recommend a device that does Tivo, Netflix, HD x264 playback

[rakan]

My wife asked me if there was a device that would watch Tivo recordings, Netflix, and out library of our HD x264 AVI/MKV/MP4 movies. I told her, short of a home theater pc, that no such device existed that would do all three. Another Tivo box seems the logical answer since Tivo can play Netflix, however I found streaming movies using pyTivo was not the best alternative, there was a lot of stutter (not sure if it was due to wireless signal or decoding the movie file). Anyway, the ideal device would be able to play Tivo, Netflix, and HD x264 without streaming. I thought I would post here and ask you guys if such a device existed. Recommendations are welcome. Thanks!

[jman98]

I've never heard of any device that supports Tivo except Tivo itself. I'm not claiming to be an expert as I do not own a Tivo, but as far as I know they encrypt their recordings. None of the media players will pay license fees, if it's even possible (Hollywood may not sanction this for all I know), to play Tivo files.

Western Digital makes some highly regarded media players that can meet your other needs. You can either stream or just hook up a USB device (hard drive or flash drive) and go from there. I have a first generation WD media player and I just copy what I want to see to a flash drive and plug it in. Do note that large external hard drives really should be in enclosures with their own power supplies. You may have problems with any media player trying to play a large hard drive from an enclosure that doesn't have its own power supply.

[yoda313]

I've never heard of any device that supports Tivo except Tivo itself. I'm not claiming to be an expert as I do not own a Tivo, but as far as I know they encrypt their recordings.

I used to have a subscription for my tivo series 2 analog model (still have it but not the subscription). There was a tivo 2 go transfer program. It would let you copy to mpg files if I remember correctly.

However I don't know if there are any similar options for the hd versions of tivo. I would suspect that they are not open source mpg or ts files anymore. But they could be for over the air digital channels. That could be a possibility.

The poster should be more descriptive by what he means by tivo files. If these are realtime dubs done with a hauppauge hdpvr or another capture device that aren't encrypted files than anything will play them.

I too have a wdtv gen 1 and have been using it quite regularly now after not using it for a long time. It is quite versatile and can do a ton. The newer "live" models have an ethernet port so you can stream from the internet. There may even be a wifi model available, not sure as I haven't looked at all the details on the more current models.

[rakan]

To clarify, I'm talking about Tivo recordings that are on my Tivo. I haven't done anything to them. My wife asked me if there was a way to watch Netflix, our HD x264 movies, and the Tivo recordings stored on our Tivo (which is in the living room) on our bedroom TV.

[yoda313]

Well as far as the tivo recordings you'd either have to dub them in realtime to either a dvd recorder or a computer with something like a hauppauge hdpvr or other capture device. As I mentioned I don't know if the newest tivo's have a file transfer option anymore, doubtful that they would.

As far as netflix and h264 movies you would need either a bluray player that can stream (either wireless or lan if you have a port in your room) and playback h264 files. Most do these days but you have to read up specifically what its capabilities are.

There are also things like the wdtv media player and its competitors that can do netflix and h264 (though only the newer "live" models of the wdtv can do it edit - stream off the internet that is, the earliest models don't have a lan port nor wifi abilities but live models do - and I dont' know which models of the wdtv can stream wirelessly).

If you have only one tivo and its in another room another option would be to get a wireless video sender. It would transmit the signal to a receiver unit on your tv. However if this is an hd model I'm not sure what options are available to transmit hd wirelessly.

For your tivo issue you might look into the different packages from slingbox. I think they have an inhouse option to watch from one tv to another wirelessly. You will need to read up on that for all the specifics.