![]() Now when you get the urge to sing ''Behind Closed Doors,'' it can stay behind closed doors. With regard to quality, I have not tried any of the ‘advanced’ settings in Toast to see if the quality can be enhanced (may require recording something less than two hours of content per DVD).The iKaraoke is $50 and is available now at RadioShack and Apple stores. The pro’s are that is does work as advertised, the con’s are Tivo transfer speed (?possible hardware limitation on the Tivo unit itself?), the DVD encode time (Roxio – what is the optimum hardware configuration to minimize encode time?), and the quality. In general, I’d consider the Toast 8/Tivo Transfer bundle to be a good for a ‘first release’ piece of software. (I use a Canopus ADVC300, and an hour of video in iMovie takes up roughly 20 gigs.) The downside is the hardware cost ($150 and up), as well as needing lots of hard drive space for the interim files. If starting with a good quality source (Tivo set at high quality recording, VHS tape, etc.) the final result is much better than using Tivo transfer and Toast, and encoding in iDVD is faster as well. If quality is a concern, I’d recommend using the Tivo as a simple video source connected to some third party digitizing hardware (EyeTV, Canopus ADVC units, etc.) These units allow for real time video capture into iMove then burn the DVD with iDVD. For anyone wanting to make DVD’s of shows they record, a better alternative would be a DVR with a built in DVD burner. The view quality on the Mac isn’t all that great, even when the show was recoded on the Tivo in best quality.Įncoding/burning a 2 hour DVD with Toast takes roughly 5hours (both on an old G4 and InteliMac machine). As stated, it transfers in real time (2hr show takes almost 2hrs – wired or wireless connection makes no difference). The Tivo transfer works, but the result isn’t optimal. I’m hopeful that using the resources available to them, Roxio and TiVo will provide later versions of TiVo Transfer with a feature set that is complete and more innovative. It has stiff competition from open-source programmers whose applications already provide Mac users with more functionality than this 1.0 version. The TiVo Transfer app included with Toast 8 Titanium is a great step-forward for Mac users who want the TiVoToGo functionality that PC users have had for some time. An in-app online scheduling interface would have been nice as well. ![]() TiVo Transfer is only a one-way transfer app, from TiVo to Mac too bad the app can’t push videos from Mac to TiVo. Toast 8 Titanium, in TiVo’s name, limits the resolution size of the video when exporting. Instead of doing the transcoding during the transfer like TiVoDecode Manager, at least two more user-activated steps are required just to get the show into your iTunes library. First off, shows transfer to your Mac in about real-time, so if a show is one hour, it takes about that long to download-no watching the show before it’s complete. However, there are a number of features missing and / or limited, that I think an app like this should offer. Along with the points noted above, that’s about all TiVo Transfer does on its own. It shows the details of each show, just like your TiVo-episode description, channel, duration, and time recorded. It uses the same icons your TiVo does, to display the shows that are newly recorded, ones that TiVo recorded based on your individual preferences, ones that are currently being recorded, and those in danger of being deleted. Like the great iLife applications, it seamlessly and without user intervention, uses Bonjour to discover all the TiVos on your network. The TiVo Transfer app works really well and is nice to look at. It should also be noted here that the maximum resolution TiVo will allow the video to transcode to is 320×240. Perhaps the developers were thinking because of the time it takes download the file alone, some users might not want want to wait longer to encode the file, so they kept the file transfer and the encoding processes separate. From there, you can export the video to convert the shows into the appropriate file type for iPod, iTunes, PSP, etc. To get these shows into your iTunes library, playback on your iPod, or playback on external media like a DVD, you’ll need to click on the “Toast It” button from your Tivo Recordings Library and Toast 8 will launch. I tried playing the files back in VLC, iTunes, and QuickTime, but the only app they’d play back in was the Toast Video Player. tivo video files are MPEG-2 files, with a reported 480×480 resolution. In this application, if you poke around a bit, you’ll find that the saved. ![]() It works well, and fast-forwards and rewinds quickly. The player works nicely, with a window playing the requested show and a virtual remote control. After downloading a show, double clicking on it from the Library pops up a rebadged and specialized version of the Elgato EyeTV player, dubbed the Toast Video Player.
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