[wer]

It would be nice if Tivo Desktop could give us a couple of choices for conversion quality (bitrate) when converting videos for Ipod.

I find the MP4 files that 2.5 produces to be a bit too large. Tivo defaults to converting at 700kbps video with 128kbps audio, and in 2.5 there is no way to change that.

Personally, I prefer to use 512kbps with 128kbps audio for my Ipod. Tivo Desktop's default settings waste a couple of hundred extra MB per hour of video.

It would be nice if Tivo Desktop gave us a Low, Medium, and High selection for conversion quality. High could be the highest bitrate the Ipod supports, Medium could be something more reasonable like 512kbps video/128kbps audio, and low could be something more modest for shows that don't have much movement, like 300kbps.

This would allow us to squeeze more things onto our Ipod, and it would be a trivial modification to Tivo Desktop, since the only difference is passing a different bitrate parameter to the converter. Everything else would remain the same.
You could even make each choice a combo-box, allowing the user to select his bitrate for each quality level. Again, trivial; it's just a number.

 

[megazone]

I agree with the request - I think TiVo Desktop should be more flexible it allowing users to control the conversion settings. But, just so you know you can edit the settings.

 

[wer]

Yes, you could edit the XML file in 2.4 and earlier, but they removed that ability from 2.5. My understanding is there's no way to do it in 2.5 other than hacking the DLL file, and we shouldn't have to do that.

 

[megazone]

we shouldn't have to do that.

I disagree with this - TiVo has never claimed that the settings were user controllable. The product they offer is fixed with settings they provide. Being able to change them has always been a 'hack'. So it isn't a should or shouldn't issue - being able to change the settings has always been something we've done without TiVo's consent. And there are tools other than TiVo Desktop which can do the conversions.

 

[wer]

I disagree with this - TiVo has never claimed that the settings were user controllable.

Isn't that why I'm offering it as a SUGGESTION that they DO make it user controllable? So that we don't have to hack DLLs?

Offering suggestions about things Tivo DOESN'T do is the purpose of this forum.

My point was that it would be "a good thing" if Tivo didn't design their software so that users had to resort to hacking DLLs in order to configure conversion settings. Making it difficult (hacking DLLs) or impossible for the user to control conversion settings is user-unfriendly.

Don't you think Tivo Desktop should allow users to modify the conversion settings?

I think TiVo Desktop should be more flexible it allowing users to control the conversion settings.

There you go! I knew we saw eye-to-eye!