Views from the Ivory Tower
By Ted Bade - January 2007
Wow, a new year. Happy 2007! January is always an exciting month for Apple fans, since this is the month that the MacWorld Expo in San Francisco takes place. It is usually a month of interesting if not exciting announcements, new products, and often some sweet deals on computer stuff. If you are interested, be sure to check out Apple’s web site during the show, you will learn what Apple is up to. We will cover the more interesting things that come from the show in the next edition of MacCompanion. Will we see the iPhone? Or perhaps the ultimate gaming Macintosh? Or will Mr. Jobs show us the next big thing in technology?
Tivo shows on your Mac - You probably have heard me bemoaning the fate of Macintosh users concerning features related to the Tivo, a very popular Digital Video Recorder system. Briefly, if you want to watch shows recorded on your Tivo on your computer or burn them to DVD for watching later, you need a Windows based machine. The Tivo people keep promising to release the software that gives these abilities to Mac users, but it has been a couple of years and we still haven't seen the software released. (Although I have seen a demo of it, so I know it is in the works). More then likely, the major stumbling block is with its release is due to Digital Rights Management issues.
Coming to our rescue, a group of programmers also got tired of waiting for the software. In December they released a free program that converts the unusable MPEG-2 video the Tivo creates into standard MPEG-2 format. For a great blog on the whole process visit: http://www.zatznotfunny.com/2006-12/tivotogo-on-your-mac/.
The programmers created a small UNIX utility that translates the Tivo video to standard MPEG-2 video. Initially it required using the terminal to run. This method requires that you download a show from your Tivo to your Macintosh. This is easy to do, although it takes some time, since TiVos have only USB 1 connection that can be adapted to 10BaseT Ethernet.
If your Tivo is connected to your home network you can use Safari to access the files on it. You need your Media Access Key (which you can get from Tivo.com) to log onto your networked Tivo. Once logged onto the Tivo, you can use the network to easily move the .tivo files to your Mac. This ability is provided by Tivo to allow people to store files on their computer hard drives, which often have a lot of free space. This way you can save a show (the file can be uploaded to the Tivo later to be watched), and make space for more shows in the meantime. However, these .tivo files are unusable.
With the .tivo file on you Macintosh, you can use the Unix utility to convert it. It wasn’t long after the release of the utility that someone wrote a front-end script that lets you drop the file onto it to convert it. This script is called Tivo Decoder. It can be found by visiting: (http://inik.net/node/97). This site contains a lot of good information about the conversion process. To use this utility, just drop the .tivo file onto it to convert it. Sweet!
The converted file is standard MPEG-2. Believe it or not, QuickTime doesn’t support MPEG-2, unless you spend $20 for a special codec. It’s a surprise that MPEG-2 isn’t even part of QuickTime Pro. Luckily there are a couple of free solutions. There are two free media players that support MPEG-2, one called VLC (http://www.videolan.org/vlc/), and the other MPlayer (http://www.mplayerhq.hu/design7/dload.html). I am familiar with VLC and have used it for a while to watch those odd Windows based multimedia clips friends send in emails. It is a terrific program and has been released in Universal Binary so it works on both PowerPC and Intel Macs. (I am not really familiar with MPlayer.) To watch the converted video. drop it onto the player of choice and you are watching your Tivo file on the Mac!
If you have a video playing iPod, you might want to put this converted show onto it to view on the road. There are a couple of programs that will convert video into an iPod compatible format. I tried a program called iSquint (I just love that name in regard to iPod video!). It worked without flaw and now my show is sitting on my iPod.
Another more complex script was also released called TivoDecode Manager (http://thebenesch.com/tdm/), which can access the files on the Tivo as well as decode them. This program is more convenient, since its one step to perform the entire action.
I haven’t researched how to get the video on a VCD or DVD yet. I believe it is only a matter of converting the MPEG-2 file into something that a DVD or VCD program will work with. I expect to see more freeware and perhaps even some shareware programs to help the whole process along.
My hat’s off to the crew of people who did the reverse engineering to make this utility work. Well done guys! Thank you so very much for the hack. Also a fond thank you to the people who built the two scripted front ends to this utility!
The best part of being part of the Mac community are the members of that community. You can always depend upon someone to be interested enough to write some code, utility, or a thorough description for even the most esoteric things! From the bottom of my heart, thanks!
Universal wants a piece of the iPod - Middleman company Universal Music Group seems to want money for nothing. If you recall, last month I included a piece that told of how Universal Music Group worked a deal with Microsoft to get money from Zune sales. It doesn't appear they are getting very much on that deal ;-)
In a statement, the CEO of Universal Music Group indicated that people who owned any player other then the Zune, were pirating music. Well either he wants to convert the pirates (the remaining 99% of the music player market) or he has forgotten that he insulted all us iPod owners. Take a look at this new piece from Reuters (http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=industryNews&storyID=2006-11-28T205408Z_01_N28267036_RTRIDST_0_INDUSTRY-MEDIA-SUMMIT-UNIVERSALMUSIC-IPOD-DC.XML&WTmodLoc=EntNewsIndustry_C2_industryNews-1)
Essentially, he wants Apple to work a similar deal with Universal as Microsoft did. While Microsoft, the new guys on the field needed every bit of help they could get, I don’t think Apple does. Apple might even be in a position to refuse to sell Universal music artists, causing them to loose significant funds and PR points.
I hope Apple doesn’t give in to them for nothing. I suppose if Universal agreed to invest some advertising dollars on the ITMS site, perhaps Apple might justify this, but I don’t think it is a good idea. The middlemen of the music industry have had a free ride for too many years. While they do promote artists, their actions also kill the careers of artists they don’t like. (This death having little to do with what music consumers would like, but what middlemen like!). In the new digital age of entertainment, companies like Apple let the consumer find and purchase the music they like. I like that model a lot better! I don’t want to travel hundreds of miles to buy a CD of a small regional group I like because the big guys won’t let them sell in my area. I want to do this right from my Mac. A loud juicy raspberry to Universal....
Speaking of the Zune - I think it is really too soon to tell, but it doesn’t seem that the Zune is giving much competition to the iPod. As a matter of fact, the last article on it I read showed the Zune wasn’t really giving much competition to other MP3 players either. I expect that Microsoft will use a little of its corporate muscle to work some interesting deals to get Zune sales up. But even with all its slightly better features, I don’t think that people like it as much as the iPod.
I have read a number of snippets, complaints, and even a few wows. Overall I think people just view the Zune as what it is, Microsoft’s copy of the iPod. I found one really fair article that reads like it really wanted to be Pro Zune, but encountered just too many issues to do that. Take a look at the following: http://www.betanews.com/article/Zune_Has_Too_Many_Issues_to_Compete/1165255868.
Well done, Guys! - You have probably seen and perhaps even enjoyed those new Macintosh commercials with the two guys, Mac and PC. Well I just read that they won Garfield's "Bobby" awards honor for the year's best performance by an actor in a commercial. An award that is given by Advertising Age magazine. (http://adage.com/columns/article?article_id=113944).
Well done guys, you are my heroes!
Happy New Year to everyone. Let’s hope this is a new and very interesting year of technology for us all!
