video.py", line 452, in Push
duration = file_info['duration'] / 1000,
TypeError: unsupported operand type(s) for /: 'str' and 'int'


The show I was trying to push was a .tivo file that was previously downloaded from a Premiere via TiVo Desktop.

Pushing an mpg file seems to work fine. Perhaps pushing .tivo isnt supposed to work?

 

May not be your problem but I believe the directions I linked point to a rather old binary version of ffmpeg, Rdian6 build IIRC. I would recommend using a more recent build. The archived autobuilds here are still pretty recent or if you follow the link on that page to the ffmpeg on windows forum there are a couple of threads by people providing current builds, in the "Site Information" sub-forum. I can vouch for the (discontinued) archive versions but haven't tried the other two sources.

 

Yes... I used the directions and then overlayed the ffmpeg and pytivo with the newer builds.

I think I just figured out what is going on. The files I am having trouble with are .tivo files that were transferred with TiVo Desktop with the checkbox checked for 'transfer the fastest way'. The cant also cant be transferred to an S3 or THD even with TiVo Desktop. My other .tivo files can be transferred fine.

PyTivo is dated january 2011 and ffmpeg is August 2010.

 

I would still recommend updating ffmpeg. The archived static win32 version is from 17 Jan 2011.. I had to do this recently when my older ffmpeg wouldn't handle a particular flv file.