Forums | MacLife

Hi folks,

I have a bunch of episodes of children's shows my daughter likes to watch sitting on my TiVo.  It would be nice to put these on DVDs so she can take them to Grandma's or wherever (this should be legal as long as we only use it ourself, right?).  Trying to figure out the best way to do that.

Options not involving the Mac  (OT yes, but just to complete the picture.  Besides, somebody might have advice on these anyway):

1.  Buy a TiVo with DVD recording capability.  Not really in my budget at this time.  My TiVo comes from DirecTV and they don't seem to provide a DVD recording model.

2.  Buy a DVD Recorder.  But I would enjoy the ability to add menus and stuff using iDVD.

3.  Hack the TiVo to record MPEGs and then just copy over.  That's a little bit over my head.  I don't really feel like opening the TiVo box.  My wife would kill me if I broke it!

Options involving the Mac with iLife:

4.  Play videos on TiVo...???...Import video into iMovie; assemble and burn to DVD.  What happens at the question marks:

4a. Use a camcorder with video pass-thru.  Except my camcorder doesn't have that. 

4b. Record from TiVo to MiniDV using the camcorder, assuming it can do that even if it can't do pass-thru.

4c.  Buy another piece of hardware to capture video from TiVo and forget about the camcorder.  How much do things like this cost?  Most of what I've seen at the stores does much more than what I need and furthermore is PC-only. 

In order of convenience I think my options are 2, 1, 4a.  In order of cost (lowest first) I think my options are 4b, 4c, 2.  Has anyone tried something like this and learned something they wished they knew before they started?  TIA!