Team A'Hearn

If you’re a geek with a Tivo, you may have found yourself looking for a way to make your recordings a bit more portable. The solution is surprisingly easy, requiring only a home network and a bit of software that will allow you to carry around your shows with ease.

Piracy is illegal! ScottAHearn.com and its contributors shall not be held responsible for the misuse of the information or software contained herein. So that means no swapping or selling. Shiver me timbers!

The first steps (which I will not detail here) are to simply add your Tivo to your home network and install the Tivo Desktop software on your computer. Once you start transferring recordings, you will see files with a .tivo extension; these are locked up with oodles of Tivo DRM, however, and therefore only playable on that computer. Not very portable. So the next step is to fire up a little utility called Direct Show Dump, which will strip the DRM, leaving you with a clean MPEG2 media file.

At this point, you can actually call it a day and move the cleaned recording(s) to another computer. But at high recording quality a one hour show tops out at 1.5 gigs. Not very portable. So the final optional step is to send the file through Dr. DivX which converts and compresses MPEGs to significantly more manageable DivX videos. Although this a lossy format, I’ve seen up to a 70% decrease in file size, with little difference in image quality. That’s portable.

For more information, read up on zatznotfunny.com.

For the past year or so, William & Mary has battled the NCAA over the use of our mascot (the Tribe) and our logo (as seen in its current form to the right). I’ll let existing press speak to the sides of the issue, but am moved to pass along my alma mater’s decision today regarding the debate. Although I agree with President Nichol on the inconsistent enforcement of NCAA policies, I’m happy that this decision was reached and the manner in which the school’s administration dealt with the NCAA. Go Tribe!

Last night we started the Stephanie Birthday Week Spectacular, seeing Jamie Cullum at the 9:30 Club in DC. It was easily one of the best shows we’ve ever seen – just an incredible performance for the ticket price. He also strolled the audience during the encore, and Stephanie got all aflutter when he walked within reach. Jeez. Today we were planning on hitting the Duke Ellington Jazz Festival downtown, but many of the free performances have been cancelled due to rain. The paid shows are all later in the day, when we’ll be at dinner with some friends for day two of the Birthday Week. Festivities will continue over the next few days with family and friends, and Steph said she will gladly accept diamonds, a Z4, or “something cute from White & Black“. Ka-CHING.