TTG for the Mac - Toast or Popcorn?

4486 Views 19 Replies 7 Participants Last post by bhaas, Jan 16, 2008

natallica

Discussion Starter · Oct 11, 2007

Hello everyone -

I've searched the forums, but didn't find the answer. I apologize if it has been answered before!

I have been using the old version of Sonic MyDVD on my PC for a while now to edit out commercials from shows downloaded using the Tivo software and burn DVDs.

I'd like to move this operation over to the Mac and am confused as to whether Roxio's Popcorn or Toast is the solution?!? With both allow me to transfer shows off of the Tivo and then edit out commercials? Can I burn DVDs and convert to iPod format with both? I guess I'm confused as to the difference between the two...

Also, I didn't see a demo of either online. Is this truly the case?

Thanks!

-- N

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cnsayre

· #2 · Oct 11, 2007

natallica said:
Hello everyone -

I've searched the forums, but didn't find the answer. I apologize if it has been answered before!

I have been using the old version of Sonic MyDVD on my PC for a while now to edit out commercials from shows downloaded using the Tivo software and burn DVDs.

I'd like to move this operation over to the Mac and am confused as to whether Roxio's Popcorn or Toast is the solution?!? With both allow me to transfer shows off of the Tivo and then edit out commercials? Can I burn DVDs and convert to iPod format with both? I guess I'm confused as to the difference between the two...

Also, I didn't see a demo of either online. Is this truly the case?

Thanks!

-- N

I don't think either will allow the editing of shows to remove commercials.

I use iMovie to do that.

Toast allows the direct download/playing/burning of shows. You can use it to export them as well into formats that iMovie can read. This method requires purchasing both Toast and iMovie (assuming that iMovie didn't come with yoru computer).

There is a shareware/freeware program out there (can't recall the name... can someone help?) that downloads Tivo shows and converts them to formats iMovie can read. This method requires only the purchase of iMovie (and possibly a small outlay for the shareware program).

Also, purchasing iMovie also gets you iDVD, which can burn DVD's from your edited iMovie files...

natallica

Discussion Starter · #3 · Oct 11, 2007

cnsayre said:
I don't think either will allow the editing of shows to remove commercials.

I use iMovie to do that.

Can iMovie directly manipulate a .Tivo file? I have been unable to do anything with a .Tivo file on my Mac. I once used a PC program to convert .Tivo to MPEG and was only able to view on the Mac after purchasing the MPEG-2 add-on for QT.

Also, are you using iMovie HD or the latest version that's just been released?

Thanks!

-- N

jtkohl

· #4 · Oct 12, 2007

natallica said:
Can iMovie directly manipulate a .Tivo file? I have been unable to do anything with a .Tivo file on my Mac. I once used a PC program to convert .Tivo to MPEG and was only able to view on the Mac after purchasing the MPEG-2 add-on for QT.

iMovie HD (6.0.3) cannot edit MPEG-2 directly, you would need to transcode into something else, e.g. MPEG-4.
I would be surprised if the new iLife '08 version of iMovie handled MPEG-2, various things I've read suggest that Apple doesn't want to/can't practically support its doing so, even if you have the MPEG-2 add-on for QuickTime.

TiVoDecodeManager uses tivodecode to unwrap .TiVo format to MPEG-2 format, and optionally transcodes to MPEG-4 using mencoder.

But I find that VLC is much faster converting MPEG-2 to MPEG-4.

cnsayre

· #5 · Oct 12, 2007

jtkohl said:
TiVoDecodeManager uses tivodecode to unwrap .TiVo format to MPEG-2 format, and optionally transcodes to MPEG-4 using mencoder.

But I find that VLC is much faster converting MPEG-2 to MPEG-4.

I've found that VLC's conversion is... lackluster. But, if it works for you...

tivoDecodeManager (which was the program I was thinking of) is easy.

As for my conversions, I use ffmpeg, but that does not fall under the heading of "easy" to me. It took a while to figure out how to use it.

natallica

Discussion Starter · #6 · Oct 12, 2007

cnsayre said:
I've found that VLC's conversion is... lackluster. But, if it works for you...

tivoDecodeManager (which was the program I was thinking of) is easy.

As for my conversions, I use ffmpeg, but that does not fall under the heading of "easy" to me. It took a while to figure out how to use it.

Do you mean ffmpegX? I didn't even realize there was an OS X version...

-- N

javabird

· #7 · Oct 15, 2007

I just came across this. I experimented with a movie tonight, and it worked well. So, the first step is to use Toast to save the movie as a disk image. Then mount the disk image and import the video_TS folder into YadeX . Export as a VOB, which you can then import into MPEG Streamclip for editing.

cnsayre

· #8 · Oct 15, 2007

natallica said:
Do you mean ffmpegX? I didn't even realize there was an OS X version...

-- N

Yeah. That's what I meant. ;-)

natallica

Discussion Starter · #9 · Oct 15, 2007

cnsayre said:
Yeah. That's what I meant. ;-)

Cool. I'll check it out, but I know that when I've used it on the PC side it seemed a bit like black magic guessing at the right options! ;-)

-- N

jtkohl

· #10 · Oct 16, 2007

cnsayre said:
I've found that VLC's conversion is... lackluster. But, if it works for you...

Lackluster how? Poor quality compared to ffmpegX or mencoder (which is inside TiVoDecodeManager)?
Or just harder to use?
The time difference VLC vs. mencoder was pretty startling, about 2-1 or so.
I tested conversion without any resolution changes, e.g. 480x480 to 480x480.
(the files I've gotten off my S2 are 480x480 MPEG-2 files, after using tivodecode to unwrap the tivo formatting)

How does VLC compare to ffmpegX?

Any suggested command lines to run ffmpegX's components directly to convert MPEG-2 to MP4, and back (transcoding for storage and then return)?

cnsayre

· #11 · Oct 16, 2007

jtkohl said:
Lackluster how? Poor quality compared to ffmpegX or mencoder (which is inside TiVoDecodeManager)?
Or just harder to use?
The time difference VLC vs. mencoder was pretty startling, about 2-1 or so.
I tested conversion without any resolution changes, e.g. 480x480 to 480x480.
(the files I've gotten off my S2 are 480x480 MPEG-2 files, after using tivodecode to unwrap the tivo formatting)

How does VLC compare to ffmpegX?

Any suggested command lines to run ffmpegX's components directly to convert MPEG-2 to MP4, and back (transcoding for storage and then return)?

The last I tried converting video with VLC, the output video, to me, was heavily compressed/pixelated. But that's me.

ffmpegx is... well, again, to me, it had a steep learning curve. It took me a while to figure out what options to use, etc. But, I think the output is nicer.

I'm slightly confused as why you'd convert from MPEG2 to MPEG4 and back. Why not leave it as MPEG4 and let your DVD burning software (assuming you're burning a DVD) convert it for the burn? The more you convert the file, the worse the quality becomes...

Truth be told, though, I haven't used it much since Toast was upgraded.

Back in the day, I'd download the shows from the Tivo via the web interface, remove the encryption, and then convert with ffmpegX. If there's interest, I can see about whipping together some directions on how to use ffmpegX.

One nice thing about ffmpegx is that you can tell it to convert 15 shows and just let it run...

cnsayre

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natallica

Discussion Starter · #12 · Oct 16, 2007

cnsayre said:
If there's interest, I can see about whipping together some directions on how to use ffmpegX.

cnsayre

Yes, please!

-- N

Supermurph

· #13 · Oct 17, 2007

Was the original question about Toast vs. Popcorn answered? I was just looking on the Roxio website and am also confused. If I just want to convert TivoToGo to iPod, iPhone, AppleTV, and just use iDVD for the occasional DVD does Popcorn do everything I need (for $50 less than Toast)?

cnsayre

· #14 · Oct 17, 2007

Supermurph said:
Was the original question about Toast vs. Popcorn answered? I was just looking on the Roxio website and am also confused. If I just want to convert TivoToGo to iPod, iPhone, AppleTV, and just use iDVD for the occasional DVD does Popcorn do everything I need (for $50 less than Toast)?

Toast will. Sort of. There are issues with Toast and the Fall Update that was just released. So Toast is "broken" for now, until someone updates something.

Toast will not, however, allow you to edit out commercials. Toast will only download, convert, and burn.

I do not think Popcorn will work with Tivo.

Supermurph

· #15 · Oct 17, 2007

Here it says that Popcorn does TivoToGo.

http://www.roxio.com/enu/store/mac.html

So, it looks like it does do it, but I was wondering if there is a difference. Like maybe it does some of what Toast does and not other things related to Tivo. From the description on Roxio, I guess it does do it and maybe the price difference is for other features I don't care about like the "professional CD burning" and the Blu Ray.

cnsayre

· #16 · Oct 18, 2007

For those interested, I'll throw up a ffmpegx tutorial this weekend. I took some screen shots last night, but I need to crop them/resize them and upload them.

drm814

· #17 · Nov 5, 2007

Hi.

I have Popcorn 3. I purchased for the sole purpose of transferring my Tivo Shows to my new video nano ipod and it converts fine and yes, for less $ than Toast. You can also convert to iphone, apple tv, blackberry, Treo, PSP you name it. It's a smoking little program.

P3 also includes a Toast video player and allows you to make copies of DVD's etc.

To my dismay the Tivo Fall update did stop the export process (Tivo to Mac ok, Mac to iPod no way) for about a week. Roxio has released a Beta Version 3.0.2 that has enabled the feature again.

As it seems on the board, the Popcorn 3 is the only program in which this issue has been solved so far. Nothing yet for Toast from Roxio nor Tivo.

For once, being part of the mass minority has panned out. Go Popcorn.

The Beta update is for registered users you just go online after you register and input your code.

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natallica

Discussion Starter · #18 · Nov 6, 2007

cnsayre said:
For those interested, I'll throw up a ffmpegx tutorial this weekend. I took some screen shots last night, but I need to crop them/resize them and upload them.

Did you get a chance to finish this?

-- N

bhaas

· #19 · Jan 16, 2008

One last item wrt popcorn:

You cannot burn a dvd from the tivo file! convert to ipod, sure. But none of the DVD options want to accept the tivo format. Thus toast...

bhaas

· #20 · Jan 16, 2008

ignore that. You can drag the .tivo file to the DVD-Video screen and create a disc or mounted image that works fine in frontrow

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