Hands-On Tech 247 Transcript
Please be advised this transcript is AI-generated and may not be word for word. Time codes refer to the approximate times in the ad-supported version of the show.
Mikah Sargent [00:00:00]:
Coming up on Hands-On Tech. Let's answer a question for somebody who's still using their TiVo and needs some help making transfers. Stay tuned. Ho Ho. Hello and welcome to Hands-On Tech. An episode leading up to the the Christmas holiday. For those of you celebrating Christmas, I hope you have a great one.
Mikah Sargent [00:00:31]:
For those of you who don't, I hope that the end of this year is everything you hope it will be that you're staying nice and warm or nice and cool if you're in a different climate. And we do, as always, appreciate you the year round for being here with us today. We are answering a question from Richie, who has written in with the following. Richie says, I have a TiVo with recordings I would like to save to my PC. I feel like a bunch of people just went in hearing that I cannot sign into the TiVo desktop anymore since they stopped the service. The website I used to connect to my TiVo via the IP address and then use video redo to decrypt the file and open no longer works. TiVo Desktop does not connect to my box. I tried TiVo Decode, it's all one word, but was too stupid to figure that out.
Mikah Sargent [00:01:29]:
Any idea on how to save TiVo files on my PC? Well, first, Richie, listen here. I need you to be nice to my friend Richie. We don't call ourselves stupid on this show, okay? You're not stupid. And the fact is that is, that is a. I looked at the sort of TiVo decode of it all and it's sort of, it's a command line interface for being able to gain access to the files in, in, in your TiVo. And not everybody has time to learn what they need to learn about the, the command line and then learn what they need to learn about what code is being used to access these files and then learn what they need to learn about TiVo Decode specifically. It is just a matter of time that many of us don't have. So now that we've gotten that out of the way and now that we understand, Richie, that it's not a matter of stupidity, it's a matter of time and energy and all of those things, let's talk about what we can do here.
Mikah Sargent [00:02:41]:
So I will say this one was a little bit difficult. And Burke, wow, that's a great idea. Burke just came up with another idea. So it was a little difficult to look at how to go about doing this because the main user friendly method that people use to interact with their TiVo files is called KMT and KMTG is a service that gives you or software I should say that gives you the ability to access your TiVo files. And unfortunately the project has been abandoned. The the developer is no longer working on it anymore. That said, there is a GitHub user lart2150 who forked it and I'll mention, I'll explain that in just a second and has been regularly releasing updates for it, including an update in August for this technology. So when it comes to forking, it basically means you're taking a project that exists and then you are sort of branching off of that main project.
Mikah Sargent [00:04:02]:
So you kind of bring everything over and then you've. It's. It's almost like the multiple universes, multiple timeline situation, like you've branched off and now from there you can kind of add to it with the. The main project still being intact. So the idea is you kind of iterate on what exists point is there all there is a way for you to continue to use it and update it just as you are making use of this. So it's a little complicated at the. At the outset you need to make sure Java is installed on your machine. You then need to install this software and from there it is a.
Mikah Sargent [00:04:47]:
A direct user interface as opposed or it is a user interface that you will be able to access as opposed to having to use it on the command line. But KMTTG gives you the ability to then Interface with your TiVo and save those files elsewhere. Another option if you cannot. Oh, and I should mention that KMTTG is basically just using TiVo decode behind the scenes. So it's just giving you a way to make use of TiVo Decode without needing to use it on the command line. The other option for you is a software that's called pyTiVo Desktop and it's important that you find that version because pyTiVo is software that allows you to take stuff that is on your PC and play that on your TiVo. So it's like a means of accessing stuff on your TiVo that doesn't exist on the TiVo itself. So it's kind of the reverse of what you're wanting.
Mikah Sargent [00:05:52]:
The one that you do want is pyTiVo Desktop which reverses the reverse so that it lets you access stuff that is on your TiVo from your desktop. What you will need to do in order to do this is install the software for Windows you said you're using. I think Windows 10 was what you said. This is a free and Open source tool, so you can find it on GitHub as well. But it has its own website, pytivodesktop.com and from what I can tell, it works how you're expecting, which is that it'll show you your list of content and then it lets you transfer that content from your TiVo to your PC. Have you heard the good news? The 2026 TWiT audience survey is live. Yes, it's that time again. We use the survey to help us understand a little bit more about what you like, what you want, what you don't want, what you think of our shows.
Mikah Sargent [00:06:44]:
It's super quick, super easy and it's open now at twit.tv/survey26. So please take a moment to fill it out. Mid January, that's when it closes. Thank you so much for helping us grow. Now importantly, it's based on how you were talking about it. So you say, I have a TiVo with recordings. I would like to save my PC. I cannot sign into the TiVo desktop anymore since they stopped the service.
Mikah Sargent [00:07:07]:
I used to connect to my TiVo via the IP address and then use video redo to decrypt the file and open it. This is the important thing and it sounds like Richie, you are paying attention to this. It's. We've got to get now past the idea of kind of using your TiVo as a storage device where you, you know, you sort of log in and view stuff and get everything off of there. Get it out of that TiVo, you know, TiVo storage and make it into the files that you can then use instead. Yeah, pyTiVo is Python, but the one before that, kmttg is Java. So with that you're going to need to make use of or you're going to want to get it out. Get, get it off of the TiVo.
Mikah Sargent [00:08:00]:
No more TiVo as storage, just completely remove it. Now Burke in the chat did mention another option that I hadn't considered that's a much easier. Well in theory a much easier option. Record your output. So play back the content on your TiVo and use an HDMI decoder or whatever, a transcoder to take the output from your TiVo and save it elsewhere. That's another option that you can use to get the things off of your TiVo and in many cases is going to be easier because of the fact that it's, as Alex C said, the old analog hole trick, meaning that it's as kind of analog as you can get with this. Instead of dealing with these Files, you're sort of just pulling directly from it and getting out of again, that TiVo device. So it sounds like again, this was in doing the research to try to discover what was going on here.
Mikah Sargent [00:09:13]:
It sounds like over time TiVo has or did lock down more and more and more on the files and the functionality. And part of that has to do with how TiVo changed hands over time and the deals and agreements changed over time that required TiVo to become more and more locked down. You know that built in ad skipping functionality, it doesn't necessarily play well with advertisers who want to be able to have their ads played for people. And then you have your content agreement deals as well. And that functionality is something that, the functionality of being able to hold onto these files over time is something that different publishers are not going to be happy about. And so as it's become more locked down, you see kind of a pushback from the open source community of attempting to do what it can to get you that functionality. But based on what I have seen, more and more people are abandoning these projects because people have moved on from TiVo. The pyTiVo project, the last time it was updated was five years ago.
Mikah Sargent [00:10:30]:
So yeah, you really need to hop on this as quick as you possibly can to make sure that you have the, that you have all the files that you want off of that TiVo device. I think that that's, that's what's important, Richie. So it's end of life as far as I see it, for the once free world of TiVo recording and storage and streaming. And now it's time to just go on. Yeah, exactly. As Burke says, it's best to just get the TiVo hardware out of the equation permanently. There are lots of other suggestions out there for what to use instead of a TiVo, but I had trouble locking in on anything that people really liked. It was always, well, I use this and I use three different things at once and one of them does this.
Mikah Sargent [00:11:24]:
It sounds very complicated that space. And so I didn't want to recommend something that ended up making things a lot more complicated for you. So that is my suggestion for you, Richie, on what you can do when it comes to saving your TiVo files on your Windows machine. Thank you all for your questions. As I always say, if you have questions, if you have other, if you have feedback about things that we've suggested, if you heard this and you said, here's what I use, love to hear from you. hot@twit.v. That's how you get in touch to give us everything we need to know. And hopefully I will be able to answer your questions as well.
Mikah Sargent [00:12:07]:
It's my, my favorite thing. I love being able to help you with whatever you've got going on tech wise. Yes, I'll even take those printer questions if you have them. Thank you so much for another wonderful year. We'll be back in the new one that is the new Year with another episode of Hands on Tech. Until then though, it is time for me to say goodbye. Happy Holidays, Happy New Year, and I wish you all the best. See ya.
