Best device for streaming archived recordings back to the TV

[tivofantastic]

In another thread I mentioned that I liked the idea of a "Clear & Delete Everything" as a means of ensuring a clean/known starting point with AltEPG. However, I didn't like the idea of losing 1TB of recording One reply in the thread pointed out that the biggest problem would be restoring recordings back to the TiVo:

I think you may find that backing up your recordings is the easy part - restoring them, so they are actually ON the Tivo and in Now Playing is a different kettle of fish

This got me thinking - what are the best devices out there these days that could perhaps be used to stream archived recordings back to the TV without the complexitiy/impossibility of trying to get them back onto the TiVo?

I am vaguely aware of the Slingbox and wonder if it might be a good solution to this problem? Anyone have any knowledge, experience or recommendations for devices that could be used to stream recordings back the the TV if they have been archived from the TiVo onto a PC?

Is there an easier way to backup all recordings (in a form that can be used by a device other than a TiVo) other than the slow process of pulling recording off one by one over the network with TyTool or similar? I don't mind if the quick/bulk method involves pulling the disk and putting it in a PC.

I assume this is an allowed topic these days? If not, feel free to pull this post.

[simbeav]

If you want to put recordings back on to the Tivo then nanVue is your friend - You still have the problem of the slow network speeds.

XBMC4XBOX is great at playing native Tivo files. I've been archiving them off to a NAS for years and then viewing them using XBMC. If you've got an old XBOX and don't mind fiddling a bit it's a fantastic "product".

[tivofantastic]

nanVue - sounds interesting - I wonder why I haven't stumbled across that application before. Googling around it seems it is not without its problems (e.g. Allegedly...it inserts videos with incorrect expiration times, doesn't give different file names to episodes with the same name so overwrites files, programme duration time shows as 1min, the channel recorded is listed as "ffmpeg", Mikerr's "Sort Now Playing" add on (which looks great and I keep meaning to install!) has trouble sorting the inserted programmes correctly...). However, it does look like the only tool for inserting streams and it certainly sounds like it is worth a look if I ever get the time for all the messing around/troubleshooting that might ensue

XMBC - I was vaguely aware of this offering for the 1st generation XBox (which incidently I don't own), but had never heard any opinions on how good it was. Again, sadly I probably haven't got the time right now for all the fiddling to get it up and running. But if it is that good at the job I'm tempted to buy a secondhand 1st generation XBox.

Thanks for highlighting these two interesting applications.

[mutant_matt]

Gazillions of playback devices on the market these days. Have a look at mpcclub.com for reviews and forums.

Myself, I use a Dvico Tvix 6500a for playback of various content, including my (large) archive of recordings off TiVo. For the Tvix, and probably most players, you'll need to have converted the .ty files into standard mpeg2 files, and then almost anything can play them. My "Proof of concept" MythTV box also plays anything you can throw at it, as well as being a TiVo alike.

You can get media streamers now for £20 that can play mpeg2, and even Mpeg4AVC/H264!! (though at that price, I think you have to have a USB storage device plugged into it) - network capable media streamers are available for as little as £80ish.

Of course, you can also use pretty much any computer (I use a single core ATOM based netbook to watch some Tivo stuff, when away on holiday), and even phones now have the capability to be media clients also (and some now even have HDMI connectivity!).

HTH!

Matt

[tivofantastic]

Thanks Matt - I'll take a look at the review site you mention etc.

BTW,

1) Do you use TyTool for your archiving?
2) I've wondered about dabbling with MythTV. Amongst us TiVo devotees I shouldn't really ask this question, but... is the user friendliness of the MythTV interface and functionality (e.g. season passess, conflict resolution) anywhere close to that of our beloved TiVo?

[Alek]

. is the user friendliness of the MythTV interface and functionality (e.g. season passess, conflict resolution) anywhere close to that of our beloved TiVo?

Nowhere even in the same galaxy.


Alek

[tivofantastic]

I suspected not - that's a shame, but the right answer of course

I am surprised, being Open Source, that nobody has tried to write a TiVoesque UI for it.

Back to the topic of media streaming - I am aware that my TV (a Panasonic G20) like many others has some sort of network connectivity facility for streaming (although I have never looked into it). A quick Google suggests that it will stream some mpeg formats (but not a lot else) and I have no idea what the user interface is like (but I suspect not great). So, even though the TV does in theory have limited streaming functionality I guess that a 3rd party media player/streaming box connected via HDMI is still far preferably for playing back archived footage?

However, I wonder - is there any decent software (preferably Open Source) designed to transcode media files (in a variety of formats) on the fly into a format acceptable to the TVs native network streaming functionality. At a glance, it sounds like Wild Media Server (not Open Source) may do that sort of thing. Perhaps there are any number of media servers that have this capability?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_UP ... nd_clients

Does anyone have any experience of attempting to make use of their TV's ethernet connection and streaming functionality in this way, or is it not worth the bother?

[Rachel]

nanVue is good for file conversion but if all you want to do is backup and restore then mfs_ftp is the easiest
http://dvrpedia.com/MFS_FTP
http://dealdatabase.com/forum/showthread.php?t=21915

[poppadum]

nanVue is good for file conversion but if all you want to do is backup and restore then mfs_ftp is the easiest

I second the recommendation for mfs_ftp. I used it successfully to back up all my recordings to a PC and then restore them all to a new disk when I went from a two-disk (120+40) config to a single larger disk about 5 years ago.

[mutant_matt]

Thanks Matt - I'll take a look at the review site you mention etc.

BTW,

1) Do you use TyTool for your archiving?
2) I've wondered about dabbling with MythTV. Amongst us TiVo devotees I shouldn't really ask this question, but... is the user friendliness of the MythTV interface and functionality (e.g. season passess, conflict resolution) anywhere close to that of our beloved TiVo?

1. Yes (depending on channel and length, grab recording to pc, make key file then cut list, then multiplex, then move .mpg file to server).
2. Myth - Not as user friendly, but nowhere near as bad as a galaxy away, IMHO Some of the menus/functionality was clearly "borrowed" from Tivo. Wishlists whilst being nowhere near as user friendly, are miles more powerful (as long and complicated a boolean statement as you want to bother creating), and it's ability to record as many streams as there are in a Mux, means, if you've got at least two tuners, you should virtually never have any conflicts to resolve! I'm also impressed how little hardware you need to run Myth (I had it recording 4 Freeview streams (from one physical USB tuner), whilst playing back a 1080p Blu-Ray rip, on an Acer Revo running a normal Ubuntu desktop build, and this is a backend and frontend on the one box, and cpu was < 10%, it's 2GB of RAM maxed out at 800MB, and the disc was virtually idling (it helps that the ION Nvidia graphics card was doing the decoding in hardware though! ). You can transcode, advert remove and even burn recordings to CD/DVD, all in one app! Multiple frontends using the tuners or previous recordings in the single backend is very neat also.

I love my Tivo, but there is room for Myth alongside it ! (HD recording, multi-tuners and distributed multi-client playback in particular)

When SD TV has become extinct, I will have a real dilemma on my hands!

[tivofantastic]

Thanks for all the tips everyone. Now you mention it I remember trying mfs_ftp years ago but had forgotten it existed. Sounds like it may be worth taking another look, although I note that performance is still as slow as TyTool - I have seen 2MB/s quoted as the best speeds people achieve, so unfortunately I am not sure it will be a particularly practical way of backing up and restoring 1TB of TiVo recordings.

Anyway, your replies got me doing some serious research into TiVo alternatives - although I am very much a TiVo devotee, I think other options do warrant a look these days, if only for HD support and multiple tuner support - until, that is, we get a UK Series 4 . BTW, I assume that MythTV and Window 7 Media Centre will record concurrently from as many different tuner sources as are available?

Here are a few things that my research uncovered that may be of interest to others:

XBMC (which will run on just about any PC and platform) definitely seems worth a look as a media centre (without PVR), especially as it will stream TiVo format files without conversion (Google "ccxstream"). It seems that a lot of development effort has been put in to the XBMC UI, and it sounds like many find it is preferrable to the MythTV UI, so much so that an XBMC front end to MythTV has been developed.

If I were to go with a PVR alternative to TiVo I think it would probably be Windows 7 Media Centre (which I think is now included "free" within all versions of Windows 7) or MythTV. I don't particularly want Microsoft in my living room, but if it turns out to be the best available solution for me then so be it. Tcm2007 - if you happen to read this post I would be particularly interested to know how you find WMC as it's clear you were/are a serious TiVo fanatic who nevertheless decided WMC was the way to go (at least for your needs) a few years ago.

Whilst MythTV is usually run on a Linux platform (with Ubuntu packages being the most off-the-shelf solution), there is also a port to Windows (albeit with limited tuner card support). MythTV currently doesn't support any DVB-T2 cards (i.e. UK terrestrial HD) although this may change within the next year.

A company called Blackgold sell a PCI-e dual DVB-T2 tuner (i.e. 2 tuners on one card, both capable of receiving UK terrestrial HD and SD channels) for around £100 which has Windows drivers so I guess will work fine with Windows 7 Media Centre.

A few links to some interesting stuff on these topics:
http://dealdatabase.com/forum/showthrea ... 20&page=11
http://ww2.fatattitude.com/software/sof ... tivox.aspx
http://adamhaeder.com/wordpress/2010/01 ... -frontend/
http://www.hackourlife.com/perfect-myth ... sing-xbmc/
http://www.avforums.com/forums/home-ent ... iated.html
http://www.silicondust.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=8010
http://wiki.xbmc.org/index.php?title=TiVo
http://forums.oztivo.net/showthread.php ... o-and-Xbox
http://community.mediabrowser.tv/permal ... -tivo-born

Anyway, I intend to keep using my TiVo for its unbeatable userfriendliness, and so, like all of us on this board I am extremely grateful to the AltEPG team for saving our TiVos and look forward to seeing AltEPG continue to get better and better over the coming years. Nevertheless...I will probably install XBMC on a Windows 7 box by the TV which in turn is likely to encourage me to dabble with Windows 7 Media Centre.

BTW, is talk of the possibility of adapting the Oz Series 3 for AltEPG forbidden here?... On that subject, I assume the Oz Series 3 only has dual DVB-T not DVB-T2 tuners and so (without a serious hardware hack) it looks like an Oz Series 3 still wouldn't be able to receive UK HD, only SD.

[Nimbus]

. is the user friendliness of the MythTV interface and functionality (e.g. season passess, conflict resolution) anywhere close to that of our beloved TiVo?

Nowhere even in the same galaxy.


Alek

Really ? A slight exageration I think....

I set up a mythtv box as an alternative to my Tivo when the 'great announcement' came, and have been using it in parallel ever since..

The only thing it doesnt do as well as Tivo is wishlists, and of course it doesnt 'learn' your viewing habits.

Conflict resolution, season passes etc all work fine.

Currently my biggest issue is the wife asking why I want to keep the tivo with altepg, when Myth does everything fine... of course I'm ignoring her

Realistically, I'd say Myth isnt as good as Tivo for UI, but beats it for everything else.. and is at least an equal of the humax type pvrs.

[Nimbus]

XMBC - I was vaguely aware of this offering for the 1st generation XBox (which incidently I don't own), but had never heard any opinions on how good it was. Again, sadly I probably haven't got the time right now for all the fiddling to get it up and running. But if it is that good at the job I'm tempted to buy a secondhand 1st generation XBox.

As a long time Xbox XBMC user, ( 4+ years ), I'd say its great ! Easy to setup with the 'softmod' approach, and 100% reliable. Plays everything !

All tho I'll admit, I never knew it could play tivo ty files..

Tho only issues with them, is that they are getting a bit old / outdated...

The connection to the tv is scart, they can be 'fairly' noisy, and it wont play 'big' ( ie 4+gb blu-ray rip) files..

I've only retired mine because I bought a shiny new plasma tv, and wanted something to play 'big' files, thro hdmi... and something quiet.. ( I've built a atom based pc, that is silent ).


Anyhow, for the price, I dont think they can be beaten.. and a great use of old technology

[mrtickle]

Xbmc is beautiful and I have it myself running on an old xbox. Plays virtually everything you throw at it in much the same was that VLC does on a PC. The fact that both these play .ty files is a testament to the popularity of tivo in the USA and the hacking community there.